Shadow's role in '06 as a remake of Shadow The Hedgehog
Director: Shun Nakamura
Due to his popularity, Shadow the hedgehog got his own videogame in 2005. Unlike his two previous appearances, the game had no main input from [Shadow's creator], with him instead serving a minor role during development. In a way, this affected the storytelling of Shadow’s story and arc. However, [Shadow’s creator] did have a role in directing and writing the story of Sonic 2006, and as such, of Shadow’s story.
Let’s recall what we could consider the problems of Shadow The Hedgehog story compared with Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes stories.
- Reopening a closed thread: During Heroes story mode, an amnesiac Shadow has doubts about his existence after witnessing a destroyed Shadow Android, and wonders who he is and why he was trapped in a lonely base. Despite this, the cutscene at the start of the Sky Troops level has Shadow proclaiming “even if I’m not real, I’m still the ultimate life form!”, meaning Shadow is done with the mystery. The titular game, however, decides to reopen the plot thread for the sake of its story, and reveal another reason for Shadow’s existence.
- Different writer, different Shadow: [Shadow’s creator] was not in charge of Shadow The Hedgehog’s story. It was handled by a different team, instead, following Sega mandates to paint Shadow as an over-the-edge bad boy, and following the trend of the time by the Grand Theft Auto series. As such, the cold but cool-headed hedgehog that admires a challenge from Sonic, becomes an aloof, misanthropist with anger issues that cannot stand Sonic.
- Not a coherent story: Shadow The Hedgehog was fractured as a choose-your-morality story, as such, depending of his choices Shadow could become a righteous hero, or a cold-hearted villain. But this is a lie; the only stories that truly matter in the game are two: the introductory scene, and the final story. Shadow questions his existence and Black Doom tells him to bring him the emeralds as promised; Shadow discovers who he is, and defeats the big bad villain to conclude to never look back on the past. These events would be fine, but without a proper middle act, the story falls flat.
- An underuse of Shadow’s cast: Despite Heroes introducing Rouge and Omega as Shadow companions and allies, Shadow’s titular game doesn’t utilize them at all in the main story. Rouge only appears in specific levels, and doesn’t interact with Shadow in any cutscene of the game; Omega doesn’t appear in the main story, only appearing in two levels focusing on his quest to defeat Eggman.
Returning as the writer [and director?] though, you could tell Shun Nakamura wanted to explore the themes and ideas put in Shadow The Hedgehog, and presumably tell a coherent story with the black hedgehog with a new spin following his previous two works.
- We can rule together devil-like villain: The villains of both games have many similarities: ancient [[Obviously Evil evil]] beings who act cordial with Shadow, and want him on their side, but have world-threatening motives; they also have a mysterious connection with Shadow, which serves as the basis for the plot.
- Mysterious projects of the past: Both stories deal with a secret project that involves both Shadow and the villain. While Black Doom involves retconning the events of Adventure 2, and changing what we know about Shadow and Project Shadow, The Solaris Project is an original story involving time travel.
- Shadow being mistrust by humanity: In Shadow, Black Doom told the titular character that humanity mistrust him, and tried to get rid of him. This is a compelling idea, but due to the incoherent storytelling, these moments only come out in specific levels, and don’t factor in the final story, the one that only matters. 2006 makes it relevant to Mephiles attempt to make Shadow join him in his cause, and gives Omega relevancy by making him the one who seals Shadow as a culprit. This moment provides a reason why Omega was sealed alone with Shadow in Heroes, something the previous game never explained.“When something or someone is seen as too powerful, it is seen as a threat. And then the world becomes its enemy.”
- Team Dark: While Shadow’s game never used Rouge and Omega, 2006 do. And all three members of the team are all equally important to the story, the three having a moment for themselves that is relevant with what the previous game stated. By comparison, Team Sonic story is faily banal, with Tails and Knuckles roles being simplistic in nature and downright unnecesary; Silver’s story involves retconning Blaze’s entire story, thus, damaging her character.
Due to how closely the themes and characterization between the [Maekawa] trilogy of Adventure 2-Heroes-2006 follows, one could almost pretend the titular game of Shadow The Hedgehog never happened.
