I think my favorite route through the game is the one called Wandering’s End. In this route you play neutral missions and hero missions that don’t involve hunting enemies, characterizing Shadow as someone who generally wants to do good things but has a noticeable aversion to direct violence. Aside from this accidentally being the “Shadow Chaotix” route where all of your hero missions happen to be the three Chaotix ones, it ends up being a tragic tale where this character trying to avoid conflict ends up discovering that his very existence is the genesis of ALL the violence in the game. It’s so neat.
I agree, despite the consequences to your decisions barely existing, at least the game gives you freedom to create some neat scenarios One of my favorite routes is when you keep doing only dark missions, until the castle level where Amy is looking from Cream, and if you do only hero missions from there to rest to the game, you get a route called something like "Path of love" Edit: Never mind, he already talked about this path in the video, the name is actually "Miracle of Love"
Hot take, the "nobody tells me what to do" line was always directed at the player, hence why none of the endings you choose matter, because in the end he decides for himself who he is.
There's no way that that was the intention of the line, but I don't care because that Line hits so much harder if I believe that's the reason behind it.
Huge stretch, the only time that Sonic series broke the 4th wall were the idle animations in the classic games, some jokes from the 2010s games, and the entirety of Sonic Boom
I'm so tired of Keanu being shoehorned into every role to ever exist... but I will watch sonic 3 when it hits streaming! It was in good enough taste tbh
51:16 The thing with Shadow 06, Heroes and the original Riders remastered ports is an issue with the Engine, they use the Renderware engine that was owned by Criterion, but when EA bougth criterion, they stopped supporting the engine altogether, so i assume that because of the license to the engine (and how old it is today) it's not worth going through a legal battle with EA. maybe that's why a lot of games that used Renderware are still stuck in that era.
The 6th gen GTA games used Renderware iirc and those were remastered. I saw that video about Renderware a little while ago but surely it's possible somehow. It probably just extremely difficult
Shadow 05 defense video from Nyarly unexpected but welcome. My relationship to shadow 05 is I use play the neutral route a bunch of times when I was 6 and I never really touched the rest. I love the soundtrack tho
Back in the mid/late 2000s and early 2010s was genuinely a rough, cynical time frame if you were a Sonic fan. I kept my love for the series alive though, and even did a project in school where I made a life-sized replica styrofoam of Sonic's board from Sonic Riders. Ofcourse if I had the gall to post that when I was a kid I'd probably be bullied way more than I was in real life when I did.
Without any hint of Irony, my favorite story paths are the ones where Shadow and Omega kill Eggman and start a robotic revolution. Not because I think it's the most interesting, but because Omega is really just there for his best buddy Shadow. That aside, it's nice to see someone give a more positive review of this mixed game. I lean more towards negative, but the game does have it's good points and I do not ignore them.
It’s definitely a symptom of the old internet. Sonic games in the mid 2000s and early 2010s were a “joke”. People lumped them all together as “bad” games. Yes they had flaws but it started a massive wave of how people perceived that “Sonic was never good” (IGN).
“Lumped them all together” indeed. I remember at the peak of that particular Internet hate bubble, even the Adventure games were being called terrible trash by some. Think that’s a good sign right there of how big the dumb hate bandwagon was getting. For the record, I’m not saying you can’t genuinely criticize the Adventure games; hell, I have my own problems with Adventure 1. But the hate I was hearing back then was definitely coming from this dumb “Sonic was never good” meme that thankfully seems to have fizzled out.
Sonic fans really have a chip on their shoulder. Y'all can have your opinions but I personally just don't like Sonic gameplay. It's just not fun to me. For a series that should be about speed there are dozens of games that give me a more satisfying feeling of speed than Sonic games which usually have stages that stop you dead in your tracks way too often. I try giving Sonic a chance every so often because I want to like the games but am disappointed every time. Y'all can try to hide behind "Sonic games suck" being a meme but there's good reason that thought permeated gamer culture and isn't just some "blind, bandwagon hate" Sonic fans tried to make it out to be. To a lot of people, these games just aren't enjoyable. Glad you guys can take joy in playing them but I'm not gonna let you pretend your opinions are anymore valid than mine or others. We don't like the games, sorry that upsets you because you've tied your personality to these games, get over it.
@@donovanfaust3227 Sonic gameplay is more about platforming and dodging obstacles and collect rings and reach the goal before time runs out and some of them are really just pure adventure, Just because Sonic is fast and speedy.. It doesn't mean the gameplay has to be ultra super fast, if you think about it.. It really about just taking adventure and there's tons of different stages, well.. Except for Race games but you get the point
Nyarly dropping one of the most based videos of all time!! I love this game. I acknowledge it has its problems and, at worst, is a mess, but it's strengths feel greater than it's deepest weaknesses and I am glad someone is saying it!! I also really appreciate your last segment. For myself and so many others, Shadow The Hedgehog was a gateway into something different for a lot of older kids and young teens who grew up loving Sonic games and coming from a somewhat sheltered household, it helped open some otherwise firmly locked doors. This game and the music Sega Sound Team and Crush 40 made for it seeded what would become a love of metal and industrial music in my younger self that has lasted for 20 years and counted and lead me to listening to more stalwart icons of the genre that remain in my music mix. It was also a taste of third person shooters in the same transitional space as Jak 2 and 3 which eventually grew to games like Gears and Metal Gear Solid when the flood gates opened for M rated titles
"Shadow '05"? I've never heard that before. People say "Sonic '06" to differentiate Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) from the original 1991 Sonic the Hedgehog because both games have the same name. But I've never heard of the game Shadow the Hedgehog being referred to as anything other than "Shadow the Hedgehog", because there's only one game by that name.
@@tomdepain No. It's an attempt to make Shadow 05 a thing when it makes zero sense. Sonic 06 is called 06 because there's 2 Sonic The Hedgehog games. The 1st game. The one released in 2006.
@@davidwhidden9337 again, its simply to refer to the Shadow the Hedgehog video game to not spark confusion, as it could be interpreted that the person is talking about the character Really no need to spread hate because you don't like a game
@@tomdepain Nope. It's very easy to refer to the game as the full name and just say Shadow for the character. Example: Shadow in Shadow The Hedgehog steals a choas emerald. Ta. Da.
Related to the remark about needing to kind of fill in the blanks to make sense of the story, it came up on Ian Flynn's podcast once that, when he asked for some elaboration on what SEGA considers to be canon from Shadow's game, he was told that as far as they care, the only things directly canon are Westopolis and the last story. Otherwise? Shrug.
They call it slippery, I call it inertia. It requires that you work with the speed that you’ve gained, you can’t just turn on a dime! Also, I don’t care what anyone says, when you fill the red gauge, the furious guitar licks kick in, Shadow yells “DEATH to all who oppose me,” at the same time Black Doom delivers his line, “MAKE the HUmans SUFfer!” and I get to let loose blasting away at all of the assholes who’ve wronged me, it’s peak game feel. It even ties in nicely with the game’s speed focus; getting to the next enemy to kill quickly actively rewards you with keeping the infinite ammo rage out going for longer. It gives me the same feeling of righteous rageful destruction that I get from Doom 2016 and Eternal
There's some mods for the gamecube version that adjust his momentum and controls and honestly, I think people's complaints with his controls are overexaggerated, but after getting to try a more refined version of it I have to say it's not an entirely baseless complaint, the expert stages are AMAZING with some of the fine tuning people have made to the game controls wise
"Work with the speed that you've gained" What work? You go from standing still to super speed by holding forward for 3 seconds, the Adventure games flowed way better and you had more control overall, remember that you're supposed to control a character, not a speeding car
I enjoyed shadow the hedgehog growing up. I am happy you mentioned the positive aspects to these game. Yeah the linear nature repetition does not help but it still sits in my heart as an enjoyable experience. And sonic fans, they know how to make a game that is either bad or misunderstood improved with mods.
One thing that I have to mention: that whole thing about the Chaos gauge making you invincible and giving your guns infinite ammo? The game never tells you that. In fact, it encourages you to USE your Chaos powers as much as possible. I didn't know that was even a thing until years later when I saw Clement play this game.
@@PlayMadness you realize how ass backwards it sounds that your saying a buggy game that most people didn't even bother finishing, or in some cases couldn't finish because of these "fun" bugs... Is better than a complete game, that you don't like because you don't like when a game is too different from the same formula they've been using for a decade up until that point
I still think Rise of Lyric is a worse game than 06. Project 06 has shown that divorced from the horrific performance and glitches, Sonic 06 still has merit at its core. It was bold and ambitious, and even though it ended up a shitshow, it could have been good if it had actually been given time to cook. On the other hand, Rise of Lyric is just uninteresting to the core. The only merit of playing it is to laugh at the glitches, without it you're just left with a shitty attempt to reboot the series into a generic 3D action platformer. Even if it had gotten the time it needed to be finished, we wouldn't have gotten anything nearly as interesting as 06
Bugs can be funny, or even helpful, remember the 3 tax evasion glitches? Or Sonic’s gems not having the gauge go down? Using Omega to skip half of wave ocean? You can take the piss out of it with friends. Also Mephiles, mostly Mephiles
42:46 They matter in the sense that they show the thematic core of the ending. In each path Shadow takes he always let the past define who he is whether he is evil or not. He will always be chained by the burden of what came before and the finale says that the present and future will from now on say who he is. That's why Black Doom had to be the antagonist. The origin of his creation gets a gigantic middle finger and whether Shadow SA2 died or not, it wouldn't matter anyway since he is figuratively dead. As Sonic said Sayonara to Shadow in SA2, True Ending Shadow and Sonic Team by extension also say goodbye to SA2 Shadow. He went when he fulfilled Maria's promise and I think that's a good way to approach having Shadow return after SA2. He is basically a new character.
Seeing the amount of people actually give this game credit is nice sure it's very flawed but I had a ton of fun with this game as a kid really hoping Sega gives it the remake it deserves there's potential for a very good game here
Definitely glad this game that I really enjoyed as a kid and still like now is getting lots of love. I've been wanted to do a video on this game but have either canceled or revised it. Looks like I need to dig up the old scripts.
speaking of old internet culture, i remember there was some fan song dedicated to grief about Sonic at the time current state (we're talking Unleashed/Colors era) and it had a entire verse of the song dedicated to bash Shadow, both the game and as a character man, it was so corny, good thing we finally left those things in the past
I remember the days when people would make these annoying animations just before a new Sonic game was coming out. Now some could say that they were just meant to be silly jokes that aren't meant to be taken seriously, but these always rubbed me up the wrong way. Mainly because 1) they really weren't that funny. Most of the time it was the same tired old jokes about "Sonic's stupid friends" or "Shadow the EDGE-HOG" or "Member when Sonic kissed a human?" Or "Type in Your Name The Hedgehog and prepare to cringe!" Or constantly reminding us that that annoying "Sanic" meme exists. 2) They were judging this game before it was even out and were basically just assuming that it was going to be bad. and 3) It really does feel like this whole negative attitude towards the Sonic franchise in general has had some kind of effect on it. Almost as if the people at Sega just shrugged and went "Well! If people don't take this series seriously, then why on earth should we?"
I use to hate Shadow's solo game and while I wouldn't really put it as one of my top 5 Sonic games, it's certainly not the worst game in the series or one of the worst. When I replayed it back in 2022, I found myself actually liking it a lot more. Even appreciating the OST. Lost Impact's music is underrated.
I wish people would try to hear alternate perspectives more. I was shocked when you called this your favorite sonic until shadow generations. But throughout the video you brought up such interesting points and as someone who isnt fond of the game it was such a great watch. I can totally understand why you enjoy the game. Great job!
I'm so glad this game actually has some defenders. I agree that this is quite possibly my favorite 3D Sonic game (not certain). I will actually defend one thing that you said you wouldn't defend, which is the relationship of the final story to the other in-game routes. I'm glad that none of the other routes are canon, because it's not the purpose of those routes to be canon. The purpose of the pre-final story routes is to serve as alternate possibilities of how Shadow's life could turn out, depending on who or what he listens to. He could be hero, or a guardian of the ark, or the leader of an android empire, or Black Doom's right hand man. Every single one of those endings involves him allowing others to tell him who he is. And the other thing that the main game does is it shows us what is happening in the world throughout this world war by having Shadow pop in to various places and see all the various conflicts happening, some of which he can sorta kinda influence. Then for the final story, Shadow went on some kind of journey. We don't know what happened exactly, and it isn't any of the playable routes. But presumably, in this journey, Shadow has not formed any hard allegiances, Black Doom failed to capture or destroy the ARK, the Black Arms are probably in retreat since we see all the hero characters assaulting the comet, and team Chaotix did whatever mission the game had been hinting at throughout the game. And then the purpose of the final story is to reject the playable routes because this is the one route where Shadow refuses to let his past or the expectations of other characters define him anymore. I don't think I really agree with Shadow's egoist philosophy, but it is thematically appropriate and well-executed. The final story shows that Shadow is, canonically, an anti-hero. He ends up saving the Earth from the Black Arms, but not for any particularly heroic reasons. In some ways, though I don't like egoist philosophy myself, I can respect this more than the old Shadow's attitude in SA2, where he spends the whole game trying to kill everyone just because he thought Maria wanted him to, but then he saved anyone after he remembered that that's what Maria actually wanted him to do. Allowing your entire sense of purpose to be dictated by your memories of a single person who died 50 years ago is not really solid, and while understandable for someone who grew up in Shadow's position, it's something I'm glad the new Shadow of Heroes and beyond manages to move past.
It would’ve been nice if as the player I was able to experience that journey with shadow. But unfortunately the game only let me experience a disjointed fanfiction story.
Unfortunately, the PC release is highly unlikely to happen because the engine it runs on is the property of Electronic Arts and it costs a lot of money to license out (more money than Sega's willing to fork over for such a divisive game like this I imagine).
@@anonymousgamer5771 they should honestly just remake those games from the ground up. That way they can make the controls a bit tighter, and just give Sonic heroes and shadow the hedgehog some much needed polish.
Shadow the hedgog has definitely started to grow on me recently. I started to get invested in the game when i read a fanfic known as "i am all of me" by child at heart, which is a retelling of shadow, and reading it made me want to check out the game itself. I unfortunately cant play it due to me not having a console for it, but i was still able to watch it, and id be lying if the videos didnt make me want to play it for myself. I wont say its perfect by any means, but I do enjoy it.
For me, a character as strong as Shadow shouldn't need guns to combat an alien threat. He doesn't look cool holding a rifle like some people claim (seriously, how does adding a gun make someone cooler?). He's strong enough to rival sonic in a fight and in a race, yet the "ultimate life form" needs a gun to fight against regular people and some aliens? But maybe I'm the weird guy here having this opinion because i know a lot of people love Shadow holding a gun.
I love this game too. The different paths you can take depending on what you do in the mission (even if said missions themselves can be a bit of a hassle), then the multiple endings. It's really unique for a Sonic game, let alone a game in general. I really can't think of any other game that does this. I would love if Sonic even got a Last Story again but they've been so adamant not to do it since 06 for some reason when it was such a neat thing to include during that era of Sonic. Massive missed opportunity not to do it for Shadow Generations if you completed both games. The endings can be really great like Cosmic Fall Dark where Shadow honors the victims of the ARK and wants to protect it (akin to Knuckles guarding the Master Emerald) or just outright hilarious like Final Haunt Dark too where he's only siding with Black Doom just to spite Sonic. I love these endings personally, especially Cosmic Fall Dark. It just suits Shadow so well. Unfortunately what many people don't talk about and didn't for a long while, I know I didn't realize until Windii's video came out, but the game is riddled with awful mistranslations which has plagued any discussion of the game since release. Windii's retranslation really opened my eyes on just how much better the game is in Japanese. Shadow never says "damn", or "candy from a baby", or weird quirks like the President honoring Gerald for some reason and not Shadow after Shadow defeats Devil Doom, Shadow saying he has to believe Black Doom during the opening, or "we're going to the ARK so that means we're going too" in the original JP version. This is all exclusive to the version we got overseas. Basically anything this game is mocked for regarding dialogue was not present originally. Yes, the dialogue we got here does have it's own charm and I do like it even if it's super cheesy, but it's been tainted by the internet unfortunately. I like this game's story quite a bit so I'm saddened how no one else tends to take it seriously because of just how poorly translated it was. It's ironic because Heroes and 06 are both actually really faithful - even too faithful at times during certain cutscenes where some dialogue can feel a little off. An example is when Sonic meets Shadow again and he's like "talk about being stubborn and full of surprises" - it's a weird line here, but in Japanese Sonic had originally said this to Shadow just before For True Story. It was meant to be a callback to that line, but since the line we got in SA2 here was different ("I die hard"), it just makes it come across as awkward. Anyway, slight tangent, but basically, it's just Shadow for some reason that got the short end of the stick. Oh, and the variety of weapons too. The minigun is my personal favorite, especially on GUN Fortress. Like you said in your previous video, the gunplay is actually really good for Shadow and fits the speed gameplay really well. It's really unique for a Sonic game, let alone a game in general. It's basically Sonic's Jak and Daxter or Ratchet and Clank. I also think the level variety is really great. This game has a ton of levels and only a few of them are similar to each other like Final Haunt and Black Comet. Some are even counterparts to each other - like the Doom and Lost Impact, or Space Gadget and The ARK. Name a level like Mad Matrix or Digital Circuit in another Sonic game. You can't. Even Lost Impact with all it's flaws is still very unique for a Sonic level. The soundtrack for this game is also excellent across the board and not inconsistent like recent Sonic titles (looking at you Chaos Island from Shadow Gens). This era's soundtrack was perfect and I wouldn't change a thing. I still listen to Lost Impact or The Ark to this day. Or Sky Troops. I'd say it arguably has one of the best soundtracks in the entire franchise bar SA2 and Heroes. It's definitely a flawed game (especially with some missions but honestly I didn't have much of a problem with them) but it's a guilty pleasure. I like it in spite of the flaws it has. Shadow just has a lot of heart - the flaws is what makes the game what it is. and in comparison to something like Forces, it's night and day. Forces is just corporate, bland, static, uneventful slop that I genuinely cannot understand how anyone would defend that game. It is the epitome of soulless. But with Shadow I can definitely understand it. It has that Y2K-type edge I really like. I would take it over anything we got in the 2010s (excluding Gens and Mania though) any day. It was experimenting and just wanted to be a fun game for fans of Shadow. So that's what I think of it as. I just wish people would take into account the actual Japanese dub instead of the bad retranslation we got when critiquing Shadow's story. I would definitely recommend playing Shadow Reloaded though, and watch Windii's video covering Shadow 05. Reloaded basically fixes every single issue someone may have with Shadow 05. Tighter controls, less having to replay Westopolis over and over, et cetera.
This was one of the first Sonic games I've played, but I was already familiar with the series beforehand. As different as it is from all the other games, I've always just enjoyed it for what it is, and it didn't detract from me wanting to try out the rest of the series. As you said, it came out in an era where most games were following a similar style, and I was already playing a few of those, so that probably helped. Now that I think about it, Shadow was the perfect pick to lean into these darker themes. Using a realistic firearm might feel out of character for Sonic, but with Shadow it kinda just fits him.
it feels so cathartic to see someone love this game as much as me like truthfully the 10 playthrough and *some* mission and levels suck but its very genuinly good otherwise
It's amazing how you spoke about exactly what I was thinking multiple times while watching this. As a fan of this game as well, this was a fantastic video. Subscribed.
It's so heartwarming to me how much people have warmed up to Shadow. He's very early 2000score, so he's super edgy in a Tumblr OC kinda way. At one point that sorta thing was reviled, but now people look back on it with fond nostalgia. Shadow, when handled with care, is a welcome change of pace from all the bright happy Sonic characters and storylines. He comes off a cold and reclusive, but once you learn his tragic backstory, you can't help but empathize with him. Now that the people who grew up with Shadow are adults, they're able to articulate his story better, making it more cohesive and understandable to future or even past generations. Sonic is in a better spot than it's arguably ever been in, and that's largely in part thanks to Shadow. Who'd have thought he'd be the savior of the series? All hail Shadow!
I played the Reloaded mod recently as my only experience with the game and I did sort of like it despite everything. I see your points, I get the appeal, but it feels like it's collapsing under its own weight needlessly. Which applies to a lot of Sonics, but this in particular really would have benefited from them making less videogame. 23 full levels is impressive until I see how simplified navigating them is to accommodate the mission structure and sheer amount of levels. You can't have a ton of intricate, inter-weaving pathways or really engaging speed gameplay because the player needs to be able to find all the Black Arms for the hunting mission. Hell I DID miss some GUN for a hunting mission because I nailed one of the itty-bitty shortcuts in Circus Park. Missions can't get too wacky with the combat arenas or the scavenger hunting, because then playing it like a normal Sonic level could get annoying as Hell. Or it'll just decide to be annoying as Hell like in Lost Impact. So it's very simplified in a way that makes both doing the missions well and just hauling ass to the end feel unfulfilling. They need more specific level designs that the "one level, three missions you can change at any time" format cannot support. The ones that have two missions are better off, but still suffer from being 1/23 levels they had to finish in time. And this is technically a sequel to Heroes? Not in a "haha look at the tone shift" way but made by basically the same teams back to back I think? But it feels like they took the wrong lesson on what was good about Heroes, and thought the path was maximizing content above all. Maximum levels, maximum missions, maximum story paths. Heroes focusing on style-switching and making the levels around it is what works, even with the Herculean task of making four versions of each level. The levels were still functionally made for one "character" and the odd one out was Team Chaotix being mission mode. The levels could still be simplified and repetitive in ways that feel reminiscent of Shadow, partially due to one of the level designers suffering health issues, but they have Egg Fleet in the game. If Shadow 05 had somehow been a Team Dark game instead, building on the switching mechanics and pushing the later levels even further than Egg Fleet? Oh baby. You could still keep the darker tone and the guns and such, Omega would love to have more guns. And story-wise, it just makes more sense to me that you could use Shadow's relationship with Team Dark to push the story forward and help define him in contrast to SA2 Shadow.
People only ever say "You're blinded by Nostalgia!" when you like a childhood game the internet hates. Nobody ever mentions it when Comedy Gaming TH-camr 420 says Popular Game is a beloved childhood classic of theirs.
@@KittyKatty999 it’s not even true, I should have nostalgia for shadow the hedgehog, but I didn’t like it much as a kid either. I didn’t hate the game, but it was certainly my least favorite sonic game. Just because someone played something as a child does not mean that they cannot judge it as a child or as an adult. It’s a very silly Notion. This nostalgia bias.
Even though I'm not a fan of this game, I still see the pure entertainment value from this game. I thought it was really funny that I could run over sonic in this game as a kid.
My Sonic childhood was Riders ZG, Heroes, Unleased PS2 and Shadow 05. Also Sonic Rush… a LOT of Sonic Rush. But I have to say, it’s great to see an in-depth video on how great Shadow 05 was. While I kinda tune out details, this video almost felt like re-experiencing the game again. I never got too far into it, I think the furthest I got was somewhere in the Ark, but the absolute variety of everything was where I got most of my joy. Having aliens, military and Eggman military is a fascinating triad of visual flair with the grey-purples, oranges and black-greys. Not to mention the Easter egg weapons. Also I have a soft spot for the alien bats you can fly on, I always imagined Shadow owning one as a pet because they were cool and awesome! Not to mention the hover Mech Legs and flying saucer platform. As of typing, I have watched the video to the end and I’m aware you covered all this, but it’s difficult not to geek out about it when I get the chance. It’s strange, really. Shadow 05 is basically the most overtly edgy of all the Sonic games, but it’s one of the few things that so easily inspires my childlike wonder. I hope the push from the Sonic movies inspires SEGA to start revisiting their old ideas outside of remakes, even just approaching the sort of variety found in the era of Sonic games I grew up on. Shadow Generations is already a pretty good start, let’s hope it goes up from here.
I'm beyond happy to have found another human who feels the same about this game as I do. Sonic Heroes was my first new game and introduced me to gaming beyond the 16-bit era. Shadow was my first game with a rating above E, so this game holds a very special place in my heart. I'm even writing a fan story that looks at some of these alternate timelines if they continued into what would be the following games.
I remember finding it pretty absurd first learning they really meant to go through with developing this game based off fan reception to an internet poll. I suppose at that point, myself and many others were looking more forward to it in a meme sense, similar to when the first Sonic movie was being made before they overhauled Sonic's design and news of Jim Carrey playing the role of Eggman sounded ridiculous. Ended up getting it for my birthday along with Minish Cap which I was more excited for, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this game when I realized how the branching paths worked. Now, I'd only really been a fan of the Adventure games as well as Heroes at that point, so maybe I was just more open to the seemingly more outlandish stuff, but the fact that things like guns and vehicles were only really more present in gameplay than the actual story made it clear to me that they weren't really the point, that they were just there for fun/variety, and so many years later I was kind of just as baffled as you were. Replaying it more recently for my playthrough on here, the repetitiveness is unfortunate, and some levels are a bit more boring than others for me, but on the whole I fail to see how it's anywhere near as bad as any of the worst, to me those being 06 or Boom or Forces, Chronicles, hell I'd even say I didn't like Frontiers as much either, but guess I'm also an outlier on that game as well. These days I simply have more faith in the folks doing the films than the games which is kind of sad to say, but it is what it is. On that note, I get why anything to do with the Black Arms weren't included in the new movie, and there are many more changes, but there's a lot of context from Shadow's game that added a lot to the story, my favorite being the reason Gerald made the Eclipse Cannon in the first place and how the ending reinforced the theme of duality, him going from a man with good intentions to one later twisted by the unjust death of his granddaughter probably mixed with his own guilt as seen in SA2. A lot of the game is built off SA2 and I don't think it's just plain nostalgia but really takes from it and evolves it, as much as it fumbles in the more surface aspects of storytelling not being very consistent due to the branching nature. I might have redesigned the game to have maybe three or five endings instead, but as it is I really don't think it's terrible. I'd started replaying Heroes as well and honestly think the way progression is there is far more of a grind going through the same levels four different times.
@@bloodykun4443 yeah, shadow the hedgehog and sonic heroes share a few of the same flaws. Between the speed characters, feeling a little too slippery and the amount of repetition to actually beat the games. To beat sonic heroes you need to beat the easy mode, normal mode, hard mode and mission mode. Not to mention you need to collect the chaos emeralds too. I still think that shadow 05 is worse about it because you need to beat the game 10 times. If they just let you select any stage in a path that you already completed for story mode then it wouldn’t have been an issue.
Not really surprised most people hate Shadow with only a few liking it. I liked it, replaying a limited games collection a million times was something I was used to as a child, and obviously people who like SMT are already okay with a billion hours of repetitive grinding lol.
I’ll confess that while I wasn’t really a fan of the game when I first played it, I loved the concept of Black Doom and his alien children, along with the potential ancient aliens angle they hinted at in some stages. Spoilers for post Sonic 3! Given that Glyphic Canyon resembles the temples of Central America, the movie/Paramount continuity could maybe have the Black Arms have ancient connections to the Mexica people of the pre-colonized region and there’s actually a series of beings in the Aztec religion that are said to come from the stars and were greatly feared.
A lead developer on Halo said they're confident in their game design because they focused on making 30 seconds of fun gameplay, and then just made levels to have that 30 seconds happen over and over. The end result is a story campaign that I found _very fun_ to play through _exactly once_ Shadow the Hedgehog 2005 feels like the exact opposite of that. If the moment-to-moment gameplay was at all fun, this game would have so much staying power with hours and hours of content... but they pumped so much effort into replay value that they couldn't make any single playthrough fun
@@xXGodkidGamerXx I'm going to vehemently disagree with you there. I want to make a whole video response, but I don't have the editing experience. Short version is I have actually played this game firsthand, I'm not jumping on the hate train decades later -- it's nowhere near one of the worst games of all time, it's not falling apart at the seams like Sonic 06, but it's still not fun. Overhated, yes. Underrated, NO.
@@TARINunit9 "Don't hurt my allies Shadow." As you have to defeat a flying creature in order to progress further in the level. Shadow The Hedgehog in a nutshell.
3:40 Darkest of Days such a great premise, but just horrible execution (still had a lot of fun with the game). Some games just gets unfairly judged, and just release at the wrong time or just gained a reputation, and can't really shake it. Lost Odyssey got a lot of hate when it released because it was a classic JRPG during a time when JRPGs were hated, so it got an unfair sigma attached to it (also being exclusive to the Xbox 360 didn't help). Hopefully with the success of the movie we can see a rerelease. The movie was a lot of fun.
I just started playing this recently bc I always wanted to as a kid and yeah it’s frustrating at times but I’m absolutely loving it to death I love how much content there is
Big reason why people think this game and heroes are slipery is because the main way of stoping in sonic games is to skid by holding back, heroes and this game have a long skid animation that carries a lot of mommentum. Combine that with the fact that in the adventure games only let you stop on the ledge if you are running at max speed (e.g:punching as power characters in heroes) and those 2 games have a long time to reach max speed (high acceleration but also very high top speed) makes so falling off ledges is very easy if you are still learning the game. Overall those 2 games arent very beguinner friendly and take a bit more time to get the hang of than most sonic games.
@@gablink5190Where do you draw the line between "oh you don't get it bro it's just a skill issue™" and genuinely dogshit controls, though lol. At least OP actually gave some reasonable arguments and examples to explain their distate instead of this shit. Besides, none of the 3D games in the series that're _more or less_ universally enjoyed (SA1 & 2, Unlesahed, Sonic & Shadow Generations etc.) usually have people complain about their controls every time they're discussed, even if they take some time to get used to, as opposed to Shadow '05, so surely there has to be *something* going on here.
@@bucket9486 my comment here was me trying to add to his theory on why people think this game's controls are "slipery" with my own. Another theory of mine might be the level design, but i agree that the line between bad controls and high skill floor is very thin and blurry. I do think this game has good controls tho. The 2nd comment was a little jab at the fanbase and the gaming world in general.
I actually think it has one of the best momentum in the whole series. People just have a skill issue. legit, the most problem i see people having with the game is self sabotages, like what do you mean if you press foward in the stick knuckles, punches go further? What do you mean holding the flight button makes tails not do the annoying "pew" sound? What do you mean you have to control the homing attack just like sa2?
The game’s multiple takes on Shadow were meant to give people more content and more reasons to replay the game and try different missions to see some “what if” scenarios, but I find that it also represented Shadow’s confusion as an amnesiac very well. Shadow played the villain in SA2 as well, where there too, he had his head messed with, by the professor, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Shadow would walk the line between dark and hero, when he doesn’t know who he is. However, in Shadow the Hedgehog we learn definitively that Shadow learns about his past and decides to be a hero. The hard mode missions even have dialogue showing that Shadow joined G.U.N. to help fulfil Maria’s wish. And in Sonic 06, he’s actually an active G.U.N. agent, which is something that suits Shadow’s serious demeanour very well and I’m sad that they retconned it, even in Shadow Generations.
A good story route for this game is #96 Destruction from Perfection. Shadow does neutral Westopolis mission as his only goal is to find the truth. Realizing he underestimated Black Doom, he decides to assist Black Doom only to find the truth by only doing dark missions. However, on GUN Fortress, he does the hero mission, seeing no reason to help Doom now that he has power over the humans. It is also cool because the title of the route implies that Black Doom is trying to mold Shadow into the perfect minion only to let his guard down and be overthrown by Shadow.
I went back to this game for the first time in 15 odd years. It has very much the same issues 12 year old me had. I'm more forgiving about the corny/silly aspects now and enjoy them as a bit of fun. 1. This game lacks spectacle. Many of the levels are in enclosed spaces and linear. Couple of exceptions but I think for the majority this is right. I realised how little sky will ever been seen during gameplay. Generally speaking I do not like much about the way the game looks other than the actually amazing pre rendered scenes. 2. Missions. I've not a lot to say people know why the missions in this game are controversial. I do not find them fun or interesting. 3. Voice cast / English script - Whoever voices the GUN soldiers grates me, terribly. Strange mis-translations or failure to localise occur. 4. Bosses - Very lackluster 5. This is the one thing that really bothered me on replay. Failure to realise Shadow's special abilities. I can never use chaos control if I have a mission goal. This means what was arguable the very idea that excited me most about getting to play a Shadow the Hedgehog game, I actively have to avoid doing for most of the game.
I had no idea how much I wanted to hear actual pathways in this game that can lead to a coherent story. Middle school me try to do this by just going with one alignment, but that didn't work unfortunately.
This & Adventure 2 Battle were probably my most played Sonic games back when I was younger. I love to see that others appreciated this game as much as I did.
Nice to see some more favourable look-backs on this game these days. I do like most of the Key Vaults, but one that seems completly useless to me is the one that has an armoured vehicle inside. It's aboard the arc, and you can drive it to the next room and... that's it. And some of the keys that you have to get around the arc are really bonkers. Especially the levels with collapsing walkways. They're still pretty neat though, and some of them drastically change how you play the level.
It has been great to have “the year of Shadow” with the game, the movie, and for those able to make it to Sonic Symphony, you know how much love they showed Shadow. There was a time not long ago that it felt like shadow was slowly being erased from ever appearing in a Sonic game again. Even his little episode in Forces felt like the embers of a dying fire. But this year has me hopeful that one of my favorite video game characters may be back in a big way. I personally really disliked Sonic Frontiers (aside from the boss fights) but I’m still hopeful that there will be a Sonic game someday that captures the feeling I felt the first time I played SA1, SA2, and Heroes, I love playing as all the different characters, not just Sonic. Sega: We love Shadow. Shadow is a good character. Shadow is fun to play as. The story is enhanced when Shadow is a major character. Great video for a game I also loved and spent more time playing than any Sonic game besides SA2!
Very good video! All the points made are why I like this game too. It’s nice seeing more positive videos on this game after the bad reputation its had for years
When I was a kid, I had no frame of reference for what made a video game good or bad due to very limited perspective and limited access to consoles. I was practically raised on the handhelds. So whenever I got to play on a home console it was always a spectacle for me. My friend used to come over with his GameCube, and we’d splay Shadow the Hedgehog. I thought the game was so cool and it was definitely fun despite me not even knowing what to do and not even playing the objectives for different endings. Now here I am, a grown ass adult, and I’m here thinking, people were to harsh on these games. So much to the point where they bullied the sonic IP to regress back into being a side scrolling platformer rather than the fun 3d ones I played as a kid. Please take this comment with a grain of salt. I am by no means a Sonic fan, and while I have my standards for what makes a game good/bad. I think that the criticism shouldn’t haven’t gotten to the point where devs have to go backwards. I try my best to go back and play these games, sadly Shadow is out of reach for me, I’m pretty sure it’s not as bad as people make it out to be.
"I like these guys and their videos even if I don't agree with them" I love that mentality. People who get angry for people not sharing the same opinions as just silly. I love hearing people be passionate about things I didn't care for. And if someone can critique something I love, doesn't take away from my positive feelings towards it. And it is still interesting to see a fresh perspective
This was one of my favorite sonic games growing up as well just because there was such insane replay value with all the alternative endings and unlockables
I’m currently playing it and i can confidently say I’d rather play shadow 05 over games like forces and boom. It’s far from the worse in the series in my opinion.
I also don't understand why people bashed Shadow the Hedgehog. This is pretty much my favourite game from the Sonic series. I don't know how many hours I'd spent on it back when I was still a high school student. Moreover, this game was the trigger for me to start seriously learning English. Since I really liked to listen/relisten to all the voiced lines by Shadow, especially, those recaps before each stage. The fan-made Russian subtitles provided a really nuce translation, and back then I really wanted to play the game in the original language, w/o the fan-made translation. It has been almost 20 years since then.... . btw, one of the funs was finding all the voiced lines. For eg. did you know that in the Final Haunt stage after you meet Doom's Eye, and start the stage with him and/or go with him on the Hero mission there's a bunch of new dialogue you don't usually hear.?
I won't lie, Shadow the Hedgehog along with Sonic Heroes for the Xbox were the first Sonic games i physically owned when i was a kid and granted the repetitive Westopolios level at the start did get annoying but I still enjoyed plaything it. Don't get me wrong, I do agree it has its issues but the fun I had as well as learning about Shadow's backstory made me play SA1 even trying SA2 battle on console for the first time. In the end, Shadow ended up being my favorite character in the series period.
A game like shadow the hedgehog is "fun bad" you can play through it embrace the memes its made and not take it very serious and have a surprisingly good time, but then with sonic boom, lost worlds, forces pretty much 80% of the boost era its just plain bad...
@neocrimson3542 yeah agreed while I just finished playing it again right this second and while it's got frustrating moments and a lack of polish here and there shadow the hedgehog is 100 percent a really fun game and I'd take it in a heart beat over the slop we get now a days
It's not that, it's just sucks and not "fun". It's feels like half-aseed mod that was made on Sonic Heroes engine and assets that doesnt even fit the mood of the game.
Currently playing this game rn for the first time best way I can describe it: Sometimes hate it/ Sometimes love it. Pros The story and dialogue takes itself too seriously but it leads to some of the funniest scenes in the series and it's a great excuse to see shadow interact and hangout with all of the characters in the game. I love the fact they went all out with the edgy theme in the game especially with the soundtrack like holy shit. From the concept art, enemies, cut content and all the way to how each stage presents itself it's really nice they embraced the edge in the the game and had fun doing it like you can't tell me with a straight face that shadow holding the rocket launcher in the boxart isn't badass! The gameplay is mostly fun shadow feels a bit slippery for me but it's not that bad tbh (I have a skissue lmao) but platforming is good AF I love especially how responsive he is during platforming and the guns are fun to use and don't feel like shit. The level design is MOSTLY decent. The graphics and artstyle for this game are good and still kinda hold up to this day especially because of the art design being more grungy while still being colorful at the same time. Cons The fact you have to play and beat the game 10 times to get the true ending is REALLY tiring ESPECIALLY when there are some stages that can last for life depending on the mission. Missions that you currently doing can be changed every time you run into a companion npc in the stage over and over (like you choose to do a dark mission and as you're playing the stage if you run into the hero character they will change the dark mission to a hero mission which leads you to pause the game and click on the dark mission again and it gets annoying really fast. This works vise versa when doing neutral or hero missions.) Bosses are a hit or miss with black bull being a pushover, Eggman is kinda fun but his boss battles fall off after fighting the same type over and over like I think you fight egg breaker 3 times and egg dealer 3 times with some changes in their attacks but they still don't feel that fun Gun boss fights are lowkey kinda fun especially when you can use their weapons against them Black Doom is ok so far (I fought him in final haunt and have yet to to fight him in the computer room.) THERE ARE SOME MISSIONS IN HERO AND DARK THAT WILL STRAIGHT UP TAKE FOREVER TO DO (lost impact artificial chaos flashbacks.) or having to back track to find enemies or objectives in order to beat the mission. The level design in 2 of the ark stages (lost impact and the doom) are utter ass because ALMOST EVERY ROOM RESUSES THE SAME ASSETS MAKING ALMOST EVERY ROOM LOOK THE SAME. Like Nnarly said cutscenes straight don't stay consistent with the routes you take sometimes which makes the already bloated story of this game more annoying to piece together. Overall I wouldn't say this is my favorite sonic game but to say it's the one of the worst is wild because the game is fun despite its flaws. I don't know if the T rated version of the game would be better but it would at least make some of the story beats more interesting and add a bit more depth to the gameplay and story routes we take.
the problem with shadow 05 is that it makes itself extremely easy to hate despite not being THAT bad as a whole. mainly because to go through all the content you have to play it SO MANY TIMES. to the point where anyone who doesn't like it a lot will end up straight hating it by the end. if expert mode was the default mode I think the game would have WAY better reviews. also the camera is just bad. like REALLY BAD. I do not understand what happened between heroes and shadow. and a lot of levels just aren't made for going fast, in a SONIC game. edit: the strafing is for that one section in mad matrix where you shoot the panels. I unironically think it exists just for that lol
10:34 "This game runs on the same engine as Sonic Heroes and it controls similarly, which, I don't hear nearly as many complaints about" What? One of the biggest criticisms against Heroes is the controls, because they are slippery, get to top speed too fast, and the level design doesn't accomodate for them, especially since Adventure 1 and 2 already controlled well, also Shadow skates in the previous games as well, yet he controls like Sonic, what are you trying to say there? 16:43 "The ranking system is definitely better than Sonic Heroes, where you get an E-Ranking if you died or took a hit at all throughout the stage" That's the ranking in nearly every Sonic game and it's not even that difficult, the "E-Rank if you took a hit" is a straight up lie, I got multiple A-Ranks in Heroes despite taking many hits, and you lose rank by dying in Shadow as well (again, what are you trying to say there?), if you think the ranks in Adventure 2 and Heroes are bad, you'll go mad in Unleashed, the "took a hit and lose rank" is way more literal there
As someone who also grew up playing shadow the hedgehog I have to agree this game is amazing. A lot of people including my die hard Sonic fans bash this game for its complicated and repetitive gameplay style and unoriginal or bland design. This is easily my top 3 Sonic games and I will always defend it, I’d even go and say that a lot of the stuff people bash on the game is the multiple missions and repetitive nature of the game, but look at Sonic heroes, the same story 4 times over 7 levels(tech 14)? Like that’s basically doing shadows first level but for every character in sonic heroes with minor tweaks. Thank you for giving shadow a proper review and a better chance to thrive.
Sorry if Nyarly already answered this elsewhere, but is he planning on formally reviewing Persona 3 Reload and Episode Aigis (The Answer) at any point? I'd love to hear his thoughts on the game now that it's complete. (Also, I'm a big Sonic the Hedgehog fan, so its been cool seeing you tackle the series. Personally, I think this game in question is pretty bleh-like I still find the Black Doom retcon stuff dumb as hell-but I can respect your opinion!)
Someone actually made a video explaining all the different paths for Shadow 05, and a good chunk of them are just some variation of "And then Shadow and Omega started a robot uprising"
I absolutely love this game, I too played it a lot when I was young and I've been wanting to replay it for years. I would love to have a remaster, but considering the weird "changes" (which are a way of censorship I guess) on the Generations remaster and how the Sonic movies avoid using real weapons and opt for weird laser weapons, I doubt this is going to happen ever without making a lot of changes. I would love to see a "Directors Cut" of this game with the T rating, but maybe in another life.
Dude HARD agree with the ring point. I'd tried to grind out over 200 rings in the last sonic battle with shadow in the boss rush only to lose them all four times in a row due to shadow doing a spin dash instead of a ring dash and once the game bugging out and completely turning me around somehow, it had been the most frustrating experience in that game. even more than Rouge's chaos emerald level
I disagree on 1 thing. The idea that we need to KNOW how shadow got to the end of the game. I love that they don't show that to the player. Not only does it not matter cus all u need to know is that he did somethin almost completely diff from wut the player did to get all the emeralds to reach his goal, it adds a layer of mystery to wut he did experience & this wut he DOES know bout himself by this point. Until shadgens we didn't know wut memories shadow had or if he got any of it back. It showed that it was an element in shadow's journey in 05 that didn't matter as those memories no longer dictate his actions or who he is cus he no longer cared for em regardless of whether he had them by the end of the game or not(keep in mind eggman still felt the need to tell shadow he's the same as SA2 physically, tho I don't really like that they did that). It also shows that even the PLAYER the one who literally controls all of shadow's actions & choices in the non-canon paths, has NO true control over shadow, his actions, his identity, his destiny, nothin. Nothin the player does will influence who shadow is or wut he does any more than BD, Gerald, Maria, Sonic & friends™️, Eggman, G.U.N., Humanity etc. Shadow is no longer a tool to be used for other's goals or wishes. He is no longer used by others, Controlled by others. He alone decides. In the non-canon paths the player had the choice, in the endin of the game shadow does. He gives himself somethin he never did before. A goal he wanted to pursue for himself, his own agency, he will do wut he wants, how he deems necessary no matter wut others think of him, wut they want from him, or how others perceive him. Jus like sonic he will live his life how he chooses & unflinchingly follow his own path & will simply be who shadow the hedgehog is. Not wut someone thinks he is or wants him to be. It makes the choice to not showcase how he got to the end pretty meaningful especially on a gameplay perspective. It's part of y I love the game's story as I love games that do stuff like that.
52:04 I did when I played the game. Kids really do have all the time in the world, lol. After getting a few A rank and seeing the level select screen change to show that, I _needed_ that thing filled.
One of the best Sonic games imho, the fact that it doesn't take itself seriously makes it that much better. Even the endings in each route foreshadow that none of them are the true ending and the said true ending is a nice and fitting one.
I only ever heard bad things at the time and so skipped it. You are making me want to try it. Great retrospective. Kind of a missed opportunity Sega didn’t drop a remaster at the same time of the movie.
Shadow is my favorite character and this was my favorite Sonic game for a long time. I did get every ending. In an entire summer, no less, lol. But I still really adore the game and would love if they remastered or remade it. Especially with the reception for Shadow Generations. I loved the darker story, the music, the gameplay. Honestly, it would have beaten SA2 for me if the level design was just a bit tighter. But I still really like it.
This is a shadow channel now....
Im not complaining
I can't wait for the 10 hour long Radical Highway propaganda video sponsored by Black Doom.
Hell yeah shadow channel no problems here 👍
Because he is the ultimate life form
I think my favorite route through the game is the one called Wandering’s End. In this route you play neutral missions and hero missions that don’t involve hunting enemies, characterizing Shadow as someone who generally wants to do good things but has a noticeable aversion to direct violence. Aside from this accidentally being the “Shadow Chaotix” route where all of your hero missions happen to be the three Chaotix ones, it ends up being a tragic tale where this character trying to avoid conflict ends up discovering that his very existence is the genesis of ALL the violence in the game. It’s so neat.
I agree, despite the consequences to your decisions barely existing, at least the game gives you freedom to create some neat scenarios
One of my favorite routes is when you keep doing only dark missions, until the castle level where Amy is looking from Cream, and if you do only hero missions from there to rest to the game, you get a route called something like "Path of love"
Edit: Never mind, he already talked about this path in the video, the name is actually "Miracle of Love"
Hot take, the "nobody tells me what to do" line was always directed at the player, hence why none of the endings you choose matter, because in the end he decides for himself who he is.
DAMN RIGHT
There's no way that that was the intention of the line, but I don't care because that Line hits so much harder if I believe that's the reason behind it.
Huge stretch, the only time that Sonic series broke the 4th wall were the idle animations in the classic games, some jokes from the 2010s games, and the entirety of Sonic Boom
Yes.
Seeing shadow the fucking hedgehog on a movie screen voiced by Keanu Reeves is still insane to me
imma be real keanu is now tied with jason for my favorite shadow voice
I'm so tired of Keanu being shoehorned into every role to ever exist... but I will watch sonic 3 when it hits streaming! It was in good enough taste tbh
51:16 The thing with Shadow 06, Heroes and the original Riders remastered ports is an issue with the Engine, they use the Renderware engine that was owned by Criterion, but when EA bougth criterion, they stopped supporting the engine altogether, so i assume that because of the license to the engine (and how old it is today) it's not worth going through a legal battle with EA. maybe that's why a lot of games that used Renderware are still stuck in that era.
But didn't a lot of SMT games of the era also use Renderware?
The 6th gen GTA games used Renderware iirc and those were remastered. I saw that video about Renderware a little while ago but surely it's possible somehow. It probably just extremely difficult
@@TDDPhoto yeah, i guess that's why they changed the engine from Renderware to Unreal Engine in the Definitive Edition
A fellow Shadow 05 fan, I see? Thank god. We needed more of us in these dying times.
Me too
Same here let's go 🤘
Shadow 05 defense video from Nyarly unexpected but welcome.
My relationship to shadow 05 is I use play the neutral route a bunch of times when I was 6 and I never really touched the rest. I love the soundtrack tho
@@jacktwelve1710 6 year old you was based.
I went back to the game in middle school to beat it and get all the endings. I didn't really have much fun.
Back in the mid/late 2000s and early 2010s was genuinely a rough, cynical time frame if you were a Sonic fan. I kept my love for the series alive though, and even did a project in school where I made a life-sized replica styrofoam of Sonic's board from Sonic Riders. Ofcourse if I had the gall to post that when I was a kid I'd probably be bullied way more than I was in real life when I did.
@@CreationsFlare you made a life-size replica of the blue star!
That's so cool! I would've been best friends with you at school dude lol.
people like you are what makes this community the best and still thriving
Without any hint of Irony, my favorite story paths are the ones where Shadow and Omega kill Eggman and start a robotic revolution. Not because I think it's the most interesting, but because Omega is really just there for his best buddy Shadow.
That aside, it's nice to see someone give a more positive review of this mixed game. I lean more towards negative, but the game does have it's good points and I do not ignore them.
The problem with that path is that it abandoned the Black Arms, GUN, the Ark, and Sonic and crew to dumbdown Shadow into thinking he was an android
Let me guess, you watched "All paths in shadow the hedgehog explained" Right?
It’s definitely a symptom of the old internet. Sonic games in the mid 2000s and early 2010s were a “joke”. People lumped them all together as “bad” games.
Yes they had flaws but it started a massive wave of how people perceived that “Sonic was never good” (IGN).
It is one of my favorite games
BrutalMoose's extremely unfair video on the game comes to mind (so filled with skits it doesn't count as a review)
“Lumped them all together” indeed. I remember at the peak of that particular Internet hate bubble, even the Adventure games were being called terrible trash by some. Think that’s a good sign right there of how big the dumb hate bandwagon was getting.
For the record, I’m not saying you can’t genuinely criticize the Adventure games; hell, I have my own problems with Adventure 1. But the hate I was hearing back then was definitely coming from this dumb “Sonic was never good” meme that thankfully seems to have fizzled out.
Sonic fans really have a chip on their shoulder. Y'all can have your opinions but I personally just don't like Sonic gameplay. It's just not fun to me. For a series that should be about speed there are dozens of games that give me a more satisfying feeling of speed than Sonic games which usually have stages that stop you dead in your tracks way too often. I try giving Sonic a chance every so often because I want to like the games but am disappointed every time. Y'all can try to hide behind "Sonic games suck" being a meme but there's good reason that thought permeated gamer culture and isn't just some "blind, bandwagon hate" Sonic fans tried to make it out to be. To a lot of people, these games just aren't enjoyable. Glad you guys can take joy in playing them but I'm not gonna let you pretend your opinions are anymore valid than mine or others. We don't like the games, sorry that upsets you because you've tied your personality to these games, get over it.
@@donovanfaust3227 Sonic gameplay is more about platforming and dodging obstacles and collect rings and reach the goal before time runs out and some of them are really just pure adventure, Just because Sonic is fast and speedy.. It doesn't mean the gameplay has to be ultra super fast, if you think about it.. It really about just taking adventure and there's tons of different stages, well.. Except for Race games but you get the point
Your videos made me want to replay Shadow the Hedgehog. I always liked the game but it was actually a lot more fun than I remember.
Nyarly dropping one of the most based videos of all time!! I love this game. I acknowledge it has its problems and, at worst, is a mess, but it's strengths feel greater than it's deepest weaknesses and I am glad someone is saying it!!
I also really appreciate your last segment. For myself and so many others, Shadow The Hedgehog was a gateway into something different for a lot of older kids and young teens who grew up loving Sonic games and coming from a somewhat sheltered household, it helped open some otherwise firmly locked doors. This game and the music Sega Sound Team and Crush 40 made for it seeded what would become a love of metal and industrial music in my younger self that has lasted for 20 years and counted and lead me to listening to more stalwart icons of the genre that remain in my music mix. It was also a taste of third person shooters in the same transitional space as Jak 2 and 3 which eventually grew to games like Gears and Metal Gear Solid when the flood gates opened for M rated titles
"Shadow '05"? I've never heard that before. People say "Sonic '06" to differentiate Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) from the original 1991 Sonic the Hedgehog because both games have the same name. But I've never heard of the game Shadow the Hedgehog being referred to as anything other than "Shadow the Hedgehog", because there's only one game by that name.
Because people are desperate to try and make it a thing.
its meant to indicate they are talking about the Shadow the Hedgehog™️ game and not Shadow the Hedgehog™️ character
@@tomdepain No.
It's an attempt to make Shadow 05 a thing when it makes zero sense.
Sonic 06 is called 06 because there's 2 Sonic The Hedgehog games.
The 1st game.
The one released in 2006.
@@davidwhidden9337 again, its simply to refer to the Shadow the Hedgehog video game to not spark confusion, as it could be interpreted that the person is talking about the character
Really no need to spread hate because you don't like a game
@@tomdepain Nope.
It's very easy to refer to the game as the full name and just say Shadow for the character.
Example:
Shadow in Shadow The Hedgehog steals a choas emerald.
Ta. Da.
Related to the remark about needing to kind of fill in the blanks to make sense of the story, it came up on Ian Flynn's podcast once that, when he asked for some elaboration on what SEGA considers to be canon from Shadow's game, he was told that as far as they care, the only things directly canon are Westopolis and the last story. Otherwise? Shrug.
Is that why Gerald re-expalins to Shadow about his relationship to Black Doom?
Fun fact: this is the only game where Maria is a playable character (you have to hook up a second controller).
They call it slippery, I call it inertia. It requires that you work with the speed that you’ve gained, you can’t just turn on a dime!
Also, I don’t care what anyone says, when you fill the red gauge, the furious guitar licks kick in, Shadow yells “DEATH to all who oppose me,” at the same time Black Doom delivers his line, “MAKE the HUmans SUFfer!” and I get to let loose blasting away at all of the assholes who’ve wronged me, it’s peak game feel. It even ties in nicely with the game’s speed focus; getting to the next enemy to kill quickly actively rewards you with keeping the infinite ammo rage out going for longer. It gives me the same feeling of righteous rageful destruction that I get from Doom 2016 and Eternal
BASED
There's some mods for the gamecube version that adjust his momentum and controls and honestly, I think people's complaints with his controls are overexaggerated, but after getting to try a more refined version of it I have to say it's not an entirely baseless complaint, the expert stages are AMAZING with some of the fine tuning people have made to the game controls wise
"Work with the speed that you've gained"
What work? You go from standing still to super speed by holding forward for 3 seconds, the Adventure games flowed way better and you had more control overall, remember that you're supposed to control a character, not a speeding car
I enjoyed shadow the hedgehog growing up. I am happy you mentioned the positive aspects to these game. Yeah the linear nature repetition does not help but it still sits in my heart as an enjoyable experience. And sonic fans, they know how to make a game that is either bad or misunderstood improved with mods.
One thing that I have to mention: that whole thing about the Chaos gauge making you invincible and giving your guns infinite ammo?
The game never tells you that. In fact, it encourages you to USE your Chaos powers as much as possible. I didn't know that was even a thing until years later when I saw Clement play this game.
Whenever someone claims sonic06 is not the worst, must have removed all the traumatic memories from most of the game
Sonic 06 can be fun because it's the ridiculous glitches. Shadow is just bad.
@@PlayMadness you realize how ass backwards it sounds that your saying a buggy game that most people didn't even bother finishing, or in some cases couldn't finish because of these "fun" bugs... Is better than a complete game, that you don't like because you don't like when a game is too different from the same formula they've been using for a decade up until that point
I still think Rise of Lyric is a worse game than 06. Project 06 has shown that divorced from the horrific performance and glitches, Sonic 06 still has merit at its core. It was bold and ambitious, and even though it ended up a shitshow, it could have been good if it had actually been given time to cook.
On the other hand, Rise of Lyric is just uninteresting to the core. The only merit of playing it is to laugh at the glitches, without it you're just left with a shitty attempt to reboot the series into a generic 3D action platformer. Even if it had gotten the time it needed to be finished, we wouldn't have gotten anything nearly as interesting as 06
@DatHypnoboi man that game was so ass I wiped it from my memory 😭😭😭😭. You're 1000% right
Bugs can be funny, or even helpful, remember the 3 tax evasion glitches? Or Sonic’s gems not having the gauge go down? Using Omega to skip half of wave ocean? You can take the piss out of it with friends. Also Mephiles, mostly Mephiles
*WOW!* An unironic defence of one of my childhood favourite sonic games!? From one of my favourite TH-camrs!? It's a Christmas *MIRACLE!!* ^w^
42:46 They matter in the sense that they show the thematic core of the ending. In each path Shadow takes he always let the past define who he is whether he is evil or not. He will always be chained by the burden of what came before and the finale says that the present and future will from now on say who he is. That's why Black Doom had to be the antagonist. The origin of his creation gets a gigantic middle finger and whether Shadow SA2 died or not, it wouldn't matter anyway since he is figuratively dead. As Sonic said Sayonara to Shadow in SA2, True Ending Shadow and Sonic Team by extension also say goodbye to SA2 Shadow. He went when he fulfilled Maria's promise and I think that's a good way to approach having Shadow return after SA2. He is basically a new character.
Adios, shadow the hedgehog.
Seeing the amount of people actually give this game credit is nice sure it's very flawed but I had a ton of fun with this game as a kid really hoping Sega gives it the remake it deserves there's potential for a very good game here
They should put Shadow as a DLC in SMTVV
Definitely glad this game that I really enjoyed as a kid and still like now is getting lots of love. I've been wanted to do a video on this game but have either canceled or revised it. Looks like I need to dig up the old scripts.
Ngl wasnt expecting a shadow 05 game review from nyarly but hey im not complaining, its more content from nyarly
speaking of old internet culture, i remember there was some fan song dedicated to grief about Sonic at the time current state (we're talking Unleashed/Colors era) and it had a entire verse of the song dedicated to bash Shadow, both the game and as a character
man, it was so corny, good thing we finally left those things in the past
I remember the days when people would make these annoying animations just before a new Sonic game was coming out. Now some could say that they were just meant to be silly jokes that aren't meant to be taken seriously, but these always rubbed me up the wrong way.
Mainly because 1) they really weren't that funny. Most of the time it was the same tired old jokes about "Sonic's stupid friends" or "Shadow the EDGE-HOG" or "Member when Sonic kissed a human?" Or "Type in Your Name The Hedgehog and prepare to cringe!" Or constantly reminding us that that annoying "Sanic" meme exists.
2) They were judging this game before it was even out and were basically just assuming that it was going to be bad.
and 3) It really does feel like this whole negative attitude towards the Sonic franchise in general has had some kind of effect on it. Almost as if the people at Sega just shrugged and went "Well! If people don't take this series seriously, then why on earth should we?"
Thank you for making this video. You brought up some great points that people seem to ignore. I am glad that you brought up the history too.
I really don't like the Sonic critics, they went way too hard on the adventure era, became trendy to hate on Sonic games after 06 flopped.
I use to hate Shadow's solo game and while I wouldn't really put it as one of my top 5 Sonic games, it's certainly not the worst game in the series or one of the worst. When I replayed it back in 2022, I found myself actually liking it a lot more. Even appreciating the OST. Lost Impact's music is underrated.
Also my least favorite Sonic game is Secret Rings
Shadow generations is now makes this cannon
It always was.
I'm pretty sure nobody questioned if this game was canon to the series
Shadow the Hedgehog is genuinely my favorite Sonic game of all time 🔥
I wish people would try to hear alternate perspectives more. I was shocked when you called this your favorite sonic until shadow generations. But throughout the video you brought up such interesting points and as someone who isnt fond of the game it was such a great watch. I can totally understand why you enjoy the game. Great job!
I'm so glad this game actually has some defenders. I agree that this is quite possibly my favorite 3D Sonic game (not certain).
I will actually defend one thing that you said you wouldn't defend, which is the relationship of the final story to the other in-game routes. I'm glad that none of the other routes are canon, because it's not the purpose of those routes to be canon. The purpose of the pre-final story routes is to serve as alternate possibilities of how Shadow's life could turn out, depending on who or what he listens to. He could be hero, or a guardian of the ark, or the leader of an android empire, or Black Doom's right hand man. Every single one of those endings involves him allowing others to tell him who he is. And the other thing that the main game does is it shows us what is happening in the world throughout this world war by having Shadow pop in to various places and see all the various conflicts happening, some of which he can sorta kinda influence.
Then for the final story, Shadow went on some kind of journey. We don't know what happened exactly, and it isn't any of the playable routes. But presumably, in this journey, Shadow has not formed any hard allegiances, Black Doom failed to capture or destroy the ARK, the Black Arms are probably in retreat since we see all the hero characters assaulting the comet, and team Chaotix did whatever mission the game had been hinting at throughout the game. And then the purpose of the final story is to reject the playable routes because this is the one route where Shadow refuses to let his past or the expectations of other characters define him anymore.
I don't think I really agree with Shadow's egoist philosophy, but it is thematically appropriate and well-executed. The final story shows that Shadow is, canonically, an anti-hero. He ends up saving the Earth from the Black Arms, but not for any particularly heroic reasons. In some ways, though I don't like egoist philosophy myself, I can respect this more than the old Shadow's attitude in SA2, where he spends the whole game trying to kill everyone just because he thought Maria wanted him to, but then he saved anyone after he remembered that that's what Maria actually wanted him to do. Allowing your entire sense of purpose to be dictated by your memories of a single person who died 50 years ago is not really solid, and while understandable for someone who grew up in Shadow's position, it's something I'm glad the new Shadow of Heroes and beyond manages to move past.
It would’ve been nice if as the player I was able to experience that journey with shadow.
But unfortunately the game only let me experience a disjointed fanfiction story.
What? I thought the "pure hero" route was considered canon
@@ayrtonjogaNope. That’s not possible because that would completely contradict the last story.
Unfortunately, the PC release is highly unlikely to happen because the engine it runs on is the property of Electronic Arts and it costs a lot of money to license out (more money than Sega's willing to fork over for such a divisive game like this I imagine).
@@anonymousgamer5771 they should honestly just remake those games from the ground up.
That way they can make the controls a bit tighter, and just give Sonic heroes and shadow the hedgehog some much needed polish.
@@___________0Z0Xit’d be cool, but even that seems unlikely with how hated the game is :(
Shadow the hedgog has definitely started to grow on me recently. I started to get invested in the game when i read a fanfic known as "i am all of me" by child at heart, which is a retelling of shadow, and reading it made me want to check out the game itself. I unfortunately cant play it due to me not having a console for it, but i was still able to watch it, and id be lying if the videos didnt make me want to play it for myself. I wont say its perfect by any means, but I do enjoy it.
For me, a character as strong as Shadow shouldn't need guns to combat an alien threat. He doesn't look cool holding a rifle like some people claim (seriously, how does adding a gun make someone cooler?). He's strong enough to rival sonic in a fight and in a race, yet the "ultimate life form" needs a gun to fight against regular people and some aliens? But maybe I'm the weird guy here having this opinion because i know a lot of people love Shadow holding a gun.
All the memeworthy lines in the game were all the mistranslations. The candy from babies line for example.
I love this game too. The different paths you can take depending on what you do in the mission (even if said missions themselves can be a bit of a hassle), then the multiple endings. It's really unique for a Sonic game, let alone a game in general. I really can't think of any other game that does this. I would love if Sonic even got a Last Story again but they've been so adamant not to do it since 06 for some reason when it was such a neat thing to include during that era of Sonic. Massive missed opportunity not to do it for Shadow Generations if you completed both games.
The endings can be really great like Cosmic Fall Dark where Shadow honors the victims of the ARK and wants to protect it (akin to Knuckles guarding the Master Emerald) or just outright hilarious like Final Haunt Dark too where he's only siding with Black Doom just to spite Sonic. I love these endings personally, especially Cosmic Fall Dark. It just suits Shadow so well.
Unfortunately what many people don't talk about and didn't for a long while, I know I didn't realize until Windii's video came out, but the game is riddled with awful mistranslations which has plagued any discussion of the game since release. Windii's retranslation really opened my eyes on just how much better the game is in Japanese. Shadow never says "damn", or "candy from a baby", or weird quirks like the President honoring Gerald for some reason and not Shadow after Shadow defeats Devil Doom, Shadow saying he has to believe Black Doom during the opening, or "we're going to the ARK so that means we're going too" in the original JP version. This is all exclusive to the version we got overseas.
Basically anything this game is mocked for regarding dialogue was not present originally. Yes, the dialogue we got here does have it's own charm and I do like it even if it's super cheesy, but it's been tainted by the internet unfortunately. I like this game's story quite a bit so I'm saddened how no one else tends to take it seriously because of just how poorly translated it was. It's ironic because Heroes and 06 are both actually really faithful - even too faithful at times during certain cutscenes where some dialogue can feel a little off. An example is when Sonic meets Shadow again and he's like "talk about being stubborn and full of surprises" - it's a weird line here, but in Japanese Sonic had originally said this to Shadow just before For True Story. It was meant to be a callback to that line, but since the line we got in SA2 here was different ("I die hard"), it just makes it come across as awkward. Anyway, slight tangent, but basically, it's just Shadow for some reason that got the short end of the stick.
Oh, and the variety of weapons too. The minigun is my personal favorite, especially on GUN Fortress. Like you said in your previous video, the gunplay is actually really good for Shadow and fits the speed gameplay really well. It's really unique for a Sonic game, let alone a game in general. It's basically Sonic's Jak and Daxter or Ratchet and Clank.
I also think the level variety is really great. This game has a ton of levels and only a few of them are similar to each other like Final Haunt and Black Comet. Some are even counterparts to each other - like the Doom and Lost Impact, or Space Gadget and The ARK. Name a level like Mad Matrix or Digital Circuit in another Sonic game. You can't. Even Lost Impact with all it's flaws is still very unique for a Sonic level.
The soundtrack for this game is also excellent across the board and not inconsistent like recent Sonic titles (looking at you Chaos Island from Shadow Gens). This era's soundtrack was perfect and I wouldn't change a thing. I still listen to Lost Impact or The Ark to this day. Or Sky Troops. I'd say it arguably has one of the best soundtracks in the entire franchise bar SA2 and Heroes.
It's definitely a flawed game (especially with some missions but honestly I didn't have much of a problem with them) but it's a guilty pleasure. I like it in spite of the flaws it has. Shadow just has a lot of heart - the flaws is what makes the game what it is. and in comparison to something like Forces, it's night and day. Forces is just corporate, bland, static, uneventful slop that I genuinely cannot understand how anyone would defend that game. It is the epitome of soulless. But with Shadow I can definitely understand it. It has that Y2K-type edge I really like. I would take it over anything we got in the 2010s (excluding Gens and Mania though) any day. It was experimenting and just wanted to be a fun game for fans of Shadow. So that's what I think of it as.
I just wish people would take into account the actual Japanese dub instead of the bad retranslation we got when critiquing Shadow's story. I would definitely recommend playing Shadow Reloaded though, and watch Windii's video covering Shadow 05. Reloaded basically fixes every single issue someone may have with Shadow 05. Tighter controls, less having to replay Westopolis over and over, et cetera.
I miss last stories. It was always such a cool way to conclude the game.
This was one of the first Sonic games I've played, but I was already familiar with the series beforehand. As different as it is from all the other games, I've always just enjoyed it for what it is, and it didn't detract from me wanting to try out the rest of the series. As you said, it came out in an era where most games were following a similar style, and I was already playing a few of those, so that probably helped. Now that I think about it, Shadow was the perfect pick to lean into these darker themes. Using a realistic firearm might feel out of character for Sonic, but with Shadow it kinda just fits him.
it feels so cathartic to see someone love this game as much as me like truthfully the 10 playthrough and *some* mission and levels suck but its very genuinly good otherwise
It's amazing how you spoke about exactly what I was thinking multiple times while watching this. As a fan of this game as well, this was a fantastic video. Subscribed.
It's so heartwarming to me how much people have warmed up to Shadow. He's very early 2000score, so he's super edgy in a Tumblr OC kinda way. At one point that sorta thing was reviled, but now people look back on it with fond nostalgia. Shadow, when handled with care, is a welcome change of pace from all the bright happy Sonic characters and storylines. He comes off a cold and reclusive, but once you learn his tragic backstory, you can't help but empathize with him.
Now that the people who grew up with Shadow are adults, they're able to articulate his story better, making it more cohesive and understandable to future or even past generations. Sonic is in a better spot than it's arguably ever been in, and that's largely in part thanks to Shadow. Who'd have thought he'd be the savior of the series? All hail Shadow!
I played the Reloaded mod recently as my only experience with the game and I did sort of like it despite everything. I see your points, I get the appeal, but it feels like it's collapsing under its own weight needlessly. Which applies to a lot of Sonics, but this in particular really would have benefited from them making less videogame. 23 full levels is impressive until I see how simplified navigating them is to accommodate the mission structure and sheer amount of levels. You can't have a ton of intricate, inter-weaving pathways or really engaging speed gameplay because the player needs to be able to find all the Black Arms for the hunting mission. Hell I DID miss some GUN for a hunting mission because I nailed one of the itty-bitty shortcuts in Circus Park. Missions can't get too wacky with the combat arenas or the scavenger hunting, because then playing it like a normal Sonic level could get annoying as Hell. Or it'll just decide to be annoying as Hell like in Lost Impact. So it's very simplified in a way that makes both doing the missions well and just hauling ass to the end feel unfulfilling. They need more specific level designs that the "one level, three missions you can change at any time" format cannot support. The ones that have two missions are better off, but still suffer from being 1/23 levels they had to finish in time.
And this is technically a sequel to Heroes? Not in a "haha look at the tone shift" way but made by basically the same teams back to back I think? But it feels like they took the wrong lesson on what was good about Heroes, and thought the path was maximizing content above all. Maximum levels, maximum missions, maximum story paths. Heroes focusing on style-switching and making the levels around it is what works, even with the Herculean task of making four versions of each level. The levels were still functionally made for one "character" and the odd one out was Team Chaotix being mission mode. The levels could still be simplified and repetitive in ways that feel reminiscent of Shadow, partially due to one of the level designers suffering health issues, but they have Egg Fleet in the game. If Shadow 05 had somehow been a Team Dark game instead, building on the switching mechanics and pushing the later levels even further than Egg Fleet? Oh baby. You could still keep the darker tone and the guns and such, Omega would love to have more guns. And story-wise, it just makes more sense to me that you could use Shadow's relationship with Team Dark to push the story forward and help define him in contrast to SA2 Shadow.
People only ever say "You're blinded by Nostalgia!" when you like a childhood game the internet hates. Nobody ever mentions it when Comedy Gaming TH-camr 420 says Popular Game is a beloved childhood classic of theirs.
@@KittyKatty999 it’s not even true, I should have nostalgia for shadow the hedgehog, but I didn’t like it much as a kid either.
I didn’t hate the game, but it was certainly my least favorite sonic game.
Just because someone played something as a child does not mean that they cannot judge it as a child or as an adult. It’s a very silly Notion. This nostalgia bias.
I would like to see a remastered of all the 2000 ear sonic games with trophy support not just for fun but to give these games some new life.
Even though I'm not a fan of this game, I still see the pure entertainment value from this game.
I thought it was really funny that I could run over sonic in this game as a kid.
Heroes and Shadow 05 are lost to time because their game engine is owned by EA now.
My Sonic childhood was Riders ZG, Heroes, Unleased PS2 and Shadow 05. Also Sonic Rush… a LOT of Sonic Rush.
But I have to say, it’s great to see an in-depth video on how great Shadow 05 was. While I kinda tune out details, this video almost felt like re-experiencing the game again.
I never got too far into it, I think the furthest I got was somewhere in the Ark, but the absolute variety of everything was where I got most of my joy.
Having aliens, military and Eggman military is a fascinating triad of visual flair with the grey-purples, oranges and black-greys. Not to mention the Easter egg weapons.
Also I have a soft spot for the alien bats you can fly on, I always imagined Shadow owning one as a pet because they were cool and awesome! Not to mention the hover Mech Legs and flying saucer platform.
As of typing, I have watched the video to the end and I’m aware you covered all this, but it’s difficult not to geek out about it when I get the chance.
It’s strange, really. Shadow 05 is basically the most overtly edgy of all the Sonic games, but it’s one of the few things that so easily inspires my childlike wonder. I hope the push from the Sonic movies inspires SEGA to start revisiting their old ideas outside of remakes, even just approaching the sort of variety found in the era of Sonic games I grew up on. Shadow Generations is already a pretty good start, let’s hope it goes up from here.
It's because he said so himself. Shadown once said, "I'm the coolest".
my favorite shadow the hedgehog youtuber
I'm beyond happy to have found another human who feels the same about this game as I do. Sonic Heroes was my first new game and introduced me to gaming beyond the 16-bit era. Shadow was my first game with a rating above E, so this game holds a very special place in my heart. I'm even writing a fan story that looks at some of these alternate timelines if they continued into what would be the following games.
I remember finding it pretty absurd first learning they really meant to go through with developing this game based off fan reception to an internet poll. I suppose at that point, myself and many others were looking more forward to it in a meme sense, similar to when the first Sonic movie was being made before they overhauled Sonic's design and news of Jim Carrey playing the role of Eggman sounded ridiculous. Ended up getting it for my birthday along with Minish Cap which I was more excited for, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this game when I realized how the branching paths worked. Now, I'd only really been a fan of the Adventure games as well as Heroes at that point, so maybe I was just more open to the seemingly more outlandish stuff, but the fact that things like guns and vehicles were only really more present in gameplay than the actual story made it clear to me that they weren't really the point, that they were just there for fun/variety, and so many years later I was kind of just as baffled as you were.
Replaying it more recently for my playthrough on here, the repetitiveness is unfortunate, and some levels are a bit more boring than others for me, but on the whole I fail to see how it's anywhere near as bad as any of the worst, to me those being 06 or Boom or Forces, Chronicles, hell I'd even say I didn't like Frontiers as much either, but guess I'm also an outlier on that game as well. These days I simply have more faith in the folks doing the films than the games which is kind of sad to say, but it is what it is. On that note, I get why anything to do with the Black Arms weren't included in the new movie, and there are many more changes, but there's a lot of context from Shadow's game that added a lot to the story, my favorite being the reason Gerald made the Eclipse Cannon in the first place and how the ending reinforced the theme of duality, him going from a man with good intentions to one later twisted by the unjust death of his granddaughter probably mixed with his own guilt as seen in SA2. A lot of the game is built off SA2 and I don't think it's just plain nostalgia but really takes from it and evolves it, as much as it fumbles in the more surface aspects of storytelling not being very consistent due to the branching nature. I might have redesigned the game to have maybe three or five endings instead, but as it is I really don't think it's terrible. I'd started replaying Heroes as well and honestly think the way progression is there is far more of a grind going through the same levels four different times.
@@bloodykun4443 yeah, shadow the hedgehog and sonic heroes share a few of the same flaws.
Between the speed characters, feeling a little too slippery and the amount of repetition to actually beat the games.
To beat sonic heroes you need to beat the easy mode, normal mode, hard mode and mission mode. Not to mention you need to collect the chaos emeralds too.
I still think that shadow 05 is worse about it because you need to beat the game 10 times. If they just let you select any stage in a path that you already completed for story mode then it wouldn’t have been an issue.
Not really surprised most people hate Shadow with only a few liking it. I liked it, replaying a limited games collection a million times was something I was used to as a child, and obviously people who like SMT are already okay with a billion hours of repetitive grinding lol.
0:26
He is so popular to the point that, iirc, he was the second most popular character in the franchise behind sonic at one point
He still is. He never lost that spot, even with his large absence in the 2010's
@chrismanning2888 oh for sure
I shouldve worded my comment better admittedly x.x
I’ll confess that while I wasn’t really a fan of the game when I first played it, I loved the concept of Black Doom and his alien children, along with the potential ancient aliens angle they hinted at in some stages.
Spoilers for post Sonic 3!
Given that Glyphic Canyon resembles the temples of Central America, the movie/Paramount continuity could maybe have the Black Arms have ancient connections to the Mexica people of the pre-colonized region and there’s actually a series of beings in the Aztec religion that are said to come from the stars and were greatly feared.
A lead developer on Halo said they're confident in their game design because they focused on making 30 seconds of fun gameplay, and then just made levels to have that 30 seconds happen over and over. The end result is a story campaign that I found _very fun_ to play through _exactly once_
Shadow the Hedgehog 2005 feels like the exact opposite of that. If the moment-to-moment gameplay was at all fun, this game would have so much staying power with hours and hours of content... but they pumped so much effort into replay value that they couldn't make any single playthrough fun
But the game is fun to play in each story
@@xXGodkidGamerXx I'm going to vehemently disagree with you there. I want to make a whole video response, but I don't have the editing experience. Short version is I have actually played this game firsthand, I'm not jumping on the hate train decades later -- it's nowhere near one of the worst games of all time, it's not falling apart at the seams like Sonic 06, but it's still not fun. Overhated, yes. Underrated, NO.
@@TARINunit9
"Don't hurt my allies Shadow." As you have to defeat a flying creature in order to progress further in the level.
Shadow The Hedgehog in a nutshell.
Underrated? No. Over-hated? Yes.
3:40 Darkest of Days such a great premise, but just horrible execution (still had a lot of fun with the game).
Some games just gets unfairly judged, and just release at the wrong time or just gained a reputation, and can't really shake it. Lost Odyssey got a lot of hate when it released because it was a classic JRPG during a time when JRPGs were hated, so it got an unfair sigma attached to it (also being exclusive to the Xbox 360 didn't help).
Hopefully with the success of the movie we can see a rerelease. The movie was a lot of fun.
I just started playing this recently bc I always wanted to as a kid and yeah it’s frustrating at times but I’m absolutely loving it to death I love how much content there is
Big reason why people think this game and heroes are slipery is because the main way of stoping in sonic games is to skid by holding back, heroes and this game have a long skid animation that carries a lot of mommentum. Combine that with the fact that in the adventure games only let you stop on the ledge if you are running at max speed (e.g:punching as power characters in heroes) and those 2 games have a long time to reach max speed (high acceleration but also very high top speed) makes so falling off ledges is very easy if you are still learning the game. Overall those 2 games arent very beguinner friendly and take a bit more time to get the hang of than most sonic games.
Like most sonic games, just because you suck doesnt mean the game is bad.
@@gablink5190Where do you draw the line between "oh you don't get it bro it's just a skill issue™" and genuinely dogshit controls, though lol. At least OP actually gave some reasonable arguments and examples to explain their distate instead of this shit.
Besides, none of the 3D games in the series that're _more or less_ universally enjoyed (SA1 & 2, Unlesahed, Sonic & Shadow Generations etc.) usually have people complain about their controls every time they're discussed, even if they take some time to get used to, as opposed to Shadow '05, so surely there has to be *something* going on here.
@@bucket9486 my comment here was me trying to add to his theory on why people think this game's controls are "slipery" with my own. Another theory of mine might be the level design, but i agree that the line between bad controls and high skill floor is very thin and blurry. I do think this game has good controls tho. The 2nd comment was a little jab at the fanbase and the gaming world in general.
@@bucket9486 sonic '06 and a whooooole lotta games made with clickteam programs, mostly
I actually think it has one of the best momentum in the whole series. People just have a skill issue. legit, the most problem i see people having with the game is self sabotages, like what do you mean if you press foward in the stick knuckles, punches go further? What do you mean holding the flight button makes tails not do the annoying "pew" sound? What do you mean you have to control the homing attack just like sa2?
I did not expect to get Nyarly lore drops in a Shadow the Hedgehog video of all places, I'm here for it
The game’s multiple takes on Shadow were meant to give people more content and more reasons to replay the game and try different missions to see some “what if” scenarios, but I find that it also represented Shadow’s confusion as an amnesiac very well. Shadow played the villain in SA2 as well, where there too, he had his head messed with, by the professor, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Shadow would walk the line between dark and hero, when he doesn’t know who he is. However, in Shadow the Hedgehog we learn definitively that Shadow learns about his past and decides to be a hero. The hard mode missions even have dialogue showing that Shadow joined G.U.N. to help fulfil Maria’s wish. And in Sonic 06, he’s actually an active G.U.N. agent, which is something that suits Shadow’s serious demeanour very well and I’m sad that they retconned it, even in Shadow Generations.
A good story route for this game is #96 Destruction from Perfection. Shadow does neutral Westopolis mission as his only goal is to find the truth. Realizing he underestimated Black Doom, he decides to assist Black Doom only to find the truth by only doing dark missions. However, on GUN Fortress, he does the hero mission, seeing no reason to help Doom now that he has power over the humans. It is also cool because the title of the route implies that Black Doom is trying to mold Shadow into the perfect minion only to let his guard down and be overthrown by Shadow.
I went back to this game for the first time in 15 odd years. It has very much the same issues 12 year old me had. I'm more forgiving about the corny/silly aspects now and enjoy them as a bit of fun.
1. This game lacks spectacle. Many of the levels are in enclosed spaces and linear. Couple of exceptions but I think for the majority this is right. I realised how little sky will ever been seen during gameplay. Generally speaking I do not like much about the way the game looks other than the actually amazing pre rendered scenes.
2. Missions. I've not a lot to say people know why the missions in this game are controversial. I do not find them fun or interesting.
3. Voice cast / English script - Whoever voices the GUN soldiers grates me, terribly. Strange mis-translations or failure to localise occur.
4. Bosses - Very lackluster
5. This is the one thing that really bothered me on replay. Failure to realise Shadow's special abilities. I can never use chaos control if I have a mission goal. This means what was arguable the very idea that excited me most about getting to play a Shadow the Hedgehog game, I actively have to avoid doing for most of the game.
30:44 I take it you haven't heard Clementj64 talk about this game's music.
@@anonymousgamer5771 funny enough though, Clement is nicer to this game than most others are.
He still doesn't like it, but hey it's better than 06.
I had no idea how much I wanted to hear actual pathways in this game that can lead to a coherent story.
Middle school me try to do this by just going with one alignment, but that didn't work unfortunately.
This & Adventure 2 Battle were probably my most played Sonic games back when I was younger. I love to see that others appreciated this game as much as I did.
Nice to see some more favourable look-backs on this game these days.
I do like most of the Key Vaults, but one that seems completly useless to me is the one that has an armoured vehicle inside. It's aboard the arc, and you can drive it to the next room and... that's it.
And some of the keys that you have to get around the arc are really bonkers. Especially the levels with collapsing walkways. They're still pretty neat though, and some of them drastically change how you play the level.
It has been great to have “the year of Shadow” with the game, the movie, and for those able to make it to Sonic Symphony, you know how much love they showed Shadow. There was a time not long ago that it felt like shadow was slowly being erased from ever appearing in a Sonic game again. Even his little episode in Forces felt like the embers of a dying fire. But this year has me hopeful that one of my favorite video game characters may be back in a big way.
I personally really disliked Sonic Frontiers (aside from the boss fights) but I’m still hopeful that there will be a Sonic game someday that captures the feeling I felt the first time I played SA1, SA2, and Heroes, I love playing as all the different characters, not just Sonic.
Sega: We love Shadow. Shadow is a good character. Shadow is fun to play as. The story is enhanced when Shadow is a major character.
Great video for a game I also loved and spent more time playing than any Sonic game besides SA2!
Very good video! All the points made are why I like this game too. It’s nice seeing more positive videos on this game after the bad reputation its had for years
When I was a kid, I had no frame of reference for what made a video game good or bad due to very limited perspective and limited access to consoles. I was practically raised on the handhelds. So whenever I got to play on a home console it was always a spectacle for me. My friend used to come over with his GameCube, and we’d splay Shadow the Hedgehog. I thought the game was so cool and it was definitely fun despite me not even knowing what to do and not even playing the objectives for different endings. Now here I am, a grown ass adult, and I’m here thinking, people were to harsh on these games. So much to the point where they bullied the sonic IP to regress back into being a side scrolling platformer rather than the fun 3d ones I played as a kid. Please take this comment with a grain of salt. I am by no means a Sonic fan, and while I have my standards for what makes a game good/bad. I think that the criticism shouldn’t haven’t gotten to the point where devs have to go backwards. I try my best to go back and play these games, sadly Shadow is out of reach for me, I’m pretty sure it’s not as bad as people make it out to be.
"I like these guys and their videos even if I don't agree with them"
I love that mentality. People who get angry for people not sharing the same opinions as just silly.
I love hearing people be passionate about things I didn't care for.
And if someone can critique something I love, doesn't take away from my positive feelings towards it. And it is still interesting to see a fresh perspective
This was one of my favorite sonic games growing up as well just because there was such insane replay value with all the alternative endings and unlockables
I like Shadow the hedgehog but I need to play it again because I haven't played since I was a kid and I don't want to be blinded by Natasha.
I’m currently playing it and i can confidently say I’d rather play shadow 05 over games like forces and boom. It’s far from the worse in the series in my opinion.
@@nothing-of5yc update this comment after you played it again. I wanna hear what you think.
@___________0Z0X if I remember to then yes
@@nothing-of5yc thanks
Let us know what you think in the modern day.
I also don't understand why people bashed Shadow the Hedgehog. This is pretty much my favourite game from the Sonic series. I don't know how many hours I'd spent on it back when I was still a high school student. Moreover, this game was the trigger for me to start seriously learning English. Since I really liked to listen/relisten to all the voiced lines by Shadow, especially, those recaps before each stage. The fan-made Russian subtitles provided a really nuce translation, and back then I really wanted to play the game in the original language, w/o the fan-made translation. It has been almost 20 years since then.... . btw, one of the funs was finding all the voiced lines. For eg. did you know that in the Final Haunt stage after you meet Doom's Eye, and start the stage with him and/or go with him on the Hero mission there's a bunch of new dialogue you don't usually hear.?
I won't lie, Shadow the Hedgehog along with Sonic Heroes for the Xbox were the first Sonic games i physically owned when i was a kid and granted the repetitive Westopolios level at the start did get annoying but I still enjoyed plaything it.
Don't get me wrong, I do agree it has its issues but the fun I had as well as learning about Shadow's backstory made me play SA1 even trying SA2 battle on console for the first time. In the end, Shadow ended up being my favorite character in the series period.
A game like shadow the hedgehog is "fun bad" you can play through it embrace the memes its made and not take it very serious and have a surprisingly good time, but then with sonic boom, lost worlds, forces pretty much 80% of the boost era its just plain bad...
The sonic boom games are a total snooze fest but at least shadow the hedgehog is fun af
@neocrimson3542 yeah agreed while I just finished playing it again right this second and while it's got frustrating moments and a lack of polish here and there shadow the hedgehog is 100 percent a really fun game and I'd take it in a heart beat over the slop we get now a days
It's not that, it's just sucks and not "fun". It's feels like half-aseed mod that was made on Sonic Heroes engine and assets that doesnt even fit the mood of the game.
Amazing review, instant like!
I've never ever heard it referred to as "Shadow '05." That implies there's another game titled "Shadow the Hedgehog."
Incredibly based, Shadow (05) has always been so fun for me personally
Currently playing this game rn for the first time best way I can describe it: Sometimes hate it/ Sometimes love it.
Pros
The story and dialogue takes itself too seriously but it leads to some of the funniest scenes in the series and it's a great excuse to see shadow interact and hangout with all of the characters in the game.
I love the fact they went all out with the edgy theme in the game especially with the soundtrack like holy shit. From the concept art, enemies, cut content and all the way to how each stage presents itself it's really nice they embraced the edge in the the game and had fun doing it like you can't tell me with a straight face that shadow holding the rocket launcher in the boxart isn't badass!
The gameplay is mostly fun shadow feels a bit slippery for me but it's not that bad tbh (I have a skissue lmao) but platforming is good AF I love especially how responsive he is during platforming and the guns are fun to use and don't feel like shit. The level design is MOSTLY decent.
The graphics and artstyle for this game are good and still kinda hold up to this day especially because of the art design being more grungy while still being colorful at the same time.
Cons
The fact you have to play and beat the game 10 times to get the true ending is REALLY tiring ESPECIALLY when there are some stages that can last for life depending on the mission.
Missions that you currently doing can be changed every time you run into a companion npc in the stage over and over (like you choose to do a dark mission and as you're playing the stage if you run into the hero character they will change the dark mission to a hero mission which leads you to pause the game and click on the dark mission again and it gets annoying really fast. This works vise versa when doing neutral or hero missions.)
Bosses are a hit or miss with black bull being a pushover, Eggman is kinda fun but his boss battles fall off after fighting the same type over and over like I think you fight egg breaker 3 times and egg dealer 3 times with some changes in their attacks but they still don't feel that fun
Gun boss fights are lowkey kinda fun especially when you can use their weapons against them
Black Doom is ok so far (I fought him in final haunt and have yet to to fight him in the computer room.)
THERE ARE SOME MISSIONS IN HERO AND DARK THAT WILL STRAIGHT UP TAKE FOREVER TO DO (lost impact artificial chaos flashbacks.) or having to back track to find enemies or objectives in order to beat the mission.
The level design in 2 of the ark stages (lost impact and the doom) are utter ass because ALMOST EVERY ROOM RESUSES THE SAME ASSETS MAKING ALMOST EVERY ROOM LOOK THE SAME.
Like Nnarly said cutscenes straight don't stay consistent with the routes you take sometimes which makes the already bloated story of this game more annoying to piece together.
Overall I wouldn't say this is my favorite sonic game but to say it's the one of the worst is wild because the game is fun despite its flaws. I don't know if the T rated version of the game would be better but it would at least make some of the story beats more interesting and add a bit more depth to the gameplay and story routes we take.
the problem with shadow 05 is that it makes itself extremely easy to hate despite not being THAT bad as a whole.
mainly because to go through all the content you have to play it SO MANY TIMES. to the point where anyone who doesn't like it a lot will end up straight hating it by the end. if expert mode was the default mode I think the game would have WAY better reviews.
also the camera is just bad. like REALLY BAD. I do not understand what happened between heroes and shadow.
and a lot of levels just aren't made for going fast, in a SONIC game.
edit: the strafing is for that one section in mad matrix where you shoot the panels. I unironically think it exists just for that lol
Bro help one of my favorite TH-camrs made a video saying the worst media product of the 2000s is somehow good actually.
10:34 "This game runs on the same engine as Sonic Heroes and it controls similarly, which, I don't hear nearly as many complaints about"
What? One of the biggest criticisms against Heroes is the controls, because they are slippery, get to top speed too fast, and the level design doesn't accomodate for them, especially since Adventure 1 and 2 already controlled well, also Shadow skates in the previous games as well, yet he controls like Sonic, what are you trying to say there?
16:43 "The ranking system is definitely better than Sonic Heroes, where you get an E-Ranking if you died or took a hit at all throughout the stage"
That's the ranking in nearly every Sonic game and it's not even that difficult, the "E-Rank if you took a hit" is a straight up lie, I got multiple A-Ranks in Heroes despite taking many hits, and you lose rank by dying in Shadow as well (again, what are you trying to say there?), if you think the ranks in Adventure 2 and Heroes are bad, you'll go mad in Unleashed, the "took a hit and lose rank" is way more literal there
As someone who also grew up playing shadow the hedgehog I have to agree this game is amazing. A lot of people including my die hard Sonic fans bash this game for its complicated and repetitive gameplay style and unoriginal or bland design. This is easily my top 3 Sonic games and I will always defend it, I’d even go and say that a lot of the stuff people bash on the game is the multiple missions and repetitive nature of the game, but look at Sonic heroes, the same story 4 times over 7 levels(tech 14)? Like that’s basically doing shadows first level but for every character in sonic heroes with minor tweaks. Thank you for giving shadow a proper review and a better chance to thrive.
Sorry if Nyarly already answered this elsewhere, but is he planning on formally reviewing Persona 3 Reload and Episode Aigis (The Answer) at any point? I'd love to hear his thoughts on the game now that it's complete.
(Also, I'm a big Sonic the Hedgehog fan, so its been cool seeing you tackle the series. Personally, I think this game in question is pretty bleh-like I still find the Black Doom retcon stuff dumb as hell-but I can respect your opinion!)
dıdnt he already reviewed both?
@LTDLetsPlays Did he? I never saw them in my subscription feed, and I don't see them on his channel. He's done challenge runs for the game, though
Shadow the hedgehog's opening cinematic is a fucking masterpiece.
Someone actually made a video explaining all the different paths for Shadow 05, and a good chunk of them are just some variation of "And then Shadow and Omega started a robot uprising"
I absolutely love this game, I too played it a lot when I was young and I've been wanting to replay it for years. I would love to have a remaster, but considering the weird "changes" (which are a way of censorship I guess) on the Generations remaster and how the Sonic movies avoid using real weapons and opt for weird laser weapons, I doubt this is going to happen ever without making a lot of changes. I would love to see a "Directors Cut" of this game with the T rating, but maybe in another life.
Dude HARD agree with the ring point. I'd tried to grind out over 200 rings in the last sonic battle with shadow in the boss rush only to lose them all four times in a row due to shadow doing a spin dash instead of a ring dash and once the game bugging out and completely turning me around somehow, it had been the most frustrating experience in that game. even more than Rouge's chaos emerald level
I think Shadow was made brown in this game so he could stand out in dark areas, which there are a lot of in Shadow 05
I disagree on 1 thing. The idea that we need to KNOW how shadow got to the end of the game. I love that they don't show that to the player. Not only does it not matter cus all u need to know is that he did somethin almost completely diff from wut the player did to get all the emeralds to reach his goal, it adds a layer of mystery to wut he did experience & this wut he DOES know bout himself by this point. Until shadgens we didn't know wut memories shadow had or if he got any of it back. It showed that it was an element in shadow's journey in 05 that didn't matter as those memories no longer dictate his actions or who he is cus he no longer cared for em regardless of whether he had them by the end of the game or not(keep in mind eggman still felt the need to tell shadow he's the same as SA2 physically, tho I don't really like that they did that). It also shows that even the PLAYER the one who literally controls all of shadow's actions & choices in the non-canon paths, has NO true control over shadow, his actions, his identity, his destiny, nothin. Nothin the player does will influence who shadow is or wut he does any more than BD, Gerald, Maria, Sonic & friends™️, Eggman, G.U.N., Humanity etc. Shadow is no longer a tool to be used for other's goals or wishes. He is no longer used by others, Controlled by others. He alone decides. In the non-canon paths the player had the choice, in the endin of the game shadow does. He gives himself somethin he never did before. A goal he wanted to pursue for himself, his own agency, he will do wut he wants, how he deems necessary no matter wut others think of him, wut they want from him, or how others perceive him. Jus like sonic he will live his life how he chooses & unflinchingly follow his own path & will simply be who shadow the hedgehog is. Not wut someone thinks he is or wants him to be. It makes the choice to not showcase how he got to the end pretty meaningful especially on a gameplay perspective. It's part of y I love the game's story as I love games that do stuff like that.
2:38 finally an opinion different from the rest!
Shadow '05 has unironically become one of my favorite Sonic games since I've played it. Though I did play Reloaded and not the original.
52:04 I did when I played the game. Kids really do have all the time in the world, lol. After getting a few A rank and seeing the level select screen change to show that, I _needed_ that thing filled.
FINALLY someone gets Shadow 2005
One of the best Sonic games imho, the fact that it doesn't take itself seriously makes it that much better. Even the endings in each route foreshadow that none of them are the true ending and the said true ending is a nice and fitting one.
I only ever heard bad things at the time and so skipped it. You are making me want to try it. Great retrospective. Kind of a missed opportunity Sega didn’t drop a remaster at the same time of the movie.
Shadow is my favorite character and this was my favorite Sonic game for a long time. I did get every ending. In an entire summer, no less, lol. But I still really adore the game and would love if they remastered or remade it. Especially with the reception for Shadow Generations. I loved the darker story, the music, the gameplay. Honestly, it would have beaten SA2 for me if the level design was just a bit tighter. But I still really like it.