Jason Griffith: Shadow the Hedgehog was going to be M-rated, with F-bombs

I want this very badly now. I doubt it was ever actually put in game and it was just voice direction testing, but it would've been so funny.

 

Sounds like yapping to me and something SEGA would have never seriously considered.

He might have had recordings where he used hard language but you'd also have me hard pressed to believe they ever had an M Rated Sonic game planned. Especially when no one else has ever shared anything vaguely similar to this.

 

...Wouldn't Sega have done the exact same thing with David since we already know that lines were recorded with the old cast?

...Isn't there footage of such a build with old voices?

 

"Where's that fucking fourth chaos emerald?" doesn't have the same ring to it.

 

Sound to be an misremembered and/or exaggerated account for the interview of the T/E10 ratings story

 

I thought last time someone asked Jason about the more-explicit dialogue he said something like "I remember recording a cleaner version but not a dirtier one". Is he just fucking with people?

 

Don't be so quick to write off things to bad memory. The Sonic online fandom always does this, and has been proven wrong many times.

I think it would be hard to utterly misremember something like that. There's probably some element of truth to the story. I never played the game, but I am well aware of some cuss words being thrown in. Maybe I'm biased and old fashioned, but I don't like it. I think that type of stuff just tarnishes the overall brand a bit. So I'm actually glad they didn't go for that M rating, let alone T rating. But even then, they could have done without any cussing in my opinion.

 

While it's easy to say the swearing was stupid in hindsight, at the time it was seen as the cool thing to do. The Sonic series was always trying to keep up with what was cool with teens, in the 90's that was an anti authoritarian skateboarding attitude. In the mid 2000's that was blood, swearing, and guns. So they adapted. There was definitely some people in 2005 who bought it specifically for the swearing.

 

Yeah I think the M-Rated takes were just test recordings made early into development to see how far they could push things without it sounding too 'weird' for Sonic/how far they could push the ESRB ratings while remaining accessible. I have a lot of trouble believing Jason would entirely make this up if there's as much dialog as he recalls recording, but at the same time I genuinely can't imagine them greenlighting a Sonic game where Shadow shouts 'fuck' every other line.

...Though honestly I'd love to hear them if they still exist on a hard drive somewhere. I'm immature and wanna see my cartoon furry characters swear.

What's the context of this particular quote? I do know that some of the dialog was softened up in the released build. Maybe he was simply referring to mission-specific dialog that would've been added later that they needed a 'cleaner' take for after the ESRB 10+ rating was decided on?

 

True, though, "Where that's fourth fucking Chaos Emerald?" almost does.

 

I doubt he literally said fuck quite as often as he implied, but I also have 0 reasons to believe this wasn't true. I've met Griffith before, and he's a pretty straightforward and fun guy. Even if he's embellishing a little bit (which isn't uncommon in these types of panel answers), he'd never outright lie about it.

I'm sure the f bomb was recorded with him a few times during these sessions, but it was obviously never used. It never, ever was going to work even back then.

Would I love to hear those lines? Sure. But I'd treat it like I treat most of the game, a weird anomaly that doesn't fit well with the rest of the series, and exists purely for bizarre entertainment value.

 

No it was stupid back in 2005 too. If you can stomach old forum posts you can see what Retro thought (or Sonic 2 Beta as it probably was then) - we were always sceptical of the guns.


I like the idea of Shadow spending a whole game swearing at people. I'm surprised someone hasn't already modded the game to do that, alongside copious amounts of offensive red particles.

 

In an alternate timeline, Sonic Team made the Sonic equivalent to GTA, where there's blood everywhere and Shadow's the "ultimate fucking life form, bitch".

 

I don't really see any reason to not believe Jason given he doesnt really have a history of fibbing. This is a neat little tidbit to uncover though, I do hope those recordings leak someday

 

My first thought was that we already have an idea how this might have sounded in action, thanks to House of the Dead: Overkill.

I played through that game once on the Wii, in co-op with a cousin. The frequent, excessive profanity and "raw" themes were a comedic sight to behold. I have to admit, I would play such a version of Shadow, if only to see how far they doubled down on the darker adult themes!

This series has truly endless possibilities, y'all

I agree, "damn" works so much better. Two consecutive words with "F" at the start doesn't flow as easily off the tongue.

Teenage me is guilty as charged

 

Wait until you find out about the R-rated version of Sonic Heroes. The original version is basically unplayable when Big isn't shouting "WHERE THE FUCK IS FROGGY?"

 

There is literally one screenshot's worth of evidence that does indeed show ShTH's script having more swears at some point.

Whether or not Sonic was gonna say fuck is yet to be seen.

 

This is news to me. Anyone know where to find this footage?