Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)

Concept of hero - neutral - dark missions was creative. Alternate endings with one true ending felt right. The co-creator of Shadow said recently in an interview that Shadow's past was always supposed to be some sort of a mystery. I think the story mode fits this criteria perfectly. With all the alternate endings, it tells me that everything could be possible and that Shadow could do it if he wanted to. Of course, the true ending was the best but in a way it felt like it did not have enough.

My favorite thing about this game is that you can actually use chaos control during any act. The addition of a 2 players mode was cool. I just wish the androids and the clone from that mode were relevant to the story.

The engine for this game looks similar to the one of Sonic Heroes and it shows. Lot of bugs where the controls feels weird and not precise. The worst in my opinion is the stupid translation. I don't know who was in charge for this game but damn, sometimes the dialogue does not even make sense. It's hard to understand a story when you don't understand what the characters are saying.

It still follows up the Sonic timeline they had going from SA1 and SA2, so I think just for that it's worth it. Eggman in a certain line during the final boss reveals what truly happened to Shadow after SA2. I wish this game was more polished cause it had potential.

Remember those edgy fanfics about Sonic the Hedgehog? This game is just like that. I do not recommend that you to complete this game, it is annoying to do so; download a save file

Positives

• The music is very good. Most tunes are memorable, specially the ending songs
• The voice acting is a step up from the older games, the characters sound more natural and have better range in terms of emotions
• The guns are varied and are very fun to use most of the time, specially the Black Arms' weapons because they are truly devastating against most enemies
• The FMV sequences are very well made despite their age, they are smooth, look good and are a joy to see

Negatives

• The platforming and speed gameplay is very clunky, Shadow goes too fast too quickly causing you to miss jumps or accidentally crash into enemies
• Melee attacks are useless, attacking an enemy in melee will only get you destroyed due to the low damage you cause or the slow movements the weapons have; the only good melee weapon is the Katana that you can unlock because it has a projectile
• Chaos Control is only useful for Neutral Missions because it allows you to skip most of the level; but most Hero missions force you to find stuff or destroy enemies
• Some missions are very hard or very easy
• The bosses are either very easy (Egg Dealer, Black Doom, Black Bull) or very annoying (Devil Doom, Diablon and Sonic). Devil Doom takes the cake in terms of being annoying; the autoaim of the Chaos Arrow and Chaos Spear fail most of the time, causing you to waste time and rings

Shadow The Hedgehog is such a strange game to me. When I was very young, I actually didn't think this game was real. I thought it was just a well-made animation of Shadow doing edgy stuff. Of course, I've known about this game for quite some time and I was always interested in playing it because I've heard so much about how bad it is.

They weren't kidding.

Shadow The Hedgehog is a spin-off in the Sonic The Hedgehog series that follows Sonic's rival, Shadow The Hedgehog, a character that's been around since Sonic Adventure 2. Shadow has lost his memory and is told by a mysterious dark figure named Black Doom that if he collects all 7 Chaos Emeralds, he will uncover the truth of his past.

I don't hate that this game exists. In fact, if this game never existed, many (Including myself) would've loved to see Sega give him a standalone game. Shadow is considered by many to be the best-written and most interesting character in the franchise. He has an interesting backstory and goals. And he's morally ambiguous. It's just horribly executed here.

This game has a very interesting gimmick. Each level has 3 Paths you can take. There's a hero side where you side with Sonic and his friends to accomplish a specific task such as killing all the aliens attacking or activating something, There's the Dark Path where you follow a villain such as Black Doom or Dr. Eggman into doing something they want. Or the Normal Path where you just get to the end of the level and be basically indifferent to them. Depending on what path you take per level, you will either go up, down or straight, on this timeline. As a result, there are 10 endings in this game and 326 possible stories to get to one of these endings.

It's an interesting gimmick. However, to get to the Last Story (Which is the only canon one), you gotta play and beat the game 10 times. One for each ending. This wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't for the gameplay.

The gameplay is an absolute mess. Shadow is way too slippery and falls off ledges all the damn time because of it. This game also has Shadow use firearms which range from a pistol to some weird alien stuff. The gun combat doesn't lock so aiming is horrible. The homing attack is inconsistent and the vehicles you can drive are so hard to control. You also have Chaos Powers. If you kill good guys, the red bar goes up which allows you to do a Chaos Blast which is very underwhelming. Killing Bad Guys fills up the blue bar which activates Chaos Control which either blasts you through the level or stops time (Which I guess is cool).

The level design is absolutely horrendous and Shadow just overall doesn't feel fun.

Another thing with this game, Shadow The Hedgehog tries to be badass and super cool and edgy. The opening animation (Which admittedly is very well animated.) has Shadow looking angry, driving a motorcycle, and shooting guns, while heavy rock music plays in the background (Thank god I Am... All of Me is a good Crush 40 song). Shadow tries to say badass things and even swears. (If you count "Damn" and "Hell" swears). This leads to hilariously bad writing and acting because the game takes itself too seriously.

Shadow The Hedgehog has great CGI animation and music. But it has awful level design, slippery gameplay, and a game that takes itself too seriously and is an overall bad character study of such an interesting character

"Where's That DAMN Fourth Chaos Emerald"

Wouldn't Recommend

2/5

Finished story through Last Way

• 1st Playthrough: Reached Credits 1st time
• 2nd Playthrough: Played all stages, viewed all endings, and finished Last Way.

Final thoughts: My god this game is a mess. Mechanically, this game was too frustrating to play overall with a lot of "cheap deaths" that I felt was a result of miss-targeted homing attacks and precision platforming when the physics is still jank. The Egg Dealer is probably the most broken Sonic boss I've played against because the homing attacks almost never work. The branching story-paths is a cool-idea, but I can't imagine the tedium of having to replay stages over and over and over again just to unlock all the endings.

While it's also not my cup of tea, this is probably the edgiest game I've ever played, and the meme-able quotes are fun. Not to mention, this game's CGI is miles better than all prior sonic games... the pre-rendered cutscenes look REALLY good for it's time!

Side Note: Only the 1st clear was played normally. Then I proceeded to load a save and played the rest of the stages just to reach the goal points, watching the appropriate cutscenes and endings along the way.