Spoiler Thread - SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS (SPOILERS!... Obviously.)

Are you taking about that seconds long clip of him bouncing on a few dash rings?

man, I really wish we had some more stuff to go off of. Hopefully people leak more stuff soon.

 

Despite 100% (or as the game says, 119.9%) Forces, I'm probably gonna be playing it a lot to prepare myself. Shadow seems to have the Homing Chain in Shadow Generations, but I completely forgot how it actually works. And considering I'll be spending a lot more time with Shadow here I'm gonna need to get comfortable with it.

 

I definitely share your fears, although I haven’t watched many videos yet because I don’t wanna be spoiled. I just don’t wanna play through an auto-pilot campaign.

 

Ok, the Homing Chain is basically instantaneous whenever Shadow uses the Homing Attack on a group of lined up enemies. I guess the only thing I need to be concerned about is my reaction timing. Perhaps it'll be easier to pull off if I can do it in 3D.

 

Oh.

 

This is going to sound wildly stupid but a big draw for me in boost games is a dynamic camera that is moving and changing angles to really add flash to whatever im doing, be it running down a corridor or homing attack chaining enemies, and I know that might not be the most interesting level design but it is a lot more exciting. Forces would've felt a lot less boring if the camera wasn't so static behind Sonic all the time and put a higher emphasis on his speed, like how Unleashed and OG Gens did it. That is why I'm excited for this game.
Besides, even though everyone hates 06 and Mephiles, I think he's stupidly funny and has a cool design so they've already sold me on the game.

 

I should warn the ending of the game was already leaked. Not even sure it's worth posting here, so not even gonna bother posting.

I just want see the other stages, man.

 

I mean, this is the spoiler thread, so here you go.

So the ending is all about Shadow doing what Maria would've wanted by moving on and letting go... again.

Fans keep saying that Shadow is a deep character with a wide range of storytelling possibilities, but Sega sure as hell doesn't seem to agree!

 

Maria to Shadow before being savagely ravaged by the passage of time:

 

Not a fan of this emerging and obviously reactionary fandom belief that characters should just not have any attachments or acknowledgment of their past, not even naming the places they've been or the people they met (ive heard that its actually good writing that Tails didnt remember Chemical Plant, his first adventure, in a game about the franchise's and these characters' history), and that character development is when you just stop caring about the people who defined your entire character because you threw away a picture (completely missing the symbolism for overly literal interpretations that a child would make).

A massive difference between simply moving on from a past event and having that event and those emotions literally come back to life and still choosing to move on. Everything he told himself he is now able to tell Maria, something he never thought he would do.

Spider-Man had Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy come back to life to several times, had his emotions enflamed and his history examined, and chose to move on yet again.

Spider-Man is much like Shadow in how this one event defined nearly everything he does after. Do you think Spider-Man lacks depth because Uncle Ben still weighs on his mind, or do you think that when he lifts tons of metal and machinery through sheer will alone or swims through a flooded New York City to save people, that has nothing to do with Uncle Ben or his "with great power"?

What's the point of these emotional stories if characters shouldn't have emotions or care about what's happening? On a basic writing level, I do not understand that take at all.

I haven't even seen the ending but Shadow moving forward again is what I expected because that is called "good writing". I am more interested, though, in the interim, especially how he interacts with a new living Maria and Gerald.

 

If my dead family came back to life only to suddenly die on me again I'd also need to learn how to move on again to be quite honest with you. That's absolutely not weird.

 

The only problem with this is that from the events of Shadow the Hedgehog, where Shadow currently is in the story, he technically shouldn’t have very many memories of Maria. Only knows about his past at all because other people tell him about it and stuff like that. Which would greatly lessen the attachment.

Buuuuuuuuut Sonic Team has clearly forgot about this or doesn’t want to acknowledge it or something like that so whatever.

 

Shadow very obviously remembered everything after Shadow '05.

Dark Beginnings clearly shows that he remembers everything, that's how he knows that his memories are being fucked with.

And SxSG is well after Shadow '05. It's after '06 too, which also presents Shadow as remembering his own past.

 

No he didn’t. In fact, that is very clear if you actually go back and watch that final/true story of Shadow that he did not get back all his memories at all. I hate to say it like this, but that’s just what people THINK happened in Shadow.

Also, what’s going on in Dark Beginnings is a demonstration of the retcon that took place.

 

They've already acknowledged that the current Shadow is the same one from SA2, and it's heavily implied that he recovered his memories offscreen. So this game seems to be working off that.

It's a long running series with no set endpoint, and this is meant as a introduction for people who never played a 20 year old game. It's not that hard to comprehend.

 

Ninja edited on me, eh?

But no. Shadow does mot make make any reference to his past in 06. What’s actually going on here is that he is continuing in the direction that he was left at at the end of Shadow the Hedgehog. He is choosing to be a hero, not because of Maria’s wish or whatever, but because that is what he chooses to wants to do.

a better direction for the character if you ask me, to be honest.

 

Sonic X Shadow Generations is the first Sonic game I haven't pre-ordered since in a long time. The tone of the story is just insufferably corny, I doubt that will do the series any good. They either have no faith in the writer or marketing botched it again. I mean, what is the playtime/cutscene ratio here? I probably could live with it if story ends up being only a small portion of the final game.

Then again, maybe SXSG really is just for the movie goers. Old fans acclimate to the different characterization, new fans get to know Maria, Gerald, and Black Doom. Can this work?

Anyway, I'm not feeling it. I'll have to get this game another time.

 

I'm not sure what else to expect given the premise. I'd also argue that it's not entirely the same since Shadow never had the prospect of having them back slip through his fingers like this.

The fact that this type of story was possible with him without introducing any new wrinkles or details to his backstory speaks volumes about him as a character and how much more complex he is than the others imo.

By comparison I think about Knuckles's speech at the end of his campaign at the end of Sonic Adventure, about how, after an entire game about the backstory of the echidna, that he doesn't know that much more about his culture than when he started, and how he's fine with that and that it's better that way somehow. It always kinda stuck out as a wet fart by comparison. Seeing the lore actually used to enrich the characters is simply dope. Shadow's leg of the story from what I'm seeing is dope.

 

The final story has Shadow definitively standing up against Black Doom because of being reminded of Maria's promise from the girl herself. If he had no memory, why would that matter? He already knew about Maria but BECAUSE he had no further memory, it meant nothing to him, which is why he tried to find out about his past.

Shadow the Hedgehog is a game about what that pursuit of the past makes him go through. Because he is merely told and doesn't know, he comes to wildly different conclusions like believing he is an android, being Black Doom's strongest soldier, or not caring about Maria or Gerald at all.

But in the final, conclusive story, he truly understands because he truly remembers. He knows Maria's promise and what that means to him and chooses to kill Black Doom. Otherwise, you're saying that Shadow randomly decided, despite still having no memories, that he wants to kill Black Doom because of a promise he doesn't understand. And while Shadow '05 has very poor storytelling, I doubt that was anything close to the actual intention.

This is the clearest throughline in Shadow '05 despite its poor storytelling. That is why the Last Story invalidates all other endings.

If there's one good thing about '06, it's Shadow's characterization in that game, because it displays the kind of subtlety I thought people wanted when they say that there are too many direct references in modern games. It is incredibly obvious that Shadow's history defines his actions in '06, because, among other things, he thematically represents "the past" like Sonic does "the present" and Silver "the future". Mephiles antagonizes specifically over the idea of what humans have done and will do to him, much like how humans ruined his life by killing Maria and sealing him away. It did not need to say it out loud because veterans know and newcomers can tell through how Shadow carries himself. But as a narrative throughout the series, Shadow clearly remembers. It is why he is able to take Mephiles' taunts on the chin instead of breaking down like when Black Doom told him his "real" origins.

If Shadow does not remember anything, then he is not opposing Mephiles for some inherent philosophical belief that stems from the very history he seeks to use against him... but because Shadow literally doesn't know what Mephiles is talking about.

This is why I said "overly literal interpretations that only a child would make", no offense. But on everything from storytelling to authorial intent, it's obvious that Shadow remembered and has remembered since. This is not a retcon. To believe otherwise is to believe that the lack of clarity was itself a purposeful decision that Sonic Team randomly chose to ignore, which if it was, makes those stories (even) worse in hindsight.

First of all, Shadow isn't a hero. If Sonic isn't, Shadow definitely is not. In fact, he is more often than not defined as somebody who would do far worse without Maria's promise to ground him.

Second of all, making Maria's promise part of his motivations =/= he is not choosing what he wants. He is choosing. He is choosing to hold dear his promise and protect the world.

Shadow the Hedgehog was about how not knowing his past drove him to wildly different endings. "Not letting his past define him" is not about saying "fuck Maria", it's about how he is no longer searching and having that search drive him around. Which, again, is why it only makes the most sense that he does truly remember everything.

The problem with your take is that it implies that keeping Maria's promise was in any way detrimental to him. But Shadow didn't even know his own name when he lost his memories.

I do not understand why people want Shadow to not care or have any attachment to his past.

 

T

hat is…

not the reason he chooses to oppose Black Doom. He tells you the actual reason. And much of this stuff you said about what they were going for in 06 id not on the mark either…

…but I have decided this is not something I care enough about to continue arguing about it. So okay. Sure.

Wake me up when we start talking about gameplay again.