Forgotten Gaming - Shadow the Hedgehog

Name- Shadow the Hedgehog

Platforms- PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox

Developer- Sega

Released- November 2005

ESRB Rating- One of the first games rated E10+. Yeah, this game is hardcore >_>

For such a self-proclaimed Sega and Sonic diehard as myself, I’m surprised I haven't brought them up until now. I could review any Sonic game, but as WNR Forever caters toward the more obscure taste, I feel like exploring one of the true black sheep of the 20+ year old series: Shadow the Hedgehog.

The year is 2005. The sixth generation has been going strong but is nearing a close, and Sega is at a crossroads with their flagship series. Their most recent effort, Sonic Heroes, performed decently but was by no means a showstopper (especially compared to the Dreamcast’s ‘Adventure’ series), and few fans were clamoring for a Sonic Heroes 2. The Xbox 360 was readying its release, and surely Sonic would make a high-profile appearance there but it would be at least another year for that. Sega needed a blockbuster game to fill in the 2005 Christmas season, and decided to take a big chance by creating a Sonic game that didn’t even star him as the main character. Sonic’s rival Shadow was chosen to lead a game that few asked for: a Sonic game with guns, blood, profanities and overall seediness. Sound like fun?

Now I’m all for mature themes and a disregard for making everything child-friendly, but there’s a way to do it. Shadow the Hedgehog really could’ve embraced the dark genre with appropriate vulgar dialogue and tasteful violence, but instead Sega looked at what ‘mature’ means to a 12-year-old: just add guns, hard rock and ‘bad words’ like damn and you’re all set. Anyone over that age would look at this mature effort and just shake their head: Inanimate objects are constantly exploding. Enemies are either overtly militant or bad-fan-art demonic looking. Worst of all, every time Shadow gets hit, he says ‘damn’. Every time. This isn’t edgy, it’s just awkward.

The story is also all over the place, literally. Shadow is one of the most mysterious Sonic characters because with each game he stars in, his backstory is different and his actions are retconned in the end. Sega knew this and decided to maximize on it, by having every possible explanation for Shadow as a, uh… possibility. Despite featuring over 20 stages, playthroughs of Shadow the Hedgehog is done in 6-stage runs, with the missions you choose to complete affecting which stages you play next. Cue the visual aid:

You’ll always start at Stage 1: Westopolis, just after aliens invade the world. The aliens tell Shadow he is one of them and ask him to help them take over, while Sonic and friends ask him to help them to destroy the aliens. But it’s not like each mission is separated, no that would make too much sense. Each stage has 2-3 missions that occur simultaneously. Helping Sonic & Co. is considered the ‘Hero’ mission, while helping head alien Black Doom is considered the ‘Dark’ mission. Or… Shadow can say screw you to both parties and do his own thing, this is the ‘Neutral’ mission. Referencing the level map above, completing Dark missions sends you higher up the tree and Hero missions sends you lower. Neutral balances you in the middle. All of those small circles on the right are possible endings. Completing every ending unravels a final stage with a final boss and a final ending. Talk about a fragmented story… 

Since each game of Shadow is technically only 6 stages long, the beauty of this game is to replay it and diversify the missions you complete over and over again to unlock everything. Of everything this game does wrong, this kind of stage progression is unique and refreshing.

As for how the game actually plays, it’s not the easiest game to pick up and excel in, mostly due to Sega’s laziness. Shadow controls very oddly with jerky acceleration and sensitive turning. His homing attack is spotty and worst of all, his guns don’t have a lock-on. It’s very difficult to play Shadow the Hedgehog smoothly, it’s a lot of stopping and starting, awkward shooting and camera adjusting. Did I mention that this game has no kind of map system, despite the majority of missions relying on destroying certain landmarks or enemies? Yep, if you miss one you have to keep looping around to find it with no sense of where to go. For some stages it can be downright infuriating.

As far as game performance, Shadow runs the best on the GameCube which has the most stable frame rate and quickest load times. The PS2 version is noticeably choppier and load times can get a bit obnoxious. Xbox falls in the middle.

The Hero/Dark/Neutral theme also invades into the scoring system. You have 3 (!) separate scores, guess what they’re each for. Doing dark things such as fulfilling the dark mission and destroying property will add to the Dark score and fill the red bar in the upper left. Doing heroic things like fulfilling the hero mission and putting out fires will add to the Hero score and fill the blue bar in the upper right. Neutral actions like collecting rings add to the regular score in the middle. Filling either bar allows Shadow to do a cool albeit pointless super move such as warping forward or destroying everything onscreen. Even though you can somewhat choose which mission you want to do, the Hero/Dark support characters will continue to follow you and tell you what to do (and what not to do). It can get very irritating. It also makes you feel really bad for Shadow, because not only is he trying to figure himself out but everyone else is trying to bend him their way, while aliens are invading and the military is out to kill him. Never will you feel so crowded but so lonely.

Shadow the Hedgehog has the reputation of being the first in a series of bad mainstream Sonic games, and the accusation is largely fair. Shadow is full of good ideas and intentions, but too few of its elements actually work. The unorthodox approach to level progression is probably the only good thing the game has going for it, though even that gets old and repetitive after a few playthroughs. (Westopolis is easily one of the most drab and unappealing Sonic stages in existence, and yet you must start there every single time.) The gameplay and story are fragmented beyond interest, and the constant injections of gunplay and the word ‘damn’ make everything hard to take seriously. Though I’ll still play and somewhat enjoy this game to this day, it’s a very hard recommendation to make to others. Give it a try, but set your standards low.