Your Opinion on Shadow

YES. SHADOW AS MANIACAL BERZERKER FTW.

Seriously, I'm going to allow them to bring back Shadow, they'd better make him a wacko badass. (I mean, seriously, Sonic survived a similar fall in the last game so it would be weird at this point if it was able to kill the ultimate life form.)

When I saw Dead Leaves about a month back, I saw what Shadow ought to be like -- the character Retro. Beating up cops, toting two guns, firing said guns with reckless abandon, and hanging around with a partner that scarfs down a chili dog whole. That's what Shadow ought to be like.

 

Shadow is immortal, right? I want to see him do something that someone who lives forever might do. Like read every book in the world.

 

No, he'd be throwing bombs at a bunch of semi-robo ducks. Other than that it'd be pretty much the same thing.

 

I'm pretty ambivalent on Shadow. He does seem overexposed, and that makes him quite polarising. I agree with the notion that he doesn't really seem to have a natural place in the franchise - he was created for a specific story and now he's eternally repeating the same tired plot points again and again. One could argue that this is also a problem for Knuckles... although in recent years it's seemed less glaring, and of course, Knuckles has long been an accepted part of the franchise. I do feel bad for Knuckles fans... he was the appointed rival of Sonic until Shadow came along.

I'll say this, though... I quite enjoyed Shadow's game. Admittedly, my expectations were very low, and I'm also swayed by the fact that the levels had many design elements in common with SA2, which I loved. I'd still rank it above Heroes, though.

 

I don't think he's immortal. He's just retained his youngness by being frozen in a tube for 50 years.

Speaking of that, for an ultimate life form, how'd he get locked up in the first place?

 

*claps hand to head* How the hell'd I forget about Tails' Adventure? Not to mention Tails Skypatrol and Tails and the Music Maker.

Therefore, your question is answered, serpx. He'd be more Metroid-esque, if I remember the gameplay right.

And for the above, the answer is:
...Maria

 

Quote of myself from another thread.

 

I've never been a fan of Shadow for many reasons. His creation was just an obvious (and partially sad) attempt to breathe new attitude into the series after the laid-back character of Big the Cat was poorly-received in Sonic Adventure. After all, it had been quite some time since a truly great character was born into the series (for me it was Knux's debut in Sonic 3) and apparently the wealth of ideas for this same cast of basic characters was beginning to dry up. Apart from Big's debut in SA1, there was the return of Amy (just a so-so character for me up till then) and the introduction of E-102 Gamma to try and flesh out the gameplay options to six for that game. None of these three lesser characters seemed to me to be a good fit for the series, and apparently Sonic Team had similar feelings. So for SA2, they felt they had to discard these characters and instead create something really edgy, really cool and badass to rival Sonic. This COULD have been a truly amazing idea had they decided to go with some sort of other character. But they chose another anthropomorphic hedgehog instead. When I first laid eyes on Shadow, I immediately thought to myself, "Oh no." Before even playing SA2 I had figured Sonic Team's reasons for creating him were to bring in revenue from a newer, younger generation of fans who may not have had the pleasure of playing any of the original Genesis games. And for the most part, I was right. Granted, his appearance in the game does make for some interesting conflicts between sides, but even the backstory of his creation and existence is greatly flawed and does no good for the whole of the Sonic canon. And I'm going to refer you to RedStripedShoes's post to verify my claims. There is no doubt that Shadow's presence played a significant part in SA2's storyline, but a lot of the angst and aggression the Team instilled in him I found to be largely unnecessary. And of course there's the end of the game where it is assumed that he dies. If this had been the true end of the Shadow character, then I would probably be a bit more accepting of his inclusion in the series. He served his purpose, which was to come in for a single game, create a buzz among Sonic fans, and be left right there. Bringing him back in Heroes was a huge mistake, not just because of the fact that you simply don't bring someone back from the dead, but also as it showed even more clearly that Sonic Team was phasing out their efforts to please the old-school fans and instead focus much more on the newer fans who absolutely loved this new, mysterious character.

I was going to try to split this into paragraphs, but oh well.

tl;dr: Shadow has had no meaningful use in the series past SA2.

 

I was in fifth grade when Sonic Adventure 2 came out, and at that time the only reason why I wanted to play the game was because of that crazy looking black hedgehog in the trailer. 7 years later, my opinion is completely different. Part of me feels that Shadow is everything that's wrong with the franchise as of right now. This was the beginning of the "let's show boat a new character every game" campaign, and kind of the beginning of the end if you ask me.

Still, he does look really cool.

 

Back when SA2 came out I thought Shadow was brilliant, and when I play through the last story mode I am very sad to see him die. BUT WHY BRING HIM BACK!?!?

I wouldn't have minded if he was an unlockable alternative to Sonic in later games, but to actually properly bring him back from being aparrently dead ruins it. When the game Shadow the Hedgehog came out I thought it would be brilliant and rescue his character. I felt it would reveal many things I didn't understand, but it just made me more confused with its alternative paths. In Sonic 06, although every storyline was dreadful in my opinion, Shadow's storyline at least wasnt plagued with the whole "Who am I?" thing.

To put it simply, Shadow is a brilliant character, he just shouldn't have been used after SA2. When he died in SA2, it was a perfectly written ending for his character. It was emotional and made me respect the character. A respect that I only feel when playing SA2. However, when I hear that Shadow is in a new game that is coming out I don't judge that he will suck immediately. He has potential and Sega need to use his character in moderation.

 

I think Shadow was supposed to be a tenrec, mostly because he's a "fake hedgehog", and tenrecs are sometimes reffered to as fake hedgehogs.



Ultimate life? Blah.

 

He's a faggot, the people who thought up his character deserve to be anal raped with a massive (black) cock every night in a jail cell for 20 years.

 

I am not fond of Shadow at all, and the poor "music" that goes with the character in SA2 does not make things any better...

 

When I was also in grade school, I also was enthralled by the look and feel of Shadow in SA2:B. He was one of my favorite characters back then with a very fitting storyline and ending. Now n' days I stay away from all games past SA2 due to the crap factor being moderately too high for my liking, along with a dislike for Shadow. In my opinion, Shadow marked the point in the franchise where it became acceptable to use an over abundance of characters in the franchise with some badass attitude who feels they must follow their "destiny" to strive. Even SA1 and SA2 stretch it thin with me due to the mellow dramatic stories and the unneeded drama included, but I guess the Sonic Adventure series could be taken in its own regard as its own separate series as opposed to the Megadrive games.

tl;dr: Shadow is useless to me.

 

Bog off, naysayers! Shadow's an awesome representation of the youth of today - stripped of identity and disillusioned, forever trying to carve some fashion of identity and individuality, yet constantly haunted by the glaring reminder that you are just like everyone else around you. Wouldn't you be resentful if you knew you were no different to your peers yet can't shake the feeling that you should be capable of so much more?

Shadow's an awesome, well-written character and if you can't see that, you don't deserve to be playing the games

 

Why a gun?

He was cool in SA2 when the idea of anti-hero was still fresh to the Sonic series (Knuckles doesn't count, he was just retarded up until he realized he was being tricked). But then they took his fanbase of emos and 10 year olds and decided to flesh out those aspects of Shadow while leaving everyone else largely ignored.

To this day, we still know nothing of Sonic's official history other than Uncle Chuck and "Rrrrrrico Suave!".

 

Shadow is like a hemorrhoid, he goes then comes back and ends up being a bloody pain in the ass.

Like all hemorrhoids, he needs to go and stay gone.


It's not his character per se thats bad, its the situations and the stereotypical roles they place him in, conviniently after Sonic Adventure 2.

If he'd died and stayed dead in Sonic Adventure 2, we probably wouldnt even be having this conversation since he'd be a much more memorable character.

 

I don't think this is official, but as far as I know, Shadow is a hedgehog because he was based upon the Echidna ruins' Super Sonic drawings, that's why he has such similar spikes and can use the power of the Chaos Emeralds so easily. This can be true since the ARK had replicas of the ruins.

Also this would be badass:

lol Shadow performing a Shun Goku Satsu on Eggman

 

Wow...this is actually so true...never thought about it like that. Actually, I'd rather say that 'Shadow the Hedgehog' was the true 'jumping the shark' moment. I mean, heroes was bad enough but after that game what have we had? Riders/2? Secret rings? 2006? =/

The games just keep getting shittier. I finally got a chance to play unleashed but even Sonic's levels were largely just 'hold-right-and-go-way-faster-than-you-ever-did-in-the-genesis-games.' You don't have a hope of enjoying your awesome surroundings if you're going so fast that it requires hardly any skill to play. :/

I think it just goes to show that really, Sega only cares about Sonic as a vehicle to make money since the DC, and games like 'shadow the hedgehog' prove that.