[Jayextee]

Agreeing with the Shadow staying dead thing... with a little addendum.

You know, imagine about five games from now, if Shadow had been dead since SA2, and all of a sudden he turns up, like Akuma to Robotnik's Bison (Super Street Fighter II Turbo - if you don't understand the reference, shame on you).

THAT would be badass.

Similarly, Akuma is now an embarrassing 'token inclusion' in the SF series. Looks like game developers don't know how to do 'mysterious' properly.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Hybrid Project Alpha, on Mar 22 2009, 08:55 PM, said:

He was the best thing ever in SA2, I still think he's a really interesting character with a lot of potential, but they keep pulling him in all the wrong directions. Although, I think his death at the end of SA2 was his best moment, and I prefer to continue believing the Shadow we have now is a copy.

For the record, I really and truly enjoyed his own game, it may have had shortcomings but it was genuinely a lot of fun and that's all that counts.

It had interesting concepts. Since Shadow was the only playable character they really had to put a lot of effort towards making each stage have something unique and interesting in it, and the three-way battle between Eggman, GUN, and the Aliens meant there was a lot more than just 6 different enemies to fight.

Problem was... it was ugly as sin, controlled like shit, featured levels that went on three times too long thanks to cut-and-pasting, and had an offensively bad plot (and, if you played it on the PS2, it had the worst framerate imaginable).

This post has been edited by BlazeHedgehog: 22 March 2009 - 08:31 PM

[serpx]

I remember having mixed feelings on seeing Shadow the Hedgehog. He is an interesting character -- I sometimes wish they took a different design route rather than being a black hedgehog.

I don't love him, though I don't hate him. He is tolerable, though, like some, I wish he just died in Sonic Adventure 2. It would've solidified him in my opinion, rather than make him a sometimes useless additional character to just tag along with the adventures of Sonic and whomever else.

What would Sonic Team have made if Shadow the Hedgehog died in SA2? Tails was the 3rd character on the popularity poll ... would he have possibly won his own game? Surely Tails wouldn't be rampaging around dual wielding submachine guns if so.

[Chaos Knux]

I believe Shadow is doing rather well, but we all know one opinion is equivalent to a pile of fecal matter in this universe.
Shadow's debut in SA2 was without a doubt his best performance, being an evil creature who looks just similar enough to fool people in game into thinking he was Sonic in a ninja outfit... at night... when the only witness was likely a half-blind old man. Shadow's role as a "Vegeta" (as if the Sonic series didn't have ENOUGH DBZ shit in it before...) to the series was pretty much all I needed to be able to stay interested in Sonic to this day. Besides, they need someone in the game who knew about the 50 year old plans of Dr. Gerald Robotnik, Grandfather to Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik.

In Heroes and his own game, I'll grant you he was slightly annoying with the "Who am I Why am I here What is my purpose?". But overall, the amnesia plot was inevitable, and the STILL did it again with Chip in Unleashed.

In Sonic '06, he seemed to redeem himself as the badass military man, or so I gather from the cutscenes on Youtube.

So far, I'd say he's breaking even.

[BlackHole]

serpx, on Mar 23 2009, 01:35 AM, said:

What would Sonic Team have made if Shadow the Hedgehog died in SA2? Tails was the 3rd character on the popularity poll ... would he have possibly won his own game? Surely Tails wouldn't be rampaging around dual wielding submachine guns if so.

Of course not...he'd be wielding dual Plasma Blasters going gainst the Ancient Kitsune clan, who want the 7 Chaos Emeralds to wipe out all life but Kitsunes. Soon it's revealed that Tails is a lost member of the Kitsune clan, and gains a 9-tailed form to fight his dad, the leader.

[muteKi]

Jayextee, on Mar 22 2009, 08:47 PM, said:

CAUTION: THIS TOPIC MAY CONTAIN CONTROVERSY

Surrounded by replicas of Mephiles, there is not way out. Shadow, Rouge and Omega have got to fight. The golden rings are finally off the cuffs of the gloves, will Shadow unleash this alledged 'ultimate power' he so often blathers about?

YES! Covered in raw energy, blazing through the field of Mephiles clones, knocking them aside as if they were skittles, this is the epitome of pure badass, right there.

Just a shame you had to sit through Shadow's chapter of Sonic '06 to see it

There's potential in the maniacal berzerker, none in the angstbag -- he has a "mysterious past", and yet we know more of it than for any other character. WTF.

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.

[Hybrid Project Alpha]

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.

[muteKi]

BlackHole, on Mar 22 2009, 09:45 PM, said:

serpx, on Mar 23 2009, 01:35 AM, said:

What would Sonic Team have made if Shadow the Hedgehog died in SA2? Tails was the 3rd character on the popularity poll ... would he have possibly won his own game? Surely Tails wouldn't be rampaging around dual wielding submachine guns if so.

Of course not...he'd be wielding dual Plasma Blasters going gainst the Ancient Kitsune clan, who want the 7 Chaos Emeralds to wipe out all life but Kitsunes. Soon it's revealed that Tails is a lost member of the Kitsune clan, and gains a 9-tailed form to fight his dad, the leader.

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

[dooky]

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.

[Dark Sonic]

Hybrid Project Alpha, on Mar 22 2009, 06:16 PM, said:

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.

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?

[BlackHole]

muteKi, on Mar 23 2009, 02:37 AM, said:

BlackHole, on Mar 22 2009, 09:45 PM, said:

serpx, on Mar 23 2009, 01:35 AM, said:

What would Sonic Team have made if Shadow the Hedgehog died in SA2? Tails was the 3rd character on the popularity poll ... would he have possibly won his own game? Surely Tails wouldn't be rampaging around dual wielding submachine guns if so.

Of course not...he'd be wielding dual Plasma Blasters going gainst the Ancient Kitsune clan, who want the 7 Chaos Emeralds to wipe out all life but Kitsunes. Soon it's revealed that Tails is a lost member of the Kitsune clan, and gains a 9-tailed form to fight his dad, the leader.

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

*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

This post has been edited by BlackHole: 22 March 2009 - 10:16 PM

[RedStripedShoes]

Quote of myself from another thread.

Quote

The only reason I'm not a big fan of Shadow is because he is a hedgehog. Why does this bother me? Because the idea of the ultimate life-form being an anthropomorphic hedgehog seems totally arbitrary when taken out of context. If the ultimate life-form were a humanoid, that would make sense, as this would reflect the philosophical bias harbored by the human scientists who created the life-form. But they instead made a hedgehog. And it wasn't because they were inspired by a certain speedy blue hedgehog, because Shadow was developed (correct me if I'm wrong) at least 35 years before Sonic was ever born. Nor have the games ever provided sufficient evidence that anthropomorphic hedgehogs are, in fact, the fastest living macroorganisms known to man. With all that said, the choice by the scientific minds in charge of the Ultimate Life-Form project to model it after a hedgehog is downright unreasonable. And if we say that the scientists had no control over what the final result would look like, that makes it all the more inconceivable. And if we finally see that the random choice of animal happens to be the EXACT SAME SPECIES as a spiky blue blur who has since gained world renown as a great hero, well that... JUST MAKES NO GODDAMN SENSE!!!

[Copornocus]

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.

[jawn.sith]

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.

This post has been edited by jawn.sith: 22 March 2009 - 11:27 PM

[Graxer]

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.

This post has been edited by Graxer: 23 March 2009 - 03:51 AM