Shadow hate? ( SonicTheHedgehog talk: ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK)

Why the heck people keep resurrecting old topics? Seriously...

Mostly because they probably planned on making a new topic but they probably found this one. Nevertheless, I don't hate Shadow but he steals the spotlight quite a lot from Sonic.

I hate shadow because he dares to upstage knuckles.

I like shadow because everyone else hates him and his game.

While this is offtopic, why do the new Sonic games feel the need to put in realistic humans? They just feel out of place, what ever happened to Sonic's squirrel and flicky buddies?

^ Only one game actually did the whole 'put realistic humans in with the cast of Funny Animals' bit.

Actually I'm going to move this to its own topic.

The abridged version of my "my beef with shadow" response.

If Sonic Adventure 2: Battle had not "killed" Shadow, we could have skipped over Sonic Heroes and had an easy tie in to Shadow the Hedgehog, with Shadow simply trying to learn more about the circumstances of his creation and existence. That's a good flow right there. However, this didn't happen. Instead he "died". Frankly, that would've been an adequate end to his saga right there. Most add-on characters in the Sonic franchise never last one game anyway. Shadow dying the heroic sacrifice meant he could be immortalized as the awesome character the game made him out to be. Meaning we could've skipped over Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, and possibly Sonic Battle (except the only bad thing this game had going for it was Gerald Robotnik-related plot-holes).

Also, Shadow is rather useless as a device in the Sonic mythos. Sonic already has 2 rivals, one villainous and one not. I mean we have Knuckles the Rad Red, who is not as fast as Sonic but makes up for it by being his opposite and focusing on strength. And there's his enemy, Metal Sonic, Eggman's robotic Sonic clone, who is basically Sonic's speed competition. Shadow has no place here when you have Knuckles and Metal Sonic. I mean you have Complete opposite guy, and Evil soulless version of the guy. What's Shadow supposed to be? He's just Sonic with magical powers. That more than trumps Sonic in terms of abilities. He's not a rival, he's metaphor for Sony/Xbox trying to make a Dark and Edgy "HARDCORE" version of Sonic and failing.

And what's his purpose as a character? I mean, sure I guess he's supposed to be doing as Maria wanted him to do by saving the world or making people happy and some such, but isn't that job being taken care of by Sonic and his merry band? Can I hear a "REDUNDENT" form you guys?

So what am I saying? Shadow isn't bad, just poorly handled and would've been a better character if

1) Sonic Heroes didn't bring him back 1a) Shadow didn't die in Sonic Adventure 1, Sonic Heroes was skipped, and Shadow The Hedgehog was a better game. 2)Shadow The Hedgehog was a better game 3)People didn't demand for his return 4)The Executives didn't listen to the fans 5)He was given a greater purpose beyond "Sonic's evil rival" 6)I think I missed one.

And Blaze does everything Shadow does (more serious, angsty rival to Sonic with slightly different abilities) but much, much better.

That's been a problem with nearly all new Sonic characters- they don't add anything gameplay-wise to the franchise, and their designs are just variants of existing ones. Hilariously, the only character who actually has a different design and gameplay is Big the Cat.

Oh Lord... Big's stupid fishing sections... ugh.

I wonder if Shadow might be better off completely separated from Sonic. I mean, Wario doesn't belong in the same game as Mario.

^That's exactly what I was thinking.

Well now that he got his Wangst out of the way at the end of his game, pretty much anything he's going to be in afterward will by default be Lighter and Softer. Naturally that would automatically feel weird for both him and the player.

Personally, I'd be tempted to play that for all it's worth, but I'm not sure I trust their writing staff enough to handle that very well.

^ Perhaps a Sonic version of Conkers Bad Fur Day?

Where everything looks all warm and fuzzy, but is actually vulgar and crass? And Shadow's the only sane man?

edited 16th Aug '10 5:46:00 PM by takashi.0

Not as overwhelming or tacky as that, more of a Shadow Hearts: Covenant feel, where weird shit is constantly happening around him, but it actually helps him adjust, but he never really loses his badass side in the process and serious moments can still happen.

The thing about Shadow is that even after putting most of his issues behind him, he still really, really sticks out in this setting. Like nearly anything, it can be handled well, but something that psychological takes a pretty subtle touch and would by necessity have to be driven by more than an Excuse Plot; and we've all seen how averse the usual writers are to that...

edited 16th Aug '10 6:42:40 PM by Pykrete

Nexus, your post makes boatloads of sense.

Sega! Hire this Troper! NOW!

I especially liked the "ditch the vehicles and guns" part. He really shouldn't need them. At all. He can fucking teleport for petes sake.

They did try to give Shadow his own game, remember? And it was a complete laughing stock, remember?

If there's anything that could sum of the fall of Sonic, it's that Sonic Team tried to do ambitious things with the franchise and branch out, but they didn't have the basic skill to pull it off and actually make great games out of it. They forget to get the basics right before building off of them.

The failure that Shadow The Hedgehog was because Sega tried to pursue soemthing that they didn't know how to do. And as well trying too hard for Darker and Edgier.

And guns? Seriously, why the hell did they give him a gun? Slamming his spiny head through metallic enemeis has worked quite well for Sonic and Knuckles, and inexplainably for the non-spiny Tails too. Though his namesake seems to be Made of Iron so, nevermind.

Though Shadow is a bit of a "meh" character. Theres some potential use for him, but he really doesn't add much to the series. Only thing keeping him alive is the squealing of his fangirls.

Apparently, he cannot use his teleporting powers and such without a Chaos Emerald, so he can pretty much act as a Color Palette Swap of Sonic as a Player Two Character in multplayer games, seeing as Tails and Knuckles have their own mechanics and tricks. (No cheap homing attack but flight ability and less max speed, lower jumps but can smash certain obstacles. And gliding with climbing.)

edited 16th Aug '10 11:06:06 PM by KuroFox

^ Actually, in Shadow The Hedgehog, Sonic Battle, and quite a few games after his debut he didn't use a Chaos Emerald to teleport.

... Sega keeps changing character attributes more often than they keep de-aging Tails.

Well, whatever. My point is, Shadow has potential use as a character, but I wouldn't really care if he got the boot. Like a few other characters have.

edited 17th Aug '10 1:53:59 AM by KuroFox

Sega keeps changing character attributes more often than they keep de-aging Tails.

... except Tails was always eight.

I swear he was 10 at some point...

Well, rumours, hazy memory, not really being all fan-ish about this all and not actively following every tidbit. Tends to make mistakes like that.

edited 17th Aug '10 2:10:31 AM by KuroFox

Giving the characters canon ages was a dumb decision, but considering this is Sonic Team we're talking about it's pretty low on the list.

Shadow doesn't have character. He's a Linkin' Park song in a fursuit.

edited 17th Aug '10 3:23:46 AM by Gralien

Giving the characters canon ages was a dumb decision, but considering this is Sonic Team we're talking about it's pretty low on the list.

Oh, come on now...