I think it's time for Shadow the Hedgehog 2

[DBZHedgy]

We know it's Shadow, but remember -- Shadow was brought into the series as a darker Sonic. So, he still represents Sonic, but one that's more serious.

 

The Shadow of SA2 is very different from the Shadow of his own game. I could not see Shadow of SA2 using a gun because that Shadow strikes me as the type of guy who sees guns as a waste of time. He's more powerful than those tools. He doesn't need them. Now, he's completely fine with the Eclipse Cannon because that weapon is more powerful than he is.

 

That Shadow of ShTH is different. He seems like a shell of who the Shadow of SA2 was and was lost in direction.

 

Either case, both Shadow still do represent Sonic. They have the same design, abilities, etc. And when you play them, you WILL see him as Sonic, even if it's subconscious.

 

Honestly, you'd be faster to pull off Omega in this game than Shadow (even then, I wouldn't recommend it.)

Before you assume, I will say that I didn't enjoy this game so much and I won't go about it as rigorously as I did in the Sonic 2006 Topic.

 

Anyway, what I wanted to make clear was that the Shadow of Shadow the Hedgehog and the Shadow of Sonic Adventure 2 are meant to be two different Shadows. For whatever reason that isn't explained, Shadow has lost his memory (even though in Sonic Battle his memory was intact), and therefore it wouldn't be very easy to be him if he doesn't even know who he is. 

 

On the subject of the Guns, it is quite possible to play through most of the game without using guns or vehicles. Only guns that exceed Shadow's capability to do something such as that are necessary like the black hole gun, or the Wyverns. 

 

The point of Shadow in ShTH was meant to emulate Shadow as a shell until the very end. And in between he has been seen showing intense emotions towards the ones he cared about. As well as a plethora of other emotions excluding "emotionless". 

 

The reason he "plays" like sonic is because he was meant to be a clone of Sonic. I recall at one point he was called Dark Sonic or something akin to that, correct me if I'm wrong. But he was pretty much a carbon copy of Sonic in a gameplay aspect, how can you build off of that without him branching into a different direction? They could've made him like Silver and made him slow, but then that would be a problem too right?

[Diogenes]

On the subject of the Guns, it is quite possible to play through most of the game without using guns or vehicles. Only guns that exceed Shadow's capability to do something such as that are necessary like the black hole gun, or the Wyverns.

The problem with this is, if you decide not to use weapons on principle, you're just further sabotaging the game for yourself. You limit yourself only to Shadow's physical attacks, which are both more boring to use and far, far weaker. The fact that you can avoid using weapons in most situations doesn't matter if the game isn't designed to make that fun.

[DBZHedgy]

The problem with this is, if you decide not to use weapons on principle, you're just further sabotaging the game for yourself. You limit yourself only to Shadow's physical attacks, which are both more boring to use and far, far weaker. The fact that you can avoid using weapons in most situations doesn't matter if the game isn't designed to make that fun.

Eh, in most cases the spin attack can shave down one's life bar, and Chaos Blast and Control are pretty helpful with that aspect as well.

I still see your point nonetheless. 

 

But can I ask you this? Why is it bad that the game devs are making a more convenient way to deal with enemies bad? Do the weapons have to be more cartooney or what? I mean the Eclipse Cannon was far from cartooney, and I'm assuming that's what they built off of since the game is pure fanservice and that it's used again in this game.

[Spin Attaxx]

But can I ask you this? Why is it bad that the game devs are making a more convenient way to deal with enemies bad? Do the weapons have to be more cartooney or what? I mean the Eclipse Cannon was far from cartooney, and I'm assuming that's what they built off of since the game is pure fanservice and that it's used again in this game.

Well aside from it contributing to the giant inappropriate tone shift the game is, Shadow's not really the kind of character you'd see using guns. He's more associated as "Dark Sonic" - basically, Sonic with all his moves plus Chaos abilities. If it were, say, Omega who used guns, it'd be more fitting given that he's an Eggman war mech. But Shadow? Eh...

 

What I'm saying is that it's kind of like seeing Mario pick up an AK-47 and use that in lieu of Fire Flowers and jumping.

[Diogenes]

Eh, in most cases the spin attack can shave down one's life bar, and Chaos Blast and Control are pretty helpful with that aspect as well.

Well, the spin attack only really works against very weak or big, slow enemies. It's not a good choice against much else. And you need to kill a lot of stuff to build up your meters, so the chaos powers aren't exactly freely available. Even your best non-weapon options in ShtH are pretty limited.

But can I ask you this? Why is it bad that the game devs are making a more convenient way to deal with enemies bad? Do the weapons have to be more cartooney or what? I mean the Eclipse Cannon was far from cartooney, and I'm assuming that's what they built off of since the game is pure fanservice and that it's used again in this game.

The Eclipse Cannon is basically cartoon supervillan stuff, and it and the ARK are basically a Death Star reference; they're not really "cartoony", but they're not super-serious or super realistic either.

But when Shadow's going Call of Duty on a bunch of alien invaders, that's way outside the series' usual tone. It's just so obviously forced; it doesn't fit the series' tone and it doesn't really fit Shadow's character. Less realistic weapons might've helped a bit, but it was a mistake to treat Shadow like an FPS supersoldier in the first place. They could've done plenty with his physical abilities and chaos powers without any need to have him scavenge for weapons.

[DBZHedgy]

Well aside from it contributing to the giant inappropriate tone shift the game is, Shadow's not really the kind of character you'd see using guns. He's more associated as "Dark Sonic" - basically, Sonic with all his moves plus Chaos abilities. If it were, say, Omega who used guns, it'd be more fitting gien that he's an Eggman war mech. But Shadow? Eh...

 

What I'm saying is that it's kind of like seeing Mario pick up an AK-47 and use that in lieu of Fire Flowers and jumping.

Ok, on one end, the guns fit the tone which is objectively awful, and on the other hand, the exclusion of the weapons and vehicles make it harder to progress...

I'm stumped.

 

That Mario example is actually pretty funny... infact, I think I've seen something akin to that somwhere...

 

Anyway, How would a shadow game work? People practically begged for it (and by people I mean the innumerable amount of Shadow fans), but the execution just doesn't seem to fit at all, from most people's perspective anyway. Even though the darkness theme for shadow didn't work. I feel like it differentiated Shadow from Sonic enough, even if the darkness theme wasn't around 100% of the time.

 

So if given the chance, if ShTH 2 were in your hands, how would you make it work, for the better that is? 

 

Personally, I'd have the game have almost the same structure, with more emphasis on his Chaos Moves like in Sonic 06, without the inclusion of vehicles. Perhaps have some sort of copout move that worked for every thing that appeared.

I feel like a reaction button akin to Kingdom Hearts 2

and Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep

 would work wonders for it. All they had to do was slap on some Chaos Power name like Chaos React (original, I know) and a fun experience wouldn't be that far away if ya ask me.

[Blacklightning]

Well since the topic of "well you don't need to use guns" has come up, once again I'd like to point out that this is a blatant lie. There are areas in the game that are impossible to bypass without a ranged weapon - Mad Matrix had a series of switches that could only be triggered by shooting them, and Sky Troops required you to shoot Eggman's battleships out of the sky with mounted turrets, for example.

 

Even excusing that, trying to justify the guns themselves is such a mess of fallacies and paradoxes it's hard to even know where to start sometimes. First of all, from a gameplay standpoint unarmed gameplay is so tedious that you're effectively stuck in enemy-filled areas for minutes at a time unless you use guns to clear them out quickly (and that's not even accounting for bosses!) - in effect, deliberately creating a problem so that they could also design an artificial solution to it in advance. If you want to give players the actual choice between being a Sonic game and something else entirely, you shouldn't have to make one objectively suck more than the other to sway their decisions like that. Especially when the latter is still completely based off the former.

 

As far as tonal and in-universe rules go, even then it still doesn't make much sense at all. Put it this way - the very first level, Westopolis, lets you flip a bus with one hand, killing a bunch of Black Arms on the other side. In fact Shadow wields all weapons irregardless of size, from a pistol to a freaking Bigfoot minigun in a single hand, and never looks as though he's even remotely phased by their weight. So are they trying to tell us that the Ultimate Lifeform, surging to the brim with the same kind of strength we know Knuckles for, still can't punch harder than a bullet? It's a bizarre juxtapose that literally doesn't make the slightest semblance of sense - you can have him overflowing with power or weak enough that he has to still rely on tools, but for fuck's sake you can't have it both ways like that.

 

Then the whole argument basically falls apart anyway when you realize if Sonic Team really wanted to push a gameplay angle with ranged combat, his Chaos powers basically serve the same purpose anyway, so there was never any real need to rely on a firearm in the first place in-universe. Just throw Chaos Spears and shit at people, then punch them out when your meter is too low to use them. The guns were only ever really there to capitalize on the market of CoD/Halo kiddies of the day, and like a lot of these kinds of money grabs they were seemingly willing to destroy the image and wellbeing of their most famous franchise to get to it.

[Wittymations]

Before you assume, I will say that I didn't enjoy this game so much and I won't go about it as rigorously as I did in the Sonic 2006 Topic.

 

Anyway, what I wanted to make clear was that the Shadow of Shadow the Hedgehog and the Shadow of Sonic Adventure 2 are meant to be two different Shadows. For whatever reason that isn't explained, Shadow has lost his memory (even though in Sonic Battle his memory was intact), and therefore it wouldn't be very easy to be him if he doesn't even know who he is. 

 

On the subject of the Guns, it is quite possible to play through most of the game without using guns or vehicles. Only guns that exceed Shadow's capability to do something such as that are necessary like the black hole gun, or the Wyverns. 

 

The point of Shadow in ShTH was meant to emulate Shadow as a shell until the very end. And in between he has been seen showing intense emotions towards the ones he cared about. As well as a plethora of other emotions excluding "emotionless". 

 

The reason he "plays" like sonic is because he was meant to be a clone of Sonic. I recall at one point he was called Dark Sonic or something akin to that, correct me if I'm wrong. But he was pretty much a carbon copy of Sonic in a gameplay aspect, how can you build off of that without him branching into a different direction? They could've made him like Silver and made him slow, but then that would be a problem too right?

Well, this is all pretty much what I said, or was getting at.

 

Regardless, the decision to do all this was bad from the beginning. It was even bad on paper, not just execution. Like I said, they'd have better luck pulling this off with Omega and even still, I wouldn't recommend it.

 

It was just entirely unfitting.

 

[DBZHedgy]

Well since the topic of "well you don't need to use guns" has come up, once again I'd like to point out that this is a blatant lie. There are areas in the game that are impossible to bypass without a ranged weapon - Mad Matrix had a series of switches that could only be triggered by shooting them, and Sky Troops required you to shoot Eggman's battleships out of the sky with mounted turrets, for example.

 

Even excusing that, trying to justify the guns themselves is such a mess of fallacies and paradoxes it's hard to even know where to start sometimes. First of all, from a gameplay standpoint unarmed gameplay is so tedious that you're effectively stuck in enemy-filled areas for minutes at a time unless you use guns to clear them out quickly (and that's not even accounting for bosses!) - in effect, deliberately creating a problem so that they could also design an artificial solution to it in advance. If you want to give players the actual choice between being a Sonic game and something else entirely, you shouldn't have to make one objectively suck more than the other to sway their decisions like that. Especially when the latter is still completely based off the former.

 

As far as tonal and in-universe rules go, even then it still doesn't make much sense at all. Put it this way - the very first level, Westopolis, lets you flip a bus with one hand, killing a bunch of Black Arms on the other side. In fact Shadow wields all weapons irregardless of size, from a pistol to a freaking Bigfoot minigun in a single hand, and never looks as though he's even remotely phased by their weight. So are they trying to tell us that the Ultimate Lifeform, surging to the brim with the same kind of strength we know Knuckles for, still can't punch harder than a bullet? It's a bizarre juxtapose that literally doesn't make the slightest semblance of sense - you can have him overflowing with power or weak enough that he has to still rely on tools, but for fuck's sake you can't have it both ways like that.

 

Then the whole argument basically falls apart anyway when you realize if Sonic Team really wanted to push a gameplay angle with ranged combat, his Chaos powers basically serve the same purpose anyway, so there was never any real need to rely on a firearm in the first place in-universe. Just throw Chaos Spears and shit at people, then punch them out when your meter is too low to use them. The guns were only ever really there to capitalize on the market of CoD/Halo kiddies of the day, and like a lot of these kinds of money grabs they were seemingly willing to destroy the image and wellbeing of their most famous franchise to get to it.

I can agree with your overall statement but...

 

1.) 

On the subject of the Guns, it is quite possible to play through most of the game without using guns or vehicles. Only guns that exceed Shadow's capability to do something such as that are necessary like the black hole gun, or the Wyverns. 

 

2.) Shadow's punch's do generally do as much damage as one bullet from a regular GUN pistol.

 

3.) The game actual does both the Sonic Formula and the FPS junk at the same time. Homing Attack chains, platforming, loops, ect. And on the other side of the spectrum Guns, Tanks, Vehicles and more Guns. Instead of just being solely based off of FPS games like CoD and all of that other stuff.

 

4.)The ranged combat thing was kinda obvious since Sonic Adventure 2 had the Mech stages. And since this game was a result of that game, it wouldn't be that hard to guess. I'm guessing they were trying to sculpt all of the game mechanics of Sonic Adventure 2 into Shadow the Hedgehog.

[Blacklightning]

I can agree with your overall statement but...

I wasn't quoting you.

 

2.) Shadow's punch's do generally do as much damage as one bullet from a regular GUN pistol.

Actually, no, this is incorrect. Shadow's basic melee attacks do half the damage of the starting Glock (and the Black Arms equivalent for that matter - I'm assuming they're only different aesthetically), and subsequently take 3-4 hits (pretty sure it was 4) to take down the basic Black Arms mooks in Westopolis whilst the Glock can do it in 2. The Homing Attack is the only exception to this rule, but even then it has a far lower DPS even than the Glock regardless, both on account on the HA's slow re-use time and awkward mid-flight curving, and the fact the Glock is completely semiautomatic.

 

This is just backing to the fact that trying to ditch guns entirely just makes the gameplay honestly tedious and pathetic in comparison to any kind of gunplay, and this was a concious and equally fucking pathetic design decision intended only to lend the impression that one style of gameplay - not fighting, gameplay - was inherently inferior to the other. It's exactly the kind of bad mind games you see in an awful F2P game - instead of making a method of playing the game that's less playable, any sane consumer is just going to ask "why is there an option that makes the game less fun?", because it's a caveat that literally has no right to exist at all.

 

Especially because most of the shit they nerfed worked perfectly fine to begin with.

 

3.) The game actual does both the Sonic Formula and the FPS junk at the same time. Homing Attack chains, platforming, loops, ect. And on the other side of the spectrum Guns, Tanks, Vehicles and more Guns. Instead of just being solely based off of FPS games like CoD and all of that other stuff.

 Saying that ShTH does "FPS junk" is being extremely generous. A more accurate term would be that they took the engine from Heroes and just slapped a gun onto it without a single care of whether it would clash not only with the mechanics therein, but even the utmost basic unspoken laws of Sonic games period. All you've listed here are a bunch of extremely vauge, generic tropes that any old game could have, irregardless of whether they're actually an FPS or inspired by one or not.

4.)The ranged combat thing was kinda obvious since Sonic Adventure 2 had the Mech stages. And since this game was a result of that game, it wouldn't be that hard to guess. I'm guessing they were trying to sculpt all of the game mechanics of Sonic Adventure 2 into Shadow the Hedgehog.

That must be why they play absolutely nothing alike.

 

To be honest I might actually have liked the possibility of ShTH being the next logical step over the jumpy-shooty characters we've had already, but the former completely misses the point of what makes any of the latter arguably work if that's what they were actually going for. The core of this comparison lies in the way they aim - namely, the laser-sighted lockon mechanic. Being the primary method of fire, lockon missles singlehandedly defeat the need to stop in order to properly line up your shots, when you can just swing your laser sight in a wide arc to engage big swaths of enemies at once, or simply tilt slightly towards them as you run past so you can shoot backwards at them once they're behind you, even with a relatively speedy gunner like Gamma. Of course, this is one of ShTH's most crippling flaws - the fact that its combat, even the gunplay, is all stop and go because there's no real way to defeat anything on the move, and no way to accurately aim without coming to a stop. Even using the homing attack there aren't many things that don't require at least a second hit from it. And because I know you're going to bring it up: no, the homing rocket launchers in ShTH aren't a good substitute. Limited ammo, really slow moving projectiles, no added incentive to hit multiple enemies, and frankly you look fucking silly carrying it. Ideally you'd want its same lockon system applied to every weapon instead. Or Chaos attack. Preferably the latter.

 

The next best point is that Gamma, Tails and Eggman all, but mostly the latter two, play in a very arcadey fashion - the higher parts of their gameplay revolve almost exclusively around trick shots, to cram as many enemies into a single lockon session as humanly possible before blasting them all at once. These lockon chains provide score multipliers which in turn contribute greatly to their ranking at the end. ShTH's gameplay never approaches anything with even this kind of depth - the entire process basically just boils down to "shoot x until it dies", and rinse and repeat as much as the level demands of you. The only actual caveat is that the binary morality quotas has separate scores and one detracts from the other in ranking for their respective missions, but this is shallow to the point of being absolutely worthless in the grand scheme of things because you're unlikely to ever be in a situation where you can shoot the wrong side by accident, despite how unwieldly actually aiming at something is.

[Sapphire]

I don't think it will EVER be time for Shadow the Hedgehog 2.

 

While it was somewhat original when compared to other Sonic games, the game was a mess. It was stupid that you had to beat it a million times and hear all the different "This is WHO I AM"s to unlock the SUPER COOL TRUE ENDING, the whole guns and vehicles gimmick was pointless, and the whole "hardcore, death-to-all" attitude is so bad it's comical. C'mon, it's the Sonic series, though I like when a Sonic game is a bit less "cartoony", it can only be taken so seriously.

 

The original Shadow the Hedgehog game should be plenty to satisfy those who actually enjoyed all this crap. 

[DAT WHALE]

im kinda both ways yes/ a little bit no i mean cause shadow the hedgehog it was for the most part good i just thought that the multiple endings was overkill cause most of the ending are the same in some ways but it could have been better if all the multiple endings where all different but they should make another shadow game to make what the first game had right and make it better but at the same time fix the errors that it had and you would have a damm good game.

 

[Wittymations]

 

C'mon, it's the Sonic series, though I like when a Sonic game is a bit less "cartoony", it can only be taken so seriously.

Don't kid yourself, you could put normal humans in here, name it anything, and there'd still be no way to take this game seriously.

[DBZHedgy]

Don't kid yourself, you could put normal humans in here, name it anything, and there'd still be no way to take this game seriously.

I hate it when people immediately categorize Sonic as Cartooney, or just for kids. 

This game could be serious though.

Just remove the minor swear, make Villains less Generic, and it's practically perfect. Also remove the "Find out who I am" arcs. I feel if Shadow just found it out without being told to gather the emeralds the presentation would be better. Don't you guys think so too?

[Diogenes]

Just remove the minor swear, make Villains less Generic, and it's practically perfect.

No, it'd still be an embarrassing mess. The swearing isn't even close to the worst of the game's problems, it's just one of the most easily mockable. Honestly I think the series could survive the occasional "damn"; ShtH's mistake is that it was flooded with the word and it was always really awkwardly used.

The main problem, tonewise, is that the game's saturated in faux-gritty, pseudo-macho paint ripped off of other series, without the depth, heart, or honesty to support it. Part of this is because it's an offshoot of the Sonic series; as much as you may not want to admit it, bobbleheaded cartoon hedgehogs are barely suited for shonen action stories, forget about trying to be Master Chief or some grimacing, stubbled shooter hero. But even beyond that, the game's all just surface-level pandering. It doesn't use its tone to say anything. It doesn't have the guts to do anything actually shocking...even '06 tried to have something meaningful in Sonic and Elise's relationship and Sonic's death, even if they were too incompetent to make it work. The story just goes nowhere, it never challenges the characters, it never draws anything out of them besides melodramatic rambling, and even the "what if" aspects are completely toothless and only amount to a meaningless, arbitrary rant before the credits.

If there's any possibility of a "serious" Sonic game working, it'd be something completely unlike ShtH. The game is utterly soulless, its pretensions of being serious are nothing better than a child throwing a tantrum and demanding to be taken seriously.

[DBZHedgy]

I get your meaning, but I feel like you completely missed this statement:

 

Also remove the "Find out who I am" arcs. I feel if Shadow just found it out without being told to gather the emeralds the presentation would be better. Don't you guys think so too?

That kinda includes the "This is who I am" ramblings at the end as you said.

Also, the story kinda feels like it wants to reveal most of Shadow's past. Although it could work (and probably much better) in a linear story, it frees the player up to explore certain aspects of Shadow by choosing to be good and/or bad. It was a bit sloppy though, but the direction of Shadow's memory restoration is guided by the players' progress in the game.

 

I honestly found several moments to be quite touching, like Shadow's flashback to maria. I especially like the level where it takes place as Maria and Shadow are running away cuing the cutscene shown in Sa2.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

I hate it when people immediately categorize Sonic as Cartooney, or just for kids. 

This game could be serious though.

Just remove the minor swear, make Villains less Generic, and it's practically perfect. Also remove the "Find out who I am" arcs. I feel if Shadow just found it out without being told to gather the emeralds the presentation would be better. Don't you guys think so too?

Ehhh, not quite. The execution could have been handled just as fine, better or worse in either way.

[Diogenes]

I get your meaning, but I feel like you completely missed this statement:

 

That kinda includes the "This is who I am" ramblings at the end as you said.

ShtH can't be fixed by simply removing a few rough parts. It's rotten to the core, it requires nothing less than a full rewrite, there is basically nothing salvageable in it.

Also, the story kinda feels like it wants to reveal most of Shadow's past. Although it could work (and probably much better) in a linear story, it frees the player up to explore certain aspects of Shadow by choosing to be good and/or bad. It was a bit sloppy though, but the direction of Shadow's memory restoration is guided by the players' progress in the game.

It's more than sloppy. It's meaningless. For one thing, the player already knew most of Shadow's backstory, except for the dumb alien additions, which don't add anything meaningful. And, none of it actually matters to Shadow anyway. It doesn't have any influence on him. He just continues forward along whatever arbitrary path the player sends him on, without the game making even the least attempt to justify anything.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Ehhh, not quite. The execution could have been handled just as fine, better or worse in either way.

The outcome lies with how it was carried, unfortunately, said execution led the story down a cliched and sloppy path and succumbed to stoop to shock value of being part Alien, "the chosen one", etc.

 

And for the record, I was quite miffed at how the true ending neglects Gerald's actions in Adventure 2 up the arse.

[UltDevilDoom]

ShtH can't be fixed by simply removing a few rough parts. It's rotten to the core, it requires nothing less than a full rewrite, there is basically nothing salvageable in it.

It's more than sloppy. It's meaningless. For one thing, the player already knew most of Shadow's backstory, except for the dumb alien additions, which don't add anything meaningful. And, none of it actually matters to Shadow anyway. It doesn't have any influence on him. He just continues forward along whatever arbitrary path the player sends him on, without the game making even the least attempt to justify anything.

Obviously you didn't get to the Last Story.

 

Also, I think you are bias against the game like some people are.

 

It had its flaws, but it was a good game. I'm still rooting for a second one.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Obviously you didn't get to the Last Story.

 

Also, I think you are bias against the game like some people are.

 

It had its flaws, but it was a good game. I'm still rooting for a second one.

Speaking as someone who likes and enjoys the game myself, that was rather unfounded and uncalled for.

[FriendBot]

And for the record, I was quite miffed at how the true ending neglects Gerald's actions in Adventure 2 up the arse.

 

I'm pretty sure Gerald's true intentions was to save humanity but when Maria died, he went bonkers and wants to kill them for selfish reasons of course.

 

Obviously you didn't get to the Last Story.

 

Also, I think you are bias against the game like some people are.

 

It had its flaws, but it was a good game. I'm still rooting for a second one.

 

There were some major problems but the game comes meh to me, like there's some good in it but it's overshadowed by the overly-dark-turned-parody story.

[Diogenes]

Obviously you didn't get to the Last Story.

The part where the game abandons any pretense of choice, contrives a situation where only Shadow matters, repeats a revelation from SA2, barely even bothers to address the one question that people cared about, and ends with Shadow throwing away his backstory entirely.

Can't see how any of that's supposed to be a good thing.

[DBZHedgy]

There were some major problems but the game comes meh to me, like there's some good in it but it's overshadowed by the overly-dark-turned-parody story.

But the story isn't overly dark...

There are lighthearted moments in there, instead of doom and gloom all of the time.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Not exactly in line with the matter at hand, but I think that Shadow could take the place of Sonic on the 3DS (and PSvita, assuming anyone ever bought one of the damn things) and have Sonic be solely a console/pc character. You could experiment a crapton with Shadow, because the less powerful games take less time and budget to develop. Of course, we could see where the 3DS version of Sonic Boom goes, and with that, we could have the Project Shadow subseries of Boom (you know...cause it has a nice ring to it), at least assuming he doesn't fit in with the games. Rewrite SA2 - ShTH's story in the Sonic Boom universe from Shadow's perspective only.