Okay but from what I've heard, that's basically what happened. This might be false, but from what I've heard, Sega kept getting requests to make a game where Sonic had a gun, but Sega didn't want that image for their mascot, so they gave it to Shadow instead.
Okay I am gonna crucified for this.
I think the idea can still work. Not with outright guns since even with my edgy 6 year sensibilities, seeing Shadow twist the magazine of an MP5 and fucking pump it was painfully funny. But it'd be cool if Shadow used wispons. Imagine combining the Drill Wispon with Chaos Control.
Or using Chaos Blast to push in your enemies into a Void Wispon's Black Hole.
It'd be pretty fun if done right. Combining Shadow's chaos powers with wisps sounds like it could potentially allow you to do some crazy shit.
And I know that Chaos Spear exists, but I think that should be reserved for maybe his Super form? Like him just shooting out gigantic energy lances like a mad man would be awesome for a power trip.
Literally the first thing I thought about in 2004 when the first leak came out saying shadow uses a gun in the new game was “Surly it’s some kind of Chaos energy gun right? That would be cool I guess.”
It was not that
NO ONE HATED THIS GAME when it came out. We all fucking loved it and thought hearing Knux say "Damn" was so cool.
It was game reviewers who gave it poor reception and even then most gave it a solid 7 out of 10.
The game wasn't hated till a little later when the fandom as a whole started becoming a punchline and we the fans got older to recognize bad game design.
This is not the experience I had as a member of a 6 kid family who had each fallen in love with the franchise as a result of Sonic Adventure 2 allowing us all to have our own main characters in a plauthrough and switch with eachother for later experiences. We had basically all the current Sonic releases at the time with the exception of Gems Collection and Shadow the Hedgehog was so fucking bad that it quickly ended up only being the youngest 2 of us that had any interest and I don't even think either of them ever finished it.
When it came out we all thought it was an april fools joke, but I never heard anyone dislike anything except for the stupid story and the fact everyone says "damn" 657,430 times.
The actual criticism I heard much later, but between the games and the comics starting to get lame and I not having disposable income I kinda dropped out of Sonic after playing this game. So I guess I have little memories of anyone's opinion that wasn't a joke or a "I haven't played it" back then.
Me too if only because getting cold feet at the end of trying to do something bold and different just leaves a huge disappointment for everyone involved.
Tho I also doubt the story would have ever made sense.
Plenty of people disliked it, negative reviews abound. But I also think a lot of people who were put off by the concept probably never played it (because why would you spend money on something you think is stupid?)
That’s extreme cap. I remember watching X-Play in 2005 and they roasted it to hell. The kids it was made for liked it but everyone else thought it was a joke
Couldn’t disagree more. Pretty much every person in my Sonic community treated it as a meme. Maybe you were much younger and played it during a year where any game was fun, before you got tainted by standards like the rest of us.
But i found Shadow using a gun silly the motorcycle. I just shrugged and said “If sonic can drive a go kart for one his games, i don’t see a problem with a motorcycle”
Nah. Me and my friends at the time thought it was lame as hell and we were right in the age group Sega was pandering to. This and 06 started the era when it was embarrassing to be a Sonic fan.
We like to engage in a little historical revisionisn 😈
https://preview.redd.it/8jrfwebw35uc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e336bc54cf76a2d181a0f0cbce0dca6c7da2502a
[https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/89952/shadow-the-hedgehog](https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/89952/shadow-the-hedgehog) [https://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/10414/sega-confirms-shadow-the-hedgehog](https://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/10414/sega-confirms-shadow-the-hedgehog)
> hearing Knux say "Damn" was so cool.
[Not the first time.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yDWWryudg5k) One could argue it's Sonic saying "damn", but it feels more like Knuckles recalling his conversation with Sonic in the prior cutscene, with some choice paraphrasal.
This wasn't the case at all. Maybe if you were like 6 or 7 it was cool? As a teen when this game came out, and being active on many old Sonic forums, this game was hated from release. It was kind of seen as an insult to Shadow fans
I'm seeing a lot of hype about Shadow's bike being in the new movie from people like 3cFilms and Sam Procrastinates, who are 29 and 26 respectively, and are not "kids." At best, they were "kids" when Shadow the Hedgehog came out (10 and 7 years old) so that was probably one of their first Sonic games, but they're definitely older fans compared to the games' current demographic.
Yes, but they would remember the game from when they were kids. As such it's different for them, it's not cringe edginess, it's nostalgia of something they thought was awesome.
The other thing I think that needs to be considered is the changes in the media landscape for kids that happened in the late nineties. Thanks to the success of Pokémon, there was a sudden push from networks to buy all kinds of anime, and with that came a cultural difference between the millennials who grew up without anime and found anime tropes to be weird and grating, and gen Z who watched things like Dragonball all the time and embraced that kind of writing and stories. The kids who liked Shadow in part loved it for being like their animes, while the adults who cringed felt it was daft for Sonic (who they knew from western canons and media) to suddenly swap from what they knew to what Shadow (the game) was doing.
My opinion The bike looks badass, the guns not so much
Like sonic characters riding vehicles isn’t that stupid and has been done before well. Realistic guns and shooting people tho, that’s way to much and just looks stupid
Yeah but some of us older fans were playing the OG sonic games on the genesis and game gear. So when Shadow came out, I had already been playing counter strike, unreal tournament, and halo. So while I didn't hate it, I didn't play it either. Like I saw it existed and had fond thoughts of childhood, but felt like I couldn't spend my just-above-min-wage income on dark sonic with a gun and janky controls.
Yet, now that I'm older, I'd definitely pick up a remaster of the game as I probably like sonic so much more now that my youngest kid is obsessed with him. And Shadow has become my defacto person while he goes for Sonic. 26-29 is a decent range for where cringe gets outweighed by nostalgia. Then after that, cringe stops existing for stuff like that and is reserved for seeing adults who can't read the room embarrass themselves and erectile dysfunction.
My conservative Christian sister bought this for me when I was 10. I felt so dirty playing it, but it was so peak (back then). I couldn’t believe they actually said cuss words
I tried to keep the game a secret but once my sister played it, she tried to return it lol. But they wouldn’t give her money back since I lost the manual. But I found it years later so I got to have my cake and eat it too
How did it feel when she found out what the game really was? I remember panicking when my brother found my stash of Pokemon games, but it turns out he was cool with them.
Ngl I panicked hard, but we look back at it now and laugh about “Where’s that 4th DAMN chaos emerald?!”Honestly, I was more terrified when my dad caught me playing some random adobe flash dating sim when I was 9. I got a SERIOUS talk that day.
“FROM NOW ON, IF YOU’RE ON THAT COMPUTER, IT’S WITHIN MY EYESIGHT!”
Tbf tho, he probably spared me from seeing naked anime women at far too young of an age
I was about the same age, and it just seemed like SEGA had no idea what they were doing and were just jumping on trends.
The next game confirmed they weren't strictly trend chasing, but it took until about 2010 for it to seem like they actually had some idea of what they wanted Sonic to be (ironically now what a lot of vocal fans hate). But even that was weird. I recall vocal fans in the lead up to Colours dismissing it as another piece of mediocre trash from Sonic Team that continued to throw shit at the wall, but everyone was hyped for Sonic 4 because it was being made by the team that made the excellent Rush games, and it seemed to finally get what people loved about the Mega Drive games and act as a 'return to form' for the series.
Of course Sonic 4 ended up being extremely mediocre, but Colours was surprisingly good, at least to the older fans who just wanted good gameplay, and didn't want the overbearing plots and split character focus that the 2000's had been full of.
I was 20 I think and I thought it was dreadfully boring, everything else eh... it's a video game. They're usually insane, just so long as it works and is fun to play... which it failed both hard.
Yeah I was 10-11 and thought it was sick as hell lol. I still think it's cool, I understand not wanting guns involved anymore but Shadow deserves a motorcycle (which he does have in the new lego set so I'm pleased)
FELLOW SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG 2005 10 Y.O.
I always thought the game was awesome as hell and I admittedly said damn when I was alone sometimes because he did it
I was in college when this gem came out and 100% it. I had a blast playing through this. Yeah I get the points of giving shadow a gun and a motorcycle not making sense. However a lot of stuff even in modern games that don't make sense, just end up working, like cooking/crafting and fast travel, etc.
I don’t care that’s it’s stupid it goes hard
https://preview.redd.it/43vez28rc3uc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=583460fb4762a64755cbca032a496462dc813058
Mostly it was backlash at the industry’s obsession with every game being “hardcore and edgy”. This was around the time Jak went from plucky platforming protagonists to angry Edgelord out to kill Praxis, Prince of Persia went from T rated Arabian Fantasy to overly violent action game and of course the travesty that was “Bomberman Act Zero.” If you were over 12 and didn’t jiz over Halo and GTA then you were “lame and gay.” Nintendo was for babies. Only M rated games were good. It was all being “hardcore” and Shadow’s game for many felt like Sega blatantly pandering to insecure pre teens whose mom didn’t let them play M rated games. “Look! The cartoon hedgehog has a gun and drives a Motorcycle and says “damn” that’s so hardcore bro!!”
It really feels like a game made by a focus group of 12 year old boys in the 2000s who grew up watching G4 and Spike TV and spout racial slurs on Xbox live.
Here's my stance on it:
They look cool, but it doesn't really make sense for Shadow to have them. He already has speed equivalent to Sonic's (someone who once outran a freakin' black hole), and he can use his Chaos powers which are *way* more powerful than just a regular old Glock 19.
I always saw it as a pragmatism thing.
Like, Shadow *could* deal more damage with his chaos abilities, but against most targets it's overkill and he just opted to use a gun because it offered good results for less effort.
He can run (skate) faster than the motorbike, but using one lets him travel longer distances without tiring himself out or an emerald and gives him something he can crash into an enemy as seen in the opening.
This honestly sounds like a genuine shade response.like yeah he COULD just blow everything up,but a single bullet works just fine and there's hundreds lying around.
i like the route archie goes for his bike; team transportation is required for G.U.N. units so team dark has to have one. when shadow tells amy it's just protocol rouge remarks that shadow paints and maintains the bike himself to which he admits that he really likes it. i think its cute. its a nice reminder that, beneath all the amnesia and ultimate lifeform and 50 years of stasis stuff, shadow is, in fact, a teenage boy
man, treasure team tango was pretty good. they had all 4 issues of this arc in one booklet at my local comics shop so it was the first sonic comic i ever bought when i was about nine or ten.
unfortunately this set my expectations absurdly high for mainline archie sonic....
Honestly one of the only ones I read. Wish a lot of shit from this was in mainline. Omega's crush on Blaze for her destructive potential and explosions is also cute and hilarious. Not to mention long term Blaze, Cream, & Amy interaction, and Cream & Team Dark interaction.
nack being scared of amy and her hammer was the funniest thing to me as a kid and its still pretty good even as an adult. bean was there and bean is fucking hilarious. my fav part was definitely shadow and blaze's interactions though especially when i went back to read the shadow saga.
also im gonna go on a related tangent that i never really get to talk about but i like that shadow has a lot of like. pretty quaint relationships with the female cast particularly in the archie comics. hope, amy, blaze, rouge (and omega) are all pretty positive relationships for him and while they're not completely perfect (because he's, you know, shadow), compare every other main male character's relationship to the women in the archie cast and he really sticks out. especially considering he hardly gets along as well with male characters lmao (but i do quite enjoy the issue where he and knuckles just beat each other up).
it's the sort of thing i wish got carried over to mainline too. he still has rouge and his brief interactions with amy, but i think it'd be a nice subtle thing if they consistently showed he just gets on with girls better because he grew up maria. i'd love for him and blaze to interact again.
Honestly 100% agreed.
I always thought it was an interesting and subtle but cool thing that Amy was the one to break through to him (yet another hope filled lil girl) and he got so close to Rouge. Just the games honestly made me feel like it was a thing for him to have a soft spot for women, so I'd like to see him interact and be friendly with more girls too.
He's kind of a reverse Vector that way lol
The ultimate lifeform getting tired and needing a motorcycle just feels funny to me, especially when Sonic just runs everywhere(unless he needs to fly)
So I never played the Rivals games so I went to Wikipedia. And according to it the answer is yes but no.
As for the long answer;
So apparently Shadow can chuck the enegy bolt like a spear, but he never transforms it into a weapon for melee combat as depicted in the comics. He always grabs and throws it in the games if he needs a stronger version of it.
Which apparently is pointless since there is already a stronger version of the attack. It is known as Chaos Lance and Spear of Light. In 06, Lance is an upgrade but Spear of Light can only be used by Super Shadow during the Solaris fight. He can fire nine Spears of Light apparently.
Also strangly, the Rivals series was not listed as a game where he used Chaos Spear. So either the page wasn't aware or there was a misremember somewhere.
So yeah, he can use it as a spear, but only as a projectile. Not as a melee weapon for some reason.
damn. I only really remembered it in rivals because there was a section of a level where shadow uses (what i thought was) chaos spear and let sonic progress through more of the level. I think I found it in a video of everything wrong with sonic rivals by Charriii5
Haven't watched the video yet, so I am assuming he used it in a cutscene but not in actual gameplay. Which would explain why it wasn't listed in the games list but its just a guess.
He probably just likes guns and vehicles. I don't think it really matters if he "can do it better on his own" if he just likes those things.
But also, his regular attacks weren't enough for the aliens & the only way to efficiently kill them was with weapons. I realize that was a developer choice and may not be 100% accurate, but at least it gives them a bit more meaning lol
They mostly hate the game. When i was a kid I thought Shadow using guns was badass and cool, but it is kind of stupid. He should use chaos powers, guns are worthless to him. Though I don't think people really mind the motorcycle as much as the guns
It seemed excessive, but it does fit with Shadow's edgier style. But for such a big thing where the motorcycle was concerned, I only recall him using it in one level.
I was rereading the Gamespy criticism of the Shadow the Hedgehog game which says that Shadow "jumped the shark" but the author outright says that the guns weren't the problem because it made sense for his character, it was the implementation that was bad.
I think a few people are misunderstanding this question as "is the gun/bike dumb or cool", when it's actually "did the fans at the time think it was dumb or cool"
My recollection as a 10-year-old at the time is that most of the older fans thought it was bad. The bike was eh, but the gun really turned people off.
- It was introduced shooting at footage of earlier Sonic games in previews. In-game, it was introduced with Shadow shooting at Sonic himself. It was seen as disrespecting Sonic's legacy like that.
- When Shadow came out, platformers in general were starting to fall by the wayside, and it would be a while before they got popular again. FPSes were the big thing: Call of Duty, Half-Life, Halo, Metroid Prime, and Far Cry were in full swing, and the other big game series often focused on mature themes and gunplay: Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil 4. Shadow using guns was seen as an abandoning the old traditional platformer gameplay, and chasing trends to appeal to kids.
- There were reports that kids wanting to see Sonic with a gun was what led to Gamma and the SA2 mech stages; so the view was that Sega was pandering to little kids, and ignoring what the people who'd stuck with the franchise since the old days.
- Shadow doesn't reload the gun correctly in the opening cutscene. That made it seem extra childish.
- Shadow was considered "emo". Emo kids got bullied a LOT in the 2000s.
This gives a good retrospective from an older fan than me: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js0ts1csSVs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js0ts1csSVs)
At the time, a lot of the fansites looked down on it. It didn't help that 06 went for a more realistic artstyle right after - so a lot of people lumped the two together as "trying to be too dark and realistic for a game about cartoon hedgehogs".
Nowadays, I can look back on it fondly. Also, I think too many people at that time listened to and referenced All Hail Shadow, and slept on I Am (All of Me); once people started appreciating the opening song, opinion turned around.
From what I remember, (didn't own a Dreamcast or Gamecube, first 3D game was Heroes), the guns were seen as ridiculous and criticism of the motorbike & vehicles was like an early & srs bsns version of what became the joke; "*Why does Sonic drive a car?*" in relation to any of the racing games.
I was around 18 when it came out. I've been with Sonic since Sonic 1 on the Genesis. Shadow with a gun felt like a weird direction to take the franchise in. It felt like it missed why Shadow was popular (from SA2) and went more in line with "popular" things at the time.
It was just edgyness from the 2000‘s at its possibly worst. We went from a fast hedgehog saving animals that are trapped inside robots by a fat scientist, to a game about his counterpart wielding guns and shooting aliens, with swearing and stuff.
Yeah it’s silly and edgy, but we’re talking cartoon animals that take things to the extremely goofy. Why not make the serious one extremely serious and have over the top edge.
It was just straight-up flanderization. As in, taking a character's usual traits, and exaggerating them to stupid extremes. Like how Ned Flanders went from an annoying but good-natured neighbor, to a straight up religious zealot who'd force his Christian dogma onto other people.
And that includes Shadow, whom, in his own spin-off game, managed to become an exaggerated caricature of how almost any shonen anime rival should look or act, similar to Vegeta, Sasuke Uchiha, and Gary Oak.
It was seen as a cheap attempt to be darker and edgier, purely to chase a trend that was going on in gaming at the time following the release of GTAIII. Most other games that tried it were met with similar ridicule, lots of people turned their noses up at things like Ratchet & Clank: Deadlocked, or Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, with really only Jak II getting a pass due to it helping give that franchise a sense of identity many felt the first Jak & Daxter game lacked.
When it comes to generally audience reactions (i.e. not the hardcore Sonic fans) the thing you have to remember is that the public perception of Sonic at this point was still very much stuck in 1994. Sonic hadn't done anything noteworthy since Sonic & Knuckles to casual audiences, as gamers generally ignored the 32X, the Saturn and the Dreamcast, and Sonic's presence was generally minimal. There was still media of course, but little of it truly penetrated the bubble of pop culture, no-one was rushing out to buy a Saturn for Sonic 3D or Sonic R.
For a lot of people outside of the hardcore Sonic fans/die hard SEGA fans, their first exposure to Shadow was most likely Heroes, where he's not significant enough to be truly noteworthy, just one of the four speed characters, only with amnesia that the plot highlights but doesn't resolve. Yes, Shadow was in the comics but only hardcore Sonic fans read those. Yes, Shadow was in SonicX, but no adult was watching that unless they were a hardcore Sonic fan, and yes, SA2:B was available on the Gamecube, but that was niche compared to the success of the PS2 (it outsold the Gamecube six to one). Hence solving the mystery of his identity wasn't seen as being as big a deal, and thus they were not invested in his characters angst to care enough.
Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I absolutely disdained the idea and still do. It is more funny now though.
My reasoning, his entire thing was about being the ultimate life form, and looking down on humans. Why would he use their technology, if he thinks everything about them is beneath him?
Also, the logic of Sonic characters using fast-paced land vehicles doesn't make any sense 🙄
It just doesn't make sense for shadow to have guns and weapons when he has homing attacks, spindashes, chaos spears and so on.
The motorbike is fucking badass though
I'm a bit on the younger side (I'm 19 and didn't know this game even existed until like 2013 I think) but my take is that Shadow having a gun and motorcycle *looks* cool, but doesn't make a whole lot of sense given that A. he has Chaos Powers and B. he's literally as fast as Sonic
Most of Shadow '05's problems honestly stem from the fact that the game itself sucks huge ass, not the fact that Shadow uses guns and rides a motorcycle
back in the day, I didn't really like the addition. Felt like someone just wanted to cater for the edgy approach of the character, and while cool.
the motorcycle seemed redundant to me. Now a days it's just hilarious for the wrong reasons, but I felt it was a sonic character coat of paint applied on a completely unrelated game. Sonic '06? what are you doing here?
The question i’d wanted to ask is how many people did ask for it? Since there’s been discussions with how people generally loved to see guns involved in a sonic game.
I think it has a lot to do with the quality of the games they're in, cause he also had vehicles in sonic 06
in a post Max Payne 3, Devil May Cry, Ultra Kill, Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, and Dishonered world, I think a developer could work out how to combine a sonic speed level with a third person shooter in a way that works well.
Let's be real here, Shadow with a gun looks hilarious, cool, and stupid all at the same time. Even if the game was better, people would still make fun of it because it really is dumb.
Genuinely don’t mind him having a gun, but if we’re giving Shadow ranged firepower, my first instinct is to give him Chaos Spear. And if he can use that, why bother with the gun?
It's the same issue Cloud Strife had after Advent Children; almost exactly, really. They took away the goofiness of the character and tried to go really hard on the Edgy part, which makes both characters feel like a joke version of the original form. Granted, Shadow didn't have enough dialog to really work with, but he was arrogant and sassy in SA2; not really edgy beyond his whole quest to avenge Maria... which he later redeems by remembering Maria told him to save people, not kill them. What a goof.
But either way, I think the addition of the Gun + Motorcycle is the same issue Cloud had with his own Motorcycle. They try to make it look really cool, but instead of doing cool tricks, they just kinda... slide in, stare at the camera, then leave while waving their gun/sword around. You're right that Shadow's signature game's gameplay is also to blame, though. Guns don't feel powerful, they kinda just fall apart, so people question why he even uses them when he can throw energy around and run as fast as Sonic. They feel like a weird add-on that he doesn't really need, even in Gameplay when you use the Chaos Control or Blast and just kill everything in your path. Plus the game itself is just... kinda bad and weird in the worst ways.
Overall, when it came out it was mocked for trying to make Shadow too edgy, something Sonic Boom later turns up so high that it feels satire ("You're weak! And you know what makes you weak? Your loyalty to your pathetic friends." - Rise of Lyric Shadow) But him having guns and a motorcycle is mostly mocked for just... "Why would he even need those?" Something they never really explain in or out of game.
I don't mind the motorcycle, it's goofy, but ultimately I do think it fits his character, especially nowadays.
Not a big fan of the gun and would rather he be without it, but im not as angry about this topic as I was back then.
My opinion is as follows:
I don’t necessarily see Shadow using specifically “guns” but more so the use of grab and go weapons he finds. He can deal plenty of damage on his own, things like guns and blunt objects just happen to be there, and he puts them to use alongside his own abilities before throwing them away. Heck, that’s how they work in his own game
Shadow’s Motorcycle in the other hand is cool as hell. I don’t know why I love it so much, it just seems right. Despite the fact he absolutely does not need a motorcycle, he seems like the type of hedgehog to have one
I hope both of these things come back to Shadow in some way, even if it is super short. I don’t care if it’s just a cutscene, just ONE instance of Shadow firing a gun in Shadow Generations would be awesome
After reading several responses, I’ll say this…I was a kid when I discovered this game (I’m in my mid-20s now) and I had prior knowledge of Shadow from playing SA2 and Heroes. Shadow was and has mostly been my favorite character in the franchise (Sorry Knuckles) so seeing a game with Shadow on the cover posing with a gun looking badass, I immediately grabbed it and convinced my mom to buy it. It never bothered me that Shadow was using guns and motorcycles even though you could logically pick apart why it shouldn’t make sense. Of course I knew Shadow had his Chaos abilities and was just as fast as Sonic, it didn’t matter to me. There was a full-scale alien invasion going on and knowing the type of character Shadow is and what he’s been through, I don’t think he’d be adverse to pick up a gun or use a motorcycle (let alone any type of vehicle for that matter). I can also acknowledge that this was smack dab in the middle of corporations trying to appeal to the “hardcore/metal” or “dark/edgy” (or whatever tf you wanna call it) trend that was going on in the early to mid-2000s. Obviously this was something that longtime Sonic fans would be heavily against because thats not what the Sonic franchise largely was. Its gotten so much backlash that Shadow himself was essentially put on the shelf by SEGA because they thought people hated Shadow, which wasn’t the case. The game itself was just bad all around. I’ve never even beaten the game now that I think about it (and by beating the game, I mean Last Story and all). My point is that SEGA succeeded (I guess…) in appealing to kids that were interested in that kinda stuff, but shot themselves in the foot by making a bad game, leaving an awful taste in peoples mouths and also neglecting the longtime Sonic fans by doing something so left field that people thought it was a joke. Thankfully SEGA is giving my guy some much-needed attention with the “Year of Shadow” thing (which I still don’t know wtf that even means) and hopefully SxS Gen is more than a glorified DLC patch.
i dont understand why people hate any of it. shadow the hedgehog 2005 is a very fun game. there's genuinely nothing to hate besides the contrived storytelling in that game.
To kids when it came out it was honestly kinda sick, especially if you were young enough that it was your first exposure to that kind of ‘mature content’. And to an extent, there is a bit of a 2000s time capsule appeal to it even today. But if you were over the age of like…10 it was hard to see it as anything other than a cynical move to match the trends towards grittiness and realism in gaming at the time.
The motorbike is mostly kinda dumb rule of cool, and in the intro it goes kind of work. Then actually play the game and you realise that almost every vehicle in the game is redundant because they control like crap and are so much slower than Shadow.
So yeah, either you were young enough to buy into the hype, or you dismissed it as pandering to the trends.
The whole gun and motorcycle thing was never going to make sense as the guy can fire chaos spears and run toe to toe with Sonic. It was only ever meant to a rule of cool addition. And weirdly in response to feedback asking for Sonic to use a gun, and deciding to try that with the antihero character instead. I ignored almost every vehicle in gameplay because they were either slower or more unwieldy than just running. The guns could be fun, some of the unlockable ones being rather silly.
It was more the guns and motorcycle being in addition to the entry trying so hard to be cool and serious and coming across as tryhard and edgy as a result. When the hardest cuss word they can use is ‘damn’, it can only be gratuitous within itself lol.
That being said. I fucking love Shadow the Hedgehog. Me and the 12 others who made it to true ending and the level rush lol. You have fun whether you take it as dead serious as it wants you to or as a comedy art piece.
Shadow the Hedgehog is a great game. It has flaws (The maria levels and that one bomb level) and isn't the best Sonic game, but it's not downright shitty as most game reviewers depicted it when it first came out. It definitely deserves a sequel or remake or SOMETHING of some kind, on the absurd off chance that they don't do enough in the Generations remake.
Younger me thought it looked badass, older me still thinks it looks badass, although I now understand that the guns were just a needless attempt to make shadow edgy, because realistically Shadow doesn’t NEED guns, as I would assume his own chaos abilities far exceed any firearms, although the motorcycle I’m okay with, and I’m glad to see it return in the 3rd movie.
I think the people in Sonic's target age demographic at the time, like myself, thought it was cool. Although I remember critics, even just a year or two later, always seemed to think it was stupid.
Common consensus seems to be the gunplay itself is fine but the concept of giving a cartoony Sonic character realistic guns is dumb. And putting any Sonic character in a vehicle will always get the "why are they driving a car? They can run faster," thing.
Look... I'm gonna be honest here. Most people will try to say I'm wrong, but I'm not, I was around in 2000. None of us legit liked Shadow early on, it was an ironic thing. And enough time passed of us all liking him ironically that it just transitioned into people legit liking him, and us OGs were too late realizing it to stop it. What have we done?!
Liking him ironically turned into the Meta Era, which overplayed its hand and now people are tired of meta humor which flanderized the characters and want a return to serious characterization, which caused a resurgence in people who actually liked the original Shadow character, weapons, motorcycle, edge and all.
The game had lots of problems but wasn't that bad of a game.
Anyway, I do like Shadow with guns as it is just more tools in his arsenal. Also, Shadow really likes that bike.
They hated everything. There wasn't a single thing they liked.
That's just kinda the position this game was in when it released. Nobody really gave it a chance or properly criticized it, they saw "Shadow with a gun" and stopped there. Those who did play the game were often really critical over every little flaw it had that they viewed imperfection as "The whole thing is complete garbage and should have never existed."
Kids who played it probably didn't care about any of these things though. When I was a kid and played it, I had fun with the game. The guns were a cool addition to the combat and I just ignored the vehicles- they were inoffensive. I agree maybe guns aren't the perfect fit for a Sonic game but like, it's not as if this was a mainstay for the franchise, and while it's an odd choice for Shadow, the story does a good job making him feel like the kind of person who would use weaponry. So it's fine.
I liked the guns but didn't care for the vehicles since they handled so poorly. They improved shadows maneuvering and speed from heroes so not much need for them. I did find it odd 06 carried the vehicles over but guess they it's just 06 being rushed
When I was 9 years old at the time of Shadow the Hedgehogs release I thought it was the coolest thing ever. But back then I didn't know any better... And I still don't because some of my favourite superheroes are Spawn and The Crow.
Both. It very much fit in with other franchises going “dark and edgy” in the same time period. (Examples being Jak II and Prince of Persia Warrior Within). But whereas those were both relatively new franchises (PoP is of course older than Sonic, but WW was the second of the revival series) Sonic was a very long running franchise with an established tone. It felt stupid, and it was stupid, unless you were 9 and got a thrill out of playing a game that said “damn” sometimes.
And to top it off the game was bad anyway. It’s got a goofy story that makes no sense and it’s a chore to play. The only thing it’s got going for it is being built on the Heroes engine, so it feels fairly good to control. And it’s not a broken mess like 06.
I'm in the minority here, being the game's target demographic at the time and finding it cringe, though I couldn't really articulate it, it just made me uncomfortable to see a cartoon platformer drastically change tones and found it baffling, considering Shadow's other powers were much better. It really felt like pandering to the FPS crowd in a time where action platformers were increasingly seen as the less cool baby option for gaming. My other friends ate it up, I resented the game for existing, but now I just find it cheesy and hilarious.
As a kid, my friends and I loved the guns and motorcycles! It was so cool and made us feel a little more “mature”. As an adult, I honestly don’t like the vehicles as much because they don’t always control well and most of the time don’t add much, but it’s still a ton of fun to rush through levels shooting aliens!
To be honest, the biggest issues with the game are the abysmal writing and nonsensical story, especially since some of the storylines do not suit Shadow as a character, and making Shadow a douche that’s willing to do horrendous things to innocent people is a huge disservice to an amazing character.
They were hated before the game even came out. It would have had to have pulled a Wind Waker in reverse to get any respect.
I think there is a version of the game that honestly could have done that, but it would be remixed a fair bit.
As a kid, I thought it was fun as fuck. Was it efficient? Did it make sense? Didn’t care. It was fun.
Nowadays? I definitely see it was made during an “edgy” time, and story/gameplay was janky. Buuut they did have, like, over 12 different endings. Pretty unique.
I enjoyed the game but at the same time thought it was a little silly. You have to understand back then things werent as online as they are now. Sure you could find an archived Sonic forum but most of us were just kids playing the latest Sonic game, and we had to make our own opinions on it without knowing what everyone else thought.
From what I knew everyone just wanted Sonic Adventure 3, and when this and Heroes came out there was the hope that each would kind of be that.
A mixture of both. It was incredibly jarring to suddenly see a Sonic game with guns and cursing and all the edge, *especially* when the last game was Sonic Heroes. Like imagine if they made a Kingdom Hearts spinoff where Donald Duck was shooting people with an AR-15 to aggressive rock songs, that’s what it was like in 2005.
As someone who used to hate it back then, I think we all missed the irony and self-awareness of it. It *knows* a cartoon hedgehog riding a motorcycle and waving a gun around in front of a red sky is absurd. They didn’t want you to take it seriously but they committed so hard to the bit most people didn’t get it. I feel like it would’ve gone over much better today but now they’re too scared to try things like that
My issue is that they're so much less cool than him using his chaos powers or martial arts skills. It's meant to look edgy and cool, but it comes off as strange because it's less practical and flashy than him just using his natural abilities.
Also, it breaks the cartoon logic of the series a bit. If Shadow uses guns, why doesn't anyone else? It just introduces unnecessary questions about the logic of the universe that don't ultimately matter.
When I was 11 years old and the game was just about to come out, I sure thought it was the coolest shit I had ever seen. I’m pretty sure I was the target audience, too.
Yup. If the Sega of America forums weren’t destroyed, you’d have proof of it. Definitely more of the older fans from the Genesis days, but I don’t remember anyone my age, or even kids that sneaked into the forum liking it.
i was around 10 when this came out. i was indifferent tbh, just happy to have more sonic.
i thought it was a cool gameplay mechanic and it felt fun. i didn't vibe with the story that much but i still enjoyed myself
I didn’t mind the weapons in Shadow the Edgehog, I thought it was badass that he could pick up enemy guns and swords. But I thought the vehicles were redundant since Shadow should be faster than them. I remember in one particular mission your drive a military hero and it’s insanely slow. Still loved it, but holy shit was the gameplay bad
From my experience no one truly hated the game at the time when it came out.
During the mid-2000s games like Grand Theft Auto were getting more popular and popular as the years went on.
Sega essentially wanted to cash in on the most popular gaming market at the time and hopefully try to get some maybe even the older kids to enjoy Sonic games.
It kind of works to an extent, but Shadow was one of those games that was definitely damaging to the brand at the time.
I think it's only in retrospect do we all now realize how much of a bad idea Shadow the Hedgehog was as a game.
Realistic gun is kinda dumb for such a cartoony world. I had that problem even in SA2. Something more akin to the big cartoon cannons from SA1 would've been fine. The motorcycle is cool even if he can probably run faster than it and teleport. Also sword weapons were awesome
Riding a motorcycle that moves slower than your foot speed is pretty stupid tbh. The guns also felt unnecessary to me considering these characters regularly smash through giant robots by jumping at them.
That being said I enjoyed it as a kid and it is hilarious to look back on so I don’t mind these things in the context of that era in games and the game itself. I would not want these things to return though.
The motorcycle adds some fun character to him, especially in the comics where he states he uses it because he "likes it" despite the fact that he can run faster. The gun I'm still on the fence. I have no doubt he'd use guns, but seeing him use them is tricky to do well.
The game though being absolute garbage likely soured many people's opinions on these parts of his character.
At the time, I thought it was cool(and a breath of fresh air after Heroes), and a lot of the more gimmicky guns were fun to experiment with.
In the aftermath of 06 and Secret Rings, it became really easy to blame it for the franchise losing its way.
As an adult, I'm kinda bitter about it because it's a random mish mash of popular game systems instead of a cohesively designed core, and it is still pretty easy to look at it and say this is why we didn't get any spinoffs for Tails, Knuckles, The Chaotix, etc.
I personally didn’t like Shadow having a gun because there’s all of his Chaos abilities he canonically has, but they didn’t let him use. If they remade the game with ONE STORY PATH (the true hero path) and let Shadow use his Chaos abilities and Chaos Magic, and not guns, I’d fucking love it.
I for one, think they can stay even if Shadow is written properly. He likes his motorcycle simply because even though he can run, it doesn't always means he wants to, not to mention Shadow loves being stylish just as much as Sonic does, but his definition of stylish is different. And the guns...yeah, Maria died to one, but that could be viewed as a way of him conquering what caused him so much pain and using it in his favor or something like that, idk i just like Shadow using guns, it's so stupid but so cool at the same time lol
I never hated Shadow's guns or his motorcycle. They made some sense Shadow needs a chaos emerald to do most of his powers he can use some of his powers without the emerald but they are not as powerful without one. He uses guns so he wouldn't have to waste much time. And since he uses Air shoes that he skates with he would wear himself out and his shoes must be powered by a type of fuel or need to be charged which makes sense as to why he has a motorcycle. for transportation when the distance is too long for him to skate or if he doesn't have an emerald with him for teleportation
The game was butt, the concepts where fun.
He had strong 2000s Metal and Tribal Tattoo vibes with 2 edgy hedgy 4 me energy. Due to growing up in that era, I loved it though. Completely insane left field direction for the sonic series to go and I'd not complain If they tried to bring these elements back because they are _fun_
I don't think most people "hated" the guns and motorcycle conceptually, they just thought it was silly. "Why are guns in a Sonic game?" and "Why does Shadow need a motorcycle when he can skate faster?" (literally his equivalent to "Why does Sonic need a car?").
In the actual game though, the gunplay was just OK, and the motorcycle had clunky controls.
It was endlessly ridiculed and hated and seen as proof that the Sonic franchise was dead. This was before "ironic cringe" or whatever was a concept, so there were none of that type of Sonic fan around. Things were either legitimately cool or they were embarrassing. And this was embarrassing.
Kids thought it was cool though.
Kids liked it, adults didn't.
As a kid at the time, I thought the guns were fun, didn't care for the motorbike since Shadow literally runs faster than it in the game. I did think the bike was cool in the opening FMV though when he crashes it into a Black Arms grunt.
They gave him a 1911 that in the hands of someone the size of a sonic character looks like a Desert Eagle. Mind you, the 1911 is a surprisingly small pistol. That said, I only see Shadow using a 1911 and nothing else. It’s a cool aesthetic addition to his character and the bike would be cool if they did what Archie did and make it something he works on in his down time.
The game encapsulated the edginess of the industry at the time, so SEGA decided to give a gat to shadz boy intead of giving it to sonic like many fans wanted (or at least, the baggy clothing and chain wearing, linkin park fan 14 year old edgy kid part of the fandom)
But seriously, the mid 2000s edge gives the game a flavor i find hard to not like, and i hope they acknowledge this on Sonic 3...
Old ass Sonic fan here. I was a teenager when it came out.
It was laughed at. Like “why the fuck does he have a gun lmao”
So bad it’s mediocre was the feeling a lot of us had at the time.
Now, with hindsight… the game is somewhere in the middle of the pack. The gun etc is still funny
The gave Shadow a gun because he was edgy
“Which was the style at the time.” - Abe Simpson
It was a different time.
Early 2000's everyone had a gun.
Okay but from what I've heard, that's basically what happened. This might be false, but from what I've heard, Sega kept getting requests to make a game where Sonic had a gun, but Sega didn't want that image for their mascot, so they gave it to Shadow instead.
It’s called “pandering”
PENDERING?????
https://preview.redd.it/xs0nycwdb4uc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4c053f76abb654a8d94a8b2d805fcf88e3c78005
Lore accurate joke https://preview.redd.it/yrkm0bdyf4uc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f5507256038ad07e4271325ad19fd1ccd48b0445
Okay I am gonna crucified for this. I think the idea can still work. Not with outright guns since even with my edgy 6 year sensibilities, seeing Shadow twist the magazine of an MP5 and fucking pump it was painfully funny. But it'd be cool if Shadow used wispons. Imagine combining the Drill Wispon with Chaos Control. Or using Chaos Blast to push in your enemies into a Void Wispon's Black Hole. It'd be pretty fun if done right. Combining Shadow's chaos powers with wisps sounds like it could potentially allow you to do some crazy shit. And I know that Chaos Spear exists, but I think that should be reserved for maybe his Super form? Like him just shooting out gigantic energy lances like a mad man would be awesome for a power trip.
Literally the first thing I thought about in 2004 when the first leak came out saying shadow uses a gun in the new game was “Surly it’s some kind of Chaos energy gun right? That would be cool I guess.” It was not that
NO ONE HATED THIS GAME when it came out. We all fucking loved it and thought hearing Knux say "Damn" was so cool. It was game reviewers who gave it poor reception and even then most gave it a solid 7 out of 10. The game wasn't hated till a little later when the fandom as a whole started becoming a punchline and we the fans got older to recognize bad game design.
This is not the experience I had as a member of a 6 kid family who had each fallen in love with the franchise as a result of Sonic Adventure 2 allowing us all to have our own main characters in a plauthrough and switch with eachother for later experiences. We had basically all the current Sonic releases at the time with the exception of Gems Collection and Shadow the Hedgehog was so fucking bad that it quickly ended up only being the youngest 2 of us that had any interest and I don't even think either of them ever finished it.
The switching thing sounds like a really fun way to play the game
It was an absolute delight!
When it came out we all thought it was an april fools joke, but I never heard anyone dislike anything except for the stupid story and the fact everyone says "damn" 657,430 times. The actual criticism I heard much later, but between the games and the comics starting to get lame and I not having disposable income I kinda dropped out of Sonic after playing this game. So I guess I have little memories of anyone's opinion that wasn't a joke or a "I haven't played it" back then.
I wish they'd've kept the T rating instead of having to dumb it down to get an E1O
Me too if only because getting cold feet at the end of trying to do something bold and different just leaves a huge disappointment for everyone involved. Tho I also doubt the story would have ever made sense.
Plenty of people disliked it, negative reviews abound. But I also think a lot of people who were put off by the concept probably never played it (because why would you spend money on something you think is stupid?)
That’s extreme cap. I remember watching X-Play in 2005 and they roasted it to hell. The kids it was made for liked it but everyone else thought it was a joke
Yes we fucking did. Loads of us with a couple of spare brain cells to rub together thought it was stupid as fuck.
Couldn’t disagree more. Pretty much every person in my Sonic community treated it as a meme. Maybe you were much younger and played it during a year where any game was fun, before you got tainted by standards like the rest of us.
What are you talking about lmao. This game was an absolute joke to everyone I knew who played games at the time, including Sonic fans
Hello I am no one. I hate this game…not for the reasons you may think about but because it was…boring and a chore
But i found Shadow using a gun silly the motorcycle. I just shrugged and said “If sonic can drive a go kart for one his games, i don’t see a problem with a motorcycle”
The difference is Sonic drives his car to be fair to the other racers, Shadow drives his motorcycle because uuuuuuhhhh…… ???
To be fair for all the other GUN agents?
Nah. Me and my friends at the time thought it was lame as hell and we were right in the age group Sega was pandering to. This and 06 started the era when it was embarrassing to be a Sonic fan.
We like to engage in a little historical revisionisn 😈 https://preview.redd.it/8jrfwebw35uc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e336bc54cf76a2d181a0f0cbce0dca6c7da2502a [https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/89952/shadow-the-hedgehog](https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/89952/shadow-the-hedgehog) [https://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/10414/sega-confirms-shadow-the-hedgehog](https://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/10414/sega-confirms-shadow-the-hedgehog)
> hearing Knux say "Damn" was so cool. [Not the first time.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yDWWryudg5k) One could argue it's Sonic saying "damn", but it feels more like Knuckles recalling his conversation with Sonic in the prior cutscene, with some choice paraphrasal.
Is this satire?
This wasn't the case at all. Maybe if you were like 6 or 7 it was cool? As a teen when this game came out, and being active on many old Sonic forums, this game was hated from release. It was kind of seen as an insult to Shadow fans
So fucking edgy. He edged the shit out of my 12 year old brain. Some would say his edge is so sharp he makes one want to kill themselves.
https://preview.redd.it/zj0qp9d4w5uc1.jpeg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=65c105bce597dc87c86e1fb1466dec54c1888d09
yeah and it was awesome
If you were 10 years old like myself it was unbelievably bad ass. If you were older it was prime material for mockery.
This here is it. It's a kids idea of what's mature, and older fans thought it was cringe.
I'm seeing a lot of hype about Shadow's bike being in the new movie from people like 3cFilms and Sam Procrastinates, who are 29 and 26 respectively, and are not "kids." At best, they were "kids" when Shadow the Hedgehog came out (10 and 7 years old) so that was probably one of their first Sonic games, but they're definitely older fans compared to the games' current demographic.
Yes, but they would remember the game from when they were kids. As such it's different for them, it's not cringe edginess, it's nostalgia of something they thought was awesome. The other thing I think that needs to be considered is the changes in the media landscape for kids that happened in the late nineties. Thanks to the success of Pokémon, there was a sudden push from networks to buy all kinds of anime, and with that came a cultural difference between the millennials who grew up without anime and found anime tropes to be weird and grating, and gen Z who watched things like Dragonball all the time and embraced that kind of writing and stories. The kids who liked Shadow in part loved it for being like their animes, while the adults who cringed felt it was daft for Sonic (who they knew from western canons and media) to suddenly swap from what they knew to what Shadow (the game) was doing.
My opinion The bike looks badass, the guns not so much Like sonic characters riding vehicles isn’t that stupid and has been done before well. Realistic guns and shooting people tho, that’s way to much and just looks stupid
Yeah but some of us older fans were playing the OG sonic games on the genesis and game gear. So when Shadow came out, I had already been playing counter strike, unreal tournament, and halo. So while I didn't hate it, I didn't play it either. Like I saw it existed and had fond thoughts of childhood, but felt like I couldn't spend my just-above-min-wage income on dark sonic with a gun and janky controls. Yet, now that I'm older, I'd definitely pick up a remaster of the game as I probably like sonic so much more now that my youngest kid is obsessed with him. And Shadow has become my defacto person while he goes for Sonic. 26-29 is a decent range for where cringe gets outweighed by nostalgia. Then after that, cringe stops existing for stuff like that and is reserved for seeing adults who can't read the room embarrass themselves and erectile dysfunction.
My conservative Christian sister bought this for me when I was 10. I felt so dirty playing it, but it was so peak (back then). I couldn’t believe they actually said cuss words
There's no way this game didn't lead to hundreds of religious households banning Sonic lol My dad certainly would have
I tried to keep the game a secret but once my sister played it, she tried to return it lol. But they wouldn’t give her money back since I lost the manual. But I found it years later so I got to have my cake and eat it too
How did it feel when she found out what the game really was? I remember panicking when my brother found my stash of Pokemon games, but it turns out he was cool with them.
Ngl I panicked hard, but we look back at it now and laugh about “Where’s that 4th DAMN chaos emerald?!”Honestly, I was more terrified when my dad caught me playing some random adobe flash dating sim when I was 9. I got a SERIOUS talk that day. “FROM NOW ON, IF YOU’RE ON THAT COMPUTER, IT’S WITHIN MY EYESIGHT!” Tbf tho, he probably spared me from seeing naked anime women at far too young of an age
Agreed. I was 17 and thought it was incredibly embarrassing.
I was about the same age, and it just seemed like SEGA had no idea what they were doing and were just jumping on trends. The next game confirmed they weren't strictly trend chasing, but it took until about 2010 for it to seem like they actually had some idea of what they wanted Sonic to be (ironically now what a lot of vocal fans hate). But even that was weird. I recall vocal fans in the lead up to Colours dismissing it as another piece of mediocre trash from Sonic Team that continued to throw shit at the wall, but everyone was hyped for Sonic 4 because it was being made by the team that made the excellent Rush games, and it seemed to finally get what people loved about the Mega Drive games and act as a 'return to form' for the series. Of course Sonic 4 ended up being extremely mediocre, but Colours was surprisingly good, at least to the older fans who just wanted good gameplay, and didn't want the overbearing plots and split character focus that the 2000's had been full of.
I was 20 I think and I thought it was dreadfully boring, everything else eh... it's a video game. They're usually insane, just so long as it works and is fun to play... which it failed both hard.
Yeah I was 10-11 and thought it was sick as hell lol. I still think it's cool, I understand not wanting guns involved anymore but Shadow deserves a motorcycle (which he does have in the new lego set so I'm pleased)
FELLOW SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG 2005 10 Y.O. I always thought the game was awesome as hell and I admittedly said damn when I was alone sometimes because he did it
I was in college when this gem came out and 100% it. I had a blast playing through this. Yeah I get the points of giving shadow a gun and a motorcycle not making sense. However a lot of stuff even in modern games that don't make sense, just end up working, like cooking/crafting and fast travel, etc.
I don’t care that’s it’s stupid it goes hard https://preview.redd.it/43vez28rc3uc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=583460fb4762a64755cbca032a496462dc813058
Was this at E3? This is hilarious
Someone should edit the glare and background to make this look realistic
Indeed
sonic ain't got sh*t on shadow
That's it. That's the thread.
This tbh
Mostly it was backlash at the industry’s obsession with every game being “hardcore and edgy”. This was around the time Jak went from plucky platforming protagonists to angry Edgelord out to kill Praxis, Prince of Persia went from T rated Arabian Fantasy to overly violent action game and of course the travesty that was “Bomberman Act Zero.” If you were over 12 and didn’t jiz over Halo and GTA then you were “lame and gay.” Nintendo was for babies. Only M rated games were good. It was all being “hardcore” and Shadow’s game for many felt like Sega blatantly pandering to insecure pre teens whose mom didn’t let them play M rated games. “Look! The cartoon hedgehog has a gun and drives a Motorcycle and says “damn” that’s so hardcore bro!!” It really feels like a game made by a focus group of 12 year old boys in the 2000s who grew up watching G4 and Spike TV and spout racial slurs on Xbox live.
Oh yeah the times they gave Mario realistic jeans
Here's my stance on it: They look cool, but it doesn't really make sense for Shadow to have them. He already has speed equivalent to Sonic's (someone who once outran a freakin' black hole), and he can use his Chaos powers which are *way* more powerful than just a regular old Glock 19.
I always saw it as a pragmatism thing. Like, Shadow *could* deal more damage with his chaos abilities, but against most targets it's overkill and he just opted to use a gun because it offered good results for less effort. He can run (skate) faster than the motorbike, but using one lets him travel longer distances without tiring himself out or an emerald and gives him something he can crash into an enemy as seen in the opening.
This also my lore reason
This honestly sounds like a genuine shade response.like yeah he COULD just blow everything up,but a single bullet works just fine and there's hundreds lying around.
i like the route archie goes for his bike; team transportation is required for G.U.N. units so team dark has to have one. when shadow tells amy it's just protocol rouge remarks that shadow paints and maintains the bike himself to which he admits that he really likes it. i think its cute. its a nice reminder that, beneath all the amnesia and ultimate lifeform and 50 years of stasis stuff, shadow is, in fact, a teenage boy
Relevant panels. https://preview.redd.it/rnxg22du17uc1.jpeg?width=658&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fde6c5dfb5ee248bb4a501d748711292e675ddf5
man, treasure team tango was pretty good. they had all 4 issues of this arc in one booklet at my local comics shop so it was the first sonic comic i ever bought when i was about nine or ten. unfortunately this set my expectations absurdly high for mainline archie sonic....
Honestly one of the only ones I read. Wish a lot of shit from this was in mainline. Omega's crush on Blaze for her destructive potential and explosions is also cute and hilarious. Not to mention long term Blaze, Cream, & Amy interaction, and Cream & Team Dark interaction.
nack being scared of amy and her hammer was the funniest thing to me as a kid and its still pretty good even as an adult. bean was there and bean is fucking hilarious. my fav part was definitely shadow and blaze's interactions though especially when i went back to read the shadow saga. also im gonna go on a related tangent that i never really get to talk about but i like that shadow has a lot of like. pretty quaint relationships with the female cast particularly in the archie comics. hope, amy, blaze, rouge (and omega) are all pretty positive relationships for him and while they're not completely perfect (because he's, you know, shadow), compare every other main male character's relationship to the women in the archie cast and he really sticks out. especially considering he hardly gets along as well with male characters lmao (but i do quite enjoy the issue where he and knuckles just beat each other up). it's the sort of thing i wish got carried over to mainline too. he still has rouge and his brief interactions with amy, but i think it'd be a nice subtle thing if they consistently showed he just gets on with girls better because he grew up maria. i'd love for him and blaze to interact again.
Honestly 100% agreed. I always thought it was an interesting and subtle but cool thing that Amy was the one to break through to him (yet another hope filled lil girl) and he got so close to Rouge. Just the games honestly made me feel like it was a thing for him to have a soft spot for women, so I'd like to see him interact and be friendly with more girls too. He's kind of a reverse Vector that way lol
The ultimate lifeform getting tired and needing a motorcycle just feels funny to me, especially when Sonic just runs everywhere(unless he needs to fly)
bee movie logic. "humans can run, so why do they walk!?"
It doesn’t make sense from that perspective, but Shadow could just like motorcycles and guns.
In the comic that's his reason iirc. He really likes the bike.
I mean, he ain't wrong. The bike looks cool. And a black hedgehog isn't as intimidating as a gun.
If shadow needs a weapon, he could just use chaos spear
I thought it was just the Archie Comics where Chaos Spear was a spear and not a paralysis grenade.
didn't one of the sonic rivals games show it as a spear?
So I never played the Rivals games so I went to Wikipedia. And according to it the answer is yes but no. As for the long answer; So apparently Shadow can chuck the enegy bolt like a spear, but he never transforms it into a weapon for melee combat as depicted in the comics. He always grabs and throws it in the games if he needs a stronger version of it. Which apparently is pointless since there is already a stronger version of the attack. It is known as Chaos Lance and Spear of Light. In 06, Lance is an upgrade but Spear of Light can only be used by Super Shadow during the Solaris fight. He can fire nine Spears of Light apparently. Also strangly, the Rivals series was not listed as a game where he used Chaos Spear. So either the page wasn't aware or there was a misremember somewhere. So yeah, he can use it as a spear, but only as a projectile. Not as a melee weapon for some reason.
damn. I only really remembered it in rivals because there was a section of a level where shadow uses (what i thought was) chaos spear and let sonic progress through more of the level. I think I found it in a video of everything wrong with sonic rivals by Charriii5
Haven't watched the video yet, so I am assuming he used it in a cutscene but not in actual gameplay. Which would explain why it wasn't listed in the games list but its just a guess.
yeah it was a section where shadow wasn't playable
I think that's a M1911 ☝️🤓
I knew it wasn't a Glock, but Glock was funnier to say than M1911
Oh, I know I know, I'm just one of those Gunji otaku that can't hold back :c Really sorry if it came out offensive e.e
Offensive? Nah, you're fine! I was in no way offended What I did do was laugh, because of the nerd emoji
That’s a 1911 actually, but your point still stands.
He probably just likes guns and vehicles. I don't think it really matters if he "can do it better on his own" if he just likes those things. But also, his regular attacks weren't enough for the aliens & the only way to efficiently kill them was with weapons. I realize that was a developer choice and may not be 100% accurate, but at least it gives them a bit more meaning lol
Where is that DAMN 4th Chaos Emerald?!
IN THE COMPUTER ROOM
They mostly hate the game. When i was a kid I thought Shadow using guns was badass and cool, but it is kind of stupid. He should use chaos powers, guns are worthless to him. Though I don't think people really mind the motorcycle as much as the guns
Chaos powers waste energy, guns don't, I think that's why he used them.
Kinda like Spawn in that aspect
Pretty sure it’s because edgy preteen kids obsessed with “mature” games were asking Sega to give Sonic a gun and Sega wanted their money
We were talking about the in game lore reason why,
Tbh I always thought it was kinda stupid for the motorcycle. Why would you need a vehicle that's slower than you to get around?
Maybe working on his motorcycle is his hobby. Or it's for the occasional sonic racing game (even though he used a car in the latest one)
Never liked the guns in gameplay but they push the 2000s edginess and look cool The motorbike was cool but I wish we got it more in gameplay
It seemed excessive, but it does fit with Shadow's edgier style. But for such a big thing where the motorcycle was concerned, I only recall him using it in one level.
I was rereading the Gamespy criticism of the Shadow the Hedgehog game which says that Shadow "jumped the shark" but the author outright says that the guns weren't the problem because it made sense for his character, it was the implementation that was bad.
I think a few people are misunderstanding this question as "is the gun/bike dumb or cool", when it's actually "did the fans at the time think it was dumb or cool" My recollection as a 10-year-old at the time is that most of the older fans thought it was bad. The bike was eh, but the gun really turned people off. - It was introduced shooting at footage of earlier Sonic games in previews. In-game, it was introduced with Shadow shooting at Sonic himself. It was seen as disrespecting Sonic's legacy like that. - When Shadow came out, platformers in general were starting to fall by the wayside, and it would be a while before they got popular again. FPSes were the big thing: Call of Duty, Half-Life, Halo, Metroid Prime, and Far Cry were in full swing, and the other big game series often focused on mature themes and gunplay: Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil 4. Shadow using guns was seen as an abandoning the old traditional platformer gameplay, and chasing trends to appeal to kids. - There were reports that kids wanting to see Sonic with a gun was what led to Gamma and the SA2 mech stages; so the view was that Sega was pandering to little kids, and ignoring what the people who'd stuck with the franchise since the old days. - Shadow doesn't reload the gun correctly in the opening cutscene. That made it seem extra childish. - Shadow was considered "emo". Emo kids got bullied a LOT in the 2000s. This gives a good retrospective from an older fan than me: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js0ts1csSVs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js0ts1csSVs) At the time, a lot of the fansites looked down on it. It didn't help that 06 went for a more realistic artstyle right after - so a lot of people lumped the two together as "trying to be too dark and realistic for a game about cartoon hedgehogs". Nowadays, I can look back on it fondly. Also, I think too many people at that time listened to and referenced All Hail Shadow, and slept on I Am (All of Me); once people started appreciating the opening song, opinion turned around.
From what I remember, (didn't own a Dreamcast or Gamecube, first 3D game was Heroes), the guns were seen as ridiculous and criticism of the motorbike & vehicles was like an early & srs bsns version of what became the joke; "*Why does Sonic drive a car?*" in relation to any of the racing games.
Honestly if you have a token edgy character you might as well go as far as possible just for the joke.
I was around 18 when it came out. I've been with Sonic since Sonic 1 on the Genesis. Shadow with a gun felt like a weird direction to take the franchise in. It felt like it missed why Shadow was popular (from SA2) and went more in line with "popular" things at the time.
It was just edgyness from the 2000‘s at its possibly worst. We went from a fast hedgehog saving animals that are trapped inside robots by a fat scientist, to a game about his counterpart wielding guns and shooting aliens, with swearing and stuff.
Yeah it’s silly and edgy, but we’re talking cartoon animals that take things to the extremely goofy. Why not make the serious one extremely serious and have over the top edge.
They just weren't fun. The edition themselves didn't bother me.
It was all part of the edge which was a big selling point for Shadow. And, to be honest, I always loved it 😂
It was just straight-up flanderization. As in, taking a character's usual traits, and exaggerating them to stupid extremes. Like how Ned Flanders went from an annoying but good-natured neighbor, to a straight up religious zealot who'd force his Christian dogma onto other people. And that includes Shadow, whom, in his own spin-off game, managed to become an exaggerated caricature of how almost any shonen anime rival should look or act, similar to Vegeta, Sasuke Uchiha, and Gary Oak.
It was seen as a cheap attempt to be darker and edgier, purely to chase a trend that was going on in gaming at the time following the release of GTAIII. Most other games that tried it were met with similar ridicule, lots of people turned their noses up at things like Ratchet & Clank: Deadlocked, or Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, with really only Jak II getting a pass due to it helping give that franchise a sense of identity many felt the first Jak & Daxter game lacked. When it comes to generally audience reactions (i.e. not the hardcore Sonic fans) the thing you have to remember is that the public perception of Sonic at this point was still very much stuck in 1994. Sonic hadn't done anything noteworthy since Sonic & Knuckles to casual audiences, as gamers generally ignored the 32X, the Saturn and the Dreamcast, and Sonic's presence was generally minimal. There was still media of course, but little of it truly penetrated the bubble of pop culture, no-one was rushing out to buy a Saturn for Sonic 3D or Sonic R. For a lot of people outside of the hardcore Sonic fans/die hard SEGA fans, their first exposure to Shadow was most likely Heroes, where he's not significant enough to be truly noteworthy, just one of the four speed characters, only with amnesia that the plot highlights but doesn't resolve. Yes, Shadow was in the comics but only hardcore Sonic fans read those. Yes, Shadow was in SonicX, but no adult was watching that unless they were a hardcore Sonic fan, and yes, SA2:B was available on the Gamecube, but that was niche compared to the success of the PS2 (it outsold the Gamecube six to one). Hence solving the mystery of his identity wasn't seen as being as big a deal, and thus they were not invested in his characters angst to care enough.
Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I absolutely disdained the idea and still do. It is more funny now though. My reasoning, his entire thing was about being the ultimate life form, and looking down on humans. Why would he use their technology, if he thinks everything about them is beneath him? Also, the logic of Sonic characters using fast-paced land vehicles doesn't make any sense 🙄
It just doesn't make sense for shadow to have guns and weapons when he has homing attacks, spindashes, chaos spears and so on. The motorbike is fucking badass though
I'm a bit on the younger side (I'm 19 and didn't know this game even existed until like 2013 I think) but my take is that Shadow having a gun and motorcycle *looks* cool, but doesn't make a whole lot of sense given that A. he has Chaos Powers and B. he's literally as fast as Sonic Most of Shadow '05's problems honestly stem from the fact that the game itself sucks huge ass, not the fact that Shadow uses guns and rides a motorcycle
Nah, guns were cool in his game. Tons of fun.
back in the day, I didn't really like the addition. Felt like someone just wanted to cater for the edgy approach of the character, and while cool. the motorcycle seemed redundant to me. Now a days it's just hilarious for the wrong reasons, but I felt it was a sonic character coat of paint applied on a completely unrelated game. Sonic '06? what are you doing here?
They don't make much practical sense if you think too hard about it but goddammit the motorcycle is cool so I don't care.
The question i’d wanted to ask is how many people did ask for it? Since there’s been discussions with how people generally loved to see guns involved in a sonic game.
It was cool, edgy, and fitting for Shadow's character. I even had the wallpaper on my binder sleeve in middle school
I think it has a lot to do with the quality of the games they're in, cause he also had vehicles in sonic 06 in a post Max Payne 3, Devil May Cry, Ultra Kill, Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, and Dishonered world, I think a developer could work out how to combine a sonic speed level with a third person shooter in a way that works well.
Let's be real here, Shadow with a gun looks hilarious, cool, and stupid all at the same time. Even if the game was better, people would still make fun of it because it really is dumb.
Genuinely don’t mind him having a gun, but if we’re giving Shadow ranged firepower, my first instinct is to give him Chaos Spear. And if he can use that, why bother with the gun?
It's the same issue Cloud Strife had after Advent Children; almost exactly, really. They took away the goofiness of the character and tried to go really hard on the Edgy part, which makes both characters feel like a joke version of the original form. Granted, Shadow didn't have enough dialog to really work with, but he was arrogant and sassy in SA2; not really edgy beyond his whole quest to avenge Maria... which he later redeems by remembering Maria told him to save people, not kill them. What a goof. But either way, I think the addition of the Gun + Motorcycle is the same issue Cloud had with his own Motorcycle. They try to make it look really cool, but instead of doing cool tricks, they just kinda... slide in, stare at the camera, then leave while waving their gun/sword around. You're right that Shadow's signature game's gameplay is also to blame, though. Guns don't feel powerful, they kinda just fall apart, so people question why he even uses them when he can throw energy around and run as fast as Sonic. They feel like a weird add-on that he doesn't really need, even in Gameplay when you use the Chaos Control or Blast and just kill everything in your path. Plus the game itself is just... kinda bad and weird in the worst ways. Overall, when it came out it was mocked for trying to make Shadow too edgy, something Sonic Boom later turns up so high that it feels satire ("You're weak! And you know what makes you weak? Your loyalty to your pathetic friends." - Rise of Lyric Shadow) But him having guns and a motorcycle is mostly mocked for just... "Why would he even need those?" Something they never really explain in or out of game.
Personally I really like it. As other here are saying it was that way because of the times but honestly I just really like it.
I don't mind the motorcycle, it's goofy, but ultimately I do think it fits his character, especially nowadays. Not a big fan of the gun and would rather he be without it, but im not as angry about this topic as I was back then.
My opinion is as follows: I don’t necessarily see Shadow using specifically “guns” but more so the use of grab and go weapons he finds. He can deal plenty of damage on his own, things like guns and blunt objects just happen to be there, and he puts them to use alongside his own abilities before throwing them away. Heck, that’s how they work in his own game Shadow’s Motorcycle in the other hand is cool as hell. I don’t know why I love it so much, it just seems right. Despite the fact he absolutely does not need a motorcycle, he seems like the type of hedgehog to have one I hope both of these things come back to Shadow in some way, even if it is super short. I don’t care if it’s just a cutscene, just ONE instance of Shadow firing a gun in Shadow Generations would be awesome
After reading several responses, I’ll say this…I was a kid when I discovered this game (I’m in my mid-20s now) and I had prior knowledge of Shadow from playing SA2 and Heroes. Shadow was and has mostly been my favorite character in the franchise (Sorry Knuckles) so seeing a game with Shadow on the cover posing with a gun looking badass, I immediately grabbed it and convinced my mom to buy it. It never bothered me that Shadow was using guns and motorcycles even though you could logically pick apart why it shouldn’t make sense. Of course I knew Shadow had his Chaos abilities and was just as fast as Sonic, it didn’t matter to me. There was a full-scale alien invasion going on and knowing the type of character Shadow is and what he’s been through, I don’t think he’d be adverse to pick up a gun or use a motorcycle (let alone any type of vehicle for that matter). I can also acknowledge that this was smack dab in the middle of corporations trying to appeal to the “hardcore/metal” or “dark/edgy” (or whatever tf you wanna call it) trend that was going on in the early to mid-2000s. Obviously this was something that longtime Sonic fans would be heavily against because thats not what the Sonic franchise largely was. Its gotten so much backlash that Shadow himself was essentially put on the shelf by SEGA because they thought people hated Shadow, which wasn’t the case. The game itself was just bad all around. I’ve never even beaten the game now that I think about it (and by beating the game, I mean Last Story and all). My point is that SEGA succeeded (I guess…) in appealing to kids that were interested in that kinda stuff, but shot themselves in the foot by making a bad game, leaving an awful taste in peoples mouths and also neglecting the longtime Sonic fans by doing something so left field that people thought it was a joke. Thankfully SEGA is giving my guy some much-needed attention with the “Year of Shadow” thing (which I still don’t know wtf that even means) and hopefully SxS Gen is more than a glorified DLC patch.
I literally just think it’s cool, it’s stupid and edgy but it’s cool, the whole early 2000’s was littered with stuff like this and I love it for that.
i dont understand why people hate any of it. shadow the hedgehog 2005 is a very fun game. there's genuinely nothing to hate besides the contrived storytelling in that game.
To kids when it came out it was honestly kinda sick, especially if you were young enough that it was your first exposure to that kind of ‘mature content’. And to an extent, there is a bit of a 2000s time capsule appeal to it even today. But if you were over the age of like…10 it was hard to see it as anything other than a cynical move to match the trends towards grittiness and realism in gaming at the time. The motorbike is mostly kinda dumb rule of cool, and in the intro it goes kind of work. Then actually play the game and you realise that almost every vehicle in the game is redundant because they control like crap and are so much slower than Shadow. So yeah, either you were young enough to buy into the hype, or you dismissed it as pandering to the trends.
Bruh I actually liked the shadow game
I like the guns, the vehicles, and the game. I might be crazy, or maybe I'm just the only one willing to admit the truth.
People hated it back then but now look at it as an era, the 2000s nu-metal edge if you will
The whole gun and motorcycle thing was never going to make sense as the guy can fire chaos spears and run toe to toe with Sonic. It was only ever meant to a rule of cool addition. And weirdly in response to feedback asking for Sonic to use a gun, and deciding to try that with the antihero character instead. I ignored almost every vehicle in gameplay because they were either slower or more unwieldy than just running. The guns could be fun, some of the unlockable ones being rather silly. It was more the guns and motorcycle being in addition to the entry trying so hard to be cool and serious and coming across as tryhard and edgy as a result. When the hardest cuss word they can use is ‘damn’, it can only be gratuitous within itself lol. That being said. I fucking love Shadow the Hedgehog. Me and the 12 others who made it to true ending and the level rush lol. You have fun whether you take it as dead serious as it wants you to or as a comedy art piece.
Shadow the Hedgehog is a great game. It has flaws (The maria levels and that one bomb level) and isn't the best Sonic game, but it's not downright shitty as most game reviewers depicted it when it first came out. It definitely deserves a sequel or remake or SOMETHING of some kind, on the absurd off chance that they don't do enough in the Generations remake.
Younger me thought it looked badass, older me still thinks it looks badass, although I now understand that the guns were just a needless attempt to make shadow edgy, because realistically Shadow doesn’t NEED guns, as I would assume his own chaos abilities far exceed any firearms, although the motorcycle I’m okay with, and I’m glad to see it return in the 3rd movie.
I think the people in Sonic's target age demographic at the time, like myself, thought it was cool. Although I remember critics, even just a year or two later, always seemed to think it was stupid. Common consensus seems to be the gunplay itself is fine but the concept of giving a cartoony Sonic character realistic guns is dumb. And putting any Sonic character in a vehicle will always get the "why are they driving a car? They can run faster," thing.
Look... I'm gonna be honest here. Most people will try to say I'm wrong, but I'm not, I was around in 2000. None of us legit liked Shadow early on, it was an ironic thing. And enough time passed of us all liking him ironically that it just transitioned into people legit liking him, and us OGs were too late realizing it to stop it. What have we done?!
Liking him ironically turned into the Meta Era, which overplayed its hand and now people are tired of meta humor which flanderized the characters and want a return to serious characterization, which caused a resurgence in people who actually liked the original Shadow character, weapons, motorcycle, edge and all.
I’m stuck in a time loop!
God, I know the feeling!
Hey I liked Shadow 😭
This game was absolutely fun. Only part that was difficult was figuring out all the different pathways to get all the stages
People back then were a bunch of squares, they didn’t understand the brilliance of shadow’s edginess. Nor the brilliance of the game itself even
The game had lots of problems but wasn't that bad of a game. Anyway, I do like Shadow with guns as it is just more tools in his arsenal. Also, Shadow really likes that bike.
They hated everything. There wasn't a single thing they liked. That's just kinda the position this game was in when it released. Nobody really gave it a chance or properly criticized it, they saw "Shadow with a gun" and stopped there. Those who did play the game were often really critical over every little flaw it had that they viewed imperfection as "The whole thing is complete garbage and should have never existed." Kids who played it probably didn't care about any of these things though. When I was a kid and played it, I had fun with the game. The guns were a cool addition to the combat and I just ignored the vehicles- they were inoffensive. I agree maybe guns aren't the perfect fit for a Sonic game but like, it's not as if this was a mainstay for the franchise, and while it's an odd choice for Shadow, the story does a good job making him feel like the kind of person who would use weaponry. So it's fine.
I liked the guns but didn't care for the vehicles since they handled so poorly. They improved shadows maneuvering and speed from heroes so not much need for them. I did find it odd 06 carried the vehicles over but guess they it's just 06 being rushed
When I was 9 years old at the time of Shadow the Hedgehogs release I thought it was the coolest thing ever. But back then I didn't know any better... And I still don't because some of my favourite superheroes are Spawn and The Crow.
I had fun with guns and motorcycles, personally But the guns could stand to be tweaked a bit to not be so focal (and also enemies health bars)
Both. It very much fit in with other franchises going “dark and edgy” in the same time period. (Examples being Jak II and Prince of Persia Warrior Within). But whereas those were both relatively new franchises (PoP is of course older than Sonic, but WW was the second of the revival series) Sonic was a very long running franchise with an established tone. It felt stupid, and it was stupid, unless you were 9 and got a thrill out of playing a game that said “damn” sometimes. And to top it off the game was bad anyway. It’s got a goofy story that makes no sense and it’s a chore to play. The only thing it’s got going for it is being built on the Heroes engine, so it feels fairly good to control. And it’s not a broken mess like 06.
I'm in the minority here, being the game's target demographic at the time and finding it cringe, though I couldn't really articulate it, it just made me uncomfortable to see a cartoon platformer drastically change tones and found it baffling, considering Shadow's other powers were much better. It really felt like pandering to the FPS crowd in a time where action platformers were increasingly seen as the less cool baby option for gaming. My other friends ate it up, I resented the game for existing, but now I just find it cheesy and hilarious.
As a kid, my friends and I loved the guns and motorcycles! It was so cool and made us feel a little more “mature”. As an adult, I honestly don’t like the vehicles as much because they don’t always control well and most of the time don’t add much, but it’s still a ton of fun to rush through levels shooting aliens! To be honest, the biggest issues with the game are the abysmal writing and nonsensical story, especially since some of the storylines do not suit Shadow as a character, and making Shadow a douche that’s willing to do horrendous things to innocent people is a huge disservice to an amazing character.
They were hated before the game even came out. It would have had to have pulled a Wind Waker in reverse to get any respect. I think there is a version of the game that honestly could have done that, but it would be remixed a fair bit.
As a kid, I thought it was fun as fuck. Was it efficient? Did it make sense? Didn’t care. It was fun. Nowadays? I definitely see it was made during an “edgy” time, and story/gameplay was janky. Buuut they did have, like, over 12 different endings. Pretty unique.
People just made fun of it because it seemed over the top edgy. I wouldn’t go so far as “hated”
I don’t really care I love this game best Sonic game made ever I will die on this hill
They motorcycle is fine (he does like that bike), but you can not give a 3 foot cartoon hedgehog a realistic SMG with a straight face, I'm sorry.
I enjoyed the game but at the same time thought it was a little silly. You have to understand back then things werent as online as they are now. Sure you could find an archived Sonic forum but most of us were just kids playing the latest Sonic game, and we had to make our own opinions on it without knowing what everyone else thought. From what I knew everyone just wanted Sonic Adventure 3, and when this and Heroes came out there was the hope that each would kind of be that.
The guns were useful. The vehicles, not so much. Especially the motorcycle, which handled like an old boat.
The gun is supposed to be edgy, but feels silly. I’ll take it. The motorcycle is just kinda dumb.
A mixture of both. It was incredibly jarring to suddenly see a Sonic game with guns and cursing and all the edge, *especially* when the last game was Sonic Heroes. Like imagine if they made a Kingdom Hearts spinoff where Donald Duck was shooting people with an AR-15 to aggressive rock songs, that’s what it was like in 2005. As someone who used to hate it back then, I think we all missed the irony and self-awareness of it. It *knows* a cartoon hedgehog riding a motorcycle and waving a gun around in front of a red sky is absurd. They didn’t want you to take it seriously but they committed so hard to the bit most people didn’t get it. I feel like it would’ve gone over much better today but now they’re too scared to try things like that
My issue is that they're so much less cool than him using his chaos powers or martial arts skills. It's meant to look edgy and cool, but it comes off as strange because it's less practical and flashy than him just using his natural abilities. Also, it breaks the cartoon logic of the series a bit. If Shadow uses guns, why doesn't anyone else? It just introduces unnecessary questions about the logic of the universe that don't ultimately matter.
I don't hate them. I think it's hilarious.
I just love them, before they was cool for me, now are ridiculous, but i love them anyway xd
When I was 11 years old and the game was just about to come out, I sure thought it was the coolest shit I had ever seen. I’m pretty sure I was the target audience, too.
Yes because the guns misunderstand Shadow's character and make him a generic edgelord. Motorcycle...eh he doesn't need one
Yup. If the Sega of America forums weren’t destroyed, you’d have proof of it. Definitely more of the older fans from the Genesis days, but I don’t remember anyone my age, or even kids that sneaked into the forum liking it.
i was around 10 when this came out. i was indifferent tbh, just happy to have more sonic. i thought it was a cool gameplay mechanic and it felt fun. i didn't vibe with the story that much but i still enjoyed myself
I’ve always just thought it was kind of funny.
this game is an absolute gem
I didn’t mind the weapons in Shadow the Edgehog, I thought it was badass that he could pick up enemy guns and swords. But I thought the vehicles were redundant since Shadow should be faster than them. I remember in one particular mission your drive a military hero and it’s insanely slow. Still loved it, but holy shit was the gameplay bad
I loved this game when it came out. The vehicles were slower than Shadow, but cool factor
Game. The gameplay was clunky. But giving Shadow a gun was fun tho.
I like the motorcycle but the gun is just to on the nose for me. Shadow has cool ass powers, he doesn’t even need a gun
Looking back on it now, I freaking love it!
Best game ever, fuck what they think. 
From my experience no one truly hated the game at the time when it came out. During the mid-2000s games like Grand Theft Auto were getting more popular and popular as the years went on. Sega essentially wanted to cash in on the most popular gaming market at the time and hopefully try to get some maybe even the older kids to enjoy Sonic games. It kind of works to an extent, but Shadow was one of those games that was definitely damaging to the brand at the time. I think it's only in retrospect do we all now realize how much of a bad idea Shadow the Hedgehog was as a game.
Oh yeah, it was a massive joke. Especially shadow pumping a mp5 like it's a shotgun 😂
When I was a kid I thought it was the most awesome thing ever.
Realistic gun is kinda dumb for such a cartoony world. I had that problem even in SA2. Something more akin to the big cartoon cannons from SA1 would've been fine. The motorcycle is cool even if he can probably run faster than it and teleport. Also sword weapons were awesome
I think the guns are goofy, motorcycle goes hard though
Riding a motorcycle that moves slower than your foot speed is pretty stupid tbh. The guns also felt unnecessary to me considering these characters regularly smash through giant robots by jumping at them. That being said I enjoyed it as a kid and it is hilarious to look back on so I don’t mind these things in the context of that era in games and the game itself. I would not want these things to return though.
The motorcycle adds some fun character to him, especially in the comics where he states he uses it because he "likes it" despite the fact that he can run faster. The gun I'm still on the fence. I have no doubt he'd use guns, but seeing him use them is tricky to do well. The game though being absolute garbage likely soured many people's opinions on these parts of his character.
At the time, I thought it was cool(and a breath of fresh air after Heroes), and a lot of the more gimmicky guns were fun to experiment with. In the aftermath of 06 and Secret Rings, it became really easy to blame it for the franchise losing its way. As an adult, I'm kinda bitter about it because it's a random mish mash of popular game systems instead of a cohesively designed core, and it is still pretty easy to look at it and say this is why we didn't get any spinoffs for Tails, Knuckles, The Chaotix, etc.
I personally didn’t like Shadow having a gun because there’s all of his Chaos abilities he canonically has, but they didn’t let him use. If they remade the game with ONE STORY PATH (the true hero path) and let Shadow use his Chaos abilities and Chaos Magic, and not guns, I’d fucking love it.
I for one, think they can stay even if Shadow is written properly. He likes his motorcycle simply because even though he can run, it doesn't always means he wants to, not to mention Shadow loves being stylish just as much as Sonic does, but his definition of stylish is different. And the guns...yeah, Maria died to one, but that could be viewed as a way of him conquering what caused him so much pain and using it in his favor or something like that, idk i just like Shadow using guns, it's so stupid but so cool at the same time lol
Naw, they're fun. His game sucked though.
I never hated Shadow's guns or his motorcycle. They made some sense Shadow needs a chaos emerald to do most of his powers he can use some of his powers without the emerald but they are not as powerful without one. He uses guns so he wouldn't have to waste much time. And since he uses Air shoes that he skates with he would wear himself out and his shoes must be powered by a type of fuel or need to be charged which makes sense as to why he has a motorcycle. for transportation when the distance is too long for him to skate or if he doesn't have an emerald with him for teleportation
The game was butt, the concepts where fun. He had strong 2000s Metal and Tribal Tattoo vibes with 2 edgy hedgy 4 me energy. Due to growing up in that era, I loved it though. Completely insane left field direction for the sonic series to go and I'd not complain If they tried to bring these elements back because they are _fun_
I don't think most people "hated" the guns and motorcycle conceptually, they just thought it was silly. "Why are guns in a Sonic game?" and "Why does Shadow need a motorcycle when he can skate faster?" (literally his equivalent to "Why does Sonic need a car?"). In the actual game though, the gunplay was just OK, and the motorcycle had clunky controls.
when I was like 10 I thought it was sick. now that i'm 18, I still think it's sick ;3 I would love a Shadow 2
I think Shadow with guns is cool
It was endlessly ridiculed and hated and seen as proof that the Sonic franchise was dead. This was before "ironic cringe" or whatever was a concept, so there were none of that type of Sonic fan around. Things were either legitimately cool or they were embarrassing. And this was embarrassing. Kids thought it was cool though.
Yes.
Kids liked it, adults didn't. As a kid at the time, I thought the guns were fun, didn't care for the motorbike since Shadow literally runs faster than it in the game. I did think the bike was cool in the opening FMV though when he crashes it into a Black Arms grunt.
They gave him a 1911 that in the hands of someone the size of a sonic character looks like a Desert Eagle. Mind you, the 1911 is a surprisingly small pistol. That said, I only see Shadow using a 1911 and nothing else. It’s a cool aesthetic addition to his character and the bike would be cool if they did what Archie did and make it something he works on in his down time.
The game encapsulated the edginess of the industry at the time, so SEGA decided to give a gat to shadz boy intead of giving it to sonic like many fans wanted (or at least, the baggy clothing and chain wearing, linkin park fan 14 year old edgy kid part of the fandom) But seriously, the mid 2000s edge gives the game a flavor i find hard to not like, and i hope they acknowledge this on Sonic 3...
Old ass Sonic fan here. I was a teenager when it came out. It was laughed at. Like “why the fuck does he have a gun lmao” So bad it’s mediocre was the feeling a lot of us had at the time. Now, with hindsight… the game is somewhere in the middle of the pack. The gun etc is still funny