I really wanted to like this game. I really, really did.

I'm a MASSIVE fan of Sonic Adventure 2. It's one of my favorite Sonic games, and is on my list of favorite games of all time. I was rather excited to see Edgy McHedgy get his own game, especially since Sonic Heroes gave him a bittersweet and somewhat unsatisfying conclusion.

What we got was a sloggy mess that tried a bit too hard to double down on the bad side of edginess to the point that it started to chip, coupled with gameplay that felt too over complicated and generally unfun to play. Also, eleven endings. ELEVEN. I'm all for multiple endings to give a sense of uniqueness to a playthrough and a payoff to player choices, but that was just overkill. And the fact that, if you want the TRUE FINAL ending, you need to do get all ten endings. And back then I thought Sonic Heroes was bad for replaying the game multiple times just to get the final story.

The problem is that I can see potential. I can see replaying the game and getting multipe endings to work towards a final ending. I can see an action platformer utilizing disposable weapons for enemies that can't be taken on normally and vehicles for gameplay changes/terrain that can't be crossed normally. All we got was all of the options with none of the reason, resulting in a sludgy mess.

Could the Sonic series get any worse at this point? (the question is rhetorical)

Sonic but with guns should have worked, and in all honesty, it could have as well. But the team somehow reworked the controls from Sonic Heroes to be worse and thus made playing this game a complete mess of an experience.

The structure of this game is like any other, but there is a pretty interesting twist to it. You play as Shadow and you are pulled towards being evil or good, and depending on how you complete each stage you will move to one of three different stages to play through. If this was done well enough, it would make for an extremely replayable game where each path you take can lead you to a completely new section of the game. Of course, they didn't do that.

The point of Sonic games has always been to speedrun through the course, defeating enemies as concisely as possible and getting to the goal in as little time as possible. This game laughs at that idea and turns each stage into a monotonous grind fest, where instead of finding secret paths that can lead you down the good or evil storylines, you instead need to kill a certain number of enemies or you need to destroy something within the stage. these always slow down the pace of the game.

The big gimmick of this game is that Shadow can use a variety of guns. It does not work well, as to use them effectively you must slow down and aim it at the enemies, thus leading you open to attack. It just feels like a gimmick since it seemingly gets in the way of the platforming.

The visuals are muddy and grainy, going for a super edgy look. For Shadow it makes sense, he is the epitome of edge in this world, but it is still not very nice to look at. Of course, the music here is still as good as ever, can't complain about that for most of these games.

This game sucks, even though the plot can be ridiculous and hilariously over the top at times. I think people should skip out on this one.

Shadow the Hedgehog is one of the first games that ever disappointed me. Back when I first saw the ads for this game back in 2005, 7 year-old me thought the sight of Shadow wielding an assault rifle and riding a motorcycle was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen. Not quite as cool as Broly or Spider-Man, mind you, but cooler than Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles. Though I had a GameCube to play it on, the game would elude me until I received it and a PlayStation 2 for Christmas two years later. I hooked up my PS2, popped the game in, and in less than an hour I took the game out to play something else.

Shadow the Hedgehog was a game I returned to many times as a kid trying to beat it, to force myself to like it, but each session would invariably end with me throwing my hands up at a poorly designed level or a particularly frustrating boss and calling it quits before making much progress. It’s not the worst Sonic game, but it’s the one I’ve had the least fun with.