I like Shadow.
I don't like how he's portrayed in his own game.
I'd have liked the game if there was some sort of continous story. And that it didn't make it look like Gerald was some nutty guy who just wanted to make a monster to blow stuff up. I don't like that they made Maria some plucky "WOW SHADOW, TOGETHA WE CAN DO ANYTHIN'" in that one message from Gerald.
*Shrug* I was willing to give it a shot. I think the gun-play worked, it was kinda fun to sit down and play it.
BUT the story was ridiculous. And I generally play games for story. *Shrug*
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Nearly every negative review I've read consists of the same recycled "Sonic with guns? Madness!" and "4Kids: teh enemy!!!" arguments over and over.
Wait, are you talking about the negative reviews here, the Sonic fan community or the gaming community in general? Because with the last group, not only did they complain that the very concept was beyond retarded, but they argued that controls were awful, the graphics were sub-par, and the camera was just as bad as ever. Just check out any general gaming board or some gaming review site that is the majority response to this game. Seeing that the same problems the game suffers are similar to various people who played and reviewed don't you think the game in general is not considered to be a well-put together game?
Hear, hear@Jman!!!!!!!!!!
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Seeing that the same problems the game suffers are similar to various people who played and reviewed don't you think the game in general is not considered to be a well-put together game?
That just means several people had the same opinion. It doesn't cement as fact that the game is bad, and it certainly doesn't mean I have to act like it is just a fact and move on.
And I hoped it was over before it even began...
I won't accept the "fact" that they are bad games because I enjoy them and thus they are good games to me. Good and bad are subjective terms. I see no technical issues that would have such a detrimental effect on my enjoyment of the game as to completely turn me away from it.
Perhaps I should rephrase, then? "sub-standard", "under-par", or whatever.
I'm still not a huge fan of Sonic Heroes, but I like Shadow and I am displeased with the flak it gets for the character alone, not to mention the gripes with these apparent problems that I never ever seem to see.
Deprecating based upon the main character, while LOLulant, has a scrap of significance. Disliking the character you have to play as in a game does have a detrimental effect on the level of enjoyment. As for the unseen problems, I can relate to you here somewhat; in the years I have owned and played both SA1 and DX, I have not experienced a single glitch, and a few months ago I suddenly fell straight through the loop leading toward the whale section on my Nth play of Emerald Coast.
Nearly every negative review I've read consists of the same recycled "Sonic with guns? Madness!" and "4Kids: teh enemy!!!" arguments over and over.
Guns and vehicles are a random and unnecessary addition to the formula and the vehicles, at least, are almost completely redundant because their controls are actually worse than Shadow's - however, the fact that they aren't mandatory apart from here and there{?} renders the complaints somewhat irrelevant.
If you aren't forced to use them and they're just lying there, there is no problem, though with guns I seem to recall a puzzle or two that required them and that if you wanted to kill things the homing attack was unreliably glitchy and did minimal damage so you basically had to use them anyway.. I want to confirm things but I'm not renting it again. As for 4kids; eh, whatever. They pissed on SX and polluted the VAing further than it already was, but I don't really care anymore.
Those are the least of the game's problems, anyway{well, the fact that the in-level VAing is mandatory coupled with the subjective annoying/embaressing aspect may push the 4kids problem up notches depending on the person}: The alligations of Piss-poor graphics for the game's time{graphics make a game not; I know}, consisting of choppy framerate when the screen is busy{PS2-only problem?} and everything that isn't an FMV looking worse than SA2{released in 2001},
[PARAGRAAAPHS]
abundance of bottomless pits, stupid camera{cam problems are based on luck apart from that one level with fall in it I think}, mapping practically everything to one button along with the slippery controls, boorishly repettitive "kill x" or "y x" missions used as an attempt to drag out the fabled x endings while using the same levels and the problems that come with it such as your "allies" attacking you and there being no radar for the frustratingly elusive last few obje--
...Alright, I'm getting a headache now. I don't think a single "You guys had Shadow's card marked the day the first screenshots were released, purely because you don't like Shadow." person has posted in this topic for weeks so I guess you're just venting about everyone as a whole rather than just over here.
kk, I pull back on the "HAVE to" thing; my abrasiveness had reached it's limit there and I've already exhaused my will to debate on this completely. As you said, you don't have to. A game that doesn't seem to fix a single problem that Heroes introduced while introducing a few of it's own just screams mediocre{modified from "crap" thanks to Swift ;3 btw I own enter the dragonfly, as unfortunate as that may sound, and have managed to enjoy the "steaming pile of crap" now and then} to me and people trying to defend it from the "few" ominously clear flaws just strikes me as absurd, that's all. I agree to disagree.
I got the latest Official Playstation Mag with the Sonic Riders and Shadow demos. Just out of curiosity, I decided to try The Shadow demo on PS2. LMAO!! HORRIBLE framrate compared to GC. Sounds and voices break up. And the subtitled voices (Sonic, Shadow, Black Arma) you can't hear at all! Is the PS2 version really this bad?!!
What's really crazy is that I found a debug menu. Just hold select and press circle. It lets you level select. But since this is a demo, any level other than the first one will freeze up the PS2.
By the way, IMO Sonic Heroes was miles ahead of Shadow in terms of gameplay.
Yes, the PS2 version is the worst (and the one I own), it has bad framerate, horrible loading times and the only interesting thing is that it has the Japanese voice track on it.
So it's like getting a cookie and an enema at the same time.
Having just beaten the game... I must say that even Sonic Heroes' Last Story was better than this. (Sonic Adventure's and Adventure 2's just blow it out of the water.)
Credit where credit is due, at least Shadow's makes some sense (unlike SA2) despite being retcon and relies on the mother of all deus ex machina.
Would have been better if they had Omega in the room and show Black Doom dispatch of him with ease (robots don't get affected by the gas) to show what a badass he is and intimidate us into thinking he's a worthwhile boss.
Eh, how did SA2's not make sense? (I'm sure it's stabbing me in the face, but I just can't see it.)
Eh, I guess Omega being there wouldn't make sense... seeing he's not part of "Sonic and Co."... (Neither are the Chaotix for that matter, guess that's why they were on the Ark instead.) Then again, Rouge isn't either. (She's usually part of the game due to other circumstances... o.O)
Eh, Shadow's doesn't really make much sense to me, but oh well.
But there were some plot holes/inconsistancies both within the games themselves, and when you put them together... Little, minor, insignificant things that Craig, and lots of other people, dont seem to be able to overlook 
The trouble is, every time Sega retells Shadow story, they change things...
Maria started of as a very tragic person who was mentally ill and doomed to die anyway...
Then, by the end of Shadow she was a bright "We can do it togehter, YAY" cheesey girl who echoes the cheesey Heroes message... (remember Sonic's last line in Heroes... eurghhhh)
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Maria started of as a very tragic person who was mentally ill and doomed to die anyway
Uh, no. Try physically ill. And apparently only to the point that she was forced to live in a relatively sterile environment, so it wasn't like she was immediately termial - for all we know, she could have lived out her life just fine, if in a limited environment, on the ARK and the cure for her illness would have just let her live a normal life on Earth. And yes, her death itself was tragic, but the fact that while dying she was thinking of making others happy seems to indicate that she was a cheerful person.
Besides, when you put it that way, everyone's "doomed to die."
Wasn't NIDS (her illness) a "Neuro" disease? As in, the N? As in, a mental illness? I think somewhere there was a big talk of this. NIDS was just in it's early stages, she would have gotten worse had she lived longer.
I don't think she was a perky overly cheerful person, though. I think she just cared.
See, that's what confused me about GUN Commander. Maria was only on the TOP SECRET MILITARY RESEARCH FACILITY as Gerald's request, and because she's ill.
Why would another kid who lives to be an old man be up there?
It doesnt matter if it was mental or physical...
There were STRONG hints in SA2 that Maria was dieing anyway, which meant when she was killed by GUN her death was even more tragic because it was robbing her of the short time she had... And those hints are confirmed in the japanese strategy guides...
You CAN ignore those hints if you want, which is what Sonic Team did with Shadow, because no mention is made of the illness and Maria seems happy, cheerfull and non to bothered to be made to run around the ARK like a lunatic...
That is until some GUN soldier puts a gun to her head...
Anywho... back to SA2. I love this rant.
*ahem*
HOW THE HELL DID GERALD PUT HIS OWN DEATH TAPE INTO THE ARK'S DOOMSDAY DESTRUCTION DEVICE?!!?!?!?
He was shot on tape!
...
The same tape programmed to tell the world his grand plan.
Oh that's simple Craig. he...he just...no, but he...well maybe he....*HEAD ASPLODE*
Its a good question, but nothing that bothered me when I first saw it, the second time, the third, or even when I saw it again after hearing you complain about it...
I have seen some try to tell others that he programmed the computer to pick up his death recordig and programm that into his doomsday programe...
I have seen others claim the Biolizard, or possibly Shadow did it...
None of them seem remotely plausable, except possibly the Shadow one but I'd prefer not to go down that route...
Despite the explanation HOW gerald made Shadow, the period between Maria's death and Shadow waking up 50 years later are STILL remarkabl hazy....
Which is the biggest problem, I dont think its a bad game but oh...
If ONLY we could of seen it all played from start to finish, rather than just hinted at, suggested and shrugged off.
Also... now that the "Shadow created on Earth" theory is totally debunked by Shadow the Hedgehog. What was with the writing in his prison cell?
Which prison cell? You mean the one Sonic was locked in?
I always assumed sonic wrote that, cos he was bored, and there was so much becuase... well, maybe he writes as fast as his feet move?
I dunoo, I always assumed it was a sort of joke...
Unless your refering to writing I dont remember...
No, that was all Gerald. It's very clear, you can see the writing in the background of the video when Gerald is shot dead during the Last story.
Gerald was executed IN the cell they put Sonic into after he was caught...
...
That never occured to me...
I never
But, so which piece of wrting are you refering to that Shadow can't of made?
I thought it was his calculations predicting the trajectory of the ARK to give it enough force to break the world apart.
and how does he manage to do this... from prison? Prison in the ocean... far from space or ARK.
IT. MAKES. NO. SENSE!
Through the GUN Commander guy.
*Mind-boggles*
I always thought he just had a contact inside GUN headquarters who was submitting this stuff for him... probably not the GUN Commander, but somebody.
I have to admit, that is just... wrong on every fundamental level..
1) Its not hinted at AT ALL in the game...
2) Therefore its fanfiction
3) It's not even plausable...
He was programming to the END of the WORLD...
If he had a contact, it'd have to be someone who didn't mind killing themselves, parents, loves ones, cousins/pets, everything...
Whoever it was would of had to have a death wish...
So, although I've only just stopped to consider it, i'm afraid I've already dismissed that theory from the off...
If Sonic Team had wanted us to have a contact, we'd of at least heard something about them.
Hm... it could be one of Maria's parents... I mean, it's doubtful. But it's more plausible than "SHADOW DID IT!!!" atleast in my opinion.
Especially as Shadow's capsule was recovered by GUN and he was put into chryogenic sleep inside Prison Island.
But when was the capsule fired?
By Maria, as she died?
... If so, when did Gerald get acess to Shadow to reprogamm him to destroy the world?
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Wasn't NIDS (her illness) a "Neuro" disease? As in, the N? As in, a mental illness? I think somewhere there was a big talk of this. NIDS was just in it's early stages, she would have gotten worse had she lived longer.
Neuro = neurological = nervous system. That's throughout the body, not just in the brain. She had an immunity deficiency linked to her nervous system, which, going by its name, would mean that she would be highly likely to catch something that her nervous system wouldn't be able to withstand as it should, thus likely being fatal to her.
A mental illness is something like schizophrenia - something like brain cancer isn't classified as a mental illness just because it happens in the brain. Maria was not mentally ill.
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There were STRONG hints in SA2 that Maria was dieing anyway, which meant when she was killed by GUN her death was even more tragic because it was robbing her of the short time she had... And those hints are confirmed in the japanese strategy guides......
Care to specify as to what those hints where? There was nothing to indicate that her situation was even deteriorating as far as I can remember - she was just forced to live in the ARK.
Anyway, as to the gooeyness of other story details...
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HOW THE HELL DID GERALD PUT HIS OWN DEATH TAPE INTO THE ARK'S DOOMSDAY DESTRUCTION DEVICE?!!?!?!?
He was shot on tape!
...
The same tape programmed to tell the world his grand plan.
Last wish, will request left with other family/friends. After all, the tape WAS of his last words/statement. He could have made preperations beforehand (obviously he was obsessive about revenge) and had it written as a last request that the stuff be stored into the ARK's computers or something. Smart as he was supposed to have been, he could have programmed anything he left behind to seem innocent enough (just a diary, etc.).
As for Shadow, it's like swiss cheese, but the best I would make of it would be that after Gerald was captured and Shadow's capsule recovered, the former somehow gained access/permission to work on the latter. We already knew that Shadow had been awake while on the ARK, nevermind "born" there, and besides, if Gerald was to have tampered with Shadow's memories and set all this plans for revenge into motion, it would have been after he found out Maria had been killed and after he was captured.
So it seems that Gerald, for whatever reason, was given time with both Shadow and some kind of access to the ARK (remote programming to be inserted later? had someone indeed been ordered to bring up the recording and the like, that would explain that). Perhaps he told GUN that the ULF/ARK/Eclipse Cannon needed some kind of touch-ups for whatever reason - it may have been in their best interests to try to have access to all these things and thus allowed Gerald to work before realising that he was way off the deep end.
Obviously it's just speculation, but it seems to fit.
Proving once again you don't have to be Crazy to make sense out of SA2,
but it helps. 
When you're Crazy, everything makes more sense!
Besides, we knew that GUN had interest in the stuff Gerald was developing. After all, their robots are powered by his chaos drives.
Can I put "Destroy the world" in my will and hope that someone does it for me? That would rock!
Well, he could have told multiple people to do things for him, without telling them the reprucussions. That way it fits together kinda like a jig-saw puzzle without actually informing anyone the results.
Gerald WAS the leading scientific mind in the world, you remember. Using his superior scientific knowledge, he probably designed and built a wireless link to the colony that somehow relayed the information to the Colony's mainframe. Only that's derailed because he had no chance to make such a device.
So that's theories flushed.
Or maybe Shadow did it. Only he was kinda compromised at the moment.
Or Black Doom. Only it's purpose was to blow up his comet, so he'd not be interested.
Or perhaps Gerald's a magician.
BLAME THE REPUBLICANS
Or...uh...
It's probably not healthy to dwell on this, anyway. >>
And we really shouldn't be bothering with this anymore. Shadow's story is over. Sonic can take back over, and hopefully life will go on as normal.
EDIT: Hey, all y'alls that have played/beaten/spoiled yourself about the game, I have a question that may answer a few morwe questions I have. Does the game stress that Gerald was working/completed the Eclipse Cannon before the seizing of Project Shadow?
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IT. MAKES. NO. SENSE!
Craig, it's not that difficult to understand: The pieces only SEEM not to fit together because we are missing one or more crucial pieces of information which will never be revealed.
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Craig, it's not that difficult to understand: The pieces only SEEM not to fit together because we are missing one or more crucial pieces of information which will never be revealed.
That piece will be Gerald himself. If you ask me he is still alive some form or another. i got a couple of teories as to why I believe he is stil alive:
1) The tape we saw in SA2 could be fake. Gerald words during the video were:
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This is a death sentence for every human being on Earth. If my calculations are correct, the Space Colony ARK will impact the Earth in twenty-seven minutes, twenty-three seconds. All of you will be destroyed, along with your beloved planet Earth.I plan to give you a taste of my revenge, once all the seven Chaos Emeralds are collected. Once I initiate this program, it cannot be disabled. All of you ungrateful humans, who took everything away from me... will feel my loss, and despair!
G.U.N. Soldier: Is there anything else you want to say?
Don't you think is weird a G.U.N. soldier heard that yet he didnt react and told someone about it? I mean if he had told someone the events of SA2 would have never happened right. Either the video is fake or someone silenced the soldier and wanted,other than Gerald( Black Doom), for the ARk to fall.
2)Gerald and Artificial Chaos. I always had believe that Gerald had a hand in releasing Perfect Chaos. If you look at Shadow game AC that appear in the flashback are easier to defeat that the ones from SA2. What if Gerald trick Eggman into unleashing Perfect Chaos so that he could study him and made upgraded and harder versions of the AC? Plus Eggman never said where he got the stone tablet from(not counting Sonic X).
3)As for the GUN commander story. Maybe he is not who he claim to be. Maybe he is pawn of Gerald. The same could be said about the Black Arms. How do we know they are really aliens and not somekind of ARK experiment. Maybe clones of some ancient race that GUN thought they could use in the wars and where somehow release(like the AC) after SA2.
As for how he suvive this long. Either he clone himsef(hey what if he really is the GUN commander? he could be you know), put his mind in the ARK mainframe or he is ghost.
Either Yuji Naka is trying to pull a Hideo Kojima(Metal Gear series) and connect all the Sonic games as big conspiracy or it could be just crappy writing 
.
Pretty sure it's just horific writing.
1) They thought Gerald was nuts. If a mad-man said the world would be destroyed in 23 minutes etc. would you believe him?
2) The Artificial Chaos in the present were such as strong as the ones in the past.
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1) They thought Gerald was nuts. If a mad-man said the world would be destroyed in 23 minutes etc. would you believe him?
Yes. Why? because there a small chance that he might be telling truth and guess what he was telling the truth. Not to mention that if he could create someone like Shadow I would take his treat very seriously.
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2) The Artificial Chaos in the present were such as strong as the ones in the past.
Not really the ones from SA2 were harder because you didn't had gun to fight them with. Plus sometime you had to fight more than one and I also remember that they attack quicker on SA2 than Shadow.
I'm talking about the ones in Shadow from the present.
It doesn't matter anyway, level of difficulty is a gameplay thing.
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Pretty sure it's just horific writing.
Not exactly. As I said, Shadow's past is never to be known. Ever. By anyone, including the game designers. Any plotholes are simply mysteries that would be solved by the theoretical "missing piece" I mentioned earlier. Shadonic thinks this missing piece is Gerald, but I don't think he understands what I'm saying.
Look at it this way: Shadow was created as a jigsaw puzzle, but they purposely left some areas without pieces. They're simply making new pieces up as they go along to fill the holes, but as they fill the holes they're also adding new areas to the puzzle, each with its own holes, always creating more holes than they fill. In this way, they maintain the mystery. In each game, they invent answers to old questions and make new questions that they'll make up answers to later.
In my opinion, the reason Shadow's character was imagined was as an example of what Sonic is not. The utter crappiness of Shadow's backstory serves this purpose quite well.
EXACTLY! Thank you, Dirk. The point of Shadow (the character) is to say, "This is why we don't tell you about Sonic's past. He'd have to start reminiscing, and to show you how annoying that is we've created a character who does it constantly."
Er, in my mind, at least. ^^;
(Please don't shoot me if I'm repeating myself, I don't remember if I said this already and can't be arsed to check through 98 pages.)
Apologies for the massive bump but seeing this Shadow video and listening, how come the Japanese voice actors sound much better than their American counterparts?
4Kids.
Duh.
Pssh. It's not like the previous set of English VAs were any better compared to the Japanese counterparts.
I'll have to disagree there, though I concede that the JPN VAs were still better.
Man, I forgot how annoying these blank pages are.
I somewhat disagree with you. The VAs for the games (sans Shadow and Riders) were somewhat better than 4Kids.
However, the Japanese VA for Vector is superior than either his counterparts from Heroes OR Shadow
Oh, I also found this.
| Spoilers (Select To Read) |
| I feel sorry that Shadow doesn't return the love. :p |
While this bump is up, has there been a soundtrack released for Shadow? I love most of the music in it.
AFAIK yes, and frankly I thought the music reeked.
