I Am... All Of Me.

Shadow the Hedgehog has been my favorite Sonic character ever since Sonic Adventure 2, so naturally I was looking forward to trying out the one game, where he plays the main role - despite the overall divisive reception of Shadow 2005.

That being said, you know you're in for a ride when the very first level already leaves a sour taste in your mouth. Have you ever wondered how Shadow would control like if he was constantly ice-skating? Probably not, but Shadow 2005 takes that question off your mind by providing you with physics that feel floaty and entirely different from the previous 3D games. Even with those complaints in the beginnning, everything was still tolerable enough for me to keep my motivation to a certain point, but while playing through Iron Jungle, it dawned on me that this game was infamous for a reason. The cherry on top was the Egg Breaker boss afterwards though, who should have been named Camera Breaker, cause that's all he does while Shadow is running little laps around the base in the center of the arena ad infinitum. No offense to Lava Shelter though, it was the final level on the route I played and I actually enjoyed it a good amount after the mess that the previous stage was.

Enough talk about the gameplay, as the unique way of storytelling is also a key aspect of Shadow 2005. There are unironically 326 possible routes to play and they even have their own unique names - but it doesn't change the fact that the storytelling is nonsensical in many cases. So basically there's an alignment system in the levels, which you can advance through completing certain objectives towards your alignment. If you want to be evil, do Black Doom's requests. If you want to remain neutral, just run through the level and get the Chaos Emerald. This way of storytelling is actually an interesting concept for a game like Shadow the Hedgehog, as he is this morally ambiguous character, who can be easily interpreted as a player for both sides. Depending on which objectives you complete, the selection of levels across the stage flowchart changes accordingly and I'm sure the idea is that you don't have to play the same levels twice. Quite ironic, considering you have to play through Westopolis at least ten times in order to see the true ending, all while doing the same, repetitive tasks. Considering the amount of "kill [x] amount of enemy" challenges present, it would have been nice if you weren't required to kill every single enemy in the stage. You missed one? Good luck backtracking and finding them, cause the game surely won't tell you where to search. I couldn't really bring myself to do those challenges, so I went for a run that's mostly on the neutral side, but even that required me to play arduous levels like Iron Jungle to the end. Playing it several times would not be something on my priority list, so I only played a single route and called it quits for now.

Sorry for the amount of unorganized rambling in the second half. I still had my fair share of fun with Shadow the Hedgehog, even if some of it comes from a "so bad it's good again" perspective, cause there's something about it that sticks with me here, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Either way, if I have to give the game some credit where it's due, it's for the soundtrack - the remix for Eggman's theme and the title theme "I Am... All Of Me" are both bangers.

Sonic é o meu amigo, Sonic é o meu herói, sempre esteve comigo, ele é muito veloz, veloz, veloz AH FODA SE

E EU SINTO O SHADOW NO MEU CU LARISSA NÃO QUERO TEUS BEIJO SÓ ME APAIXONO POR OURIÇOS PRETOS OU AZUIS NOS PELOS MAS DE QUALQUER JEITO NÃO NÃO QUERO SER HUMANO QUERO SÓ ESSE BANDO DE ANIMAIS LINDOS COM MUITO TESÃO NÃO QUERO NAMORAR MULHER QUE QUER ME DAR SHADOW QUERO AÇÃO

E EU SINTO O SHADOW NO MEU CU LARISSA NÃO QUERO TEUS BEIJO SÓ ME APAIXONO POR OURIÇOS PRETOS OU AZUIS NOS PELOS MAS DE QUALQUER JEITO NÃO NÃO QUERO SER HUMANO QUERO SÓ ESSE BANDO DE ANIMAIS LINDOS COM MUITO TESÃO NÃO QUERO NAMORAR MULHER QUE QUER ME DAR SHADOW QUERO AÇÃO

I think just like Heroes, this game is very misunderstood. It's got the exact same goofy writing, high skill ceiling emphasis on combat tying into a bit of a learning curve, with a structure built on replayability that detractors always use against the game for some reason. So all the things that made Heroes a bit divisive, wrapped in decades of being memed on for the "dark and edgy" tone. Making people even less willing to learn the game, which is to say, not willing at all.

Before I get into the insane amount of baggage the game has attached to it, I'd like to just talk about the moment to moment gameplay really quick so it's not buried under said baggage. Long story short, I find Shadow to be one of the most satisfying Sonic games to go fast in. The routing for killing aliens to fill your chaos control meter and have it be worth it is cool. Mastering the gunplay with a bit of memorization lets you do many of the Kill all X enemies missions just as you would any other sonic game. Running full speed blasting the correct enemies as you're going is so fun. I think they really refined a lot of the adventure era gameplay by this point. The spindash is often called worthless for not functioning how it traditionally does, but it has a LOT of utility. The momentum it gives you allows you to jump extremely far, or if there's even a slight incline, extremely high. You don't really need it as a speed up button like usual, because your base movement speed is good enough. Grind rails now have a dedicated switch rail button so they work better than ever. And you get INSANE amounts of speed if you spindash into one. The light speed dash also works better than usual especially because important trails leave transparent rings that still work when you've collected them. Level design, while usually very linear, has a lot of obstacles and decent platforming. Lava Shelter is one of my favorites to go fast in, I really like the platforms slanted downwards towards lava that you have to jump between. This game absolutely utilizes momentum in a way a Sonic game should. Yes it CAN be hard to go fast as the levels are quite cluttered a lot of the time but that's the point of these games being made for repeat playthroughs. Not that it's a very difficult trial and error type game, but it's got room to master it and feel how satisfying it is to play once you're good at it. VS. if it was completely mindless from the start and there was nothing to overcome.

The bosses are nothing special necessarily, but the nuance in trying to kill them fast is also quite enjoyable. Especially the Sonic and Diablon fight is hugely different on your first time vs. when you've gotten good at it. Finding ways to fill up your meter to get infinite ammo, and timing it exactly with a moment where the weak spot is vulnerable...Lets you shred any boss and it's always a joy.

To get into the previously mentioned baggage-
There's a lot of commonly believed aspects about this game that aren't quite true. People often criticize the missions, and wish they'd just let you rush past everything and get to the end as fast as you can like a normal sonic game, instead of combing for enemies to kill. And I definitely understand this view, it can absolutely be pretty unfun to get to the end of a level and be met with 34/35 soldiers slain. But the frequency of these missions is a bit overstated. Counting the final level there's 55 different missions across 23 different levels. 25 of these missions are strictly just getting to the end goal like a normal sonic game. And 10 more of these are extremely linear missions that have you playing the levels like normal. Difference with those ones being you have to say, destroy 5 green crystals that are directly in your path and basically impossible to miss. With those 10 I'd personally say those are basically reach the goal type levels as well. There's 11 Kill X amount of enemies missions, 2 of which actually do have more than the bare minimum required amount. And honestly a few of these could be argued as being one of those linear missions that are impossible to miss the goals in I mentioned earlier. You have to kill 20 GUN soldiers? Have you tried going down the path with all the gun soldiers lined up in homing attack lines? Then there's 9 misc. missions. These vary but honestly a lot of them are very self explanitory and not something that would leave you lost. 3 of them are simply Destroy this ship before it escapes and the level is chasing it down and trying to do as much damage as quick as possible. There's a get 400 rings level which really isn't bad considering you only lose 10 rings on hit in this game.

Not every mission is a winner, but I genuinely don't think they're as fundamentally game breaking as many believe. A lot of the time it really is just Finish the level or ignore the goal ring and reach another exit further back And the freedom the game gives you with having 326 routes, really lets you flat out ignore more or less any mission you just don't want to do. Personally the only mission I actively have an issue with is the destroy all 30 bombs one in mad matrix. It's just not very intuitive, otherwise I've really come to enjoy most of what the game has to offer. Especially the Lost Impact Hero mission (Destroy all 35 Artificial chaos) has become one of my favorite levels in the series. I realize I'm a bit of a masochist on that one, but doing that level as fast as possible is extremely satisfying and the somber tone is so unique for a Sonic stage. If you'll forgive me projecting a bit here, I honestly don't understand why SA2 fans will put up with learning RNG emerald locations with hints that are actively trying to be as useless as possible...But learning where the one Alien they missed on their first playthrough of this game is, that's there every single time you play it (During a mission you likely don't even have to do if you don't want to), is a complete deal breaker. It's weird to me how HUGE of a complaint the missions are and how much people want to say the game would be so much better if it were just reaching the end of stages like normal, but only a small fraction of the missions are actually what's being complained about. One of the many things telling me Sonic games aren't often given the time of day and are judged largely by first impressions.

The gunplay is mocked immediately but it's one of the many attempts at making combat more integral to the series without devolving into traditional button mash-fare seen in generic platformers. The idea with heroes was a combat system that could deliver formidable enemies, that when mastered would allow you to shred enemies extremely fast without really breaking your flow in the level. This ended up proving to have too much of a learning curve for a lot of people, so Shadow simplifies it by adding guns to the equation. No more learning movesets and enemy reactions and counter play, etc. Just point and shoot with a wide variety of weapon types. This does a great job at mostly retaining the presence enemies had in Heroes, while simplifying the whole process to streamline the gameplay to be more standard sonic-fare. BUT, the idea of shadow using a gun is just too much for the world to handle for some reason. It genuinely all works really well and most of the gun types not only feel good to use but also are all very useful in different situations. From getting tons of ammo for an automatic gun, filling up your chaos meters for infinite ammo which lets you shoot pistols as fast as you can press the button, picking up a rocket launcher for some quick big damage and switching back to a more accurate weapon. It's all pretty seamless and there's some really helpful weapons you unlock from the Shadow crates every time you finish one of the ten main routes.

On the topic of guns, this game has the rep of Sega taking it too seriously. But honestly, looking at the actual content in the game, I gotta say it's more like the fans/general internet taking it too seriously. Shadow's here skating around with a massive gun shaped like a toilet seat that shoots out energy rays. He just takes the weapons from the enemies you slay. Goofy alien stuff from aliens, which includes a vacuum that just sucks enemies in. Literal NERF pistols from Eggman's robots. Torches or road signs from fallen debris as melee attacks. And more standard weaponry he gets from, naturally, G.U.N., the government agency who's been in the series using real guns (And comically huge unrealistic ones as well) for a while at this point. With cutscenes like Team Chaotix trying to hack a computer, only for shadow to waltz in and karate chop the keyboard, opening a portal, allowing him to chase eggman into the government's mainframe. With swearing levels not really any worse than the 2 recent sonic movies. Come on bro the game's E10+ it's nothing actually remotely edgy, it's so tame it's hard to even pretend it's trying too hard. I really don't think a lot of what the game brings to the table in this area, is actually new to the series. SA2's dark route opens with Eggman breaking into a government base with the ultimate goal of being a terrorist threat. SA2 has Sonic say the fabled, dreaded "Darn" word in one of Knuckles' rap songs, albeit not in his voice of course and sure most people don't notice that to be fair. SA2's the one that started the "Government kills child and then Eggman's grandfather" plotline. Shadow's writing is just as goofy as heroes, it's just following up where SA2 took the series. It's just a good time laughing at some premium B-movie dialogue. "Edgy the Hedgy" featuring characters like Charmy the Bee yapping in your ear about how wacky and fun the level you're playing is. Truly so dark and oppressive that we gotta joke about how edgy it is for 20 literal years in a row.

Being absolutely fair I get that it's somewhat disingenuous to imply nothing's different about the way this game presents itself compared to the other Sonic games, and there's nothing wrong with laughing at its E10+ edginess, I get it. The stock gunshot sound effect every time you select something in the menus is infinite comedy. Still it feels very Sonic to me in the way it faces its absurd premise from a very genuine, non ironic place. Never agreed with the crowd that lists off the crazy premise of Sonic as an excuse to write off the insanity some of the titles hit. "He's a super fast blue anthro hedgehog trying to stop an egg shaped fat man from powering robots with animals why's it have to take itself so seriously?!?!?" like bro the absurd premise is precisely why stuff like Shadow or the Kaiju dragon ball battles in space work. An absurd premise isn't a reason to play it safe and predictably it's an excuse to go all out with no regrets. It's not "taking it too seriously" to have a little fun with it. I'd certainly take it over the "NO FUN ALLOWED" banner looming over the series these days, as they're too afraid to do anything that reminds people of the franchise's embarrassing teenage years. Now we're just wacky ironically and actually Green Hill is Sonic's home even though it was just a place he ran through in 2 minutes 30 years ago 'cuz lord forbid a series grows past its first entry.

That said I'll never defend the story itself. The presentation more often than not is genuinely quite bad, and anything important is given the bare minimum amount of screen time and explanation. (The answer to whether or not the Shadow you're playing is a robot or the original is only given to you in some throwaway line if you end up spending 8 minutes on the final boss and also don't interrupt the line)Scenes are rarely coherently connected given there's over 300 routes you can take. And it's pretty lame that no matter how much you help out Eggman, you can never actually end a playthrough on his side.

But yeah, gameplays mostly a lot of fun if you're willing to stick with it. The "Edgy the hedgy" stuff the internet can't let go of lead to a combat system that maintains core principles Sonic was founded on while also simplifying a previous attempt to do that very thing. The cutscenes are good for a laugh though fans will likely be left disappointed by how bare and poorly told the plot is, given it's more of an attempted follow up to SA2 this time around. A lot of the music has grown on me a LOT over time. Tracks like GUN fortress and Lost Impact are so unique to the series in their tone and instrumentation. It's great to see a series known for such amazing music try some new styles here and there. Level themes are quite decent, I especially like the Halloween themed cryptic castle. Digital circuit's got a bit of a TRON aesthetic which is cool. Some classic Sonic in space levels and Eggman's base levels. Cool stuff!

The game's definitely a bit sloppy on the smaller details. Like maybe to progress in a mission you have to knock down an alien bat. Black Doom will be like SHADOW, USE THE DARK SOLDIER TO FLY FORWARD then you smack it to be able to ride it and Black Doom is like SHADOW YOU TRAITOR! There's a lot of instances of this kind of thing and really it's simply just a goofy surface level issue that doesn't truly effect anything at all. Sure if you do the dark mission and have points for killing your own team, those points count against you. But the A rank is locked behind speed more than anything this time around which all around works quite well. Also there's an expert mode run where you play through every level once you get A ranks in every mission which is a lot of fun. Most of the missions in that mode are simply reaching the end of the level too.

Truly a Man's game tbh.

i've had a rocky relationship with this one to say the least

it may go without saying, but i'm the kind of person who thoroughly adores absolutely everything about this game's initial concept and presentation. i didn't grow out of my 'edgy phase' - it wasn't one. this shit's cool as fuck. it was cool as fuck 20 years ago, it still is today and it will be forever

shadow the hedgehog is a game carried by ideas, but they're executed to mixed results. this permeates the plot, script and gameplay. nothing's completely unscathed

narratively, it's incredibly ambitious - especially for such an obviously rushed game. the route structure is somewhat insane, even if the endings do split into 3-4 similar templates - almost all of which have really awkward line deliveries (shout out to 'journey to nihility' though - that one goes hard)

scriptwise... man, it's a mess. black doom is the biggest issue. he's effectively a caricature of a shounen antagonist who never shuts the fuck up. conversations tend to be pretty stilted across the board, but this dude just amps it to fucking 13. i contemplated dropping a half star here just because of how annoying his presence was during the final episode. in fact, i better stop fucking talking about black doom or else this game might be a 2/10 by the time i'm done

...on the contrary, shadow himself is thankfully as strong of a character as ever and the ability to constantly jump between routes really suits his whole mysterious/badass/what-the-fuck-is-he-thinking demeanor. that said, his stages could easily give you a positive or negative impression depending on which of those paths you end up on

personally, i started with the pure dark route... then after a neutral-only palate cleanser, pure hero - this was a fucking mistake! depending on your whims as a player your first run could consist of varied but mostly straightforward objectives, or menial tasks such as combing through multi-pathed environments for torchs to light and killing exactly specified quantities of enemies (it'll be a cold day in hell when i replay lost impact)

at his best, shadow disappoints as the star of a sonic game but actually excels as a shooter more akin to gamma's role in sa1, boasting faster movement and a solid variety of weapons that all feel fun to shoot - which is especially important because this game wants bullets to rain constantly, as it actively rewards killing enemies of both alignments, encouraging the ambivalent carnage no matter which route you're aiming for

in fact - i feel like this game would've likely gone over better with some fans if its A-ranks were stricter in places. you can basically hold forward and pass any normal mission with flying colors, but beyond that there's tons of room to optimize runs via effective usage of shadow's chaos blast and especially control powers. definitely a missed opportunity here!

with a few more months in the oven, some slower bits axed and some added speed to shadow's spindashing, homing and walljumping, this'd be a classic for sure

as it stands, it's pretty confused. i've come to enjoy the chaos quite a bit, but i'd only recommend it to someone who wished gamma had more of a presence in sa1. if you go in expecting sa3, then everything's all over before it can even start

the soundtrack, however, i can - and will - recommend to literally anyone with or without a pulse

"Sonhos são reais se você acreditar", essa frase nunca fez tanto sentido na minha vida.

Shadow the Hedgehog é um dos maiores clássicos de todas as mídias do nosso entretenimento, aquele jogo é sensacional, gráficos incríveis, música perfeita e é MUITO Edgy. Porém, o maior fator do sucesso multiversal do jogo é o Black Doom, considerado por todas as 3 bilhões de pessoas como o maior vilão da história, superando até mesmo pessoas de peso tipo a Thaís Carla.

Ontem foi anunciado o Sonic X Shadow: Generations, um Remaster do grandioso Sonic Generations, no começo eu estava achando que seria só um remaster porco, até que apareceu o novo modo do Shadow... Depois de 19 anos ele voltou... O Lord Black Doom.

Não acredito que o Black Doom voltou... Foi o momento que mais ri na história dos Vídeo Games, foi muito engraçado esse filho da puta voltar depois de 19 anos.

Na minha cabeça era IMPOSSÍVEL esse corno aparecer em algum jogo da franquia depois de tanto tempo de ausência (por motivos de que ele é um personagem ruim) mas como diria o Deus Diggo: NADA É IMPOSSÍVEL!

Nunca fiquei tão feliz de ver o nosso querido Black Doom de volta!

Esse foi o meu "especial" de 500 Likes das minhas reviews de qualidade questionável do Backloggd.

If it weren't for the disgrace of a video game I have as my only .5 star, Shadow The Hedgehog would probably be the closest game to being the absolute worst I've played to completion. Its 4am when writing this and I could make the argument that this game wasted more of my time than UDG, but that could just be due to how fucking long each route drags on despite only clocking in about an hour after the first couple runs.

This game isn't worth going the extra mile to analyze gameplay or story wise so I'll just summarize my thoughts as best as I possibly can. Story wise, I genuinely think this is the worst the franchise has to offer. The story is so fucking bad that I'm blanking on literally anything to say, as it retreads the worst beats SA2 covers, defeating the point of what that game and Heroes were trying to set up. Instead of this being about Shadow rediscovering himself through those living in the present, of which are his friends(?), we instead have him leaving his past behind him and making good on his promise to Maria (and now Gerald)... AGAIN. Its a waste of time by itself and I'm just describing half of the routes. The Dark side routes are laughably bad as morality choices and spit in the face of every single character involved, but it would be a pretty cool mechanic in a competent game. The idea of siding with the heroes for 90% of the game then switching at the very end to the Black Arms would be hilarious, as long as it meant playing a game that wasn't this. Speaking of the routes, hope you like playing the game 10 times to get the "true ending"! I'm perfectly fine with replaying zones in Sonic games, sometimes even just for an hour straight to familiarize myself with the level in its entirety, but there isn't a single stage in this game that deserves that kind of repeated attention, its just lazy and each level isn't designed for this at all, as these are probably the most linear stages in the series other than Forces. For the gameplay itself, it is quite literally Heroes but even more slippery, thats it. As per the course with Sonic Team games, there's always something unfinished about it to its core, and the reuse of the engine and past level assets are flat out vile. To specify the reuse of engine would be fine but Heroes handling shouldn't be used in anything but that game, as it rarely even worked there either. As far as the gunplay, its not the worst thing ever. There are a lot moments of jank but its one the only new additions to this game that I can say I'm fine with. The other new addition I can say I like is the new english cast. Not much to say as they don't stay very long but this, Sonic X and 06 are probably the worst way to start voicing the characters, as Sega didn't have much in mind for what they wanted them to be. It wasn't until Unleashed where I'd say they hit their stride consistenly, which sucks but such is the enjoyment of mid 2000s voice direction.

So yeah this wasn't fun, and it didn't help that I had no nostalgia of this entry to speak of, something I can't say for most of the other games of this era and going forward. Also I know its not that serious but at the same time, the people who pass this off as just mid or harmless in context of the franchise are part of the problem as to why Sonic had an identity crisis after this point (although Sega is mostly to blame for it obviously, about 75% I'd say).

Why does he have a gun

It scares me

Stop it