Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) is SORELY misunderstood

[Wraith]

Outside of a few mementic cutscenes Shadow's personality in his spinoff is actually more subdued than it was in the games before. It has to be since the player is suddenly making a lot of decisions for him and he can't lean too outwardly toward one side or the other until the end game when the player chooses what was actually driving him through this whole adventure in the first place. You can feel however you want about this, but I don't really get the connection that this was when the outwardly abrasive edgelord loner shadow started when he's so willing to help others and be helped in return. 

[Kuzu]

2 hours ago, Won't Stop, Just Go said:

Outside of a few mementic cutscenes Shadow's personality in his spinoff is actually more subdued than it was in the games before. It has to be since the player is suddenly making a lot of decisions for him and he can't lean too outwardly toward one side or the other until the end game when the player chooses what was actually driving him through this whole adventure in the first place. You can feel however you want about this, but I don't really get the connection that this was when the outwardly abrasive edgelord loner shadow started when he's so willing to help others and be helped in return. 

I'm going to place my bets and assume that it was because the marketing made him look that way. Most people who weren't diehard fans were not going to touch the game and only saw the surface level stuff.

You guys can feel however you want about it, but this was the first impression of the game to everyone and pretty much sets the tone of it. The image of Shadow holding an SMG while reloading it (which you can't actually do on a real SMG :V) told the entire story. 

 

 

And hindsight is 20/20 people; we can talk about how much ambition and love this game had compared to nowadays, but none of that applied in 2005. In 2005, this was considered the most tone deaf thing the series had ever done. I know people have nostalgia for this game, and I know it was some people's introduction to the franchise and character. But in the context of the greater gaming community, this entire game was the embodiment of "tryhard" and cashing on the trends, except the game wasn't even good on a technical level to offset that.  It was just bad timing and the game's overall lack of polish that doomed it to being a living meme. 

[calamityCons]

The message I’m getting is that it’s the game’s own fault that it was poorly perceived and only the surface level was considered when judging it? It feels unfair to me. If Shadow was misunderstood, then of course it tracks that it was dismissed when it was released. Why should that be held against the game’s own merits?

[Wraith]

All games are judged harshly by their marketing material. That's why it exists to begin with. The amount of people that judge Sonic games based on the surface level is annoying, but Sega surely holds some of the blame for the way they present these games. Marketing's job is to put the game's best foot forward.

The problem I have with the conversation around this game is twofold: One, the wider context within which Shadow was released is rarely acknowledged. Almost every game competing for Sonic's demographic gave their cartoon mascot a gat. It was an inescapable shift in tone for the platforming genre at large that Sonic fans only really bring up as a weird thing Sonic Team just decided to do one day to appeal to adults. Shadow's much maligned cover art doesn't even look that out of lockstep with the rest of the PS2 library.




 

 

The second is with Sonic fans specifically and how people will still discuss it based on more surface level things even in circles where we all played it and should have more to say about it, but that's kind of a problem with all the dark age games. The fanbase is slowly becoming more open to discussing the games based on their merits and their creative potential, so I hope that continues. 

[calamityCons]

Exactly! I’m very thankful I’m not the only person who feels the game is unfairly dismissed and bashed. I’m always hesitant to share what the game means to me because I find myself guarding and becoming defensive of criticisms that are shallow in my opinion. It’s like that one scene from Lion King where Rafiki has to urge Simba to “look harder.” 

[HPX]

17 hours ago, Kuzu said:

I'm going to place my bets and assume that it was because the marketing made him look that way. Most people who weren't diehard fans were not going to touch the game and only saw the surface level stuff.

This is what I had meant on my last point about this game's lasting legacy; whether or not its accurate to his character, the reveal for this game was historic in a way that is hard to forget. This over-the-top self-parody grew into the canon association/rendition of the character as we see today, and I just really hate it.

On 7/17/2020 at 6:52 PM, calamityCons said:

I believe that the game actually went even deeper into shadow’s personality, character, motivations and goals. I was introduced to him through this game, unfamiliar with the Sonic Adventure 2 presentation, so as a child I found the aliens, the government, all of these disparate organizations and collections of people insisting that they are the ones Shadow should listen to... I don’t know what to tell you, it synergized phenomenally for me because I was able to put myself into shadow’s shoes. Who are these aliens and what do they want from me? Shadow’s part alien!? Really!?!? Holy shit, i have to find out the truth! Why does the government hate me so much? Who is sonic and all these other animal people, are they trustworthy? Eggman is related to the people who made me, maybe I should listen to him waIT I’M JUST AN ANDROID COPY??

This Shadow presented to us was the one I fell in love with, and I do not find him in any way a less compelling or interesting character. We see ALL of him, his evil side, his heroic side, his selfishness, his pain, his triumph, his ego, his cold demeanor, his hidden heart of gold. The Shadow we saw in 06 was a direct continuation of  him, because he grew and developed and learned from the experiences he had in Shadow the Hedgehog. He was no longer easy to manipulate, he was firm in his desire to fight for justice, and he had forgiven GUN and especially its commander by working with them. He chooses to be the bigger person not because of his arrogance, but because he has his priorities straight.

I respect that you played the game at a really formative moment and connections like that are important; I don't want to take that away from you. Of course our first exposure to a character is going to be our 'canon' association. Which is why, for my part, coming to the game after SA2, I could only see it retread the same ground. Shadows goes through more or less the same character arc a second time, and I think that's because Iizuka fundamentally misinterpreted the character when he wrote this game; he mistook the optics of the character as the character himself, and we've seen that amplified over time. The Shadow in Heroes and StH is virtually a different character than when he debuted, and I can appreciate that there are people who are attached to him. I think this is more a testament to how poorly Sonic Team and SEGA have managed this brand that this fanbase still constantly argues over which rendition of a character is the best. I will agree that '06 does a lot to rehabilitate Shadow for me, but it was a Pyrrhic victory at best...

Surprisingly, I just discovered that Maekawa was the Scenario Writer for Heroes. It has me wondering if that game's narrative was as planned, or if things were drastically reshuffled over the course of development, or if he was edited to hell and back. It's such a striking choice to go the direction they did after SA2, though I understand there was a desire to make a game for as wide an audience as possible, which apparently they took to mean dropping all narrative baggage, for better and for worse.

[Kuzu]

The main rift with this game comes from the split between what people knew Sonic as, and what this game tried to be.

Sonic Heroes was a game that blatantly called back to the classic aesthetic and sensibilities, right down to the two act level progression.

Then they went as far away from that as possible in literally just a year later. Its jarring as fucking hell and it's why people point to this game as the beginning of Sonic's identity issues.

The game certainly has it's own merits and whatnot, but there's always going to be this inherent divide in what people want out of the series and it kind of reached a fever pitch with this game.

If you're someone who hates this game on principle for being as far away removed from the series' foundation as possible, its merits don't matter. Conversely, if you grew up with the game, you might feel a lot of its elements are ambitious and cool.

There's never going to truly be a consensus about this game in the community, and it's pretty much just a glorified meme as far as people out of the community are concerned.

 

Sega just use this series as a glorified tech demo for all of their crazy ass ideas. As result, things are never really consistent in terms of quality or preference. Hence the differing opinions you see all over the damn place.

 

So just...roll with it. 

[StaticMania]

16 hours ago, calamityCons said:

It’s like that one scene from Lion King where Rafiki has to urge Simba to “look harder.” 

Telling other people who've also played the game to "look harder" isn't gonna do you any favors.

So it's best to steer away from that.

[Kuzu]

Yea, if you've played the game and concluded that you don't like it and it has no merits, there's nothing you can do about it. 

And judging people they don't see what you can isn't going to make anyone consider your point, its gonna do the exact opposite and turn people away further from it.

[calamityCons]

I understand. My apologies for being so forceful about it, even if I come from a place of strong passion and love for the game it doesn’t do any good to vent the frustrations I have in an unproductive way. If we play the same game and have different opinions that’s okay. My struggle with feeling heard is mine, so yeah. Sorry for being an ass like that. 

[Kuzu]

Pretty much everyone that follows this series feels that way lol; something you may think has merit, a portion of the fanbase will think it has absolutely none at all. It's just the inevitable result of this series being nearly three decades old with multiple generations becoming fans at different points and establishing their preferences. 

That's something those aforementioned games above had the luxury of; they were all created exactly for that 2000's grim aesthetic from the very beginning, while the Sonic was a series that was 14 years old at that point, and had what many felt was already an established identity and aesthetic, only to forgo all of it. 

So hey, if you grew up with the game and feel like it gets unfair treatment because you like things that others didn't...well...welcome to the club, this ain't our first rodeo and it isn't going to be the last time this happens either. 

[Shadow Chaos Control]

I am a major fan of Shadow the Hedgehog. But in my head canon I prefer SA2 Shadow and Archie Comic Shadow. Heroes ruined Shadow for me with the whole clone story. Clones always ruin things. 

As for this game, a spin off with Shadow as the protagonist, a great idea, but bizarre execution. Why does Shadow need assault rifles and katanas when he can use Kamehameha emerald blasts from his hands and is able to spin dash foes into pieces? The Dark story line contradicted SA2 and Heroes, by having Shadow be from the Black Doom. Shadow was created by Gerald Robotnik, Shadow is a living biological weapon akin to Mecha Sonic, showing Gerald was far more advanced in his science than Eggman. 

As for gameplay, I found it wrought with perils. You would jump on a ledge and suddenly Shadow would leap into the abyss when you didn’t press a button. 

SEGA tried to hard with this title to make a Riddickesque version of Shadow. They would have done better IMHO to make SA2 Shadow and tell a story in continuity with SA2; how he survived his fall and his purpose now. 

Edited August 24, 2020 by Titan Mecha Sonic
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