Is Shadow the Hedgehog really a bad game? Or was a underrated gem?

[Komodin]

It's all about tone.

If Sonic had been talking about how millions of people died in Unleashed, wouldn't that be kind of out of place?

Well, considering that the plot of the game involves the whole world being blown apart, as well as the release of a night-stalking eldritch abomination... not really.

[Xenos]

How the fuck do you expect him to act, then? Grimdark from start to finish?

You got the wrong guy, sorry.

I said fucking balance for a reason, you know. Sonic isn't supposed to be too far in one extreme or else it'll feel really forced or out of place. Sonic has never been super-serious no-nonsense, so why should I expect him to be hyperactive and goofy to the point of not being realistic?

[Wraith]

I wouldn't directly equate verbally expressing a thought Sonic has never expressed before to Sonic being excited to fight a boss as he has been millions of times before. That's the thing; Sonic has a character regardless of the tone of the setting he is in. It doesn't matter if GUN is freaking out. It doesn't matter if Shadow is being anti-social. When Sonic meets a boss he feels confident against battling, he's going to do some show-offy stuff and have a little fun. Would you rather him not have been any fun at all since the game had overwhelmingly serious overtones?

It had been shown before that Sonic can be cocky but he gets serious when things actually get dire. From Unleashed, you can assume that the whole planet thing wasn't ACTUALLY as dire as it would be in the real world. from Shadow, you can assume millions of people are dying.

[Diogenes]

You got the wrong guy, sorry.

I said fucking balance for a reason, you know. Sonic isn't supposed to be too far in one extreme or else it'll feel really forced or out of place. Sonic has never been super-serious no-nonsense, so why should I expect him to be hyperactive and goofy to the point of not being realistic?

Jumping. Shadowboxing. Extreme. Are we using different definitions of words, or...?

Also in case you haven't realized it,

It had been shown before that Sonic can be cocky but he gets serious when things actually get dire. From Unleashed, you can assume that the whole planet thing wasn't ACTUALLY as dire as it would be in the real world. from Shadow, you can assume millions of people are dying.

Because that's the kind of thing that happens in this series, right? Millions of people dying.

e: they have you fire the eclipse cannon and level a city and then they tell you it was evacuated. even fuckin' ShtH isn't going to kill off innocents.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Diogenes

[Mr. Taxi]

I wouldn't directly equate verbally expressing a thought Sonic has never expressed before to Sonic being excited to fight a boss as he has been millions of times before. That's the thing; Sonic has a character regardless of the tone of the setting he is in. It doesn't matter if GUN is freaking out. It doesn't matter if Shadow is being anti-social. When Sonic meets a boss he feels confident against battling, he's going to do some show-offy stuff and have a little fun. Would you rather him not have been any fun at all since the game had overwhelmingly serious overtones?

That's one reason why ShTH fails, though. You have the pretension of a overwhelmingly serious overtone, but nothing contributes to it. Well, what builds such tone if not the characters and the interactions between them? If Sonic is not contributing to said tone, it'll feel out of place no matter how you look at it.

Of course, it's a case of the place being wrong instead of the character. But still.

When in Rome, do as Romans do. It doesn't necessarily mean your character has to be outstripped, though.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Okay, they're both incoherent, but ShtH moreso.

I find it the other way around, but regardless...

All I'm saying is that if you take '06's plot on its own, without reference to anything else in the series, Blaze being in the future isn't incoherent. I'm not saying it's not a plothole when you consider the series as a whole, I'm not saying it isn't shitty as fuck writing, but (at least in this instance) '06 is coherent with itself. ShtH is not, because it has several hundred possible sequences leading from Westopolis to the endgame, with zero indication of which one actually happened.

Sorry dude, but that's not how I operate with continuity. I look at things episodically, each title being successive to the other unless the context implies otherwise. And while I can look at a game's plot on it's own I also pay attention to connections from other games when the plot makes use of characters, locations, conflicts, or plot devices from previous games. And the inclusion of Blaze follows suit with that, just like how Shadow's inclusion in Heroes brings the question of how he survived at the end of SA2 and ShTH's connection with SA2. Without Blaze, I couldn't make any connection to previous titles that make it incoherent and as a result I'd pay less attention to past titles and more attention the current one as a result.

You don't think people have asked which path ShtH canonically follows?

A number of times. We've even had discussions of it here. But it not often asked why in comparison to how Sonic 06's continuity problems. Heck, people fault ShTH for adding more junk to the continuity than that do guessing which path is canon.

At least I could understand slightly more of the plot in Sonic 06.

At least we stuck with one character throughout all of ShTH instead of playing 9 crappy or unfinished characters midlevel.

[Nepenthe]

It had been shown before that Sonic can be cocky but he gets serious when things actually get dire. From Unleashed, you can assume that the whole planet thing wasn't ACTUALLY as dire as it would be in the real world. from Shadow, you can assume millions of people are dying.

The planet thing was dire and you could assume the same or an even higher death toll as well by the very fact that the planet blew up. Eggman released an apocalyptic beast onto the world that inflicted Sonic with lycanthropy and would eventually go on to consume the world in darkness, the landscape is being negatively affected with its power right down to turning the plants into monsters, people are being possessed and harassed by minions. I don't know why all of this is not "dire" enough for Sonic (and everyone else) to be more serious than he was. The saddest he got for anything is when Amy didn't recognize him. Oh boo-hoo, you poor soul; there's a child around the corner being eaten by a Minion. D:

When in Rome, do as Romans do. It doesn't necessarily mean your character has to be outstripped, though.

But going by the argument here, it seems that's what people are inherently advocating. Sonic is supposed to act "serious" when the situation is "serious." Well, the whole game is serious, which effectively leaves no room for Sonic to be his default chipper self if we're supposed to keep him "in-character." Really, what would you have suggested?

[Wraith]

The planet thing was dire and you could assume the same or an even higher death toll as well by the very fact that the planet blew up. Eggman released an apocalyptic beast onto the world that inflicted Sonic with lycanthropy and would eventually go on to consume the world in darkness, the landscape is being negatively affected with its power right down to turning the plants into monsters, people are being possessed and harassed by minions. I don't know why all of this is not "dire" enough for Sonic (and everyone else) to be more serious than he was. The saddest he got for anything is when Amy didn't recognize him. Oh boo-hoo, you poor soul; there's a child around the corner being eaten by a Minion. D:

Sonic Unleashed's plot can be compared to that of a cartoon, where dire consequences like those that can be assumed by the planet blowing up just don't exist If the planet had actually suffered something like that, everyone would have died from the intense earthquake that would have resulted. The minions never did anything besides fucking with people's emotions. Maybe nobody thought the situation was dire because the situation wasn't actually dire.

[Xenos]

Jumping. Shadowboxing. Extreme. Are we using different definitions of words, or...?

Also in case you haven't realized it,

I think we're going in circles here.

Extreme as in, he's hardly taking a fucking alien invasion of the entire planet seriously. He should be at least slightly more concerned than hopping up and down screaming "TIEM TO ROCK AND ROLL! :DDD" the jumping and shadowboxing would be fine if Sonic weren't acting as if he had too much caffeine for most of the game.

Also you keep showing me SA2, but that has perfect examples of Sonic being more balanced out in his attitude towards situations. It's not about being realistic by our standards, but moreof being realistic to as we know how his personality is. And in situations like this he's mostly described as someone who usually can stay his cool self in the bleakest of moments, but he still gets deadly serious when the world or his friends are at stake.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Xen-mas

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

But going by the argument here, it seems that's what people are inherently advocating. Sonic is supposed to act "serious" when the situation is "serious." Well, the whole game is serious, which effectively leaves no room for Sonic to be his default chipper self if we're supposed to keep him "in-character." Really, what would you have suggested?

How about a well rounded character?

There's no problem with a cocky character laughing death in the face or looking at world killing machine and yelling "Come at me, bro!". But there comes a disconnect when you see a city under attack and devastated and the character who is known for protecting people from danger looks at all that and doesn't feel that the situation is serious. If the game is completely serious or silly it loses impact for scenes that show the opposing mood, because there would be no room for it.

...And why do I feel like I made absolutely no sense?

[Frogging101]

If I were rolling my eyes any harder they'd pop right out of my head.

Would you mind elaborating?

[Diogenes]

Extreme as in, he's hardly taking a fucking alien invasion of the entire planet seriously.

Much like he didn't take the planet splitting into pieces deadly seriously, until the end. Much like he didn't take Eggman's threats in SA2 deadly seriously, until the end.

Also you keep showing me SA2, but that has perfect examples of Sonic being more balanced out in his attitude towards situations.

Sonic jokes throughout SA2, it's only around the time Amy gets captured on the ARK that shit gets serious, and he's still a cocky bastard towards Shadow after that.

It's not about being realistic by our standards, but moreof being realistic to as we know how his personality is.

You think I'm not arguing the same damn thing?

Sorry dude, but that's not how I operate with continuity.

It's got nothing to do with how you operate; it's a fact regardless. You don't get to invalidate a viewpoint just because it's not the one you personally subscribe to.

A number of times. We've even had discussions of it here. But it not often asked why in comparison to how Sonic 06's continuity problems.

And did you pay any attention to my explanation of why?

[JaidynReiman]

Ok, I barely read much, but its obvious how bad this topic is going to be. Just based on the topic title, though...

The topic title is wrong, period. Its a bad game, yes. I don't think it was a "really" bad game, though, and it wasn't an underrated gem. I liked it personally, its not THAT bad... but its not that good, either. Its incredibly mediocre. And it sucks; I like Shadow a lot, but this game just doesn't do him any justice.

They made some very bad decisions with Shadow in Sonic Heroes and tried to correct that by making more bad decisions with Shadow the Hedgehog. I don't care that they brought him back, they just did it in a very shitty way that could've been done a lot better.

As for this argument about Sonic, well, he is generally VERY overly optimistic about every situation. So honestly, he's quite in character here. Other characters show more concern about the overall situation, Sonic is simply... Sonic.

[Mr. Taxi]

But going by the argument here, it seems that's what people are inherently advocating. Sonic is supposed to act "serious" when the situation is "serious." Well, the whole game is serious, which effectively leaves no room for Sonic to be his default chipper self if we're supposed to keep him "in-character." Really, what would you have suggested?

Why, of course it does. The "default chipper" looks a lot more chipper when in such an environment. It's not that he should comply to the standards completely, but he should indeed not stand out too much as chipper. Body language isn't a staple in ShTH, so if Sonic is the only one to do that, it looks displaced.

So, what would I suggest? Adequate Sonic's character to the story... or the other way around. So, effectively, you could

• a) Have Sonic display the same pattern as the other characters (more focused and with less body movements) and show his usual character in some other way (remarks, for example) that - for the sake of the tone AND the character - could be lampshaded. Sonic and Shadow can be pumped for a battle alike and they can be concerned about a particular situation, too. But how each one shows it is what defines their character. They can both be cool in different ways.
  
• Have the tone of the story accomodate Sonic as he would usually be. Well, but if everyone's shadowboxing, how can we make it dark and gritty? See Paper Mario. The unsettling elements are either implied or their contrast to the overall tone is sarcastically lampshaded.
  

EDIT: Question for the class: Is Sonic being in character more important than being relatable? Or the better question could be... is Sonic being in character more important than everything around him being in character?

Edited December 11, 2012 by Palas

[Nepenthe]

Sonic Unleashed's plot can be compared to that of a cartoon, where dire consequences like those that can be assumed by the planet blowing up just don't exist If the planet had actually suffered something like that, everyone would have died from the intense earthquake that would have resulted. The minions never did anything besides fucking with people's emotions. Maybe nobody thought the situation was dire because the situation wasn't actually dire.

We can assume the same for most of the games because none of the true physical, cultural and political consequences of these apocalyptic scenarios are ever elaborated on in full detail. Even when the action takes place in the middle of the actual disaster, things like body count and physical damage are mitigated to optimistic extremes. In fact, if we're going to be honest with ourselves, you technically never see anyone except for GUN soldiers get killed in ShtH because there's no townsfolk NPCs running around in the first place, and the soldiers never even die either; they just fall over and ask for assistance when you shoot them before disappearing. It effectively carries the same weight as the anonymous cars being washed away by Chaos' rage, which the cast doesn't really reflect on much once Chaos is gone. "All's well that ends well." Yeah, there's millions of bodies floating under their feet, but it's perfectly fine.

How about a well rounded character?

There's no problem with a cocky character laughing death in the face or looking at world killing machine and yelling "Come at me, bro!". But there comes a disconnect when you see a city under attack and devastated and the character who is known for protecting people from danger looks at all that and doesn't feel that the situation is serious. If the game is completely serious or silly it loses impact for scenes that show the opposing mood, because there would be no room for it.

...And why do I feel like I made absolutely no sense?

There's about as much disconnect between Sonic's actions in Westopolis to how seriously it's actually presented (see above) as there is between the graphic and ultra-serious opening in Unleashed and the fact that Sonic never really expresses any remorse or guilt directly afterwards. ShtH wasn't the first time a scenario that realistically would be grave didn't bother Sonic to any relatable extent, and methinks it won't ever be the last.

Note: I'm not saying the cast should not be well-rounded. I'm saying, if we're going to fault ShtH for Sonic acting Sonic-y when he shouldn't have, we should look at the rest of the games where this has happened and deride them as well on that front. Consistency is all I'm asking for, certainly not bad writing.

Edited December 11, 2012 by North Pole Nepenthe

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

It's got nothing to do with how you operate; it's a fact regardless. You don't get to invalidate a viewpoint just because it's not the one you personally subscribe to.

And neither do you get to invalidate a viewpoint because it's not the one you want someone to accept. There's no fact saying that I should look at Sonic 06 on it's own with no references in the series rather than a episodic continuation of the series when it has a connection (or disconnection in this case) with another game's plot.

And did you pay any attention to my explanation of why?

Yes, I did.

ShTH only asks one question because it doesn't have the ground to ask anything else, but Sonic 06 has inconsistencies that you can recognize within it's plot. But one of these has become the bigger bullseye when it comes to problems in it's plot, and that so happens to be Sonic 06.

Edited December 11, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Autosaver]

I could imagine the world ending with Sonic jumping around and laughing in Green Hill Zone.

[Frogging101]

We can assume the same for most of the games because none of the true physical, cultural and political consequences of these apocalyptic scenarios are ever elaborated on in full detail. Even when the action takes place in the middle of the actual disaster, things like body count and physical damage are mitigated to optimistic extremes. In fact, if we're going to be honest with ourselves, you technically never see anyone except for GUN soldiers get killed in ShtH because there's no townsfolk NPCs running around in the first place, and the soldiers never even die either; they just fall over and ask for assistance when you shoot them before disappearing. It effectively carries the same weight as the anonymous cars being washed away by Chaos' rage, which the cast doesn't really reflect on much once Chaos is gone. "All's well that ends well." Yeah, there's millions of bodies floating under their feet, but it's perfectly fine.

Kind of makes me think of "Never Say "Die"", because people don't actually die.

[Diogenes]

And neither do you get to invalidate a viewpoint because it's not the one you want someone to accept.

Good thing I'm not. I am with you in that I usually take the series as a sequence of stories that (sometimes) build on each other, but that does not change the fact that '06 is internally consistent regarding Blaze, while ShtH is barely internally consistent regarding anything.

ShTH only asks one question because it doesn't have the ground to ask anything else, but Sonic 06 has inconsistencies that you can recognize within it's plot. But one of these has become the bigger bullseye when it comes to problems in it's plot, and that so happens to be Sonic 06.

Yes, so why are you continuing to argue against this? ShtH is so incoherent that you can't even compose a coherent question regarding much of its plot, while '06 gets plenty of questions because the majority of it is coherent enough that the specific problems can be identified and isolated, thus it is actually possible to talk about it.

[Wraith]

We can assume the same for most of the games because none of the true physical, cultural and political consequences of these apocalyptic scenarios are ever elaborated on in full detail. Even when the action takes place in the middle of the actual disaster, things like body count and physical damage are mitigated to optimistic extremes. In fact, if we're going to be honest with ourselves, you technically never see anyone except for GUN soldiers get killed in ShtH because there's no townsfolk NPCs running around in the first place, and the soldiers never even die either; they just fall over and ask for assistance when you shoot them before disappearing. It effectively carries the same weight as the anonymous cars being washed away by Chaos' rage, which the cast doesn't really reflect on much once Chaos is gone. "All's well that ends well." Yeah, there's millions of bodies floating under their feet, but it's perfectly fine..

see, there's a difference here. Shadow likes to IMPLY that shit went down just by character interactions in general. Sonic Adventure also implies loss but doesn't dwell, because, well, It's not AS dark in tone. They don't have to go into body counts just so you know how serious the situation is. In Sonic Unleashed, the situation obviously wasn't as serious as it's defenders like to make it out to be. Otherwise, we would have seen characters actually give a shit like they do in Shadow and Adventure to an extent.

[MegasonicZX]

I actually do enjoy this game and do think its pretty underrated but it suffers from the same problems that some of the other sonic games do in which sega never made a sequel for it to actually improve the mechanics and I mean this seriously if they worked with it for a bit it could of been made even better than it already was with some improved mechanics and I do like the guns but I do have to admit they could have been integrated better and more chaos control powers need to be added in.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Good thing I'm not. I am with you in that I usually take the series as a sequence of stories that (sometimes) build on each other, but that does not change the fact that '06 is internally consistent regarding Blaze, while ShtH is barely internally consistent regarding anything.

Except this whole time I've not been looking at it internally on it's own than how it connects with others, and no amount of telling me to look at it internally is gonna make me disregard everything outside of it.

Yes, so why are you continuing to argue against this?

Because my belief is that Sonic 06 is the more incoherent one due to both internal and external inconsistences, and you keep arguing with me that is isn't if I ignore all the external ones from the previous games before it. And that comes off as very myopic when you tell someone to pretend like external things don't matter to this plot when that is one of the main reasons why they're arguing in the first place.

EDIT: Question for the class: Is Sonic being in character more important than being relatable? Or the better question could be... is Sonic being in character more important than everything around him being in character?

Er, how about Sonic being in character with everything around him? Sonic and Tails staring down a death machine? Tails could be a bit worried, while Sonic is smirking ready to take on the machine.

Sonic gets suckerpunched by protective Knuckles for showing up on Angel Island unannounced? Sonic could be pissed off while Knuckles' expression is more like "opps, my bad. ^__^; "

Edited December 11, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Diogenes]

see, there's a difference here. Shadow likes to IMPLY that shit went down just by character interactions in general.

[Nepenthe]

see, there's a difference here. Shadow likes to IMPLY that shit went down just by character interactions in general. Sonic Adventure also implies loss but doesn't dwell, because, well, It's not AS dark in tone. They don't have to go into body counts just so you know how serious the situation is. In Sonic Unleashed, the situation obviously wasn't as serious as it's defenders like to make it out to be. Otherwise, we would have seen characters actually give a shit like they do in Shadow and Adventure to an extent.

Under your assertion, the situation in Unleashed is as serious as it's made out to be because everyone started taking it seriously at a few points within the game. If the seriousness of a situation is decided based on character interaction and nothing else, then a whole lot of shit in the series isn't as serious as it's made out to be despite what the audience is visually subjected to, especially if we are only taking Sonic's point of view directly into account because he doesn't take a lot of things seriously until they get down to the absolute wire. Rather, I'm more of the thought that different characters react to serious situations differently, and Sonic is the least likely to look at some weak boss like Black Bull and take it with the same consideration he would his final confrontation with Dark Gaia, hence why he was shadowboxing.

[Xenos]

Much like he didn't take the planet splitting into pieces deadly seriously, until the end. Much like he didn't take Eggman's threats in SA2 deadly seriously, until the end.

Sonic jokes throughout SA2, it's only around the time Amy gets captured on the ARK that shit gets serious, and he's still a cocky bastard towards Shadow after that.

You think I'm not arguing the same damn thing?

The difference is Sonic wasn't extremely jittery and high on caffeine to the point I wanted to tape his mouth shut in any of those cases, which is where the whole balance to scale comes into play. He might not have taken it as seriously, but at least he was his mellow yet cool self, and not what ShTH portrayed him as. There's a difference between cocky and confident and just plain overdoing it.

By that, you're saying Sonic has been characterized as always being hyperactive and not taking things seriously at all, and not even calming down whatsoever until the absolute end? Then that's wrong still.