Sally.Exe

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Ah 2014, the year where I became a horror fanatic at an age a bit too young to be into the genre. I was obsessed with three things at this time, Slender Man, Five Nights At Freddy's, and of course, the darling little bad creepypasta, Sonic.EXE. Yes it was a good year to be autistic and an impressionable child on the internet. But it's been 12 years since everything came and went, and somehow the little bloody eyed hedgehog that couldn't managed to become the little bloody eyed hedgehog that could.

So then, for some reason, perhaps nostalgic kick, I decided to give my hand to NOT the game that made Mr. EXE known till' this day (considering I played it like two years ago and I don't care to review it), and instead direct my attention to the quote unquote "sequel" known as Sally.EXE.

Apparently this was based on a creepypasta, that was ripped off on another creepypasta, meant to be the official sequel to Sonic.EXE. That is actually fairly well known, the original Sally.EXE creepypasta was based on a Youtube Poop simply titled 'Sonic', where Sonic dies a lot of weird and gruesome deaths.

But I am most curious on is...why Sally? Actually I might have an answer to my own question. The early 2010s Sonic fandom was pretty notorious for how much the community finds the girl characters hot, and even still now. But in 2014, hoo boy, it was basically a gang war whether or not you were Team Amy, or Team Sally. There was a big surge of nostalgia for the Saturday morning Sonic cartoon from the 90s, and so the Sonic community up and down had eyes on this damn squirrel. Thank god I was too young to know what DeviantArt is, or know what shipping was. Because everyone wanted this squirrel badly, and went to actual wars with people who had the gal to like Amy more, or ship Amy with Sonic instead.

Nowadays, the Sonic community now has the hots for Vanilla the Rabbit, which...I understand why she fine as fuuuuuuuck.

But, the obsession with Sally is a good explanation on why she's here and not someone like Blaze or Rouge.

Alright, enough of the knitty gritty here, is Sally.EXE good?...No.

This is pretty nothing. Its surprisingly more nothing than the original Sonic.EXE, and thats saying a lot considering that one's gameplay is just moving right until a spooky thing happens. But Sally.EXE is essentially just...nothing. The first level with Amy you just enter the ring and get to the goals in the special zone to end the stage. The second level with Cream you walk right until you hit a speedboost till' she collides into spikes. And lastly, the final level with Sally, you just stand still waiting for the walls to quickly close in on you.

This is a very nothing game.

But, if I have to give it some credit, I like the presentation and sound design more here than the original Sonic.EXE. I mean, its still not scary, which is a given considering you cannot really make anything Sonic related scary, but I will say it does feel unique. The very nice spritework, the weird sounds, that strangely iconic sound effect with the Sega logo being pitched down, and that well made art of Sally at the end with her eyes being stitched up does get me some appreciation.

I will even give more credit to the end art because that is far more effective than the infamous "I Am God" screen from the original Sonic.EXE, considering it just pops out of nowhere with this weird moaning sound effect. Its not scary, but man did it leave an impression on me as a kid when I say a let's play of this game back when this was considered a peak in creepypasta gaming.

So yeah, not scary, and not good, but damnit does it have some charm.

And, I wanna give some more praise considering it inadvertently led to a bunch of content creators gaining some amounts of stardom. LuigiKid, The Game Salmon, ToadBup. All really cool content creators that made their mark because of this, and plenty of other games that fall within the .EXE category. So, hey, good job Sally.EXE.

I think the lesson to take from this game is that even if a game isn't good, the best thing to take from it is that it exists. Bad games should exist too, because they may lead to greener pastures down the line. And, y'know what, maybe Sally.EXE isn't a total waste of time.