My reviews of Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog

[T-Min]

I wrote this review for my blog and I thought you guys might be interested in reading it and stuff ;D

EDIT: Shadow review can be found in one of my posts below.

Sonic Heroes was released in early 2004 to mixed reception from both the fans and the critics and is sometimes considered the point where the franchise starting its downhill spiral that it has just now broken out of. I, myself, absolutely loved it as a kid, but do I still care for it as much now that I'm an older, more seasoned gamer? It's time to find out!

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Sonic Heroes focuses on four teams of characters: Team Sonic, made of up your usual Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower and Knuckles the Echidna; Team Dark, made up of series veterans Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat as well as new character E-123 Omega, who is a robot that Eggman built; Team Rose, made up of Amy Rose, Cream the Rabbit (first introduced in Sonic Advance 2), and Big the Cat; and finally, Team Chaotix, made up of Espio the Chameleon, Vector the Crocodile, and Charmy the Bee, all characters from an old 32X spinoff that very few people even knew about. So why did they even bring them back? Well, we'll see soon enough. Anyway, Team Sonic's story is exactly what you would expect: Eggman's planning something evil and they've got to, in Sonic's words, "CRACK THAT EGGMAN WIDE OPEN! YEAH, LET'S PARTY!" Team Rose has to find Froggy and a lost Chao named Chocola, and Team Chaotix (being a detective agency) has to help out a mysterious client by completing missions. Team Dark's storyline is the most interesting: whilst breaking into Eggman's base, Rouge finds Omega and the thought-to-be-deceased Shadow (who can't remember anything), and they all pursue Eggman for their own reasons - Shadow for answers as to his lost memories, Rouge for treasure and Omega for revenge.

Sonic Heroes was the first 3-D Sonic game after the Adventure series, and changes things up from them by introducing the team gimmick. Rather than controlling each team member separately in their own levels as in Sonic Adventure 2, each of a team's three members are controlled at once. Each team is made up of a "speed" character, a "flight" character and a "power" character. The formation of the team changes depending on which one is the leader, and the leader can be switched out using the "Y" and "X" buttons (on the GameCube). Obviously, while in "speed" formation, the game moves at its fastest, and you will also be able to use the homing attack, which is useful for damaging enemies and sometimes even crossing gaps using said enemies. Speed characters also have a tornado move that can knock enemies off balance or take away the shields of some enemies as well as allow the team to swing off of poles, and some can even dash along a trail of rings by pressing the "B" button or jump between walls. When in "flight" formation, the characters stack on top of each other, with the flight character on top, allowing him/her to carry the entire team by flying. The flight character can also shoot the characters s/he's carrying as electrified balls to damage enemies. Finally, when in "power" formation, the team's attack power increases, making this formation useful for clearing obstacles and fighting groups of enemies. The power character can also throw other team members at enemies as fireballs, and can also float, which can be used to propel everyone upwards in areas with giant fans. You will often have to switch between characters to suit different situations or clear certain areas, and sometimes you can take a different path or shortcut depending on which formation you're in. Overall, the team gimmick is unique and places a fun twist on the usual fast platforming gameplay.

One thing that fans will appreciate is the callbacks to the original Genesis Sonic games. In the classics, there were always "Zones" with two (three in the first game) "Acts," or stages, in each, followed by a boss. Things are much the same way in Heroes. While it drops "Acts" and "Zones," you always go through two similarly-themed levels and then fight a boss before moving on to two more similarly-themed levels. Special stages also return from the classics. To access them, you have to find a caged key somewhere in the stage, and avoid getting hit for the rest of the stage to keep it. If you have it when you get to the end of the stage, you will enter the special stage. The way the special stage works is that you must gather spheres scattered around the stage to keep your boost gauge up, which you use by pressing the "B" button repeatedly, as you make your way to either the goal ring or a Chaos Emerald, and the boost will become more effective the more spheres you get. If you enter the special stage in the first of a pair of stages, your spheres will count toward your score, which will be converted into points if you get to the goal ring. If you enter in the second stage of a pair, you will be racing against a Chaos Emerald, of which you will need seven to enter the final story, and you can only have it if you catch up to it. It's actually a pretty fun special stage, and I think that the fact that you have to get the Chaos Emeralds yourself in this game rather than receiving them over the course of the story like in other 3-D Sonics makes things more interesting.

Sonic Heroes succeeds aesthetically as well. The graphics are very good for their time, featuring bright, colorful enivironments. Most of the character models are pretty good, too, but I can't help but think that a few of them are a bit shinier than they should be. Heroes also features a great soundtrack for the stages. While, as usual, I found that most of the vocal themes didn't appeal to me personally, there were a couple that I liked: namely, "This Machine," a catchy industrial rock track, and "What I'm Made Of," the final boss theme.

So, Sonic Heroes does get several things right. It's a bit unfortunate that the rest of the game doesn't fare quite as well. While the gimmick of the week is fun and the gameplay is as fast-paced as ever, not everything about the gameplay succeeds. First of all, the grinding mechanics in this game suck. In Sonic Adventure 2, your speed upon hitting a rail was determined by how much momentum you had beforehand. To keep moving fast, you had to hold the "B" button down to crouch, but you couldn't keep holding it down or Sonic would lose balance. In addition, while I suppose this is more related to the level design, you usually wouldn't be grinding for a very long time without having to partake in some form of interaction or platforming. None of this is so in Heroes. You still hold the "B" button to go faster, but prior momentum is not a factor when jumping onto a rail, nor is balance. Grinding pretty much boils down to holding the B button while the game does the rest for you, which is honestly kind of boring. This would just be a nitpick if it weren't for the fact that this game places a much larger emphasis on grinding than in Adventure 2. Outright automation extends to the few loops that the game has. When going through a loop, you are thrust into a semi-scripted event that strips control completely away from you. This doesn't bother me for most of the smaller loops in the game (such as the ones in Seaside Hill and Ocean Palace), but when it comes to larger ones such as those in Grand Metropolis and Frog Forest, I just found it to be pretty annoying.

The game feels pretty darn unpolished. Though I wouldn't quite call the Adventure games "polished," it was pretty rare that the glitches would intrude on the experience, at least in the Dreamcast versions. Unfortunately, I can't say the same thing for Sonic Heroes. There are times when a homing attack or light dash will backfire, which can lead to your doom. In the few boss fights where you will be using the Thunder Shoot ability, the hit detection for it can be severely off at times, leading to frustration. Also, notice that I referred to the loops in the above paragraph as "semi-scripted". Dare to let go of the control stick while running through them and the game will glitch out. It doesn't glitch out severely, but it happens. There are two levels featuring pinball mechanics, but the controls are kind of unresponsive when on the pinball tables. This was probably, to an extent, intentional, but it adds needless frustration to these stages. And none of this is even getting into the camera. 3-D camera angles were never quite Sonic's best friend, but the camera in this game sometimes likes to go through walls, and also won't always clearly show bottomless pits. If you try to turn it with the shoulder buttons, it moves pretty slowly and can sometimes make the angle even worse. Though you should be able to, you can't use the C-Stick to turn the camera around, as moving it in ANY direction causes you to switch to a completely useless first-person view. Just...why?

Even if these problems with the gameplay had been fixed, there is another element that's of almost equal importance in a platformer: the level design, and in Sonic Heroes, it's pretty much a mixed bag. There is a lot of variety in mechanics and gimmicks, and, as mentioned earlier, there are times when you can take a different path or shortcut depending on which team formation you're using, which is great. On the other hand, (again, as mentioned earlier) some levels feature long sections of the aforementioned boring grinding. Another problem is that the levels sometimes feel like they're relying on beat-em-up elements too much in a game that's supposed to be a platformer. I have no problem with there being SOME sections where you have to defeat a group of enemies to succeed - after all, that's one of the things that the power character is for, right? The problem is that there are just too many of them.

Boss design is even more of a mixed bag than the level design. At the end of each pair of levels you will either fight Eggman himself, one of the game's other playable teams, or several waves of enemy robots. Eggman battles are an absolute joke, and can be won just by continually spamming a single attack. Team battles, on the opposite end of the spectrum, are freaking frustrating. It's supposed to be like rock-paper-scissors, where the opposing team is in one formation and you have to choose the formation it's weak to, but the game never makes it completely clear which formation is weak to which, and even if you do figure it out, it's still pretty annoying. The only bosses that I really enjoyed were the ones that required you to fight off waves of Eggman's robots. These were legitimately difficult and pretty darn fun. In fact, if they wanted so much emphasis on beat-em-up elements, why didn't they just make a few more of those? Aside from those battles, the only boss I liked was the true final boss, which, while not as great as the ones from Sonic 3 & Knuckles or the Adventure games, was still pretty fun.

Unfortunately, the problems don't quite end there. Sonic Heroes is a pretty short game...that is, it WOULD be if you didn't have to play through it three more times before gaining access to the last story! As I stated earlier, Sonic Heroes offers four teams to control. What I didn't say was that you have to complete the game with all of them to unlock the final story! Normally, I wouldn't have a problem with this; after all, you know what they say, the MORE the MERRIER! Ohohoho - no, I won't ever quote that line again. *ahem* The problem is that the order and designs of the levels are exactly the same when going through it with each team, with the only difference being in difficulty. It pretty much forces you to play through the game on hard mode (Team Dark) and easy mode (Team Rose) before allowing you to fight the final boss. If you enjoyed the game the first time, you'll probably enjoy it again, but it's a cheap way to extend the game's length nonetheless.

And then there's the final team, Team Chaotix. Earlier in the review, I questioned why they were brought back, since very few people had even played the game they came from. Well, apparently, making you play through the game on different difficulties didn't cheaply extend the length quite enough, so Sonic Team saw fit to shoehorn these guys that nobody cared about in. So what difficulty are they? Super Easy Mode? Brutally Hard Mode? Nope. Team Chaotix's levels are mission-based, either requiring you to find a certain number of items in the level or proceed through a level stealthily. If you ask me, the item collecting stages are flawed conceptually. The Adventure games had stages that required you to hunt for items, but they were open-ended in design - like they should have been. Heroes' levels are linear in design, which, when combined with the game's bad camera, can sometimes make required items easy to miss. Sometimes, if you miss JUST ONE, you'll have to go back through the entire stage AGAIN just to find it. You'll also find yourself trying to explore around a lot to make sure you're not missing anything, which will require you to try to turn the camera, and considering how bad the camera is...yeah, I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. Especially notable is the mission in Mystic Mansion, which requires you to use your tornado ability to put out 60 red torches. How many red torches are there? 60 exactly. How long is the level? Long enough to decently space out 60 red freakin' torches.

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So, is Sonic Heroes the point where the series started going downhill? Unfortunately, I would have to say so. It's not quite a bad game; the gameplay can be pretty enjoyable at times and the team gimmick works well. However, almost every aspect of it is flawed in some way so that it seriously hurts the experience. Some would say that the Aventure games weren't that good, but I would still say that Heroes is the one where you could tell something was very wrong. Sorry, fans, but this one is a bargain bin purchase at best.

Score: 5/10

Edited August 13, 2011 by Rigby

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

Five outta ten? I would've given it a little more credit. True, it's a shell of the Adventure games, but it's hardly as bad as what was to come.

And yeah the grinding was awful. So awful, you might say this is where the franchise went-

-off the rails.

Edited August 8, 2011 by Soma

[T-Min]

And yeah the grinding was awful. So awful, you might say this is where the franchise went-

-off the rails.

Edited August 8, 2011 by Rigby

[Old dead account]

After replaying it, it just feels really bland and clunky. The Sonic gameplay in both Adventure's is much more enjoyable IMO, so much so that I would now rank both of them higher than Heroes despite the Mech/Hunting levels. My how my views have changed :/ (Still not what i'd consider terrible, but I'd only rank it a little bit higher than 5/10)

Edited August 8, 2011 by Gartocer

[Spooky Mulder]

I'd give Heroes like a 7.5 out of 10. No, it's not perfect, but I like the game much better than either of the Adventures.

The story is way too cheesy and the dialogue was...eggh...Despite that, I think it was a step in the right direction. Whereas the Adventure games didn't look the Classics in terms of environments, Heroes did. It was outlandish and fun, the Adventures were realistic and, in my opinion, dull. Look at Casinopolis and Casino Park, they're both takes on the same level trope, but they couldn't be more different. Frankly, I'll take something like Casino Park over Casinopolis any day.

Ocean Palace, Hang Castle, Egg Fleet...Heroes has great environments. The gameplay could be better, but I actually find it more tolerable than the slower paced Adventure games.

[\Lennox]

Me, I'd give it a 6.5/10. For me.

I guess the controls were slippery, which well, was true, but I'd forgive the fact that special stages had a comeback (despite being executed very horribly), and the fact that the level design was incredibly creative as compared to the Adventure series. Look at it! Frog Forest, Lost Jungle, Hang Castle, Mystic Mansion, Egg Fleet and a Casino level that actually looks like a proper Sonic level.

Well, the physics was kinda weird: much of it was actually evident in Rail Canyon and Bullet Station, where the grinding mechanics were incredibly wonky. Sadly enough, that was just one of two bases Eggman used, and he could've designed it better. The speed, however, drastically improved. Much of the levels had great designs but it didn't work well with the controls, and as said, the physics kinda worsened the gameplay as well.

I didn't really like the story. What kind of hedgehog refers to himself in the first person? The writing was really bad too, and having to play all sorts of cutscenes each time you played didn't really help the gameplay as well. But the music was great--then again, that's a given for any Sonic game that was average. Sonic '06 which was objectively bad had a lot of great selections composed for it as well, and SHtH, despite how edgy it tried to be actually used rock effectively to convey the setting of post-apocalyptic edgy shit, where alien blood makes you black and red.

Sorry, I'll update this in time.</unfinished>

[the blu blur]

Five outta ten? I would've given it a little more credit. True, it's a shell of the Adventure games, but it's hardly as bad as what was to come.

And yeah the grinding was awful. So awful, you might say this is where the franchise went-

-off the rails.

That's a low blow, Colonel.

I dunno, I thought the game was alright. It certainly ain't perfect *clears throat, random rail jump death!...Drops like a rock when running upside down...in the special stage!*

Even with those faults in mind, and the pretty slippery controls, its still a pretty solid game overall. A but average compared to its predecessor, but it has a lot of redeeming value as one of the last "good" Sonic games on consoles until Sonic Unleashed Colors.

The story isn't that bad. A little zany, sure, but nothing too out there. The only parts I'd say are dodgy are, again, the rail segments, and special stages when maintaining speed.

Check it out!, it may surprise you.

Edited August 8, 2011 by the blu blur

[Soniman]

I will always stand by my stance that Heroes is a vastly underrated game (better than Sa2, which is average imo).

Yes it has issues but I still think that as a whole, its very enjoyable.

[Gaming Misfit]

I think Heroes is better than SA1 and SA2 which IMO are HUGELY overexaggerated. I would give heroes a 6.5/10 and both Adventures a 5/10. It is VERY repetitive though and boring at times. Although not nearly as repetitive as the treasure hunting, fishing, mech levels, etc.

[theadvisor1234]

Not even the real superpower of teamwork could save it.

On another note, I loved the game.

[sonfan1984]

Sonic Heroes is more like a guilty pleasure of mines. Alot of people seems to not like it, but for some reason I feel very nostalgic when I listen to the soundtrack and I still go back and play it every now and then.

[theadvisor1234]

I will say that it has the best soundtrack of the 3D games to this day, in my humble opinion.

[ChikaBoing]

I remember really liking the game alot as a kid and thought it's much better than SA2, but that was when I forgave most of glitches, controls, and just gave in and thought the game was varied enough in Ideas. Nowadays I can get past alot of the flaws due to me memorizing everything how to do everything correctly as a Kid, but now I can see why someone woudn't like it. The Flaws are just apperent.

I have to say this is the path that Sonic Team should have taken for the Franchise, just for having one gameplay-style only and make it look and sound like a Sonic game from the ground up. I mean in Idea, it was the perfect Sonic game to be on a non-Sega console at the Time, not making it like an Adventure 3 and make it more like the Series Roots was a really smart move when they went Multiplattform. Considering to the stuff that they came up with pre-Colors.

[Unknown User]

I loved it as a kid and I still love it.

[Koopalmier]

I totally agree.

Although I should've given it a 6/10 because it's not a bad game.

Really, the game's really big problems are the controls and the camera. And the glitches. Those pretty much hurt the gameplay.

Replaying through the game multiple times is okay with me, it's not like you're obligated to do everything in a single sit.

But I don't like this game as much as I would like to. I'd even say Shadow The Hedgehog is a bit better - sure, the story sucks and is confusing, but what matters the most is the gameplay, and guns and vehicles aside (at least those aren't obligatory) it's pretty much Heroes without glitches and with a more "single" gameplay.

[batson]

I will always stand by my stance that Heroes is a vastly underrated game (better than Sa2, which is average imo).

[T-Min]

Alright, after playing through it again, I also wrote a review of Shadow the Hedgehog. I didn't want to make a new topic and not posting it wasn't an option since I'm an attention whore, so I'll just post it here and change the thread's title and stuff ;D

We've already established that Sonic Heroes wasn't too good, but following it things would only get worse. Even non-fans know how much of an unholy abomination SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2006 was, but the first game considered to have really sucked was Shadow the Hedgehog. It was made to sort out the loose plot threads surrounding Sonic's dark other, named - you guess it - Shadow the Hedgehog, and also because he was a popular character amongst fans at the time. Well, his game not only was one of the three that caused everyone to lose respect for the franchise, but also induced complete and total hatred and resentment toward the character. Time to find out why! LET'S CRACK THIS GAME WIDE OPEN! YEAH, LET'S PARTY!

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Shadow the Hedgehog features a storyline with a much darker tone than previous Sonic games. It begins with Shadow, suffering from amnesia after the events of Adventure 2, in a field by a city, angsting about his lost memories and what memories he has left of a little girl named Maria getting shot down by soldiers. Well, that's nice, ain't it? Then, right the heck out of no where, the sky opens up and black-and-red colored aliens literally rain down on the city and start destroying crap. Shadow walks away, as he doesn't "have time for these humans", when he is randomly approached by...a floating eye with tentacles. At this point, you're probably about as confused as I am, but regardless, the eye projects a hologram of an alien overlord who tells him to bring the Chaos Emeralds to him at the "promised time". "Who are you? And how do you know my name is Shadow? And what are you talking about?" Shadow asks, saying what we're all thinking right now. The eye states he will find out soon enough and floats away into the city, explaining nothing. Somehow believing this incredibly stupid-looking alien overlord to have answers to his past, he heads to the city and from there IT'S UP TO YOU.

At first, Shadow the Hedgehog seems like a joke, perhaps even a parody of the darker games whose popularity was eclipsing platformers around the time that this game came out. I mean, really, read the synopsis I gave for the story up there again. Who could take that seriously? The box art shows an angry-looking Shadow holding a gun in front of an explosion, as if making fun of over-the-top shooters, and you'll be thinking the same thing when you watch the CGI opening. It starts off showing Shadow - who is a three-foot tall, cartoony hedgehog by the way - loading a gun and slowly approaching the edge of a cliff, followed by a montage of scenes including such things as Shadow (who can run several times faster than any vehicle) riding a motorcylce while being chased by angry black birds and jumping off of it before it collides with an object (naturally followed by an explosion), as well as a scene where Shadow just fires at the camera and screams. Need I even mention that an angsty nu-metal-ish song is playing in the background the whole time? Each of the menu screens in the game features a gunshot sound effect playing with every selection. One of said menu screens shows Shadow's face with fire burning in his eyes. It's so cliched that there's no way it could be taking itself seriously. And I'd like to reiterate: the main character of this game is a three-foot-tall, cartoonish hedgehog.

This parody feeling doesn't end when you start playing: Shadow shouts PG-rated profanities almost every time he gets hit or dies, and you also get the ability to use firearms against your enemies. The humans you'll be fighting don't bleed - at all - and the green blood effect seen when killing the aliens is very cartoonish. Heck, the humans don't even die. They just lie there begging you not to kill them. The violence and cursing is kept under control just enough to secure an E10+ rating, and this is a franchise that, up to this point, had never shown a drop of blood or featured the usage of a single curse word, mild or otherwise. And it stars a three-foot-tall, cartoonish hedgehog. It's so tame yet so out of place. Oh, Sonic Team, we always knew you had a sense of humor. So, if this is so obviously a parody, why was it poorly received?

Because when you play it, you realize that it takes itself seriously the whole time. That, and it has some of the worst gameplay and level design in the entire series.

Yes, you are, in fact, meant to take this seriously. What.

The main gimmick of Shadow the Hedgehog is that what stages you will end up visiting and the direction of the story will change depending on your actions in the levels. On paper, this sounds like a fantastic idea for the franchise, as it would add a lot of replay value to an otherwise short game. In practise, though, it's one of the worst things ever introduced to the franchise - and when you're up against Big the Cat's fishing stages in Sonic Adventure and the freaking Werehog in Sonic Unleashed, that's saying a lot.

Basically, the path you take is based on your moral decisions - whether you want Shadow to team up with the good guys (Sonic, his friends, and the humans) or the bad guys (the aliens), or if you just want Shadow to be neutral. Let's talk about what's wrong with this from a story perspective first. First of all, no matter what side you're on, both parties will be shooting at you. Joining the aliens? Alien enemies will still try to kill you. Joining the good guys? The good guys will still try to freaking kill you. To its credit, the good guys being after you has an in-story explanation: a military commander - who, as a bit of trivia, is never at any point officially named even though he is a very important character - holds a grudge against Shadow for some reason and is able to order his troops to go after Shadow, completely ignoring the fact that Shadow has ended up as a relatively innocent good guy for the last few games. It's an incredibly stupid explanation, but it's an explanation nonetheless. The aliens, though? Choose the "Dark" mission and they will still shoot at you for no explained reason. For another thing, this leads to many, many plotholes and inconsistencies. Oftentimes, Shadow will go from location to location without any sort of explanation. Sometimes you'll see a teleportation effect, but that only raises the question of HOW he got teleported. You can also switch sides at any time in any level, and previous "betrayals" are never referenced at any point. Doing something that conflicts with the moral path you're taking, such as striking down a human soldier when doing a "Hero" mission, holds no consequences whatsoever other than being told off by the character accompanying you and is sometimes even required to progress through a level. This is, simply put, lazy.

That's not even getting into how horribly this translates into the gameplay. Remember the annoying Team Chaotix levels from Sonic Heroes? The ones that required you to search for items or objects in a level that was linear in design? Now, imagine them stretched over an entire game and made about twenty times more frustrating and annoying with an even worse camera. That's Shadow the Hedgehog in a nutshell. Both the "Hero" and "Dark" missions generally require you to hunt for items or enemies in a linear level, and there is no room for error. One level's "Dark" mission asks you to kill fifty military robots. How many are there? Fifty exactly. This template is used for the "Hero" and "Dark" missions in nineteen of the game's twenty-two levels. The other three are open-ended in design, yet end up being even more torturous. The landscapes are completely repetitive and the camera is the worst the series has seen yet - which is saying a lot - leading to stages that are extremely easy to get lost in. And like I said, to complete a mission, you have to find EVERYTHING. It's almost insulting that, as you perform actions considered good, a blue bar in the upper right corner of the screen starts to fill up (the same goes for a red gauge in the upper left corner as you do things that are considered evil). If it fills all the way up, you can use one of Shadow's Chaos powers. Sounds good, right? It would be if this particular power didn't cause you to boost forward really fast, past things you need to find to complete the mission.

Oh, but doesn't the game still have your typical "point-A-to-point-B" missions? Those should at least be fun, you may be thinking. Indeed, there are missions that simply ask you to run to the goal, (usually a level's neutral mission) and they are, in fact, the most tolerable...but that's not saying much at all. The level design in Shadow the Hedgehog is laughably bland. It's mostly just running in a straight line with a few loops and some enemies. That's it. There's no semblance of a genuine challenge here, and what precious little platforming the game features is so utterly forgettable that it might as well not even be there.

Like the level design, Shadow the Hedgehog's bosses pose no challenge to you whatsoever. All you have to do is find a gun, then just blast away. Can't find a gun? Don't worry, the homing attack will do just fine, too, even if it will take a little longer to beat the boss. What makes this even worse is that the same final bosses are used for more than one of the different story paths. I see that 2005 Sonic Team liked being lazy quite a bit. I would also like to note that this is the first time a true final boss in a Sonic game has ever left me disappointed.

I am not pleased with you, Sonic Team.

And lest we forget how Heroes cheaply extended its length by making you play through the exact same game four times with few changes. Shadow pulls a similar trick. Each final level has a "Hero" and "Dark" mission. The final boss you fight and, by extension, the ending you receive changes depending on which of the two missions you complete. There are five final levels and thus ten endings. You have to get all ten to unlock the last story, and you will receive the true ending to the game if you beat that. Since allowing you to use the level select to make things quick would be too fair, you'll definitely end up going through the levels you already went through several times and probably even completing missions you already completed. There you are being lazy yet again, Sonic Team. Speaking of the endings, they're all so similar and formulaic that I can give a basic rundown of each without technically spoiling anything: Shadow gets all the Chaos Emeralds, says "Finally, I've got ALL the Chaos Emeralds!", states "I am Shadow the Hedgehog," has an epiphany, declares "This is who I am!", credits. You've got to appreciate the effort here.

But how could I go this far into the review without mentioning the numerous,numerous technical flaws? Actually, I did already mention the camera, but I believe it deserves mentioning again. Sonic Adventure was released in 1999, and its camera could get pretty annoying at times. It was at least somewhat justifiable, though, since it was Sonic's first step into 3-D. Even Super Mario 64 had an annoying camera, albeit less so. Sonic Adventure 2's camera was still flawed, but they had at least tried to improve it. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 were later rereleased for GameCube, and the camera wasn't improved at all, and Heroes featured a camera that was even more annoying. So, Shadow the Hedgehog came out in 2005, after ALL of these games, and it features the worst camera yet. Not only does this mean that Sonic Team couldn't program a competent camera system after developing 3-D Sonic games for six years, but that they only got WORSE at it. Not to mention that in a game where you're going to spend most of your time searching for things, you NEED a camera that's at least somewhat reliable. Even aside from the camera, Shadow's controls are annoyingly slippery, and the vehicles like cars and motorcycles - which are utterly pointless in a game where the main character is supposed to be able to run faster than the speed of sound - tend to control even worse. The auto-aim the guns use is even less reliable, at times being too sensitive and at times not being sensitive enough, and the only thing keeping them from being completely useless is the fact that bullets kill faster than the homing attack. Also, like Sonic Heroes, the game can get kind of glitchy at times. The light dash and homing attack can still backfire just like before, but now some areas won't load completely before you enter them, meaning you can fall into a black void where a solid floor should be and die. An even more frustrating glitch is when enemies - that you often NEED to kill to complete a mission - won't spawn, meaning you'll have to restart the level if you want to complete said mission. I know that at this point I shouldn't expect much from you, but what the heck, Sonic Team?

Finally, the graphics of Shadow the Hedgehog are utter garbage even for its time. Wait, the graphics in Heroes were pretty good, so how could they screw THAT up? Well, part of why Heroes' graphics looked good was because they were bright and colorful, like you would expect from a Sonic game. Shadow is supposed to be DARK AND EDGY, and thus Sonic Team thought the environments should look darker and more subdued. This shouldn't automatically lead to the graphics looking like crap, but apparently Sonic Team thought "darker and more subdued" meant "muddy-looking with blurry textures". Character models don't fare much better; facial animations look like crap and the human characters are blocky. I would expect that from a Dreamcast game released in 1999. I wouldn't expect that from a PS2 game released in 2005. The next problem with the graphics may be exclusive to the PS2 version, but it has the WORST framerate I have ever seen in a video game. There is not a single moment where the game doesn't look slow or choppy, and that is simply unacceptable.

Pretty much the only thing about Shadow I can say legitimately doesn't suck is the music. I absolutely love almost all of the stage BGM's in the game. Shadow also has the distinction of having the most vocal tracks I like out of the entire Sonic series. "I Am (All of Me)", "Almost Dead", and "Waking Up" aren't all that great in my opinion, but I actually really liked "All Hail Shadow", "Never Turn Back" and especially "Chosen One". Sure, it's angstier than anything Linkin Park has ever written (okay, that's probably a HUGE overstatement), but darned if it doesn't sound good.

---------------------------------

Shadow the Hedgehog is quite possibly one of the worst games I've ever played. The gameplay sucks, the level design sucks, the graphics are garbage, the story is atrocious, it's rife with technical problems, it tries to cheaply extend its length, and finally, the "dark" tone is incredibly stupid. The only thing saving it from a 1/10 is its soundtrack. What's really sad about the whole thing is that this was a story that just didn't need to be told. We already knew everything we needed to about Shadow; the information that was revealed in this game was not only unnecessary but completely ruined Shadow's back story. I can understand having to resolve loose plot threads from Heroes such as Shadow's amnesia, but did they really need to make an entire game to do that? And did they really need to do it this horribly?

But perhaps the saddest thing about it all is that things only got worse for the Sonic series from here. After Shadow, this happened:

It honestly made me wonder how I've been able to remain a fan for so long. Sonic and the Secret Rings was bad, albeit less so than Shadow and 06, and the same goes for Black Knight. Even Unleashed, though a decent game overall, was a disappointment thanks to the stretchy-armed monstrosity known as the Werehog. Yes, Colors was great and Generations is shaping up to be even better, but how was I able to keep buying the horrible games without losing enthusiasm until Colors happened? The answer is because when Sonic started going downhill, I was young. Young enough to look past the flaws; young enough to squeeze enjoyment out of these awful, awful games. Yes, there was once a time when I enjoyed Shadow the Hedgehog, and I'm darned glad there was. Otherwise, I might not have seen Sonic through until he got good again. I hope many of my fellow fans had a similar experience growing up.

*ahem* Yes, sorry for that little tangent. Anyway, Shadow the Hedgehog is an unholy abomination of a game and an insult to the series that it belongs to. Pick up the OST, but avoid the game itself like the plague.

Score: 2/10

Whatchoo guys think?

[Scott]

That Score is bad....really bad, harsh even, I wouldn't go out of my ay to call it an abomination, after all, it improved the mechanics of Sonic Heroes, especially the grinding, NOT ONCE, have I glitched through a rail, when trying to change rails during gameplay in Shadow the Hedgehog, it's storyline was dark and sure, not fitted for the Sonic Universe but in the end it was still the hero (in this case, anti-hero) that saved the day in the average Sonic manner, it's music was good, multiplayer was a bit of a letdown, heck if it were online capable, we coulda had 8-player arena killing

Also in regards to Sonic 06, maybe to you it was age to see past flaws, I got the game when I was 14/15 ish, 18 now and I can still look past them, but thats just me, I get fun out of any Sonic game I guess (well except for Tails Adventures)

[Koopalmier]

It's a bit too harsh and doesn't mention the good parts. Sonic Heroes' glitchy controls and semi-scripted segments are fixed, in the end Shadow still appears as a good guy, and at least there are no problems with the "good" and "bad" system during levels (plus both Chaos Blast and Chaos Control can be helpful).

You didn't say a word about the multiplayer, either.

However, I disagree about the music. Every track in the game is repetitive and boring, songs aside.

Even with what you said, 1/10 seems too harsh. You didn't just review Superman 64. A game like what you described should have a, say, 3/10.

[T-Min]

You didn't say a word about the multiplayer, either.

Edited August 13, 2011 by Rigby

[Nerfuffle]

This is a very full description, though these days there is more to a game review than just having opinions that a lot of people agree with. Reviewers are caught between the realms of news editorial and entertainment.

Instead of listing what happened, perhaps try and give readers a sense of what the game was like. Describe the world presented, or lack there of. Perhaps make comparisons to other things to help paint a picture for the readers who don’t even know who Sonic is.

-“Shadow’s controls were clunky.”

vs

-“Glowing sword in hand, the hedgehog skated along a lubricated street. With the absence of friction I needed make several passes to successfully kill motionless soldier patiently waiting for me to impale him as if he was in line at Starbucks. I had twenty more customers to meet quota”

[Mr. Awesomest]

And yeah the grinding was awful. So awful, you might say this is where the franchise went-

-off the rails.

[HUNTER297]

Heroes is unpolished. I loved it as kid but now I just cant play it (PS2 ver. GC one is okay). But giving 2/10 for Shadow??????? This game is good. Better than 06 by a mile I would give it at least 6.5-7/10. You can avoid guns and it features a lot of replayability. Story was nice I dont know why people bash it. At least it didnt have plotholes.

[pppp]

At least it didnt have plotholes.

[Sami]

This is a very full description, though these days there is more to a game review than just having opinions that a lot of people agree with. Reviewers are caught between the realms of news editorial and entertainment.

Instead of listing what happened, perhaps try and give readers a sense of what the game was like. Describe the world presented, or lack there of. Perhaps make comparisons to other things to help paint a picture for the readers who don’t even know who Sonic is.

-“Shadow’s controls were clunky.”

vs

-“Glowing sword in hand, the hedgehog skated along a lubricated street. With the absence of friction I needed make several passes to successfully kill motionless soldier patiently waiting for me to impale him as if he was in line at Starbucks. I had twenty more customers to meet quota”