Is Shadow The Hedgehog canon?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Here is the post.

Really? Because this post that I was quoting in one of my previous posts indicates otherwise on what your one lined opinion was:

And that very post is quoting this in the first half on said one lined opinion:

Edited July 18, 2011 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Dejablue]

Ah see even I'm getting confused. What I just linked was when I basically said "Well I think the title is retarded, but I guess it makes sense when you tack on the subtitle"

That other post was me simply stating my opinion. After which things went crazy.

I'm sorry that I'm not watching my wording. Never did I directly insult anyone. I didn't call anyone stupid, idiot , moron, or retarded, make fun of ones mama, or wish them to die. Nor did I use racial slurs or insult anybodies sexual orientation. I used the word rambling.

Edited July 18, 2011 by Dejablue

[Mangoaxe5]

Yes it's canon. It sets up Shadow joining GUN.

[DavidTL]

So what? Sonic Adventure 2 is arguably all about shadow, yet nobody complains about that one.

It continues and arguably closes the adventure plot line and features just about every major plot device that Adventure 2 had. Also don't forget, when Sonic Adventure 2 was in production, it looked completely different before public demos started to appear and.... fans complained about it, mainly a lack of characters.

So it got changed, mainly, added more focus on Sonic and a greater selection of characters.

There's one slight problem with this argument, and that is no one actually knows how Sonic Adventure 2 supposedly was before they started announcing "Tails." Yes, people have made guesses and such, but no one has any actual proof of anything. And no one has ever bothered to ask Iizuka if there was a huge shift in the way the game was being in development.

There is nothing in the early promotional materials that says "Tails" wasn't playable. There's nothing in there that says Rouge wasn't playable. What they do show...yes, it looks early and such, but the only thing that is off is the fact Sonic is in Sky Rail. And you could simply chalk that up to them not wanting to show that you could play as Shadow. Heck, they didn't even say who Shadow was until ReSarus accidentally revealed the existence of both Shadow and Rouge. Shadow had only been teased in the trailers, but the toy company was the first to right out say who Shadow was.

And why wasn't "Tails" in the early trailers? Maybe they just didn't want to show off his new playstyle just yet. Personally, I have a hard time believing that "Tails" and Rouge were thrown in at the last minute as being playable, simply as the whole game is built around the hero/dark concept which the six characters are forced into. Not having "Tails" and Rouge playable would also mean Shadow wasn't playable...and I don't think anyone here would suggest he was planned out as only being a plot character. Sonic Team USA would have had to do a lot in a short amount of time.

The whole plot of Sonic Adventure 2 is that theres this guy who looks like Sonic running around commiting crimes and doing bad stuff. For just about every encounter for the first 3 quarters of the game, the idea behind Shadow is that he's supposed to be in effect a Sonic type character, all be it his moodly dark counterpart. Sonic Adventure 2 sets up the idea that Shadow might actually be the original and that Sonic is a copy, it's only until the end of that game that we know Sonic isn't a clone or anything like that.

Not to mention, look at the plot of the game, Shadow is the one with the power in that game, Eggman might revive him, but shadow is pulling the strings, he manages to manipulate Eggman to Ark, he's the one that actually convinces Eggman to help him try and carry out his revenge on the world for what they did to him and his best friend (Maria). Shadow wants to go to ark, he knows that it's weapon systems will destroy those who tried to hurt him and who took Maria from him.

Whats Sonics goal? To stop Eggman... but what they and Eggman don't realise is that Shadow is the one who is manipulating him.

Don't believe me?

When Eggman revives shadow, what does shadow say? He'll grant Eggman a wish... on one condition... "Bring me more chaos emeralds" and where? "On the central control room... of the Space Colony Ark" now... how does Eggman react? He goes and steals the master emerald...

This sets of the chain of events for the story as a whole as well as Shadow as the one conrolling everything.

It's all about Shadow and his plan for revenge... the only reason he doesn't continue with it is that his memories slowly returns and he remembers what Maria told him.

Every single character in that game is simply reacting to Shadows plot for revenge.

What wait. Ok, I know Shadow manipulates everyone in the game, that is not what I'm about to argue. I am going to argue your example to this case, that being Eggman stealing the Master Emerald. Eggman did not steal the Master Emerald, and he certainly did not grab it because of Shadow. Rouge the Bat stole the emerald because she wanted it, not thinking of its powers but because it was big and pretty and shiny and she wanted it. She wasn't even working with Eggman yet. When Dr. Eggman flew overhead and grabbed it from them, he was there purely by accident. Heck, his dialogue even admits that he has no idea what he would do with the Master Emerald, but if its there, hey, why not steal it?

Besides, you don't have to prove Shadow is manipulating everyone. That is basically the plot of the dark storyline.

Oh, and one more thing. I looked at the article you linked that said Shadow the Hedgehog was originally meant to be called Sonic Adventure 3 and...um...that's not what the article says at all. It is reporting on the reveal of the game, which was revealed as Shadow the Hedgehog. They even have a screenshot of that title. The article only says that some people are calling it Sonic Adventure 3, not that Sega was calling it that internally.

[-Mark-]

Yes, it's canon. At least, one of the pathways (not sure which, I don't think anyone is) and the 'last' story are.

Unfortunately.

Now let's never speak of it again. Aliens, indeed.

[Dejablue]

Wow so did I just argue with three people for two pages for no reason? Wowie Yowie.

Final verdict? Shadow the Hedgehog is ...ugh...canon.

Stupid aliens.

And you know if it had to be aliens did they really have to look like that ?

Edited July 18, 2011 by Dejablue

[JezMM]

With regards to "Which story path is canon?" I don't think any of them are.

The way it works is - it's very much a "choose your own adventure". Even the Hero story doesn't fully set up for the last story. In Story Mode you get to experience ONE possible way Shadow's events could have played out, but if we consider the Last Story canon, the following events must also be:

The Destruction Of The White House - or at least the fact that the President evacuated to the GUN HQ - whether Shadow was involved or not.

Dr. Eggman claiming Shadow is an android.

Shadow travelling to the Black Comet.

These three things are all relevant at some point in the last story - and it's impossible for them to all happen within one story path (well, if we assume Black Doom fired the eclipse cannon on Central City anyway it IS possible but that ends with an evil Shadow ending which is somewhat awkward for moving onto the Last Story).

Basically, Shadow's "choose your own storyline" is just a REPRESENTATION of the real canon events that took place - the exact order and how these happen are left to user interpretation.

[The Tenth Doctor]

Definatly canon. To go from Sonic Heroes "Who Am I?" to Sonic 06's "I know who I am!" is a bit of a jump. I think someone offical stated Shadows last story is offical. Can't remember who though.

[Cola]

It's going to give little Cola nightmares. Didn't you think of that? ._.

[Tori Himemiya]

Shadow is just as canon as SA2 and Heroes.

The problem is that the actual storyline goes in weird places because even though Shadow turned out to be one of the good guys (Final Haunt) he's done some stuff in the Dark story like the President fleeing the White House (Central City), and he might had a flashback (The Doom, Lost Impact) or at least boarded the ARK at some point. Which means some events might had happened, like the Black Arms attacking Cyberspace, Shadow destroying Black Doom's flying machine thing, etc.

The only reason why Shadow never mentions anything from his own game is because he got over the past.

[Koopalmier]

Shadow The Hedgehog, as bad as it is, IS canon.

It's in this game that Shadow gets all his memories back. In Sonic Battle (I don't care if you think it's canon or not, this game exists), Shadow remembers the events of Sonic Adventure 2, and Maria (yeah, he's supposed to have got over his past at the end of ShTH, but I guess the part of Sonic Team that made the game knew Shadow was going to get a game where he gets his memory back, but they didn't know he'd get over the past during the very last cutscene). In Sonic '06, he's a part of GUN, which is a result of him saving the world and proving to the GUN Commander he's not evil.

The only confusing thing about ShTH is the canon path. I'd say it is:

- Westopolis -> Normal

- Glyphic Canyon -> Normal

- Prison Island -> Dark

- The Doom -> Hero

- Iron Jungle -> Hero

- Cosmic Fall -> Dark

- Shadow goes to the Black Comet to bring the Emeralds to Black Doom, fulfilling his "promise"

- Final Story

That way, it'd mean Central City hasn't been destroyed, Shadow never completely sided with good nor evil and just completed his supposed promise to Black Doom, and is completely neutral as he went Normal twice, Hero twice and Dark twice. In that path, Eggman does tell him he's a robot, too. He didn't help the Chaotix to hack secret files, but one can guess they could do it alone anyway.

[Dejablue]

in the end all the choose your own adventure stuff is kinda pointless because canonically after this game Shadow is a good guy even if you went full Dark. Just another reason to hate this unnecessary and unholy game.

Edited July 18, 2011 by Dejablue

[JezMM]

in the end all the choose your own adventure stuff is kinda pointless because canonically after this game Shadow is a good guy even if you went full Dark. Just another reason to hate this unnecessary and unholy game.

The idea was to take an insight into what Shadow COULD have become had he made certain choices. How else are you supposed to follow up a multiple-choice game, especially one that isn't focused on the main character of a series?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Anyway, no Shadow is not canon. The locations may be, but all in all, it's still a spinoff, a crappy one at that.

It was stated by the community manager himself at the time who gave us insight within Sonic Team that ShTH IS canon, and there no way you can claim otherwise. To go further, the game is a hybird in that it is both a spin-off and a canon title.

[Kuzu]

Anyway, no Shadow is not canon. The locations may be, but all in all, it's still a spinoff, a crappy one at that.

yet it has references to TWO canon games(Sa2, and Heroes), and gives signifigant character development to a major character that helps establish him further.

Yeah totally NOT canon.

[Dejablue]

indeed. there is no way for them to go from Heroes to Shadow working for GUN in 06 without this game in between.

[Flyboy Fox]

The game is selectively canon. It does tie in with the main series, but also has many optional routes that are obviously not canon. It's sort of open-ended canon in that you can either play it and follow the canonical route, or play it and create a non-canon story as you go along. it is, as mentioned above, very much a hybrid of two things. Completely hypothetical open-ended create-your-own-path like Chronicles, and embedded canon continuation a la the Adventure games.

I may dislike the game with every fibre of my being and not consider it to be at all relevant to my Sonic experience, but to say it is officially not connected to canon would be utterly untruthful.

[Kuzu]

The game is selectively canon. It does tie in with the main series, but also has many optional routes that are obviously not canon. It's sort of open-ended canon in that you can either play it and follow the canonical route, or play it and create a non-canon story as you go along. it is, as mentioned above, very much a hybrid of two things. Completely hypothetical open-ended create-your-own-path like Chronicles, and embedded canon continuation a la the Adventure games.

I may dislike the game with every fibre of my being and not consider it to be at all relevant to my Sonic experience, but to say it is officially not connected to canon would be utterly untruthful.

Well the opening and ending are undeniably canon.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Eggman did not steal the Master Emerald, and he certainly did not grab it because of Shadow. [...]When Dr. Eggman flew overhead and grabbed it from them, he was there purely by accident.

You sure about that?

Here is the scene with Eggman and Shadow.

It ends with shadow saying "Bring more chaos emeralds, I'll be waiting for you in the central controll room of the space colony Ark"

Then you get this scene.

... in which Eggman steals the master emerald... Granted Knuckles destroys it just before Eggman can take it away, but Eggmans actions are based on instructions/promise from Shadow, Eggmans actions force Knuckles to react, this then prompts Rouge and Knuckles to start their own quests. Otherwise chances are Rouge and Knuckles would have had a brawl right there and then and there would be no need for Knuckles to do anything. Well... Unless Rouge won and buggered off with the master emerald of course.

As to how Eggman found the emerald, just look at the dialogue of Eggman.

"I came here following the signal from the emerald..."

So lets go over whats happened... Shadow has said "Bring me chaos emeralds" The next scene we get Eggman saying that he came to that location since he picked up a signal from a chaos emerald. It's only when he arrives there and grabs it that he discovers it's actually the master emerald.

How exactly is that him being there by accident? When he's so blatently tracking the emeralds?

Oh, and one more thing. I looked at the article you linked that said Shadow the Hedgehog was originally meant to be called Sonic Adventure 3 and...um...that's not what the article says at all. It is reporting on the reveal of the game, which was revealed as Shadow the Hedgehog. They even have a screenshot of that title. The article only says that some people are calling it Sonic Adventure 3, not that Sega was calling it that internally.

Do you believe that I would state that unless I had more than one source to back it up?

1UP were reporting that it was called Sonic Adventure 3: Shadow the Hedgehog. Even TSS had the following banner. "Sonic Adventure 3: Shadow of a Hedgehog Announced" Followed by this by line "The n00bs wanted it! And now we've got it." I was a member here at the time, I remember seeing those original articles, and how quickly edits were going up after the trailer was released mere hours later and people dropped the use of Sonic Adventure 3. Also if you google the phrase "Sonic Adventure 3: Shadow of a Hedgehog" you can still find the odd one or two threads that never changed their descriptions when Sega eventually released the trailer public.

What I suspect happened, is that Sega announced the name, then dropped the Sonic Adventure 3 bit. Just about every site in existence changed their descriptions/game pages to the new title, however one or two places did not. It's similar to what happened with Sonic and the Secret Rings, only it's original title lasted a lot longer so more people had chance to take it in. Originally it was called "Sonic Wildfire" try googling that now you can't find too many results as most places simply edited their game pages on it.

Edited July 18, 2011 by Hogfather

[FTA]

From your original post you made it sound like Eggman goes out and steals the Master Emerald on purpose, which he doesn't. He thinks it's a Chaos Emerald, and just steals it anyway.

And for the name, why bother linking to a page that doesn't prove your point?

[Badnik Mechanic]

From your original post you made it sound like Eggman goes out and steals the Master Emerald on purpose, which he doesn't. He thinks it's a Chaos Emerald, and just steals it anyway.

And how does it disprove what I said in any respect?

Shadow tells Eggman to go get emeralds... Eggman goes out looking for emeralds "I picked up the emeralds signal"... finds one but discovers it's actually a master emerald (which is better) and tries to take it.... As per instructions from Shadow... "Bring me chaos emeralds."

And for the name, why bother linking to a page that doesn't prove your point?

If you'd actually bother to load up that page... you'd find it says this...

"Sonic Adventure 3: First Screens & Video!"

If you have a look at the little text box at the top of your browser... you'll notice it says "News: Sonic Adventure 3: Shadow the Hedgehog" Now considering that journalists were publishing these articles before the video and announcement went public, does it not suggest that someone from Sega did indeed drop the SA 3 line to them before the official title was given out?

Not to mention that even TSS had the same title on the front page for several days before it got changed. I was a member here at the time and I remember seeing it and reading the articles, as well as all the comments from people saying Nooo why is Sonic Adventure 3 a shadow game!

[FTA]

There's a big difference. He doesn't set out to steal it, he just finds it and steals it. When he goes out, he has zero interest in the Master Emerald, he doesn't even have a use for it. He goes out purely for Chaos Emeralds, but upon finding the Master Emerald and him being a dick he snags it. The way you word it you make it sound likes that the first thing Eggman does is to purposly set out to steal the Master Emerald, which is just wrong.

Actually Mr Condescending I did, but again why post a link to a page that calls it "Sonic Adventure 3: Shadow The Hedgehog" when your text calls it "Sonic Adventure 3: Shadow of a Hedgehog"? A small difference I know, but it only helped prove half your statement and thus was pretty pointless when you could have explained the TSS article in that post.

[Badnik Mechanic]

There's a big difference. He doesn't set out to steal it, he just finds it and steals it. When he goes out, he has zero interest in the Master Emerald, he doesn't even have a use for it. He goes out purely for Chaos Emeralds, but upon finding the Master Emerald and him being a dick he snags it. The way you word it you make it sound likes that the first thing Eggman does is to purposly set out to steal the Master Emerald, which is just wrong.

But he does go out to steal it... He is tracking the energy from it because he thinks it's exactly that... a chaos emerald.

And why is he doing that? Because Shadow has promised him a wish if he'll do it.

He believes it's a chaos emerald, right up until he grabs it and looks at it, it's not until he picks it up does he think it's anything other than a chaos emerald.

Just watch the video of it and listen to the dialogue.

It's right there at 0:34.

Eggman looks over the side of his Egg-O-Matic "I came here following the signal from the emerald..."

He doesn't know it's a master emerald until he looks over the side of his ship at it. Otherwise if he knew it was the master emerald, why would he travel all the way across the desert to get it exactly when he doesn't want/need it?

The fact he decides to take it anyway when he discovers what it really is, is just a plot a device for Knuckles/Rouges activation in the game. But his intention was always to go there and take it if it looked like an emerald as thats what his computer readings where telling him.

So once again, because I'm still waiting for this... How does it disprove anything I said originally?

Actually Mr Condescending I did, but again why post a link to a page that calls it "Sonic Adventure 3: Shadow The Hedgehog" when your text calls it "Sonic Adventure 3: Shadow of a Hedgehog"?

Because at the time it seemed that half the news sites were calling it Sonic Adventure 3: Shadow the Hedgehog, whilst the other were calling it "Sonic Adventure 3: Shadow of a Hedgehog"

The majority of sites which people would take seriously tend to use the phrase "Shadow the" as apposed to "Shadow of" (which is what TSS used when it posted news under the website "Sonic News"). The only problem is that if I quoted the various forums that still had that as the title, I'd then be accused of 'Oh that doesn't count, you linked to a fansite/forums!'

If you actually take the time to search both varients you will find existing threads for both versions on many sites around the web which isn't that bad considering it's over 6 years old and most pages were edited several times on the day the game was announced as Sega sent many sites a cease and desist order on much of the information.

Edited July 19, 2011 by Hogfather

[FTA]

Exactly he doesn't think it's the Master Emerald. He think's it's a Chaos Emerald and steals it. Thank you for proving my point, not at one point does he think of stealing the Master Emerald. Your quote of "When Eggman revives shadow, what does shadow say? He'll grant Eggman a wish... on one condition... "Bring me more chaos emeralds" and where? "On the central control room... of the Space Colony Ark" now... how does Eggman react? He goes and steals the master emerald... " makes it sound like as soon as Shadow tells him to bring Chaos Emeralds he goes out and steals the Master Emerald on purpose. Which he doesn't, and which you admit he doesn't. Which is the problem the guy who disagreed with you in the first place said. It's not so much that he doesn't steal it, he clearly does, and he finds it because he's looking for Chaos Emeralds, but not at one point does he set out to steal the Master Emerald, which is what you implied in that quote.

I get that, but again, why link to a site that now holds no eveidence of such a name? It's a watse of a link and meaningless, apart from confirming the first half of the name you quoted. I would have put more faith into linking to a forum thread.

[Koopalmier]

Shadow: Bring me Chaos Emeralds. I'm hungry.

Eggman: lol k.

*later*

*Eggman finds the signal to what could be a Chaos Emerald, but sees it's just the Master Emerald*

Eggman: Oh, hey. If I have to get all Chaos Emeralds, I could take the Master Emerald as well. It's not like I have anything to lose.

*Eggman steals the Master Emerald*

Eggman: I'm taking that, see ?

Knuckles: Y U NO GIVE ME THE MASTER EMERALD BACK ?

*Knuckles breaks the Master Emerald*

Rouge:

Eggman: Ah, well. Guess it doesn't matter actually.

That's basically what happened. Eggman finds a signal like the Chaos Emeralds', but eventually sees it's the Master Emerald and still decides to take it, for the heck of doing it.

Edited July 19, 2011 by Koopalmier