Heroes, several versions had near game breaking glitches. Other than that I believe people are getting sick of sonic games having more useless characters than old star trek episode.

Shadow? Because the character is now a commericalized posterboy for teen angst and illogical plot lines.

~Tobe

Ive never had a glitvh in heroes no really although my x box did refuse to play the endings after a while (that was just my box though it didnt play a few things. Shadow i guess i can understand what you are saying but thats a character and not the game so if thats the only reason its hardly fair.

I was refering to the "plot", and I use that term loosely, of the Shadow game. The plot for Doom had more continuity.

~Tobe

Heroes and Shadow didn't fix many of the problems that were evident in the Adventure titles.

Bad camera, controls, lack of finishing polish and quite dull level design.

Shadow also gets slagged off for being the epitome of everything that is wrong with the gaming industry and catering to chav gamers.

Heroes

1. The PAL version is messed up beyond belief and is rendered virtually unplayable, as the 50hz mode registers each tap as a double tap, meaning it's IMPOSSIBLE to judge which formation you'll end up with when you switch, this is a big hastle on Final Fortress when you need to switch to Fly Formation mid-air.

2. Horrible storyline.

3. Unimaginative and lame boss fights which drag on without incident, the Eggman stages involve chasing and then either homing attacking or power'ing them and bot carnivals is just hitting cannon fodder. Exception is Egg Emporeror who is a challanging and fun boss. Less said about Team Battle the better, they SUCK. They're poorly programmed, poorly executed and plain SUCK.

4. Metal Sonic used to whore the game and then he doesn't even appear. Metal Madness is just Perfect Chaos/Final Hazard #3

5. Levels are annoyingly long, and it requires too much patience to bother A ranking everything, given you need to speed through 14 or so 12 minute levels. I'd prefer MORE levels at half the length, that way playing them for points ala SA2 would be fun and worthwhile.

6. Had to play through the game 4 times and only Team Chaotix bothered to mix it up, meaning an insane amount of effort to earn the final battle which we had assumed was Metal Sonic, but we got screwed over.

7. The game felt too sluggish and stiff with 3 characters like that. Sonic is all about the loose and fast feel. That came back in Shadow and made me smile.

Shadow

1. Bosses have potential, but with guns they die too quickly, without them they die too slowly. No balance for anyone who wants to artificially enhance the difficulty and fun

2. The missions are DULL. I'm sorry, but finding 30 objects on the floor wasn't fun with Team Chaotix, it's not fun now. Kill all the Chaos especially. It just enrages me.

3. AWFUL voice acting.

4. LINEAR levels. Only the ARK and Virtual Reality ones have any direction to them. With the first 3 or 4 levels you LITERALLY run forward, regardless of wether you're on a mission or not. There should be more than one direction!

5. The fact that there is no AI in the game. If you side with Dark, the Black Arms shouldn't attack you. If you ally with the light, GUN shouldn't attack you. It makes the game silly and unbalanced.

6. HORRIBLE story which ignores continuity and makes bigger headaches than it's worth, and the killer is that the entire CONCEPT of the game, to clear the mystery of Shadow, is only answered in an incidental radio conversation 7 minutes into the final boss: IE, Eggman rescued Shadow before he hit Earth. Thank you. We didn't need a whole game for that.

7. Pitfalls. Too many. Destroy them.

8. Camera isn't controllable, which is annoyable for two reasons. 1, no way to aim your weapons which destroys the entire shooter concept, and RUINS the whole "dark/light" alignment, as you cannot select your target and thusly leave the side you're on alone. 2 in the VR levels there is a point where you need to jump forward, without a moveable camera, it indicates walking off into a pitfall, and causes alot of nuisance and death to legitimate skilled gamers.

9. Lack of motive for Eggman. Simple enough.

10. FIND DA COMPUTER ROOM!

...I'd list more, but the important ones are discussed. Heroes is unplayable to me due to bad programming/localisation, and Shadow is built on a broken concept.

I completely agree with what Craig said.

In addition, Heroes ticked me off when, on the last level, I was still being told how to perform simple moves by the on screen characters. If they need to talk while I'm playing, couldn't it be conversations with eachother? Sure, there were a few one-liners between them, but only Vec and Charmy had any real talking between them.

Exception is Egg Emporeror who is a challanging and fun boss.

I found it cheap and irritating, especially on the basis that if you stand still for any length of time at the beginning, you get charged at and killed before you have a chance to get any rings. And that I found the best way to attack him was to just go crazy hitting him/using the team blast glitch regardless of whether it hurt him or not to charge up the blast meter then hitting him with that repeatedly.

Heroes
1 i still neevr had any prolems with glitchs even the double tap thing you mentioned and mine is pal.

2i wouldnt call it much of a storyline anyway but still it didnt seem to matter to me that much this time.

3I agree the whole boss having health thing and geenral bosses sucked except maybe the super team one which was ok.

4Totally Agree next time they should make metal a decent plot and story.

5I was ok with levels cept maybe team darks final that was taking things too far.

6 I was ok with the general speed cept with Chaotix.

Shadow
1 Yea thats true

2I only hated the bomb level when you had to find loads of little bombs that was not fun some levels were a bit boring but most were fine but i wouldnt like to see it again.

3Never really noticed was a bit annoyed with the whole american president terrorist thing along with the crazy sterotype geeneral.

4That is true

5im not sure that would make a big differnce

6I liked the story i think the idea was to keep it seperate from continuity cause it was Shadow's game and not Sonic's i didnt even hear that radio convo thanks for that lol.

7Pitfalls? you mean holes right? if so i agree?

8Yea in places

9Eggman hasnt really been a major player for a long time

10??????

I see the point but this game seems to still have had a much much worse reception than it deserves though uh i mean both games doesnt anyone agree?

I think it's the storylines and voice acting that really turned people off Heroes. People see Sonic talking about the power of teamwork and go OMGNO NOT COOL. The game has a bunch of rushed bugs and issues that Craig went into. They also have these crazy expectations that speed is the most important part of a Sonic game, and it's never been. See my topic "Sonic Is Not Speed." The Genesis classics were built on freedom, physics (realistic or not), and superb replay through exploration.

Heroes is the best 3D Sonic for a ton of reasons I've gone over a bunch of times, but to put it simply, it is by far the most interactive experience and is much more of an actual game than SA and SA2. You can play most of it, including bosses, in a ton of different ways, instead of sticking to prescripted movements. And I love the Chaotix.

Shadow is just an annoying character who played a good role in his initial appearance, was killed off in a contrived way because there was no reason to keep him around, and was brought back because fans liked him, only to become much less interesting and pointless. Basically he's like Tommy Turtle of the Archie Sonic comics. I haven't played the game and have heard good and bad things about it, but regardless of the quality, the character would definitely put a lot of people off.

I rather enjoyed Heroes, but there are several negative points that keep it from being anywhere near the greatness of the Adventure games:

1. Bad gameplay. The characters slid around everywhere, not to mention holding back the Sonic speed by switching to Tails or Knuckles every few seconds.
2. Enemies. Sonic is about speed. I want to plow through the enemies quickly, not have to stop every few seconds to whittle down the enemies' life bars.
3. Bosses. Simply "keep homing into them until they explode." Yeah, that's real fun.

As for Shadow, there's not much to say. "Hey! Kids love swearing and killing humans and aliens with guns and stuff! Let's make a game like that!"

I don't have as much of a problem with Heroes as i do with Shadow.
The intro was just WAAY to weird, what with Shadow chillin', then Station Square suddenly being destroyed o_O
Plus the acting isn't that great either. It's like trying to mix Dragon Tales (The dialogue) with LOST (the hella confusing plot) =P.

OH, and I must say that Shadow was clunky. It's the perfect word to describe him - CLUNKY.

My main beef with the Shadow game intro is that Shadow makes the oddest comment when the Black Arms rain down. Something along the lines of not caring about the human's problems. What?! There's a giant red cloud with aliens dropping down from it. Shouldn't he be a bit more worried about THAT? Then he starts to casually walk away, as if the invasion was nothing more than a car accident, until Black Doom shows up.

(/mini-rant)

An alien invasion is small potatoes for the most ridiculously overpowered character in the franchise...

LOL pc that could be how Shadow started out a short 10 second meeting about what kids like. and who are you reffering to as the most powerful character Iblis?

I was referring to Shadow. Shadow gradually seemed to get more powerful in the franchise until it was just silly. Just off the top of my head, his body can apparently deflect bullets, and in Sonic X, he can destroy entire fleets with little effort. I mean I can understand him being strong as the ultimate life form, but what fun is a character that can take on any threat without any effort?

he had trouble with bio lizard he nearly died for what its worth

Play Sonic Battle and say "Shadow is a balanced and non-power player character" with a straight face.

The guy is stupidly over the top.

I hardly remember battle despiting completeing it %100 but really though you all must be a member of the I hate shadow club.

Eh, I don't hate Shadow, I just don't like the way Sega portrays him. I think Shadow definitely has the potential to be a very fun and interesting character. I hope he's broken out of that thick shell of angst he's been trapped in now that he's finally put the past behind him and will finally bring that potential out. And despite not playing Sonic '06, I've heard he does.

The kiddie themes in Sonic Heroes don't bother me too much, but that's probably on account of the fact that my Asperger's Syndrome and ADHD make me emotionally six.

I actually had one major problem with Heroes: TOO MANY BOTTOMLESS PITS! It's an acrophobe's nightmare! And Shadow was too dark and gritty for my tastes, but aside from that and the swearing, I've played worse.

I guess it's just that I'm easier to entertain than the majority of the fanbase. Does that make me part of the problem with Sega nowadays?

I don't hate any of the sonic characters. But many tend to be redundant now, and Shadow, well, he's over marketed. He's everything wrong with anime wrapped up in one nice little racist package.

~Tobe

How is it racist? Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but I haven't heard that particular comment before and I'm wondering if I've missed something.

It was a side joke related to this.

~Tobe

I hardly remember battle despiting completeing it %100 but really though you all must be a member of the I hate shadow club.

You realise that saying "Shadow is insanely powered in Sonic Battle" is akin to saying "Shadow is the best character in Sonic Battle"

Hell, I LOVE Shadow in that game, he kicks major arse, his storyline makes SENSE and he doesn't act like an arse. He has genuine motives and isn't a hinderance, you know... besides... being alive for no reason at all (Sonic Battle was pre-Heroes, it's hard to place in the continuity because of that).

But, yes. In Sonic Battle NO CHARACTER can even begin to match Shadow in power, he has the highest speed rating, he teleports all over the place and lightning blasts everyone. He's INSANE.

Quote:

---

Sonic Battle was pre-Heroes, it's hard to place in the continuity because of that).

---

Battle was post-Heroes. Rouge comments on the similarities between Chaos Gamma and Omega. The real difficulty is deciding if Battle is before or after Shadow.

Quote:

---

In Sonic Battle NO CHARACTER can even begin to match Shadow in power

---

How about Emerl? ;p

The game was released before Heroes (or on the same day, depending on which country you're in). I know darn well when it is in continuity, I was speaking of release dates :3

Emerl requires too much farming to get the correct powers. With Shadow the power is in your hands.

Lol i thought that comic was funny but i don think thats the case with the racism i think it was coincidence....probably.

Heroes Commentary
What I Disliked: Dividing team into Pow/Flight/Speed was a good theory, but failed in practice. As mentioned three of four teams felt exactly_the_same. Even Sonic Advance had more gameplay variety, heck Sonic 3&K levels didn't feel redudant and I first beat it 12 years ago. Camera was choppy, animations not as lively as I'd like, glitches abound, boss battles not a signaficant struggle to complete (with luck Team Rose can win just by STANDING STILL), cringeworthy theme music (Chaotix need not apply), VA's need some work.
What Would've Improved My Opinion: Custom Teams. I woulda like to pick my teammates and create bizare combos like Knux/Rouge/Amy. Maybe you could pair up all Power characters and plow thru everything- Go Team Hulkaroid! RUARRGH! Silent Mode. After playing this game, I envied the deaf. An option to do away with the voices altogether would be a welcome repreave. Level Builder. Or some other form of fan interaction. For simplicity sake the game could have pre-made pitfalls, powerups, and badniks you "drag and drop" in adition to a start-from-scratch version. (Think templates versus pro websites. Both fuction, but one is harder to create and typically more pleasing to look at. Appearance has little basis in how much fun the webpage is, and you can typicaly enjoy both) Design your own stage, save it, and swap codes with a friend. See how fast he can be beat it. Then trump his time. Point and laugh. Get new friend, repeat.
May possibly do a similar rundown of Shadow if I get time.

Heroes: It's all right, can get frustrating at times, but not as much as 2D gen IMHO. But overall, it was pretty fun, even though I prefer playing alone. And I still can't get Team Sonic's theme out of my head. And "What I'm Made of" was awesome.

Shadow the Hedgehog: I think that this game is awesome, no matter what anyone else says. Gunplay is fun, the gameplay is fun and challengeing, and the music? PWNage.

If by "challenging" you mean "glitched almost to the point of being unplayable", then yes, it's extremely challenging.

I am also in the club that actually enjoyed Heroes. I had the american GameCube version, and had no probs with control or camera issues. The only thing I didn't like was the Chaotix missions, and playing as team Rose because....

1. They were too easy.

2. I didn't feel like playing as two little girls and a large retard.

Shadow on the other hand just plain stunk. Not only were the guns completly uneccesary, but the gameplay was even more broken than SA2, and I just don't car for Shadow too much as a character.

If there's one good thing about Shadows game, it's that Sonic 360 was even worse.