TSS REVIEW: Shadow the Hedgehog

When you think of Shadow the Hedgehog these days, you tend to think of Star Wars. Ever since the character's creation, there have been constant references to whether he allies with a Hero or Dark side, and it's gotten pretty stale to be honest. And as you'd expect, this premise not only rears its head again in the anti-hero's very own video game, but forms the entire basis of the character's storyline. Only for once, the choice of Hero/Dark actually seems to fit right in.

Playing as the Sonic universe's only representative of 'angst', you control the titular Shadow as he zips along levels, bounces off of robots, collects rings and tries to stop an ultimate enemy. That's pretty much where the similarities to standard Sonic games end. In Shadow the Hedgehog, there are a choice of missions to complete (instead of the one goal just handed to you), you can bounce off of humans and aliens as well, and can even choose to shoot them down with automatic weapons. Your 'ultimate enemy' here also depends on the path you take throughout the game's story.

Sonic Team has impressively managed to avoid aggravating fans with its THIRD instance of Shadow searching his past, by this time wrapping a nice and twisted storyline around it. Takashi Iizuka at his edgy world-building best, Shadow the Hedgehog returns fans to the bleak and dark world as we last knew it in Sonic Adventure 2. Instead now, the world is being attacked by a new evil - the Black Arms. Its leader, Black Doom, meets with Shadow (with the best Dr. Claw impression) who reminds him that he was supposed to bring the alien army the Chaos Emeralds. 

So Shadow sets forth to uncover these powerful gems, as he realises that whatever promise he made to Black Doom - and whatever secrets his past has in relation to it - will be uncovered once he 'catches 'em all'. It's quite an interesting story; not since Sonic Adventure 2 has such a moody premise been successfully established on an otherwise happy and bouncy video game franchise.

In fact, there's a lot to be appreciated in Shadow the Hedgehog, because it's not a Sonic game and therefore doesn't follow the series' standard gameplay procedure. However, the game does fail to aid the player and communicate these gameplay changes to them. Your first playthrough will no doubt be insanely confusing, and there won't be much help from the game alerting you to goal differences.

The levels range from extremely linear to confusingly free-roaming, which makes for a bit of inconsistency in the overall design. Stages such as Westopolis and GUN Fortress are boringly-simple "run forward" affairs, while Central City and The Ark result in you running around in circles on your first agitated attempt. Mad Matrix appears to be one of the only stages that manages to pull off a mix of these extremes. With a little bit of practice (and trial and error) you might start to enjoy these levels much more.

Unfortunately, 'trial and error' is kind of describes playing the entire game. Sonic fans who have been following news of this title won't be surprised to find that they have a 'Hero' (good) or 'Dark' (evil) mission to freely choose to complete. What they will be surprised by is how exactly this works in practice, once they have decided which side to align with.

Initially, you won't know whether your objective should be to reach the Goal Ring (as per standard Sonic game), or to defeat more good/bad guys than the other and then reach the Goal Ring, or simply ignore the Goal Ring altogether. In the first stage, you quickly run into Sonic and start working with him to kick bad guy butt... but then suddenly Sonic disappears and you're met with Doom's Eye instead - supposedly to satisfy his 'defeat good guy' conditions. This partner-switching occurs about three times in each level, making for quite a headache on your first run.

Your first instinct is to switch allegiances as suddenly as your partners do. But there's no mention that you can still continue to accomplish the Hero mission while Doom's Eye is floating around, should you want to (or even that you can change your visible partner/side from the pause menu). Besides an easily-ignored icon on the side of the screen, and a few missable soundbites, there's really nothing to indicate the many options you have available to complete each mission.

Again, this becomes clearer on repeat playthroughs, but on your first run at least you'll be tempted to just play Shadow the Hedgehog like any other Sonic game - instead of avoiding the Goal Ring and defeating 30 aliens, for example, you'll likely just defeat more aliens than GUN troops and then head for the exit, expecting a Hero's job well done. In actual fact, the game will think you've chosen not to pick a side and before you know it you've blasted through all the stages in Normal Mission mode without even realising it.

It'd be tempting to see an ending cutscene, roll credits and decide that the game is way too short, shallow or just plain rubbish. But once you play the game some more, you realise just where Shadow the Hedgehog is coming from. The ability to choose your path is quite a unique one, and you'll be replaying the story often in order to see all of the stages in the OutRun-style route map.

However, there is a bit of a cloud to that silver lining, as character partner missions become quite repetitive. These tasks usually boil down to either shooting something to pieces, shooting your way to an exit, or shooting switches. So you can shoot planes. To pieces. There isn't a lot of variety or imagination here, and all of these challenges require you to be using a gun or five to actually accomplish them.

Not only that, but picking a side doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be safe from their attacks. In fact, no matter who you have following you, all enemies will focus their fire on you. This doesn't really become a problem in combat as you usually end up kicking the crap out of anything that stands in your path anyway. But because the controls are a little too loose and 'airy' (a result of Shadow the Hedgehog's code being based off of the Sonic Heroes engine), you'll inevitably end up running into several supposedly 'friendly' NPCs, which will hurt you.

It would have been better if the game was clever enough to know which side you were leaning towards through your gameplay (or even have your chosen allegiance determined by the character partner that you choose to run alongside you) and set it so that you don't lose rings when bumping into allies. Unfortunately, it's not the case, and the unique selling point of 'choosing a side' is lost a little bit - to stay on the safe side, your solution will be to mindlessly shoot everyone.

We finally have to address the elephant in the room. And you might think you know where we're going with our assessment of this particular gameplay feature. But strangely enough, the use of guns in this game feels somewhat... natural? I mean, in a game such as this, with such a dark atmosphere, it doesn't look out of place, and actually picking up and using weapons is an effortless process. Rather than turn Shadow the Hedgehog into a shallow experience, it's added an extra layer of fast-paced fun to the Sonic formula.

Having said that, even though you do have the option to not use weapons (Sonic doesn't like them. Don't make Sonic sad), the game makes it quite a chore for you to be doing anything else. The Spin Dash has been reduced to an awkward move with little use whatsoever. Your homing attack ends up being useless after a third hit on a boss or mission objective, and there are atrocious glitches where you'll just fly towards a bottomless pit somewhere, in a direction opposite to where you wanted to go. On top of that, aliens and the larger GUN units will require at least five hits to defeat, and using the homing attack too often consecutively will usually result in you getting hurt. You really can't avoid using guns in this game at all.

Going back to the Sonic Heroes engine to discuss the graphics in this game, they're not that bad really. The CG cutscenes are absolutely superb, and a credit to the game. The in-game graphics are what we might expect from Sonic Heroes (albeit a darker Sonic Heroes). Even though the animations are well done (Dr. Eggman at his characteristic finest), they do seem a little strange when used in cutscenes outside boss scenes. Overall, they could have done worse.

The music is a step ahead of some other Sonic 3D outings, with Jun Senoue presenting some of his best electronic and rock tracks yet. Mad Matrix and Lethal Highway are extremely catchy tunes that perfectly capture the insane events going on in those stages. There's a wonderful set of remixes by Remix Factory, and there are five or six different theme tunes by various artists - the best among them being by Julien-K, who seem to have a flair for making music that captures Shadow's character easily. It's good to see the electronic rock group - two former members of Orgy - can whack out a decent track, even if they can't be bothered to whack out an album yet.

In terms of gameplay mechanics, there are a few things here that help spice things up from your typical Sonic platformer. Aside from the level structure and the weaponry, one key gimmick is the Hero and Dark gauges sitting at the top of the screen. Every time Shadow defeats a Hero character his Dark gauge gets filled, and vice versa. There are two separate scores for Hero and Dark, that are tallied up at the end (unless you complete a Normal Mission).

Whenever you completely fill one of these bars, Shadow will either turn blue (if you fill your Hero gauge) or red (for Dark) with rage. You'll not only be invincible during this time, but upon pressing Y or Triangle, you'll unleash a special move depending on your alliance. If you're full of Dark energy, you'll unleash a Chaos Blast and destroy everything in the area. Hero energy will let you Chaos Control - meaning you zoom across the level towards the nearest mission objective (usually the goal ring). It becomes quite handy in a fix.

There are also special keys in a level - five in each - which will open a secret door to goodies - although these goodies will usually be worthless. Despite the intense positive hype behind Shadow being able to drive vehicles in the run-up to this game's release, in practice these are in fact extremely cumbersome, super slow and add no real excitement at all. You're better off just running fast - you'll hit about ten allies, but at least you'll finish the level quicker.

One thing that can't be dismissed is the longevity of this game. Shadow the Hedgehog is a game that is wonderfully replayable, once you get used to the controls and gameplay. There are ten different regular endings, although many of these are similar and most end up telling you nothing at all. Getting 'A' Ranks is easier yet more fun this time around, and there are about 326 different paths to complete in the whole Story Mode. Granted, not many people will bother to go the whole hog (if you pardon the pun) on that one, but the offer's there if you need it.

Shadow the Hedgehog has a two-player function to it, which is purely a last minute job as it holds little to no gameplay value at all. You can play as Shadow, a yellow-highlighted Shadow or various Shadow robots in a split-screen deathmatch, on a set of limited levels and options. It's hardly extensive, and rightly so seeings as not many people will be playing this game for a splitscreen mode.

Shadow the Hedgehog is a new and exciting spinoff for the Sonic series, but its downfall is that the game itself just doesn't seem to care about it. The main problem is that it overcomplicates itself - it's not a game you can pick up and play like a pro for the first time. It's not like Sonic the Hedgehog, where having never played the game you know exactly what you're doing. And it shouldn't be to this game's credit, because a game with features such as this should be explained clearly from the get-go.

Once you get into this game it becomes enjoyable on an average level, but the fact that you have to be playing this game for a while to actually 'get' it will turn off a lot of gamers. Watch out with this game - it has a Good and Bad side, just like its main character.

NOTE: This was given a score of 6/10 at time of original publication. We have converted its score to the below 5-star rating based on this score, and adjusted to best represent the original intent and sentiment of the overall article. This is not a re-scoring of this review.