FINAL CHAPTER – WELCOME TO THE END OF THE WORLD
Level F-1: The Black Comet
The next cut scene begins in the dark interior of the Black Comet. For those unfamiliar with the location, it is an organic cave-like area with a black/purple/red color scheme. We see the entire group of heroes all grouped together in a more open section of the comet as the camera slowly pans over the entire group. Eventually, the camera zooms out and shows the heroes running deeper into the Black Comet before the screen fades out. When all is black, we can hear Devil Doom’s voice: “Yes, come pathetic creatures. Come to me…if you can.”
The Bunker 
I’ve got a bunch to say about the grand finale, here’s part 1:
One thing I love about this final chapter upon rereading it: Black Doom gets to remain integral to the story despite losing main villain status in the very first level. When I first wrote it, I knew I didn’t want the finale to just be “Devil Doom is defeated, now here’s the REAL FINAL BOSS!” Instead, he practically becomes the main protagonist!
Gotta love that even I couldn’t add Ridley to the playable roster until near the end. At least he gets what amounts to 9 platforming levels and the final bosses. In some hypothetical future in which I make another story mode, Ridley’s definitely getting more playable screentime.
I tried to shorten Spadefox’s villain speech to something shorter than Metal Gear Solid cutscenes. Despite having some parts tightened, that mini flashback with weakened Spadefox is new, so it’s probably the same length in the end. At least you get an epic boss fight afterwards. I recall someone back in the day saying Ultimate Spadefox’s picture is from a Magic the Gathering card, but even reverse searching it turned up nothing.
By: hyperridley on November 11, 2023
at 2:46 pm
Author Comments Part 2: Final Boss Boogaloo
Originally, the final boss was gonna be Dark Gaia from Sonic Unleashed. The Space Pirates’ “weapon” was going to be them reactivating the ARK, and using the Chaos Emeralds to fully power the Eclipse Cannon, pierce the planet’s core, and release it. The final chapter would, naturally, have been something like Chapter 10, with the Sandbags and various hero groups restoring the fractured planet before the final level would have them journey to the core. The actual fight would have been similar to what is now Ultimate Spadefox (Spade was gonna be a one-off Chapter 10 boss like the other Primids), but I’m not sure how exactly I would have allowed you to defeat it. I don’t remember what gave me the idea to change the Space Pirate weapon from planet cracker to demonic Pokemon, but in the end it was definitely the right call. And Dark Gaia still got to be a moveset in MYM5 made by yours truly!
It’s kinda hilarious in hindsight that I actually made the final bosses a back-to-back combo of Dark Chaos Emeralds and Mewthree. Those have gotta be the 2 most cliche things you could put in a fanfic with Sonic and Pokemon characters, and I just went and combined the two. Having said that, I really do love this picture of Mewthree. Most M3 pics on the internet are basically mega Mewtwo, and originally I was gonna use one of those. Then I discovered this one, which made him into a proper Mew clone with added creepy factor. Love at first sight, I tell you. A part of me wishes I had better drawing skills so I could make my own “legally distinct” incarnation of the character, but I’m honestly not sure what I would even be willing to change in his design.
Mewthree also holds the distinction of being THE most altered boss in this entire revision. He’s almost redone from scratch! The original fight managed to have way too many “giant projectile explosion that insta-kills you” attacks, while simultaneously having tryhard edgy moments with his random bone growths that he hardly even uses in gameplay. For the first issue, I fully embraced the murder spree by giving you the entire roster’s worth of stocks with a bunch of lethal attacks, a mechanic borrowed from MasterWarlord’s own MYM5 story mode (the name I sadly cannot remember nor find). For the second, I replaced “nasty bone tentacles” with “nasty rabid cat attacks”. While some of the original fight is still present (“Eyes of the Devil” was the specific attack everyone loved back in the day), the majority of it is brand new or heavily altered. In my little notepad file with revision notes, the brainstorming for Mewthree’s new fight takes up half the screen lmao. One could argue my desire to give the demon kitty a better fight is a large reason Playing God has even been revised in the first place.
By: hyperridley on November 11, 2023
at 2:49 pm
– Injured Spadefox flashback is an interesting addition to the story.
– Noticed that 2nd Devil Doom boss fight now uses “I Am All Of Me” instead of “With Me” from Sonic and the Black Knight. Iirc, that was my introduction to that song alongside Tirk’s Merlina set from MYM14. Still think that “With Me” is fitting for Devil Doom despite not being his actual boss theme or a track from Shadow the Hedgehog.
– The new picture for Devil Doom rocks. I am so using it if I get around to making a Black Doom moveset.
– The original Dark Emeralds boss fight got me into G Darius music, because it used G Darius: Adam as its BGM.
– Would love to see a new story mode from you, mostly to see what setting and characters you’d use now that PG is some 15 years old. Ridley would absolutely check for getting more screentime, especially given he’s already in Smash.
– I vaguely remember that Ultimate Spadefox’s image was thought to have been taken from Magic: The Gathering.
– I would have liked to see an alternate Playing God finale where Dark Gaia is the final boss instead of Mewthree. Mostly because it makes a surprising amount of sense for the Eclipse Cannon to be used to pierce the earth and awaken Dark Gaia, from a Sonic lore standpoint.
– My naive teenage mind always thought that you or someone else in MYM drew the pictures for Mewthree and Spadefox. Probably because there was various OC images (like the MYM6 OC KholdStare moveset) that were stated to be drawn by someone named Spire (whose name always reminded me of the character from Metroid Prime Hunters).
– Forgot whether it’s in the new Mewthree boss fight, but I long remember a move he had called Soul Shredding Beam, which turned your fighter to stone and killed them instantly as a reference to what happened to Ash in the first Pokemon movie. Now I get the chance to tell the author of the story mode that that was a cool reference. Also, I remember an Abyss boss fight from the MYM5 Warlord story mode where all his attacks were insta-kills. Your take is more varied, as Mewthree has some insta-kills, semi-fatal moves that kill if they hit twice and a few regular attacks.
– Iirc, there is one altered scene in the finale where Hyper Ridley gets a call from MasterWarlord offering him the vacant position on the Sandbags, referencing the fact that you became a leader in real MYM. Don’t think that was in the original, but it was a welcome addition. Having looked back at PG recently, it is tad weird that the irredeemably evil villains sided with the heroes are all implied to have become good in the epilogue (mostly odd due to the “no dialogue” stance that most MYM3-4 story modes took to emulate the Subspace Emissary), but I genuinely like the idea of villains becoming good and joining hands with the protagonists to make the world a better place, which does fit with the themes of the story. It’s feel-good stuff for everything they went through.
Anyway, good job for finishing your revisions!
By: katapultarr on November 15, 2023
at 5:39 am
Thanks for the kind words Kat!
Glad my G Darius music made an impression back in the day. I almost didn’t change it, but I was concerned of there being an “epicness overload” since that fight’s immediately followed by the final boss, heh. I still kept the other G Darius song for the final platforming stage, woo
An alt/”original” ending with Dark Gaia is a fun thought, but it would probably require too many changes from the story as-is for it to even work as a standalone post. One of my goals with this version was to double down on the Mewthree foreshadowing, which now effectively starts in Chapter 2 with Mutant Tentacruel. Plus I’d need a Sonic the Werehog moveset!
Soul-Shredding Beam was cut from the fight proper, but Mewthree’s final beam he fires at the heroes is meant as a nod to it. The very first paragraph of the ending went through several rewrites in general: In the original, Mewthree pulls the “The boss fight you just won didn’t do $#!7 to me!” card. Now those 75(+tags) characters on your roster matter for bringing him down. I expect Junahu to record a no-death run playing Wispa.
Glad I’m not the only who remembers that Abyss fight. I really enjoyed that story mode, it’s too bad it fell into the unfinished abyss (ha!) Those Halberd conversations, man! Now things have come full-circle with it influencing a remake of the story mode that originally preceeded it.
Ridley’s end scene is indeed new! In the OG ending he was basically the only character NOT to receive a happy ending, which, c’mon. Especially when none other than Sir Kibble flat-out promised him that killing his “son” would be the right decision, it didn’t feel right to leave that unfulfilled. I do find it kinda funny how well characters like Eggman and the Joker are getting along with everyone at the end, but I suppose defeating multiple eldritch monsters in a day will do that.
And I won’t lie, after writing the OG story, his MYM5 moveset, remaking his boss fight, and adding new scenes before his mental breakdown in this version, a part of me wishes I could give Mewthree a redemption arc too.
I won’t rule out another story mode happening, but probably not for a while. For now I’m happy to give this one a more permanent home, and you can bet I’ve got multiple backups lmao
By: hyperridley on November 16, 2023
at 2:28 am