Recently the streamer Snapcube (well known for the real-time fandubs of Sonic games with her friends collectively known as Clownhouse) played through Shadow the Hedgehog with her friend MarKatoto. It inspired me to play through the game myself a bit with the Reloaded mod since I am worryingly autistic about a weirdly large stan of this deranged shitty (positive) game, and while I have some thoughts, one that really stuck out to me is how much non-essential dialogue is in this game. I don't mean this in a negative way, too, I'm honestly impressed. Heroes has this too, but I don't particularly care for it and am much more familiar with Shadow, so that's the focus of this topic. Nearly every single event that has dialogue in Shadow has unique lines for each of the story paths in the missions. Most of these are tutorial text, yeah, but the fact that they all are flavorful and come from the characters is impressive. Partner characters remark on stuff relevant only to the opposite path's mission, too; for instance, in Digital Circuit, if you bypass the Hero mission's end and go to the section afterwards (which leads to the Dark's objective), Rouge comments that she has no idea where the two of you are. In Sky Troops, shooting down Eggman's battleships pisses him off and so does destroying the temple gems when you have Black Doom with you, things you have zero in-game incentive to do. Even incidental dialogue is flavorful, such as Sonic remarking that he'd never be in a car without windows in Lethal Highway while talking about the Black Arms tank, Black Doom telling Shadow he can't turn back from the irredeemable actions he's done if he passes a mother computer in GUN Fortress or Tails remarking about how scared he is about the upcoming night in Air Fleet (a level that can only be accessed through mostly helping the Black Arms crush humanity...why is Tails even asking for help at this point. Also why is he on the Gun battleship LOL this game's story is dumb as shit I love this stupid piece of shit game). There's also dialogue that you're either literally unable to access normally or you have no reason to access as well! In stages where there's only a Dark and Hero mission and no Neutral (which are always Shadow by himself) mission, pressing down on the D-pad to force the game into "Neutral" state results in Shadow having unique dialogue in all the places the partner character would normally talk. You can't access this "neutral" state through the menu and the only way you can hear this dialogue if you press down on the d-pad and put the game into Neutral for no reason (since there's no Neutral Mission). The Reloaded mod also lets you swap at all times, and they for some reason made unique dialogue for partner characters before you can even meet them, meaning that dialogue is literally inaccessible without hacking. WHY DOES THIS EXIST. There's so much voicework in this game for like, no reason, and it's honestly impressive as hell to me. Obviously, you can contest that it's not all good, but personally as a fan of the Sonic cast it's really cool to me personally that they went to the trouble of writing and voicing unique stuff for basically every situation you can find yourself in, and making sure it's in-character too. Plenty of Sonic fans have their personal "this game's concept could have made for something great" and Shadow is that game for me. I feel like there's something amazing buried in the non-linear, run-based, branching gameplay structure in there...past all the insane, deranged, nonsensical plot, awful controls, unhinged level design, goofy ahh missions...uh, yeah, this game is Not Good but god I want to see them try this again...
Well, we did hear about shadow dropping much worse cursing than what they actually went with, so that means they were constantly recording alternate dialogue for pretty much every plausible scenario.
This post is how I discovered a 'General improvement' mod for the game even exists. So, thanks for that! I actually have quite the soft spot for Shadow from a gameplay standpoint, but some of the mission requirements mashed with maze-like level design drag it down heavily. It can actually be a really enjoyable experience when the level you're playing falls into neither of the two issues. Sadly most routes are guilty of at least having one or two offenders. I already really like the minimized mission requirements and more linear Final Story/Expert Mode unlock requirements. Might have to give this mod a try one day. I think Shadow's abundance of dialog is primarily due to it being a followup to Heroes. I think with Heroes, the development team just saw these quips as interesting character building or created a stronger sense of 'teamwork' between the three characters you control (that's what I see the decision as, at least). It's a neat idea on paper having characters react to the world around them rather than being static little prop pieces that move from Point A to Point B. The key is striking a balance between interesting dialog and making sure you don't annoy the player either with what dialog you have, which is a criticism I see a lot for Heroes. It makes sense to keep that dialog idea when you're running errands for everyone else and want those characters by the side of the person you're playing as. Shadow's implementation is a bit more interesting I think due to the game having a slightly larger emphasis on story in each individual level. Now, I'm not saying Shadow's story is fantastic, but it's pretty great to hear one side in Sky Troops attack you for doing actions that aid the enemy like you stated. It's also pretty non-sensical in a lot of situations. Again, going back to Sky Troops, you can just...blatantly disobey Black Doom and destroy the Gems right in front of his eyes...Which then leads to him asking for Shadow's help in the very next stage. No hint of malice or anger in his voice! You can also do something like this in the very first stage of the game which you think would cause Black Doom to flip his lid sooner, but nah. I think another thing that helps Shadow's case over Heroes is that you truly can disable the others quipping in your ear and just listen to Shadow. Granted, this isn't terribly well documented in-game at all (I think there's one hint that alludes to it?), but it's there. Muting the dialog also works too, but I think just Shadow is a 'happy medium' between two other characters chatting away at the situation you're in. I also am glad to hear someone mention Tails' dialog in Air Fleet. it's weirdly unnerving the way he words his concerns. Shadow's routing system as a whole is really neat and I think there's a lot of potential in the idea as well. I had more to say and wanted to draw comparisons to another Sega title that sort of had a similar branching system, but eh. Getting long-winded here.
I'm reminded of when some people on Retro documented the name of every single path you can take in Shadow. There's over three hundred permutations and someone had to think up a name for every single one. Now I like to write, but I can tell you if it were me I'd give up after the 20th name out of fear the collective edginess would bring harm to my wrists. Some people on the team clearly put a lot of effort into it. Can't say it made for a better game, but it is interesting.
Technically over 300+ endings and yet all of them are completely pointless because of the one true ending the game has, which makes the effort put into the titles sting even more.
Technically over 300+ endings if you're going by Todd Howard logic. That said I forgot about the true ending, and you're right, it does kind of negate the effort put into those titles, but then again you could say that about a lot of content in StH. The whole choose your own path system and other endings are also kind of meaningless because they're all made completely non-canon anyway even though they make you play them to get the true ending in the first place. oops
