The Media Man Reviews: The Chaotix Casefiles (ft. The Wandering Fox)

Now this is one heck of an interesting subject for today's post. Not only is it the first time that I'll be reviewing an audio story, but this is a Sonic the Hedgehog audio story. This franchise hasn't dabbled much in-terms of auditory media, so this thing really was quite the surprise.

For those who don't know about it, the official Sonic YouTube channel released an audio-story titled The Chaotix Casefiles back in February and it was released weekly until the series concluded earlier this month. Running at eight episodes (nine if you include Episode 0), The Chaotix Casefiles was a huge source of intrigue for Sonic fans like myself since 1: it was an audio story and 2: it was focused on Team Chaotix. Seriously, when's the last time these guys had a starring role that wasn't a comic book story? So naturally I had to give it a listen to and genuinely got into it as it came out week-by-week. If you want to listen to the story, it's available here on YouTube and I believe it's also available on various podcast services too.

The series has been pretty positively received by the fandom for its focus on Team Chaotix, intriguing mystery story, heaps of fan-service and surprising twists while also featuring utterly stellar voice-acting. Oh and the story gave Tangle the Lemur and Whisper the Wolf of IDW fame official voices too, that was a HUGE plus for many, me included. XD

So now the series has begun and ended, was this a case worth solving? Or did we pick up all the wrong clues for this one? We'll find out shortly, but first let's welcome my collaborator and long-time friend for this post, The Wandering Fox!

WF: Hello everybody! I’m back and I couldn’t pass up this chance to do a review of the Chaotix Casefiles with my mate here. In fact it’s thanks to him I even listened to the series as I was reluctant at first but then he convinced me it was worth a listen to, and I was well and truly hooked, from speculating who was gonna voice Tangle and Whisper to who the Red Spectre was, it was fun actually tbh with you, even if I ended up being wrong a few times XD though still I’m glad the Media Man has invited me to do this with him ^^

But as he would say, is this case worth solving or should we let it be forgotten in a cold case file?

MM: Put on your detective caps everybody, for we're going to solve this case together...

(He puts on a detective's hat)

File 1: The Story

MM: (in the style of a gritty noir detective story)

The case of The Chaotix Casefiles is about our unlucky detective trio, Team Chaotix, as a huge case ends up dropping on their laps one day. Said case is about a mysterious thief who is stealing powerful Gaian lenses that are of great interest to G.U.N. Team Chaotix take the job, but the case is bigger than they thought. Not only do they have to find out who the thief is, they also have to deal with their own personal insecurities. This may well be the biggest case they've ever dealt with...

So as me and WF take the case of reviewing The Chaotix Casefiles, the big question is was it any good? To answer that, let us start at the beginning by reviewing the plot of this audio. The first clue I found that suggested its high quality was the fact the story had an intriguing mystery story that keeps the listener hooked from the moment Team Chaotix received the job. A compelling mystery story should have a compelling mystery to make it...gripping, and this story excels in that regard. All throughout, I was wanting to listen to more and find out who the thief was and what their big plan was in the end. And like all good mystery stories, the mystery is well executed. Unlike some mystery stories out there that try to cheat the audience in order to seem smarter than them, The Chaotix Casefiles doesn't pull any nonsense twists or rely on a big revelation that requires you to have taken notice of a tiny clue that nobody would've noticed. The outcome makes sense and the clues we are given all add up in the end.

The second clue I found that suggested this was a good story was how cleverly they used the framing device. You see, the audio has a framing device in how the whole story is being told to Sonic and Dr. Eggman (and the audience) by Vector. Sonic and Vector are prisoners of Eggman throughout the story and so Vector is telling this story to stall for time, but then in the penultimate episode, we get a surprise twist that justifies why Eggman was strangely engrossed in the story. It was a legit clever twist I didn't see coming and it also justified the story being told in such a way. Oh and while we're at it, Vector's detective-noir style narrations are the cherry on the sundae in this story. They're humorous, they parody detective noir stories in the best way possible and allow voice-acting legend Keith Silverstein to really flex his acting chops as he both portrays Vector normally and as a gritty noir-style detective. This audio wouldn't have been the same without them.

WF: I concur! This series kept me coming back and I was theorising a lot with you on what we would be getting next. In fact it was that good of a mystery I stuck around for it, and even then some of the things we speculated didn’t have much to do with the Astroscopic Lenses or how Vector was captured, it was fun stuff like who was voicing Tangle and Whisper once they were revealed to be in the series. You know you got it good when your listeners are curious about other things than just the main plot. But what’s more is that they leave enough little clues in there for you to figure out what is what and pays it off really well and it was probably the only thing I got right from my guesses, that being what the Red Spectre is :)

And I agree as well that the format they went with was a good idea. Vector telling Sonic and Eggman how he got here, from the start of the case to the little bits of detail to the story, was superb and it really gave Keith Silverstein the chance to really bring more to Vector than what else he had in the last many years outside of the comics. It was just right for somebody as big and full of life as Vector, giving him his own quirk that helps stand him apart from the others. Whenever he did his narration I thought of Vector looking brooding and buried under a big hat with beer bottles and bleak colours of black and orange around him as he recalled a big adventure he had from his glory days XD

What I’m getting at is that this series really gave us more with the Chaotix, especially Espio and Vector who are voiced brilliantly by Matthew Mercer and Keith respectively, they offer more to Espio than being the quiet kind of guy who’s the straight man of the Chaotix. He has his own little quirks like having a Super Ninja action figure, his genuine surprises at random things that happen, he got a lot going to him. ^^ Charmy while I found him to be a bit 50/50 he did provide good moments of comedy where he’s the comically ignorant of the team until he becomes aware of something going wrong that Vector and Espio aren’t aware of.

MM: An astute observation my friend. On that subject, that's another clue we picked up on the story's quality: the Chaotix themselves. As this is their first starring role in years, the story spared no expense on making it all about them. They're at the centre of everything and the story is as much a character study and deconstruction of Team Chaotix as it is about them solving the mystery. It was compelling to see the three come together and prove their not just the goons that they're often seen as. I especially found that Espio and Charmy's arcs had very satisfying payoffs in the end. Quite elementary I'd say...

As we shifted through the clues we picked up, I stumbled across another clue that suggested how good the story really was: the fan-service. This audio feels like it was written for Sonic fans by Sonic fans. There are numerous call-backs and shout-outs to other aspects of the franchise and we get a lot of guest stars who appear in a single episode or end up being recurring characters in the series. These include Knuckles, Rouge, Tails, Cream, Vanilla, Gemerl and even Sage with the most unexpected and the absolute biggest fan-service moment being the inclusion of Tangle and Whisper. You don't have to be a detective to figure out how happy the fandom was with their inclusion. I'd also say the identity of Red Spectre was also as unexpected, and also fan-service in the sense that even less popular characters in the franchise get their time to shine here.

Also, the series has a lot of great humour in there too. Vector's narrations, Charmy forgetting to tell Vector something important in Episode 1 and Vector narrating about Vanilla simping over him were the comedic highlights for me. How about you, WF?

WF: Humour is said to be subjective. But to me it’s the execution. You could be brooding in the dark, contemplating on where you go next in life. Then you have a moment that breaks the silence. I’d rather it was my friend making an ironic joke. Better than some tasteless Hollywood fart joke.

Though yes, the Chaotix all have moments of comedy to themselves, be it Espio trying to hold himself together with Rouge or Vector going into full on fanfic writer that Sonic and Eggman themselves call out when it comes to Vanilla. Even Gemerl gets a moment where he tries his hardest not to point out Charmy didn’t repair the Chaotix Copter. We are all Mobian/human/robots here and we all have our moments of humour.

The series though managed to stay tonally balanced and knew when the tension needed to come in, be it Vector having a breakdown at the Chaotix Copter crashing, to the thief testing the hero's brains by pretending to be one of them in a fight, to even Sage having a moment of surprise as she herself questions about a certain somebody. Eggman gets a good moment as he starts ranting and raving about how everything has gone down the dumps that Sage struggled to get a word in. They manage to do this so well.

But not every case leads to a fine climax. For though this series had its many highs, its low point to me comes at Episode 4 and the climax. I’ll let my dear friend explain why episode 4 was by far the biggest waste of time for us detectives.

MM: Yes, that episode threw a spanner in the wrench and nearly screwed up the case for us.

Episode 4 is pure filler and can be skipped entirely. NOTHING is accomplished in this episode. And in case anyone out there tries to tell me the episode wasn't filler because of the twist with Professor Torii, I reject that suggestion because it was a twist that was ultimately pointless to the story. Nothing changes as a result of said twist. The story would've played out exactly the same without it, and all including the twist did was dig up plot holes. So you're seriously expecting me to believe that Professor Torii, who works for G.U.N., unironically thought that hiring Team Chaotix to find the lenses was the best way for G.U.N. to get their hands on them? SHE WORKS FOR G.U.N.! What's stopping her from just saying "Hi, I work for G.U.N. and we demand that you hand over the lenses to us." Why did she need to hire Team Chaotix for this job? What did she need them for? What was stopping G.U.N. from getting the lenses themselves? It's like the writers thought up the twist but didn't write the story around it. It feels like they just came up with it and didn't think about how the twist could work in the story or make sense. And don't get me started on that ridiculous cliffhanger. Not only did it feel incredibly forced, but the set-up was pretty ridiculous. Somehow Vector and Espio don't realize the copter is having problems and keep bickering with each other until Charmy gets their attention too late for anyone to be able to land safely. If it was done to be funny, then it didn't work because now was not the time for humour and it came at the cost of Team Chaotix looking dumb. To improve the pacing of this story, Episode 4 should've been dropped entirely and Episode 3 should've ended with the Chaotix Copter crashing instead.

Another critique I'm sure others have had as well as me is that the series is a bit formulaic. Nearly every episode is the same kind of thing: Team Chaotix are on the case, they meet the guest star of the week, they find a clue, move on. It does make the series feel rather repetitive and depending on who you are, it could make the series less engaging to listen to. Thankfully the last two episodes break the formula.

Now onto the climax. WF, did you find any clues to suggest how the climax turned out?

WF: That I will. But let’s have a drum role please!

(Drums rolling)

Who is it? The Red Spectre, who could it be? A blast from the past or a new crook in the franchise? Well everybody I announce that the mysterious thief iiiiiiiiiiiiiis…..

(Drums stop rolling).

Infinite!

Yeah. Infinite is back and was the thief the entire time. I guessed he was involved thanks to the Red Spectre being a reference to the Phantom Ruby, though to have him back was a surprise since Sonic Forces is a big divisive game for many and Infinite himself being seen as either a interesting new addition to Eggman’s minions or a joke who’s fall to villainy was cos Shadow called him weak. So with Infinite back we were at least hoping he’d have either improved or had a more memorable comeback that got him back on the map in the franchise.

The baffling thing about this case is that many think this fixed Infinite’s character. To that I ask how? To me he’s far more worse than he used to be. He’s now just this generic “I’m gonna destroy the world cos I hate life!” bad guy that is boring. We just had that with The End and that was a boring baddie who also served as a retcon to the lore. So basically, Infinite explains how he survived Forces and it’s so unimaginative in that he basically slipped away in the battle, then he wandered around doing nothing until he found out about the Astroscopic Lenses that could help recreate the powers he had with the Phantom Ruby and what does he do once he gets them all together?

He just stands there and talks. And talks. Then he makes himself bigger and he can’t even at least injure any of the heroes. Then he’s defeated mostly because he wasn’t even guarding his platform that had the lenses on them, leaving him open to Espio stopping him! Oh and for some reason he hates Sonic. I’m sorry but what? Why don’t you hate Shadow? He’s the reason why you’re in this mess, why don’t you go and kill him!? The finale to me also had a wasted opportunity in having Infinite back because Tails is there. You know, when we had that poorly written moment in Frontiers of “I’m inconsistent” where he talked about how terrible he felt when Infinite defeated Sonic and was scared? We got nothing! Nothing at all between them! No moment of Tails standing up to Infinite and fighting back! No moment of Infinite taunting Tails. Nothing. What an utter waste.

“B-but there’s always next time!”

Really? This is like The Mystery of Aaravos where after all that dross with a bad season finale capped off by another delay of Aaravos you had people say “W-Well, they’re setting it all up!” No! If you bring back a character who’s got potential and left an impact on a character you do it NOW! And don’t get me started on how Infinite got away, you mean to tell me he ran away quickly after he threw that bomb out? Sonic and Gemerl could’ve easily found him but nope, they are like “Oh well, better luck next time”.

In fact my big problem with the finale is that it’s overstuffed. You’ve got Sonic. Tails. The Chaotix. Rouge. Gemerl. Tangle. Whisper. And Infinite in there. Eggman and Sage are gone. That’s way too many characters for a finale and even then they don’t contribute much, like Tangle is there for a daft character shill by saying her tail is faster than Tails’s, which is bull crap btw, Rouge just saves Espio, has a bitch fit and leaves, and Gemerl flies the Chaotix Copter from where the propellers were and says nothing in it and doesn’t have a interaction with Sonic! In fact the script forgets Gemerl is there as Charmy talks like he’s piloting the copter and is struggling to control it, how can he when Gemerl is flying it? And why did the Chaotix walk back to their office? Gemerl could’ve flown them back to Vanilla’s, called for a bus and be dropped off?

Then there’s Eggman. I’m in two minds about what happened to him. On one hand I am annoyed he was usurped again. On the other hand I’m glad they didn’t pull an IDW Sonic in letting him go cos that would’ve been silly. Though Sage could’ve shown some concern for him since she’s, y’know, meant to care for him?

What of you, Media Man?

MM: I'm inclined to agree my friend. Based on the evidence provided and the clues we've gathered throughout this review, Infinite was NOT in fact improved with this story. Arguably, he got worse and is just beyond salvaging at this point. That, plus an overstuffed climax really did hurt the story's chances of sticking the landing. If it hadn't been for the satisfying conclusion of Espio and Charmy's arcs, the finale would've failed completely.

So analysing all the clues we've gathered, mulling over the evidence we've seen and piecing together this mystery, it is my professional opinion that the story is mostly good, but is ultimately let down by some big flaws that prevent it from being great. The well-written mystery, clever twist regarding the framing device, excellent use of guest stars and enjoyable fan-service salvage this audio and prevent it from being a hopeless case in the end. If Episode 4 didn't exist and the finale was better handled, it would've been even better...

File 2: The Characters

Now let's open up the next file of our case and go over the cast of this audio story spectacular.

Of course, our first character profile we must cover are Team Chaotix themselves: Vector the Crocodile (voiced by Keith Silverstein), Espio the Chameleon (voiced by Matthew Mercer) and Charmy Bee (voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessy). This story has been easily the best use of Team Chaotix since their creation back in 1995. Making a story actually about them being detectives for once was very welcome and the only logical direction this story could be taken in. The trio are the stars are the show here and I rather enjoyed getting to see them in a starring role for once. The trio are clearly capable detectives, just not as capable as they think they are and the three of them end up with their own insecurities to deal with, be it Vector doubting his capabilities as leader, Espio doubting his skills as a ninja and Charmy questioning his place on the team. In the end, the three all prove their worth in the end and their arcs were given a satisfying conclusion, which leads me to conclude for this case that the main protagonists were well used here. I will confess Charmy's ditzy nature really felt like taking the mickey at times, but I still found some of his antics amusing overall. Of course, Vector and his noir style narrations were the comedic highlight for the series and also gives Vector a fun quirk that future writers could maybe work with.

WF: The audio medium does them well here as thanks to it being voices alone you get a good imagination of what this is like so you can picture how the Chaotix move, talk and interact. Vector was really good here partly because we get to delve in his insecurities as well as his comedic self assertion as team leader that makes for a good dynamic between him and Charmy as he tries to reign him in. Espio was good in having more to him than the stereotypical quiet, brooding ninja and gave him a bit of a mix of the straight man and being exhausted by the antics of those around him. Though I will confess I’m baffled at some of the stuff he did like falling for an easy trick by Rouge that he should’ve known was a trick or suddenly making him doubt his struggles as a ninja as we never got that before. He’s mostly saved by standing up to Rouge in the end and getting to stop Infinite.

As we mentioned other characters are in this bizarre case. We have our hedgehog star Sonic (voiced by Roger Craig Smith), albeit mostly trapped in a cell. He continues to still hold strong even while captured and does well at playing along with Vector. That and it’s nice we get to have Sonic interacting with others more outside of Tails, Amy, Knuckles and Shadow. I will confess however I had my doubts this was the real Sonic and was the thief the entire time and even after I was proven wrong I felt the way how he was captured was silly. But still he’s as good as ever and a vast improvement over his dull tone in Frontiers.

Tails (also voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessy), my boy, is in this and aside from a glaring moment where he shills for Tangle’s tail on being faster than his, which is utter dog crap, and just guarding the device he made at the end, he’s mostly alright in this series with him being helpful to the others in their investigations into the thief and creating a device to tell apart the illusions from the real characters. They do mention he’s been toughening himself up a bit which I’m glad they’re staying true to even if they could do a little better with it. He even gets some nice interactions with Tangle and Whisper.

Eggman (voiced by Mike Pollock) is mostly listening to Vector’s story but he’s still comedic as ever while being a complete asshole in smugly proclaiming his superiority and he backs it up a bit by holding off Tails, Tangle and Whisper enough until he decides to have Sage let them in and his cell doors are strong enough to keep Sonic and Vector inside. That and Mike Pollock has been given a better shot at voicing Eggman after his rather tired performance in Frontiers. I chalk that up to the voice directors guiding the voice cast badly and you can see here Mike has still got it as Eggman.

I will say I feel they overhyped Sage (voiced by Ryan Bartley) in this audio, it doesn’t help in the episode before her debut they really hyped her up like a big thing in the audio but in her debut episode it takes her forever to turn up and while she has a good chat with the Chaotix she’s basically just reading from a holographic pad when surrounded by the others and kinda lacks the character we got in Frontiers. That and I feel she didn’t seem at least concerned for Eggman after Infinite sent him flying away. I get she might’ve seen his previous defeats and how he survived but I was expecting a bit more of her being consistent with how she was in Frontiers and CrossWorlds, being concerned for him like I was expecting her to yell “Father! I’ll assist you!” No, none of it. That and with there being too many characters she doesn’t get any good interactions with Sonic and Tails before she leaves. But she at least has her moments in which she’s surprised by Infinite and tries to get through to Eggman as he starts ranting away at everybody.

Though we get a big return of Gemerl. In fact we even get a voice for him from, let me see….holy moly, Alejandro Saab! Mayor Zhao himself! 5+ Awesome!

MM: Indeed so. And speaking of Alejandro, he also voices the main villain of this audio, Infinite. I wonder why they recast him since Infinite was played by a different actor in Frontiers. That's a mystery to solve another day. Going over Infinite's profile, me and WF both agree that while the twist with him as the main villain was well set up, as a villain Infinite still sucks. He's now just a nihilistic, genocidal b*****d who wants to kill everybody...just because. He doesn't even pose much of a threat for the reasons WF brought up earlier. After all the hype, he's defeated rather easily with everyone barely the worse for wear at the end. I especially found it pathetic how they not once bring up his past with Shadow as if they're trying to save face with him. Well sorry writers, it didn't work. We still remember Infinite's lame ass backstory in how he's evil because Shadow called him weak. Ignoring it doesn't save Infinite from being lame. The only thing he has going for him in this story is that Alejandro Saab sounds like he was having an absolute ball playing him. Outside of the voice-acting, Infinite's got nothing here. Bringing him back didn't salvage him whatsoever and he should've stayed gone.

But now for characters who were VERY welcome in this story. I'd be amiss if I skipped over the most unexpected players in this story, Tangle the Lemur (voiced by Ashlyn Madden) and Whisper the Wolf (voiced by Anairis Quiñones). Originally guest stars in Episode 3, the two do come back for the finale and get to help out during the climax. Tangle and Whisper steal the show as much as Team Chaotix do in this story with their personalities flawlessly brought from the IDW Comics to this audio and their voices are pitch perfect. Literally couldn't have cast anyone better for the two. While they're not that important to the story, I still appreciate their inclusion and the fact they have official voices opens up more opportunities for the two in future. Maybe they could get their own audio adventure someday...

WF: “Realises Lanolin is coming into the games”. Well, if the Bitch in Sheep’s Clothing is in anything with Tangle and Whisper she better watch herself!

But yes, they were really good on this story. Tangle herself is voiced by Neera Li’s voice actress and you wouldn’t think it’s her! She’s so sweet and full of life and makes for a good character to interact with be it with Whisper, Vector or other characters, she really gets to lift the mood a bit with the series. Whisper is rightfully played quietly though still has her moments of heart :)

We also have Vanilla (voiced by Jenny Yokobori) and Cream the Rabbit (voiced by Michelle Ruff) appearing in the audio, taking the Chaotix in after the copter crashes. Vanilla is mostly there to help the boys regain their confidence but the rest of the role she played is up for theorising, I mean was she really that close to Vector or was he making it up? I liked as well how they didn’t involve Cream in the adventure cos she had to go to school. That’s a better excuse than IDW saying she was too young which is silly cos she went on lots of adventures and battled lots of monsters. Just why didn’t she return in the finale and call a bus for the Chaotix to get a ride home? I mean, Charmy got Gemerl to help them, why didn’t they go with him back to Vanilla’s?

While most of the characters here are fine, there’s some here who either need more work done on them or some who I feel certain writers shouldn’t use ever again. Those in particular are Rouge the Bat (voiced by Karen Strassman) and Professor Torii (voiced by Crystal Lee).

While Rouge was mostly fun in the series, and her actress did a far better job, her last appearance in the audio just didn’t do her right. I know you might think I’m a heretic for daring to call out the “smart guy” Ian Flynn, but I just know he had something to do with how Rouge was written there. She was written way too similar to how she was in Treasure Team Tango, in that she didn’t care for the lives of others, just to have the priceless artefacts. Ian clearly had a part in this and he obviously doesn’t like Rouge, he unfavourably said she’s just there for sex appeal. Mate. Just bugger off. Stay away from characters you don’t understand, which is roughly 100% of the entire cast. Rouge works for GUN, couldn’t they have had her actually want to get the Lenses back to GUN to keep them out of harms way? Gosh you know you screwed up when Sonic Prime did Rouge better!

MM: How is it possible that we are in a situation where we can unironically say the words "Sonic Prime did it better"? Now that's a mystery worth solving in the future!

Now for Professor Torii. She is garbage, plain and simple. She shows up, dumps the case on Team Chaotix's lap, reveals she basically hired them because she thinks they're useless and will stumble upon the lenses for her (not a great plan) and when Team Chaotix solve the case and save the day in the end, she doesn't give them an actual reward for their efforts. Not even so much as a single penny. Seriously, even Undina from Archie Sonic the Hedgehog gave Team Chaotix actual money as a reward! Granted it turned out useless in the end since her currency transferred into Mobiums didn't amount to much, but at least she gave them an ACTUAL reward! What's Professor Torii's excuse? She's trash man and she should never have been created. This franchise was better off when she didn't exist. What a despicable character...

Any others, there's not much to say here. Knuckles and the Babylon Rogues are only in one episode each and that's about it and don't appear again, not even for the climax. The Babylon Rogues I understand, but Knuckles? You'd think he would've been brought along to help save Sonic and Vector too. Commander Tower is just the stern authority figure who wastes everybody's time in Episode 4.

And that's all the characters profiled for this case. The conclusion I can come to based on all the facts we've gone over are that Team Chaotix are the stars (as they should be) and the supporting cast are mostly great with the only bungled characters here being Rouge, Professor Torii and Infinite. As is, this audio does mostly do these characters justice at least and the really important ones being done right is what matters most here.

File 3: The Audio

As this is an audio-story, there's no visuals to review, so instead we're commenting on the audio. Let's go through this file and see what we can deduce from it.

WF: This is curious. I think they played to a lot of strengths with the audio in certain scenes and I think they particularly worked in cases like Vector’s narration, the way he describes the scenery and the atmosphere is so classical noir detective that it works. There’s even certain scenes here and there where they give you a basic description of what’s there, like the entrance to Eggman’s secret base is in the desert and has a huge door and is a scar on nature, or describing where Infinite is keeping the Astroscopic Lenses that tells you where the characters have to head to to stop him. The sound effects are good as well, including stock sound from the games for action scenes or using background noises to give the idea of where they are. They even do well in making these tiny sounds to indicate the characters are touching somebody or something and it’s backed up really well by the actors.

The audio also makes use of music well, from the opening song setting the mood with its jazz tunes and classical 70s style singing, the use of certain musical items to set the mood whether it’s light or dark makes good for giving us a good mood :)

However, they do flounder a bit as well, for example we have battle scenes where there’s basically the characters yelling or making noises and it clashes badly with the stock effects of the battle, nor is it helped with Vector saying things like “Tails look out! Espio get that copy right there!” While this is going on.

MM: Those moments can make it feel as if they're overly compensating for the lack of visuals since this is an audio story, but it comes at the cost of making the dialogue feel a little unnatural at times. Thankfully this doesn't happen very often and the dialogue is more natural sounding for the most part.

But let's get back to the good stuff, because this audio definitely has more good than bad when it comes to the audio side of things. My biggest praise goes towards the voice cast. We have a lot of seasoned veterans and some newer talent onboard for this project and they are all uniformly excellent. Nobody sounds like they're phoning it in here with brilliant voice direction and performances from the actors. Even Mike Pollock sounds more full of life here than he's done in the last few Sonic games, so I wonder if it was just bad direction that made him sound like he wasn't giving it his all in those games. If anybody definitely sounds improved from the games, it's easily Karen Strassman as Rouge. Her acting as Rouge in the games has never been good for me. She always sounded too high-pitched and valley girl-like to me. Here? She ACTUALLY sounds like Rouge the Bat for once! That was so welcome and I really hope in future when she voices Rouge she'll do it the way she did it here because she sounds so much better this way.

For me, the actors who deserve the most praise include all three actors for Team Chaotix, Ashlyn and Anairis as Tangle and Whisper and Alejandro as Infinite. Keith, Matthew and Colleen are given ACTUAL material to work with for once as Team Chaotix and as a result, we get the best performances of these three as these characters we've had since the voice actor switch back in 2010. Keith is in his element here with Vector's gruff voice and his smooth narrations when he does the noir-style narrations throughout the story and Matthew and Colleen capture the personalities of Espio and Charmy to a tee. As for Ashlyn and Anairis? PERFECT. Their voices were utterly spot on for Tangle and Whisper. Ashlyn sounds like she's having a ball playing the excitable lemur and Anairis really captures Whisper's quiet, introverted personality. I especially love how she barely speaks above a whisper and yet we can still hear her quite clearly. Having a character who whispers all her lines would've been hard to get right, but I think they managed it. And while I thought Infinite sucked here, Alejandro's performance as him was the only positive I could find. He was chewing the scenery and having a great time doing so and the reverberating effect they added to make his voice sound more imposing really made every line he said demand our attention. We just couldn't not listen to him because of how menacing he sounded! If only the writing could've done as good a job as the voice-acting did...

WF: I agree mate. As with the others, Roger Craig Smith voices both Sonic and Commander Tower, making it three characters he’s done in the franchise other than Omega. You can just tell it’s Roger doing Commander Tower’s voice but he does it well enough that you can’t help but wonder how this is the same guy voicing Sonic? Even when captured Sonic is still the cool blue hero we know him as and cleverly snipes on at Eggman that Roger gives out with lots of charm.

Alejandro does a great job as Gemerl as well in giving us this robotic but also human like feel to Gemerl from his assessments of things to trying to be as nice as he can in not pointing out Charmy was not really fixing the helicopter.

Ryan’s still got it as Sage, giving out a soft and dull performance as Sage with a slight sense of smugness that tells you her dad is rubbing off on her. Colleen is still great as Tails, I hope this woman keeps voicing my fox boy for years to come, bringing confidence and kindness to the fox :)

I think I can safely say no actor in this series did a bad job. They were all superb :)

MM: I have to agree there. No bad voice-acting here at all.

In an audio story, the audio is key and I can say that this audio story nailed it. Some overly descriptive dialogue aside, the stellar voice-acting, great sound effects and awesome music (especially the theme song) make for a brilliant listen beginning to end. We can close this case by saying the audio is the aspect with the least amount of problems to it.

Overall

Well, we've solved the mystery of The Chaotix Casefiles. My verdict? It's a fun but flawed series, thought thankfully more fun than flawed.

The story has an engaging mystery that's held back by poor pacing and a few questionable twists, the characters are mostly enjoyable with the only issue being a despicable character in the form of Torii and a lame villain in the form of Infinite and the audio gives us some of the best voice-acting in the Sonic franchise yet. Would you say that's about right buddy?

WF: That I do. While it had its problems, I am glad the series kept me hooked and guessing what was coming next and it gave us the best of the Chaotix in years and did well with Tangle and Whisper, and the dive into an audio driven story has to me opened the doors to possibly Tails, Silver and others getting their moment to have their stories told in audio form, but of course we shall see ^^

I say that concludes our case for today. I mark this file as S- for Superb Minus. It’s good but has some issues that could’ve been resolved. But I like it.

MM: I'm on the same page here. It has its flaws, but none that are big enough to ruin it for me. It really was a fun side project from SEGA and I hope we can see more of these in future. The sky really is the limit for them now...

(Takes off detective hat and switches back to normal voice.)

Heh, that was fun playing detective here. Anyhow, that's our review on The Chaotix Casefiles. We hope you enjoyed the review and feel free to share your thoughts down below. What do you think to The Chaotix Casefiles? Do you like it? Do you not like it? Do tell us.

All that's left is to say thank you all for reading and I'll see you in a few weeks for my Archie Sonic the Hedgehog retrospective. And BIG thanks to the Wandering Fox for joining me here today. It was quite a pleasure having you here again!

WF: Thanks mate, I’m glad to have helped you on this! It’s always a treat to do a co-op review with my best bud ^^ now then, let my mind wander a bit….oh yes, I’m meant to be wandering! I’ll catch you again matey ;)

MM: Same here!

Now this is done with, I'll see you all again for the next post. See you then media fans!

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