What did you think about Shadow The Hedgehog?

[The Weeb with No Name]

To its credit, Charmy was pretty likeable in this game.

[Soniman]

To its credit, Charmy was pretty likeable in this game.

[Vertekins]

The pathetic emphasis on needless profanity makes Shadow out to be as edgy and cool as a small child who has learned a cuss word for the first time and thinks it's mature and awesome to blurt it out frequently.

What also offends me about this game is the way it shits on Sonic in order to make Shadow look supremely better. This is proven by the intro. In which Sonic is obviously beaten to the point of collapse and the clear perpetrator is Shadow, who doesn't have so much as a quill out of place. There's also the utter clusterfuck that is the Sonic & Diablon boss fight, a fight so amazingly, so incredibly one-sided and disrespectful to Sonic that it reduces him to being a retarded stepping stone for Shadow to get at Diablon and then has the audacity to show Sonic on the floor in the cutscene afterwards.

Horrically Narmtastic script and cutscene animation. Still, good for comedy even though that comedy value is unintentional. Utterly lolworthy how Shadow's weapons are frequently larger than him and stick out by their comparitive realism.

The rest of the game is shitty shit shit. Ugly visuals and atrocious Heroes character models who look like they've been polishing themselves with Shiny McShine Body Wax. Awfully shoehorned-in vehicles that are seriously lacking in function and useability and normal abilities of extremely limited use. Someone please tell me what the point was of Shadow kicking and punching moves?

The game, like '06, is like a horrific stain on the franchise, the point when it spiralled off into utter nonsense, insane common denominator rabid fanboy pandering.

[Diogenes]

This is proven by the intro. In which Sonic is obviously beaten to the point of collapse and the clear perpetrator is Shadow, who doesn't have so much as a quill out of place.

Edited July 5, 2012 by Diogenes

[Soniman]

Let's be honest here, we don't know what the shit that scene was supposed to be, since it has nothing to do with anything in the actual game and it has no context in the intro. Sonic could've been beaten up by any number of things.

Edited July 5, 2012 by The Noodle

[Tornado]

What also offends me about this game is the way it shits on Sonic in order to make Shadow look supremely better. This is proven by the intro. In which Sonic is obviously beaten to the point of collapse and the clear perpetrator is Shadow, who doesn't have so much as a quill out of place. There's also the utter clusterfuck that is the Sonic & Diablon boss fight, a fight so amazingly, so incredibly one-sided and disrespectful to Sonic that it reduces him to being a retarded stepping stone for Shadow to get at Diablon and then has the audacity to show Sonic on the floor in the cutscene afterwards.

Edited July 5, 2012 by Gilda

[Tails spin]

For what its worth it is a game that I play quite frequently. At first I didn't like it when I rented it when it first came out, but around late 2008 or so I needed another game for my gamecube and choose to buy this game- it was used and cost $8 buck at gamestop. I kind of leave the story out of it and just focus on the gameplay. Eh maybe cuz I didn't fork over the $50 bucks that this game was worth when it was first release is probably why I'm not to mad at it.

[Tails spin]

One thing that does annoy me is the fact if you choose to side with the Black arms or with the Gun Solider, it really doesn't matter because they will attack you any fucking way. Then on top of that you have to hear the annoying voice of your ally saying " Stop their on our side". Leaving me (when I first played it) yelling Fuck yous to those allies.

[Gregzilla]

The others have covered most of what makes this game a failure. It's one of the few games in my life I have sold due to poor quality (and I sold it when I was younger, a time when I was MORE lenient with keeping games regardless of crappiness).

Though I haven't had it for several years, there is one thing I remember really bugging me about it. Something incredibly infuriating. Something that completely and utterly destroyed the whole concept of having a morality system.

No matter what side you're on, G.U.N. or the Black Arms, everybody attacks you.

The fact that no one caught this during development simply baffles me, one of the worst design flaws out of any game I've ever played. Feel like helping the aliens out? Good for you, so go and do the evil mission and wipe out the humans. But nope! The aliens don't like you very much, so they shoot at you, even though you're trying to help! So you have no choice but to fire back, only to be greeted by Doom scolding you- "DO NOT ATTACK OUR SOLDIERS."

Good fucking gravy.

Edit: Dammit Gold Mario beat me to it.

Edited July 5, 2012 by Gregzilla

[Tails spin]

The others have covered most of what makes this game a failure. It's one of the few games in my life I have sold due to poor quality (and I sold it when I was younger, a time when I was MORE lenient with keeping games regardless of crappiness).

Though I haven't had it for several years, there is one thing I remember really bugging me about it. Something incredibly infuriating. Something that completely and utterly destroyed the whole concept of having a morality system.

No matter what side you're on, G.U.N. or the Black Arms, everybody attacks you.

The fact that no one caught this during development simply baffles me, one of the worst design flaws out of any game I've ever played. Feel like helping the aliens out? Good for you, so go and do the evil mission and wipe out the humans. But nope! The aliens don't like you very much, so they shoot at you, even though you're trying to help! So you have no choice but to fire back, only to be greeted by Doom scolding you- "DO NOT ATTACK OUR SOLDIERS."

Good fucking gravy.

Edit: Dammit Gold Mario beat me to it.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

It's amazing how Sonic 06 is so bad it makes ShTH practically the second worst game in the series. That's practically this game's major saving grace, which isn't a lot.

Edited July 5, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

Who let Total Shadow back in?

Anyways, my opinion on ShTH remains about the same as it did two weeks ago: honestly too funny to outright hate.

[Rally the Cheetah]

It's funny because despite how bad this game was at times I'm still drawing a comic based off the events in it... Ah well.

Sooo.... Shadow the Hedgehog.... Though the idea of Shadow having his own game never bothered me a bit as others have said any excitement stops there. Heck, as soon as I saw the first gameplay vid I was like.... Dude... are those guns ? Are those alien lizard people? (And later) Why is he on a motorcycle? What in the name of all that is good is this? Still, I figured I'd give it a chance. I actually enjoyed most of Sonic Heroes though the game models looked like plastic figurines moving on screen and to heck with the side missions and special stages.

Alas it was an okay game at best. What pissed me off the most was how difficult some parts were when there was really no reason.

I'm gonna ask all who read this right now, did any of you get stuck on the ARK flashback missions? God it's been so long I really don't remember what levels they were, all I recall it spending HOURS hunting down Artifical Chaos blob monsters and literally making laps around the level because I was missing one. If I recall correctly a similar mission was hunting down the scientists or something like that? I don't know anymore, all I remember is cursing the game because I had no way of telling were the darn things were hiding .

Actually now that I think about it I guess many of the side missions were like this weren't they? You had to go out of your way to hunt down things and you had no bloody idea where they were and sometimes no way of backtracking aside from making laps around the level. Yes, that was it, the game would punish you if you missed one little item and forced you to complete the level then start back at the beginning and make laps till you got it.

[Mangoaxe5]

Personally I like Shadow the Hedgehog.

I like the storyline, and I thought that Black Doom was a cool villain. I like that we learn that Black Doom helped Professor Gerald create Shadow. It always bugged me that Gerald was able to create a living being as advanced as Shadow on his own so I'm glad that Shadow the Hedgehog retcon it.

This game also gives us the GUN Commander(Abraham Tower) who's one of my favorite characters.

The gameplay is not the best. Sometimes it was hard to control Shadow. And I hate that they used the 4Kids voice actors. It would have been better if they used Shadow's original english voice actor David Humphrey.

I wish the game had done better cause I'd love to see Shadow get his own series of games.

[Sega DogTagz]

It always bugged me that Gerald was able to create a living being as advanced as Shadow on his own so I'm glad that Shadow the Hedgehog retcon it.

Uh, mind if I ask why?

I mean between all the giziod research, ancient echidna archeology and the Space Colony ARK / Eclipse Cannon itself, Gerald has been well established at being arguably the greatest singular intellect in the franchises history. What could possibly bug you about a super scientist of the highest order creating a super solider?

(you can really muddle the waters here if you follow the lure of the franchise, in that past civilizations are more advanced than the current age, and Gerald as the foremost expert on the fourth civilization makes him even more qualified to build these ridiculously advanced things)

[Mangoaxe5]

What could possibly bug you about a super scientist of the highest order creating a super solider?

It just always seemed sueish to me that Gerald was able to create a immortal being who could easily tap into the power of the Chaos Emeralds all by himself.

you can really muddle the waters here if you follow the lure of the franchise, in that past civilizations are more advanced than the current age, and Gerald as the foremost expert on the fourth civilization makes him even more qualified to build these ridiculously advanced things)

Was Gerald really the foremost expert on the fourth civilization? Sorry I never played Sonic Battle.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

It just always seemed sueish to me that Gerald was able to create a immortal being who could easily tap into the power of the Chaos Emeralds all by himself.

And that's just careless use of the word "sue".

A "Sueish" character is generally one who is impossibly perfect in their character traits and treated as such by the author. Gerald was insanely brilliant, but he was FAR from being impossibly perfect. A guy like him wouldn't have let GUN capture him if he was any bit of a sue, because his brilliant mind would have kept it from happening to begin with.

Never mind the fact that there are LOADS of characters like him who are just as smart or even smarter and they're still not anywhere near being a sue, such as Dr. Light, Dr. Wily, Tony Stark, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Mordin Solus...heck, I could save you the trouble and link you to TV Tropes Omnidisciplinary Scientist and look at their list of characters like that.

And funny enough, we've had similar folks like that in real life, if people like Leonardo Da Vinci is anything to go by. A painter, mathematician, scientist, engineer, inventor, anatomist, musician, writer, I mean this guy was pretty unbelievable himself even to this day, and you still wouldn't call that guy a sue in any sense than you would a polymath and Renaissance Man.

Was Gerald really the foremost expert on the fourth civilization? Sorry I never played Sonic Battle.

Well he certainly dabbled with their most powerful weapon Emerl and had notes on the civilization for what it's worth.

Edited July 5, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Solkia]

I have a soft spot for the game. I like shooting the fuck out of enemies with a machine gun, so sue me.

But yeah, this is getting old. Everyone hates the game the same good reasons, and I don't think there's a place on the internet where you'll find a different stance on the game.

[ArtFenix]

I like the game for it's serious story even though it tried TOO hard. Well, no matter, I like serious and dark themes in mah Sonic games. besides, Shadow is one of my most favorite characters so...

OK, first of all, the guns were alright as they were optional for the post part. Completely optional. However the game was by no means perfect and there are quite a lot of things that make me wish they didn't make them..

- the level design is just boring and repetitive in almost all levels

- the dialog.. The goddamn dialog. Very often it tries too hard for it's own good (I like the story itself though and I'm perfectly fine with Black Doom even though I wish Shadow's backstory was connected to Sonic instead of Black Doom but eh..).

- The controls. They are quite unresponsive

- The fucking ending. There was no need to throw the photo with Maria and Gerald the way Shadow did. When you love somebody but decide to move forward and let it all go you don't just throw it all away like it's all rubbish. I don't know how to explain that better and I hope you got the idea, but I don't like that scene at all.

Pretty much everything else about this game I like. The story itself (and the connection to previous games), the music, bosses etc. I like the game. Shadow was badass in that one.

Edited July 5, 2012 by ArtFenix

[OlenJimi]

So bad it's good. Some levels are fun enough.

[Kuzu]

I like the game for it's serious story even though it tried TOO hard. Well, no matter, I like serious and dark themes in mah Sonic games. besides, Shadow is one of my most favorite characters so...

That's really no excuse for this piece of shit of a game. It like me saying this game is good, simply because I liked it.

OK, first of all, the guns were alright as they were optional for the post part. Completely optional. However the game was by no means perfect and there are quite a lot of things that make me wish they didn't make them..

That still doesn't mean it was a good idea.

[Diogenes]

It just always seemed sueish to me that Gerald was able to create a immortal being who could easily tap into the power of the Chaos Emeralds all by himself.

So is it not Sueish to be an immortal being who can easily tap into the powers of the Chaos Emeralds? Focusing on Gerald is just the most bizarre thing.

[ArtFenix]

That still doesn't mean it was a good idea.

True, but it's something you can just skip almost entirely so I don't see how it is such a big deal for some people. Same with vehicles but without "almost".

That's really no excuse for this piece of shit of a game.

Opinions, opinions.. I like the game. It's not great, it's not outright bad.

[Scar]

This game pretty much defines juvenile and childish. There has never been a more childish and gratuitous game in the Sonic franchise.

That's all I can say really.

Edited July 5, 2012 by Scar

[Crystal Slave]

It's like that child you had high hopes for. You wanted him to be an athlete, a scholar, you wanted him to go to the most prestigious schools, you wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer. You wanted him to be a player, but not let his mom check on. You wanted everything for him.

But he was born with the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around his neck.

No joke, I was born that way. Fortunately I wasn't choked long enough for it to do THAT much damage.

With that said, I think Shadow the Hedgehog was alright. The controls were average, better than Heroes IMO but worse than Adventure or the newer titles. I did like the vast variety of levels, but a lot of them were too dark and depressing. I know Shadow's supposed to be all BA (Bad Apple) and whatnot, but that doesn't mean that each of his levels has to look the same; they could've incorporated some beautiful landscapes like most other Sonic games or spinoffs, but they chose not too.

One of the highlights of the game for me is the multiplayer, I have good memories of battles with friends and the game never falls to evoke intense and aggressive multiplayer matches.