Shadow the Hedgehog Review - Quickies Don't Cut It
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
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After the enjoyable but flawed Sonic Heroes released by the end of 2003 in Japan and start of 2004 in other regions with mixed to positive reception, Sonic Team wanted to attempt a different take on the franchise. Since Sonic games were and are largely targeted toward younger audiences, director Takashi Iizuka desired to catch the attention of an older audience for once. Logically so because, at the time, the industry had largely shifted from cartoony and child-friendly games, to mature, edgy and deep games more and more. Series producer Yuji Naka stated in an interview that Shadow the Hedgehog was chosen as the starring character for this new game due to his popularity amongst fans, and the addition of darker story elements, vehicles and weapons would have made it an inappropriate act to label it a Sonic game, and then sell it as such. The concept was seen as ridiculous when people witnessed the first trailers in early 2005 and they had no idea how it was all going to play out. Later down the year in the holiday season, Shadow the Hedgehog came out for the Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox for them to find out. Critically the game wasn't liked with the PS2 version averaging the lowest at 45% on Metacritic and the GameCube version averaging the highest at 51%. Review scores aren't everything, but with those numbers, Shadow the Hedgehog was viewed as the low-point of the entire main Sonic line-up until Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 came along. To this day, however, there are fans who will argue it is in fact inferior to Sonic 2006… If that doesn’t speak volumes, then I haven’t got a monkey’s what does. All I knew was that I played Shadow the Hedgehog back when I was a kid and got every single A rank, so I must've seen something in it. Does the same apply at my age of 19 now? Well, I'll do my very best to provide a fair look in this video at Shadow the Hedgehog.
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Writing, narrating & editing: Michael Hardeman
Logo designs: ''RomyvdHel'', Specter Salmon & ''Ollie''
Game creation: Sonic Team
Shadow the Hedgehog © Sega
All audio & imagery © to their respective owners
As soon as you asked “What does Shadow the Hedgehog have?” after talking about gimmicks, I got an ad for redbull saying “A little bit of everything.”
This is honestly the most fair review I've seen for this game. Most people just hung up on the tone and guns. While I agree they went way too far with both of those I don't think that automatically makes it a bad game. I will admit I do like the game and I agree don't think it deserves as much hate it gets, but I do get why people wouldn't like it (especially with like lost impact and the doom seriously screw those levels). I think this was a great review that goes over both positive and negatives of the game really well. So good job on the review. I might have to check your other reviews.
+David Pescitelli Yes, that's the point I try to convey as well. Some ideas and concepts pushed too far don't make the game as a whole bad. The game has many problems either way, but it's still a fun little romp with redeeming qualities, in my opinion.
Thank you for the nice comment. It always helps to read ones like this! It definitely is part of the motivation that pushed me to make more and more. :)
Retropolis Zone No problem :)
I also remember playing sonic labyrinth expecting it to be one of the worst games ever,but honestly it was fine. The spin dash made kept it from being slow and it was a lot easy and less frustrating than I expected it to be. I honestly think if it wasn't a sonic game it would have just been seen as an ok game. Nothing great, but definitely not the horrible game I was expecting.
haven't played but i love that they went too far, it's unintentionally hilarious
"where's that DAMN fourth chaos emerald" is one of my favorite video game lines for all the wrong reasons
Honestly, as ironic as it is, the gunplay is one of the most functional and worthwhile things about this game - it's the _rest_ that's... ugh.
I think that the Doom is the worst level in the game. Say what you will about Lost Impact but at least I can use the GUN lifts as landmarks and the only way I could return to those rooms is using the checkpoint system. When I checked every room before getting on a GUN lift it became less frustrating than others would have you believe and I found that the level is rather linear which like Retro Zone here said makes it hard to miss stuff. The Doom on the other hand has no such landmarks and has twice as many enemies to destroy than in Lost Impact. I do agree that Lost Impact is still guilty of copypaste design because the GUN lift rooms look identical to each other but at least they are easily identifiable unlike the rooms in the Doom. I think that an easy solution to the padding issue would be to cut certain levels out and have 5 endings as opposed to 10.
That was a fair review. I'll be honest, I do dislike the game myself. I can't see myself playing it again anytime soon. The gameplay felt sloppy. Things such as turning or colliding into things got annoying. I think the only thing I liked was the path system. It was an interesting concept but poorly executed. Going through the story multiple times to get the 10 endings was tedious. And there wasn't really much difference between some of those endings either. And by the time you get to the final story you realize that none of those 10 endings were canon. Felt like a waste of time. Anyway, nice work.
So are we just not going to acknowledge the fact that in order to 100% the game, you have to beat Westopolis 326 times? No? Okay.
@Gavin James Every different possible route, even if they get the same ending, has a seperate entry in the route list. hero>Dark>neutralx3 and dark>hero>neutralx3 get the same ending, but are different routes
You only have to play it 10 times to get the final story
that does really depend on your definition of 100% completion, but what I have more shock from is that instead of just making a regular cutscene menu they made one that takes you through cutscenes of any theoretical route, each with a defined personalized name.
nevermind actually unlocking all the routes, MAKING that menu work in that way seems like a tremendous waste of development time that couldn't have been simple to impement
I'm sorry WHASAAT?
@@puffypuff3144 I'll confess there's been times where I'd sit down and play through as many routes as I could. I switched countries, so I went from a PAL version to an NTSC copy so I "lost" my progress and started again.
It's on my bucket list to one day do all 326 routes before I die. Yes, I might be insane.
I'm happy to hear someone else praise the soundtrack. It's not one of my favorites in the series but there are a lot of good themes in this game. In general, this game doesn't offend me as much as it does to others, I enjoy a bit of it and I still pop it in once every two years or so
8:25 Ok sorry but that right there was just plain funny.
Mooooh?
Eh. I repleyed that game recently for "research" purposes, and you know what. I still like it. Gameplay is good, soundtrack is heavy, just the way I like it. I like the story overall, but the general execution is sloppy, you can even tell that certain cutscenes are not supposed to happen when they do. And if anything, I find the "edgyness" of the game hilarious.
I honestly love this game.
so do i, i actually have both ps2 and gcn versions...
John Leone it is pretty good
me too
me too
Fuck yeah me too!!
to be honest i never knew why people didnt like the controls they were just fine to me
Because they suck at gaming
All i have to say to them is "get gud kid"
The game feels like it’s on soap all the time but worse.
Maybe you guys just have easier standards.
I find the controls from Sonic Heroes worse
Shadow The Hedgehog(Game) was amazing to me, I really welcomed the dark and edgy tone it had. the gameplay was pretty solid to me, I never had problems with the controls or anything of the sort and 100% the game with ease. Just like you I also got all A rank and beaten expert mode, this game was a load of fun to me. The soundtrack was excellent as it also fit the tone of how a 'SHADOW GAME' should be. This game was better than SA1,SA2 and Hereos by far.
Such a great review, I watched it all and I really love your style.
I'm playing this game 11 years late to the party, and I actually like it a lot, not the best game in the world, but it's enjoyable, a lot more enjoyable than Heroes in my opinion.
+RedVGFox Thanks, I appreciate the comment. :)
Lol redflamefox è ovunque
finally a fair review of this game, nice vid
+mustardmaster4 Thank you, mustardmaster! Glad I could deliver. :)
Glad to see this uploaded, nice production values.
As for the game itself, I thought this game was alright when I first played it, but as I actually completed it, I dreaded the experience for how shallow it truly felt to me. Yet when I look back on your review of it, I can definitely see the positive aspects of Shadow's spinoff title, as little as they are, such as the few stages that are actually well-designed in a dynamic way if the objective you were going for didn't obstruct you from enjoying it that is, or how Jun Senoue's music wasn't bad and actually catchy like with Lava Shelter and Egg Dealer to name a few examples that I personally enjoyed myself.
As for the gameplay itself, while the good/evil pathway concepts aren't horrible, the consequences of picking one side over the other is very minimal, only affecting which stages you go to when you complete a specific mission and if you care for the A-ranks, that you need to avoid killing off too many enemies of the alliance you're going for on that certain mission so it won't detract from your score and rank too much. (not that it actually mattered much giving how they're pretty lenient on that.)
Games like the first two BioShock games and from what I saw from footage of like the InFAMOUS series on the PlayStation put a much more heavier focus on the good/evil aspects and the pro's/con's that come with it, and I know that Sonic games usually don't really pay much attention to that kind of stuff, but it felt rather poorly executed in the long run given that the final story pretty much puts the status quo in your face that Shadow still is a good guy at the end of the day.
Control physics weren't ever truly a issue for me except for the homing attack physics being awkward in the range and enemy programming affecting it as you pointed out. I usually just learned to delay my next homing attack to not overshoot the enemy because button-mashing the homing attack wildly can easily result in overshooting a enemy like with Heroes or even the Adventure games when crossing a bridge.
And finally the gunplay was fine for me. While Shadow only being able to carry 1 type of melee weapon/gun at a time can be bothersome, the semi-auto lock on feature on enemies with most guns worked fine and if anything, I liked mowing down enemies with a few bullets and be done and over with, rather than how cumbersome the few tough robots in later Sonic Heroes stages had to be dealt with, and it makes the 'destroy x amount of enemies' objectives not that horrible to complete either, if you can find them that is. Ammo conservation I didn't mind either, because limits are there for a reason, it forces you to adapt to good aiming to some degree rather than spraying around, that's always been like that in most games that features guns as a means of offense.
I think I been on a tangent long enough, but case in point, great review and I appreciate what little support I can usually offer you in your reviews when the end result is a good quality product.
I'm so glad you didn't just blindly bash this game but actually praised the things it got right (the controls *especially* compared to other Sonic titles) as well as pointing out the flaws. And yes, the soundtrack deserves so much more love. It's fantastic to me.
Sonic X had guns and swearing, so why wasn't it called edgy? Shadow The Hedgehog is an underrated game.
Another flawless review, really wish this channel got more views. So refreshing to see someone who is truly able to take the good with the bad rather than just pandering to the preexisting negative feelings known to be associated with the game. Another case of decent if questionable ideas executed with mixed results, but I definitely feel there is something worthwhile there buried under the rubble for those willing to dig.
Would still love to see you give Metroid Other M your treatment haha, but regardless great video man :)
+ThrillingDuck Thank you very much, ThrillingDuck! These types of comments are some of the best motivators a content creator can get! :)
If I get to Metroid one day, then I will probably do Other M as well.
"The Sonic Avengers"- Retropolis Zone
Shadow the Hedgehog (the game) is probably the definition of "trying way too hard". I mean, the concept alone of a 3 foot hedgehog going on a genocidal rampage is so ludricous, you'd think it was some sort of joke. Yet the game expects me to take it all seriously? Now, I won't lie, I like me some serious and edgy moments in my games, even in my Sonic games, but this is just too much. Know your boundaries, game!!!
That said, I avoided this game, mostly for the reason I mentioned above, as well as the repetitive mission structure. But thanks to your review, you've convinced me to give this game a shot, if only for a neutral run and expert mode. So thank you and awesome review, as always.
+Marius Urucu Meh, I don't mind ridiculous things. In fact I often end up enjoying them and think many other games fall into the same boat, but it's just the execution of it all and the way every line and sound effect was forced. Maybe it was better in Japanese, but shit. Jak II pulled the tone shift off more competently.
I'm flattered to read I've convinced somebody to give the game another shot! It definitely has problems, but I still think there is fun to be had. Guess not for everybody though, but I can't really read other people's minds and thoughts. We're all different. Thanks for commenting, anyway!
+Retropolis Zone Honestly, I love ridiculous things in my games, as long as it shows even a tiny bit of self-awareness (Serious Sam is probably the best example I can think of, and I love every game in the franchise to bits). Heck, most of my favorite games are pretty much ridiculous in their own right.
But Shadow the Hedgehog has pretty much zero self-awareness (same goes for Sonic '06). And scenes in which were supposed to sound dramatic and meaningful just end up really, really awkward and bad. And not the "it's so bad it's funny" bad, I mean just plain bad. At least to me, anyway. Still, I'll try to roll with it this time, since from the footage you've shown, this game looks actually fun, edginess aside.
+Marius Urucu Yeah I think you worded what I intended to say much better. I put it that the execution is too forced and too serious, but you talk about self-awareness, which I really like. Definitely a good way of putting it.
I hope you'll have some fun with the game, dude. I do think the stages are quite entertaining as well as the weapons to use. Not perfect obviously, but still fun. If you don't, then I'm sorry, haha.
Marius Urucu Why am I the only person who views it as satire?
+Some Kind of Democrat You can view it as satire. I mean the edge is adorable. :3
But I don't think Sonic Team intended for Shadow the Hedgehog to be satire... Which is even more funny, in an ironic way. :))
Shadow the hedgehog is my second favorite 3d sonic game first being Sonic Adventure 2 on the dreamcast. I dont know why I love this game soo much but i guess i just do
l spent 40+ MINUTES to find the last artificial chaos
I couldn’t even find it. I just did one of the other missions for the level.
I'd say try the levels once to complete the map if you go for 100% but skip all the Maria stages with other stages as much as possible
I despise this game with a burning passion, but you've earned my respect for your opinion with just how great, fair and detailed your analysis was of this game. Your best review yet man, I wouldn't care if this review came out in 2030, I would still be satisfied! You have not wasted forty minutes of my life.
+The Sonic Maniac See, these are really cool comments; somebody who really doesn't like this game, but can still appreciate it a review for how well it's done, regardless of whether it holds the same opinions/perspectives. I really appreciate the comment man! :D
Great DAMN review as always, hahaha! Really enjoyed it. Don't ask me why, but i really like this game. Has it share of problems but is far from awful as Sonic 2006, for example.
+KamatsuKyoto Thanks man! Well, one thing I would like to say on that: I think liking a game is different from saying it's good/great. Which is what I also said here in the conclusion; you can enjoy a game but still recognize that it's not very well made. Shadow isn't a particularly good game for 2005 standards (not terrible either as I also pointed out), but some aspects of its gameplay can still make it worth putting your time into, depending on preferences and tastes. Just my two cents.
I want to replay this game now
This is the most balanced reviews I've ever seen of this game. Honestly, it's a game that isn't great in my opinion, but that I still have enough fun with that I come back to it every once in awhile!
Hardly. It’s WAY too generous. I think J’s reviews probably is the best review of it
This has got to be one of the ebst Shadow the Hedgehog reviews I've seen. The game has a lot of cons, but it sure does have a lot of pros as well. Most reviews forget about all the good stuff (which there's enough of) and only mention the bad parts.
It is nice to see another positive review of my all time favorite Sonic game, Shadow The Hedgehog because most of the reviews for this game are just people bitching and complaining about how dumb and or stupid/bad this game is without even giving it a chance and that's just sad.
"The start of the dark age."
Well, I liked the game _slightly though._
I don't know why people hate this game it has so much replay value.
The replay value is mandatory, so i aint replay value anymore
Unless you consider the library, if you don't mind beating Westopolis over 2000 times
My favorite line in the game is
Shadow: this is like taking candy from a baby, which is fine by me
mephiles the dark *....you know what they say...*
Tbh this is my favorite game out of most sonic games
(I've only played sonic the hedgehog 1 - 3 and sonic adventure 1 - 2 and shadow the hedgehog and I consider it the most fun at of all of them)
The reason for this being is that I just love the level design it's so wonderful, The music in the game is wonderful, The powers are wonderful (Chaos blast/chaos control are awesome.) You did miss some flaws tho, for example when using "Chaos control" you can often boost past mission objectives missing them completely it can also be very misleading on the last level, When doing the good mission with sonic if you use "Chaos control" you will go flying to the Evil Missions area making you have to backtrack all the way back, Otherwise I love the game great review!.
26:37 My fastest completion of that boss is 7 seconds. LOL Also great review, I think we share nearly all the same views.
Thanks man!
You know, I've come to realize something. A lot of people's opinions of a game will really depend on what version they played.
I have always hated Sonic Heroes, and found it to be a miserable game. Fairly recently, I found out that the PS2 version was a terrible buggy mess that was to be avoided, guess which version I played?
Same story could be with shadow the hedgehog, as most people won't even realize that other version were different. I played shadow on the gamecube, so I had a great time with it.
I'd guess that most players played it on the PS2, because ps2 is one of the most popular consoles, period. While it may have been as good as the gamecube version on the Xbox, people who bought Xbox weren't usually the sonic fanbase types, and thus fewer people would play it on the Xbox, and gamecube wasn't all too popular a console with it's very limited library and usually inferior ports. Sonic breaks the trend by having shitty ports on PS2 but having great versions on the gamecube. I believe a harvest moon game had this same scenario.
Absolutely fantastic. Saw a lot of the missing potential I've noticed as well. Those chase missions in particular were fantastic, and Lava Shelter is such a joy to play.
+Lugbzurg Yeah I think the game would already have been better if all the missions were as unique and well done as those. Very much appreciate the comment, mate. :)
39:15
"When I booted up my Wii U to start the game..."
Wait what?
He either meant "Wii", or someone is dabbling in Homebrew Channels
It is by far not perfekt and have his own problem, but the foundation works good for 3d sonic standard and there are eniugh positive ideas in it to enjoy it playing /except the arc stage),
So it is by far a better game than the totaly broken Sonic 06, in my opinion even better than adventure dx,
I really like this game and Heroes. I played them both on PS2 and for some reason never noticed the differences. I guess because I didn't know about the other versions.
31:02 As I'm known for saying, "Bollocks to the max!"
Great review. But when you started playing the Lost Impact music, I actually had to stop the video and skip ahead. Gosh that level is my nightmare
YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY, THE MORE THE MERRIER!
I enjoyed this game despite its flaws when I playerd it years ago
also big thanks to the programmer who made it so a player 2 can usually controll your ally like sonic knuckkes rouge omega and even maria i had way more funn than i shouldve using maria to destroy robots and stuff
You're amazing, I'm so glad I stumbled upon you. Your reviews are long and entertaining, you really deserve more subscribers and views. You got yourself a new loyal fan, keep up the superb work.
+Happytreefriendsfan3 Thank you very much! I appreciate what you're saying. :)
Its baffling how they never considered implementing a map for this game, HOW HARD COULD IT HAVE BEEN?!
Great channel you've got here. Keep up the great work!
+xCrackxRabbitx Thanks a lot! :D
Yesssss, been waiting for this review.
+abner yanes Nice! Hope you enjoy/enjoyed! :D
Personal bias for this game aside this was another great detailed review. I'm glad you didn't go in with the mindset of the fan who is resistant to change and has their trigger finger ready the second they see something that doesn't click. I agreed with a lot on why you thought the game was fun and even found myself understanding with some of your criticisms.
For me the whole Last Story being the only cannon ending doesn't bother me too much. I feel making multiple endings for a choose your own adventure game is a lose-lose either way. If the Last story wasn't cannon and the game only had 10 endings there would need to be one cannon ending for the story to continue, and then I'm confident people would only bitch that some endings aren't true (or maybe Shadow destroying Black Doom's army, killing Eggman and blowing up Earth are all in the same cannon, I dunno). That's just the way I see things though.
Anyways once again great review.
+Shadsilvson11 I see where you come from with the progression structure. That's a point I also considered, how you couldn't possibly follow up to the game if it had ten different endings with no definitive one. The fact still stands to me that the entire premise is useless if it was gonna be thrown out the window like this, so why have it there in the firs place? That's the way I see it, at least.
Also, I'm glad you enjoyed the review. Hope the length didn't kill ya, haha.
Retropolis Zone Considering I also like reviews from SomecallmeJohnny and Nickonaquamanga2 it's something I can get used to.
@@RetropolisZone hey I've seen Johnny's Sonic 06 review. The entire thing. I think I can take it
I liked the game. No excuses or reasons. Still like it today. 😁
I really like your reviews! You put a lot of effort into them! Keep at it! :D
+Hiyari I really do put a lot of effort into them, so thank you very much for the comment!
Ech. I borrowed my friend's PS2 copy all the time and I don't remember the framerate being THAT bad. Maybe I just got lucky, or maybe nostalgia blinds me.
+Rikoh ZX A few people have been telling me they don't remember the framerate being THAT bad. But whatever I try, Interlaced or Progressive Scan, I get the awful performance as demonstrated in the video. A quick Google search also leads to articles and topics of people noting the same issues. So I don't know, there might be differences between PAL and NTSC versions due to different refresh rates, but I'm really grasping for straws here.
The game is bad but it's not Sonic 06 bad. I would give it a 6/10 while 06 is a 3/10. Shadow the Hedgehog is at least playable and is not a broken mess. The problem with Shadow is really all the bullshit missions which are not fun but at it's core the game can be fun unlike 06 which the fun comes from exploiting glitches.
For me it's a 4/10 i don't like It and i found It bullshit, i agree that are worst games, but this one make me had a bad taste in my mouth, i tried to play some more but I can't like It, but wish i could
love this game. im just a huge fan of shadow's character overall
I liked this game as a kid. It's gameplay was good, and I appreciate the satiracle edginess. Only problems were having to constantly restart it for different endings, and the gun system being stupid. Did anyone else actually play the multiplayer as a kid though? It's sweet.
It played it with my younger brother. It was fun, but repetitive. I would better like it if the multiplayer would be like in SA2. :/
Honestly I was fine with the guns. Sure it was weird to have them, but they were at least helpful most of the time. The vehicles though? I couldn't fucking stand most of them. They only really served to slow you down. The motorcycle scene in the intro, while ridiculous, was still pretty badass. Driving that motorcycle in the actual game....was not so badass.
Yeah, I think you should keep the story ANALyzation in your reviews. I mean, imagine reviewing Ocarina of Time without touching the story. In all seriousness, I feel you should keep them in, I just feel like not analyzing the story of a game in your reviews wouldn't be right. You should review the game fully, in my opinion. It's like cheating, I guess. And it's really entertaining watching you talk about an awful story in a video game.
By the way, I love your work. I've watched all your videos, and love them all. Keep up the good work!
+Mr. Miguelacho I appreciate the input, dude. I am still kinda torn on whether to analyse stories or not. On one hand I really understand your point of view, and I would agree with that. The other end of it is that I am not very good with plots and narratives like I said, so forcing myself to be good at it feels a bit arbitrary and it's not really time efficient, saying how my videos are already long enough. I have to think this over for a while, but I welcome the thoughts.
And thank you very much! Glad you're liking my content; that's all I as the creator can ask for. :)
+Retropolis Zone Yeah, no problem man! I mean, it's not hard liking your content :)
+Mr. Miguelacho Thank you very much man. I guess we are our own worst critics, as they say.
+Retropolis Zone What's that mean?
+Mr. Miguelacho Basically the viewers do not notice the same mistakes/problems in the content as the creators themselves do.
Great channel you've got here. Keep up the great work!
Nice Review.
I agreed with most things but you did make a mistake. Its not Shadow The Hedgehog, it's Shadow the Edgehog.
Honestly, Shadow isn't too bad. Sonic Team always tries something new and the game itself is tolerable. Sonic 06 is boggy but beatable, More than I can ever say about Sonic Heroes, Not even 20% through on a single team and the game already overstayed it's welcome.
I feel like the way you covered the games story was still very well done. So I would say still keep em In there.😋
+Redberd36 Many people have let their voices be heard about the story matter, and yes, I will be keeping in story bits.
Basically, what I took from Shadow the Hedgehog is; if you play it like a 3D Sonic platformer, it's gonna suck.
This is NOT a 3D platformer like everyone thinks it is.
This is a 3D RUN AND GUN game!
Go into it with that mindset and you will see the whole game differently.
Please keep the story stuff in your vids. I don't even care about the swearing anymore.
BTW, can you do Rayman Origins and/or Rodea the Sky Soldier next?
Just got the CD soundtrack for this game around 4:10p.m. 9/6/2022 and it's the Shadow The Hedgehog Original Soundrax CD and I'm listening to it while watching this! 5:04p.m. 9/6/2022
I really agree with you for the most part, minus the soundtrack (I often listen other OST during gameplay)
But boy... I spent some time playing and liked the concept of guns. I mean, i'm a sucker for some cartoony action (Like Jazz Jackrabbit, Jak 2, Ratchet and Clank, Star Fox, Mega Man X/Zero/ZX)
But the game stills shit
Shadow could have been a really good game. I love how colorful it is. It needed a lot more polish and a better understanding of 3rd person shooting gameplay. The devs should have paid more close attention to the Ratchet and Clank series and also games like Metal Arms: Glitch in the System or even Max Payne.
Wait he booted up his Wii U to play Shadow The Hedgehog?
Did he mean to say his Wii & not the Wii U?
Because if he did indeed mean to say his Wii U then he would have to have a modded Wii U because the Wii U does not play GameCube games right out of the box unlike the Wii & of course GameCube does.
Not that i have anything against modding your Wii U i mean i did so i am no one to judge.
Your Wii U?
so you soft modded yours too?
Yes. :)
Retropolis Zone God Bless. You have the ultimate Nintendo playing machine now
Too late on the warning. I got an A on all levels on the PS2 version and beat Expert mode. I can vouch for some of the issues though, even recounts of falling for passing through a doorway in the flashback levels.
oddly enough the first version of this game i picked up was the PS2 one for about 10$ and this slow down you talk about i never really seen but yeah THEM LOAD TIMES
later i downloaded a gamecube rom and it just DOMINATES so when i want to play one of my gulity plesure games its the gamecube port for me
So what's the next sonic game you plan of reviewing? Would love to see you tackle the boost games
+VCSGaming Maybe Sonic Advance series first, but there are some other games I want to do in the meantime.
Shadow the hedgehog, a game kinda misundetstood
If you confront It to Adventure 2 you really see why It got the bad reputation, but people could have given Shadow some slack and see It for what the game is
Replaying now in 2022 on Dolphin ...
the gun are actually pretty fun , It can destroy enemies and bosses in literal seconds (beat Diablon in 30 s like wow), tho a lock on system would have made actually sense
The Speed is Better than heroes, no cap didn't die as much as there for stupid bottomless post
a big problem Is the story ... but like It Is a platformer so i Guess we can't worry too much?
(also the algoryth is fun)
I own the PS2 version which is the worst version and I still think this game sucks really hard. It hurts to say that when I am a Shadow fan. But I didn’t enjoy the main game due to unfun repetitiveness and bad mission structure. Black Doom and the Commander as new characters at the time was really unlikable. God, I hated those two characters. I only had a little fun with the multiplayer mode. I haven’t went back to this game in years and would honestly rather play Sonic 06 over it. Because I at least still go back to 06 sometimes as a guilty pleasure. Also, the soundtrack in Shadow The Hedgehog is forgettable but there are some good, catchy/memorable tracks. And I could never forget what Westopolis sounds like... While not ever liking this game, I always liked the intro it had. Except for injured, RIP Sonic part at the end. Always looked like Shadow shot him down with multiple bullets. *Like, wtf was up with that?* Trying way too hard to be dark and edgy there Sonic Team. As if the use of guns, gunshot sound effects and swear words just wasn’t enough.
Finally a person who doesn't hate the game and a review which isn't all negative! :) Personally I found this game very enjoyable back in 2006, in fact this is one of my favourite games (or should I say it was - my gaming tastes have changed drastically since then - JRPGs and VNs are games I enjoy the most nowadays). I agree with you practically on all aspects - except for 1 thing - you said all the missions are pretty simple to complete and navigate (as in finding your targets). Well, there's one mission that I absolutely hate - kinda strange you didn't mention it - don't remember the name of the stage - it's the mission where you have to find 30-something bombs in the Eggman's cyberspace - that one was the most frustrating to get the A rank on. Yes, I had unlocked the expert mode back then - it was a great challenge - especially the Cosmc Fall and one of the ARK's memories' stage . Another thing I'd like to mention is that this was the game that helped me a great deal in learning English - back then I had played the game in English VA and with Russian subtitles. Also there was the option to change the VA to Japanese which is also great. Speaking of VA - there was one particular thing that I really liked - hidden diologues. For eg do you know that in the Final Haunt when you find’ Doom’s Eye, go to a next checkpoint, let Shadow die, teleport to the first checkpoint, select the Dark mission you can listen to some of the phrases that usually one never hears.It was cool to find something like this. Overall - a great game in my book
I personally didn't like this game for a long time mainly due to Shadow's controls, but I decided to give it another fair chance a few months ago and I had a lot of fun with it. I was bored during the last few days of school, and I brought my laptop and started playing it through Dolphin (a Gamecube emulator). I ended up adjusting to the controls and started genuinely enjoying it. A little while later, one of my classmates came up to me and said he remembered playing this game when he was a kid, and asked if we could play together. I agreed, handed him a controller, and we had a blast playing the Versus mode. Honestly, the multiplayer is flawed as all hell, but that didn't stop us from having a great time regardless.
I enjoyed the game back then and still do. Then again, I played the Gamecube version and most of the flaws you mentioned I experienced them myself.
Tone, guns and damn (oh my god that word is so scary) didn't bother me since I wasn't hung up on it being Shadow game in the Sonic Universe because I'm wasn't playing as Sonic.
Oh and fuck that stage where you had to deal with the bombs, I hated that mission.
I didn't know Expert Mode existed since I was never good enough to A rank everything.
That's the thing about Sonic music, I find it largely forgettable. People go on about how cool the music is in these games but no matter how many times I may have played the games, I just don't enjoy the music and don't retain it within memory.
Yo! RZ, your vids are getting better and better with each subsequent one. keep it up! I'd sub twice if I weren't already.
+Stevie D I couldn't tell you how great it is to receive comments and support like this! Thank you very much!
+Retropolis Zone Of course man. Also looking forward to whenever you stream again (Hopefully I don't have work)
+Stevie D Ehm, I am not sure myself. Maybe this Saturday again, same time as before. (6pm GMT/1pm EST). Still, glad to read you enjoyed the stream with my shitty-ass commentary. Haha.
Just the same as your words are the same as mine on that review. I'm happy I have someone agreed that this game is not as bad as its claimed for some reason. Heck I still actually debate that this isn't the game that didn't started the dark ages in terms ya know. owo
First of all I've never had a problem with aliens being part of sonic I mean this is sega/sonic team we're talking about here they love their wacky shit. And after seeing the Japanese dub with English sub of this game, i have a liiiitle bit more respect for it since it didn't have an ounce of juvenile swear words trying to be 'mature', we can thank America for that nonsense. Gun play works fine but i hate how you can't recover jump after being hit. The enemies are an absolute joke and you'll get hit by accidentally running into them due to slippery controls or the fact there's just too damn many of them and you'll mostly die from bottomless pits since the ring system is now hand holding. Or you'll turn the game off due to bordom since these missions take so damn long. I did like the role playing where i could be a hero or villain, i love those types of games. for all the advertising that the motorcycle got its hilariously in only 1 level and it aint even good, it's used to be a damage sponge. the chaos powers themselves, while useless for most missions, giving you invincibility and infinite ammo gives you a healthy amount of speed and destruction equally. Otherwise you'd find yourself going so fast you wouldn't have time to react to an incoming obstacle course or enemy. music's good (vocals i mean) and I do wish there was an alt last story mode for the evil shadow it hyped up.
I feel the complete same. Shadow is alot of fun but does have alot of crappy levels and missions but it didn't really take away from my experience. While it isn't the best Sonic game or as good as it should of have been it was still okay. I would love to see a new Shadow game fixing the gameplay problems and whatnot, since Shadow is my favorite character. The story can be darker than the usual Sonic game but I don't think he should be saying damn or whatever and have the guns fit more with Shadow and the darker tone shouldn't be so forced and cringe-worthy. I loved this review and how you didn't let others sway your opinion!
I liked this game a lot. While I agree that there should have been more chase missions, you didnt bring up the fact that if you die on any of them, you get reset to the last checkpoint you touched, but the target vehicle DOESNT. So, if you happen to be near the end of the stage when that happens, you pretty much failed the mission. Also Im surprised you didnt bring up the Mad Matrix Dark mission where you have to destroy all the bombs on the circuit. Many people cite that one as one of the worst, if not THE worst mission in the game.
This game is easily one of my favorites and I was raised on Sonic as one of the main franchises.
Can you make vids on VECTORMAN AND VECTORMAN TO FOR SEGA GENESIS. Then one for power stone on dreamcast
I'm severely disappointed that you didn't remark on the multiplayer aspect of the game. It's the first and to my knowledge, only co-op 3D sonic (or sonic-esque) game!
Player 2 could actually control the partner in each stage. unfortunately, certain characters could not be controlled, like the evil guy, and I think charmy, and maria, while controllable, was pretty worthless.
I wish more 3D sonics had a co-op mechanic, and I wish that every mission in shadow the hedgehog had worthwhile playable characters.
The fact that you have less bugs than Heroes is because they use the exact same engine, but they obviously had more time to correct the bugs that were present in Heroes
I totally agree with most of your opinion! I was never bothered by the game and shift in tone and mature concepts, but I did find the swearing unnecessary. The morality system was interested, but wasn't executed correctly, and I rather prefer the Expert mode. I really enjoyed most of the music, and thought the level design was the most creative out of many Sonic game.
I found the gameplay completely underrated and was expecting less from it. I did, however, thought the story was uninteresting, and found 10 endings ridiculous.
In my opinion, I believe this game is a Sonic game and a spin-off, just not a main Sonic game, or as I would call it a Sonic spin-off. I can understand why it would be argued otherwise, especially with some of the Sonic cast added in it, and wished they weren't. It's a spin-off because it stars Shadow. That's what a spin-off is by definition. It doesn't matter if it's canon. That's what a sidequel is, which basically means spin-off sequel.
I prefer this game over Heroes, I hated Cosmic Fall, and wished we got a sequel.
I had no idea you were Dutch! I thought your accent was one from New York for some weird reason!! 😂😂
This really makes me wanna try this game out. I'm glad as hell I didn't get rid of my Wii last week, somebody wanted it and I said "sure I don't play it" but I backed out at the last minute, by asking how much he was willing to pay for it. He opted out, but he woulda had to fork over like 200 buck to bust thru the imaginary wall I'd set up.
But also while I was typing this I heard the host say "I booted up my Wii U"...to play this game I assume, can you do that? Can you play GameCube games on the Wii U? I know it has a Wii in it basically, but I thought that functionality was completely nix'd with the loss of the controller ports??
WHAT! YOU GOT ALL A RANKS! I played this game a ton as a kid but there was no way I had the patents to do that. Some of those missions can take 15 minutes.
It ain't a bad game, but DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!
This game makes me sad. I did play it to completion, and I do have to say it's perfectly playable, but the story completely kills it for me. They flat-out butchered Shadow as a character and for a gun game Fang might have been a better choice (but who remembers him anyway).
I like your reviews, but I think that you should at least mention the story of the games you review in the future. I too am a gameplay person and I don't care much for story in most games but mentioning it makes a more complete review, it gives more context.
+portagenial Thanks for the compliment and also the feedback. I'm keeping in stories, just not all-out summaries. They feel like a massive waste of time and effort to me.
Retropolis Zone Yeah, for me they just hinder the game, that's why I dislike when for example, in Ocarina of Time you have to go back and forth in the map just becauseof story reasons, that's what I would consider in a review, just saying.
Imo, it's a terrible game. This dead horse has been beaten almost as much as Sonic '06, but here's the real reason I still think it's trash: I went in expecting a Sonic-like experience, and I didn't get one, so I didn't have any fun and walked away somewhere between being unimpressed with the game and wondering why I just wasted the last few hours of my life on it. It didn't feel like a Sonic game, even though it obviously is one, despite the developers' efforts to make it otherwise, and ultimately because of its inability to meet the fun standards that previous 3D Sonic games had set, it fell flat.
31:42 I don't know why they didn't do that. If it was to pad the game well then. It take 2-3 hour and 15 to do all levels and the 7 bosses. If some loser decided to make a cut where all stages are visted (and the transition aren't awful) then that video would probably be 41:20.
So that's a 3-4 hour experience.
I know this is a relatively older video but you should checkout BlueComet1991’s review of the game too. I saw this in my recommendations.
I played the Xbox version after playing Heroes on GC and thought that version performed very well as my first not gc "Sonic" game.
Henlo, I played this game as a kid and recently, and I think the exact same as you, it has good stuff and bad stuff but everyone bashes it before giving it a try for the ridiculous premise and big creators riding the hate waves, this is much more informative than ''Edgy hog bad'' , thanks!
I don't remember having as much bugs with the ps2 version... Maybe it's just luck or maybe there's a real difference
Its a bit late to comment this video, but I always seen this game on my childhood and just thought it was cool, and I have played the game twice in the past couple of years. I was actually surprised it was so fun that I completed it 100%. The level design is huge and allow the player to master the phisics (the jump, homing attack and spindash allow to keep the gameplay fast-paced), because the game has very few glithces compared to previous installments. Even the labyrinthine levels are entertaining for themselves if memorized properly, and easily redeemable with a map. At first I thought the bosses were ok, but they all can be taken down more effectively making stategies with the Chaos pawers and the guns that make the progression in levels fluid, its entertaining and constantly rewarding. At the time I got to the expert mode, I realised that the more you play the levels, the easier and funnier it is to use their tricks to beat them. As a matter of fact, the game is really good if you dont just monotonously beat the ten routes for the endings, but take advantage of everything it has to offer.
This game is deserving of a remade/remastered version of some kind. Nothing needs to be removed, just add quality of life changes to for missions (enemies respawning when using the teleporters and the radar), predetermined paths if players don't care about choices they just want to get to the final story, and an easier way of getting expert mode. Aside from that fixing issues where you can go flying due to multiple factors or fall/get knocked down for no apparent reason would be enough.
My Friend Seems Excited That You Like This Game xD
It's been like a week since I found your channel and I've been spending most of my days watching your reviews (I've watched them all, give me more please), and MY GOD YOU REALLY GOOD AT IT! When I first found your channel it was Mega Man X6 review, I just though "Meh, I bet it's just another one complaining about everything in the game" and then I did watched the entire video for curiosity and holy moly I was really surprised! Even putting aside your personal feelings toward the game as much as you could so you could give the watchers both pros and cons about the game were really awesome! I do agree with your review and opinions with Shadow The Hedgehog aswell, I do think people exaggerates about this game, but that's not what this comment is about. Well, What I wanted to say is, your content is really well made and I see your effort to make really good reviews! Thanks for being such contribution to the youtube with your content and keep the good work!
Thanks for the attention!
Hey man, thanks for the great comment! It's always great to get positive feedback. :)
I've actually been taking a break from UA-cam the past month or so, but reading stuff like this has really motivated me to get back to making videos.