I hate blue spheres and it makes me want to puke every time I play them. It even ruined Mania for me since I felt forced to play them and they seemed to never end(must unlock stuff). I haven't even touched Mania since I first completed it because of those memories.
Shadow should've stayed dead after Adventure 2... I like Shadow, but his purpose was fulfilled and his story was complete after defeating the Bioliard and repositioning the Ark into a stable orbit. Now he's just Flanders the Hedgehog. Shadow's whole personality (as we know it) is wrapped up in his fake memories where Maria tells Shadow to take revenge on the world for her death. If he didn't die at the end of SA2, shortly after knowing the truth and acting upon her true wishes, he would be a completely different character from the one we know now. ...but people wanted him back, and Shadow without angst isn't Shadow... so we got Androids and clones and the Black Arms... and now we have Aimless Angry Shadow who's just angsty for... no discernible reason? Maria and Gerald haven't been mentioned in years. If he had stayed dead, Shadow's story would be far more impactful. Also, the moon should 100% still be shown as blown up in all the future games; it'd be a sick piece of iconography. But I have a feeling that opinion isn't that unpopular.
Really I prefer Shadow working on his own. Yeah the lone wolf thing is done to death, but I think there's more potential to him not just following orders and taking action based on his own sometimes skewed moral code. Shadow is meant to be the anti hero Sonic after all. It goes beyond the point if they're both always on the same page cause then you just have two versions of the main character.
What makes you think G.U.N. would always be on the same page? G.U.N. could have Shadow chase up a Chaos Emerald, and come to blows with Sonic over it, if you're after conflict. Even then, what exactly sets Sonic and Shadow as being on separate pages now?
The ending of Shadow's game makes it seem like GUN are full on good guys now. And if they aren't, then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Shadow to be working for them to begin with. And honestly, I don't think Sega even cares about GUN anymore given they've essentially disappeared outside of shit like Tailstube which is debatably canon. As for Sonic & Shadow, botched writing aside, Shadow very clearly is far more proactive than Sonic when it comes to handling a threat. Shadow has always been way more focused on getting shit done compared to Sonic, who generally likes to enjoy himself more. They're both heroes, but with two very different ideas on how to actually be one. So I can easily see a scenario or two where Shadow feels Sonic is too lazy to get the job done, while Sonic obviously isn't onboard Shadow's sorta extremist attitude. But the game creators aren't that creative, so we get contrived scenarios where the two fight for flimsy reasons. In any case, people can complain about the execution of it, but bringing Shadow back was a better call in the end. The character is still very clearly still popular with his target demographic and makes Sega a ton of money, as well as the novelty of having antiheroic foil to Sonic. Had Shadow stayed dead, he would have been forgotten about aside from the generation of fans who grew up with him like Gamma. Notice how nobody even talks about Gamma all that much despite how praised his story was. A character like Shadow has far too much potential to be just be a one-off and Sega felt the same way.
It kind of annoys me when people use the fact that someone played the Gamecube ports of Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 as the sole reason why they must've not liked the game. A let's player could play SADX or SA2B and not like them, and a bunch of vitriolic Sonic fans will storm their comments saying that they must've not liked the game just because they played the wrong version of it, and that the Dreamcast release is really that much better. It's like people use the Gamecube rereleases as a fucking boogeyman as to why some people don't like the games. Don't get me wrong from this post, I love SA1 and SA2 and it's a damn shame that the best versions of the games aren't widely available to play for the average player, but despite all the wrongs of the Gamecube rereleases, the reasons people don't like the Sonic Adventure games is mostly to do with their fundamental game design, the ways they've aged poorly, and of course the camera. SADX and SA2B are bad and the Dreamcast originals are better ways to play them, but the issues they introduce simply aren't enough to sway someone's (especially someone who's not a sonic fan's) entire opinion on the game, and people need to stop pretending it will. Stop harassing people just because they played the "wrong" version of the games, it's stupid and will usually make them want to try out the originals even less, ultimately reflects poorly on the community, and the games themselves. (and again, playing the originals is usually not gonna change their minds anyway lmfao)
The ports are deeply flawed but I really don't think they're flawed enough to deter people who would have enjoyed them on Dreamcast. It's a real shame that the presentation of SADX had to be so terrible, though. SA2B was a much better transition, even if it had some weird mistakes here and there. I guess it's time for my spiciest take: I think that the original SA1 has some really garish and ugly colors in many places and do not mind (and can even prefer) a majority of the environmental makeovers SADX made.
I like the Dreamcast model for Sonic in Sonic Adventure 2 over the new model in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. I don't know, I just like the pointy ears better.
S2 the movie is an ordinary average movie for an audience of 6+. It's quite strange, and the most interesting thing begins only towards the end. The dancing scene in a Siberian bar is a rather boring sight, with a bunch of stereotypes. Scene seems superfluous in this film. In general, the film is not bad, but everyone overestimates it too much.
Yes, but sometimes I have seen the opinion that this dance scene is magnificent, and almost a masterpiece..
Hot take: the difference between the DC and GC versions isn't that big, and SA2 is just as bad on Dreamcast as it is on GameCube. SA1 likewise wasn't significantly changed in DX.
I agree on the point of SA2, but with SA1 I feel like SADX's shiny new coat of paint creates a really weird disconnect. Looking at SA1 on the Dreamcast, it's much easier to place it in the correct time and be like "Oh yeah, it makes sense this is kind of jank" but with SADX changing the models and textures while leaving everything else as-is, it feels much less acceptable. I played DX first and liked it, and still when I got a hold of the Dreamcast original it was like "Oh, this explains SO MUCH", so I can only imagine how weird it must look to people who don't know about the game's port history.
Yeahh, even as someone who played sadx first, i cant go back to it. I can forgive a lot of sa1 jank but sadx really DOES do a lot of little things that add up once you've actually gone back the aesthetics of the DC version. Even just down to collision and gameplay oddities. With that said, I do think sa1 looks pretty nice with mods restoring the lighting engine and some collision bugs, even without changing models or textures back. The lighting really does do a lot for the game
I think there are ways to finagle this without actually killing him off and still keeping him edgy, but yeah some sort of genuine characterization would go a long way. Shadow is meant for edge, so give him reasons to be edgy. Felt this way my first playthrough, and felt like the odd one out when I liked Forces more then Generations. Been replaying Generations (among other Sonic games) and what I am finding is it definitely feels like it controls smoother (To my recollection. I haven't played Forces since launch and is also due for a replay.) but that isn't saying a lot, and I actually prefer some of the free falling action in Forces as opposed to some of the more unforgiving areas in generations. At least Generations Casino Night's pinball feels a *lot* smoother than Adventure's. Now if only they did the NiGHTS table like that I'd be sinking hours into just Pinball...
My unpopular opinion is that most people prefer the 2000s Sonic to the 2010s Sonic because they unironically enjoyed the melodramatic and poorly written stories of those games. I know it seems judgemental but I really do think it's true.
