Shadow the Hedgehog (game)


 * For this game's titular character, see Shadow the Hedgehog.

Shadow The Hedgehog is a video game for the Gamecube, PS2, and XBox that centers around the story of Shadow trying to recover his memory, a goal he has been pursuing since he first appeared in Sonic Adventure 2. At the beginning of Sonic Adventure 2, his memory was incomplete, and after almost dying at the end of the game, he lost it completely. He continued to seek knowledge of his past in Sonic Heroes. In Shadow the Hedgehog a three-way war rages between the Black Arms, GUN, and Eggman, in which Shadow sometimes takes part while struggling to gather all 7 Chaos Emeralds, which he believes hold the key to his past. He finally regains his memory during his confrontation with Black Doom in the "Last Story" of the game. Shadow the Hedgehog was developed in the United States.

Story
The story begins with Shadow standing on a hill outside the city of Westopolis, thinking about Maria Robotnik, although he's not sure who he's having a flashback of (this happens when he says after the flashback, "And who's this Maria?"). After a flashback to the day she was killed, a gaping hole opens in the sky over Westopolis, and he is contacted by Black Doom, the leader of the Black Arms, who told Shadow to bring him the Chaos Emeralds "as promised." Torn between his desire to seek out his past, and to remain loyal to his promise to Maria, the player in the game decides the path Shadow takes by choosing which mission to complete in each stage. All of the story paths, however, are warped versions of the truth, but the true story of Shadow's past is told in the Last Story, which can only be unlocked by reaching all 10 endings of story mode.

Characters
For the Hero and Dark missions, Shadow teams up with various allies, including Amy Rose, Charmy, Espio, Knuckles, Maria, Rouge, Sonic, Tails, Vector, Doom's Eye, E-123 Omega, and Eggman, who provide combat support and guidance. Anyone can grab a controller, connect to socket 2, and play a character as co-op (PS2 and Gamecube versions). This can't be done with Eggman, Doom's Eye, or Charmy, because they fly and do not attack.

Enemies
The GUN enemies include human troops and robotic troops as well as traditional GUN Beatles and walkers. Defeating them earns Dark points.

The Black Arms include gun and sword wielding humanoid aliens, flying creatures, and missile-launching worms. Defeating them earns Hero points.

The Eggman Empire enemies are Eggman's typical robots, including the Egg Pawns and bomb-throwing jugglers, as well as new Shadow Androids. Defeating them earns either Dark or Hero points, depending on who the opposing side is.

Abilities
Shadow's abilities in Shadow the Hedghog are similar to those from Sonic Adventure 2. He can jump and jump dash/homing attack, as well as spin dash, light dash, and slide to attack while running, but he also has the ability to use weapons (including guns, swords, rocket launchers, etc.) and drive vehicles that he finds or commandeers. He too keeps his ability to wall run from Sonic Heroes.

Weapons
Shadow can use a variety of weapons found throughout each stage. Ranged from pistol, machine gun to close combat weapons, Gatling guns, bazookas, and even laser rifles. Weapons are commonly found in boxes and dropped from enemies. When a weapon is first picked up, Shadow receives some initial of ammunition for that weapon; more ammunition can be gathered by picking up more copies of the weapon. Only one weapon can be held at a time, and when Shadow runs out of ammunition for his weapon, it dissapears. Even weapons such as swords have ammunition points, which may represent their durability. Six special weapons can be unlocked in Story mode. The first five are each unlocked by completing either the Hero or Dark mission of one of the five Stages (and their ammo can be increased by completing both the Hero and Dark missions.) The last special weapon, the "Shadow Rifle" is unlocked upon completion of the Last Story. These special weapons are contained within black boxes with Shadow's head on it, and when a black box is opened, it drops all unlocked special weapons.

Chaos Powers
Shadow can use two chaos powers, Chaos Control and Chaos Blast. Destroying Black Arms, healing wounded or dead GUN troops and civilians, and putting out fires (done by spin dashing over them), gives Hero points and fills up Shadow's Hero gauge. Destroying GUN troops, things in the environment (such as signs and lights), and healing Black Arms gives Dark points and fills up Shadow's Dark gauge. When Shadow's Hero gauge is full, it begins to drain, during which time Shadow becomes invincible, gets unlimited ammunition, and can activate "Chaos Control" which fast forwards through the stage (or slows down time in boss battles) until the Hero gauge is empty. When Shadow's Dark gauge is full, Shadow gets the exact same benefits as with the Hero Gauge while it drains, but instead of using Chaos Control, he can use Chaos Blast, which uses up some of the Dark gauge to create a huge blast of chaos energy surrounding Shadow, destroying everything nearby. Chaos Blast can be used up to three times before the Dark gauge is drained. There is also a third chaos power that only be used by Super Shadow called Chaos Spear (only in Last Story is Super Shadow playable).

Interestingly, while both sides are often seen exchanging shots with one-another, they will rarely ever hit each other. The only time that enemies may hit other enemies is if they are wielding explosives and Shadow is standing right next to them, (though it will be Shadow that they are aiming at). This is because the developers wanted all the enemy deaths to be a result of the player's actions, and so the player cannot simply wait out a fire fight until enemies are weakened, but must instead do the work themselves. This, however, is not the case when you are paired with an ally (excluding Charmy, Black Doom, and Eggman), for they will use homing attacks to kill enemies (however, since all the attacking allies you are paired up with are the "good guys", no ally will ever attack GUN soldiers). E-123 Omega, however, may not attack GUN soldiers due to the fact that he states that he only sees Eggman robots as worth the time to destroy. This is also due to the game's terrible A.I., which walks on an almost predetermined path, only changing if Shadow is nearby, in which the enemies will attempt to lock onto him. This is probably because the Sonic series enemies aren't supposed to be "smart," other-wise it may take away from the game's "roller-coaster-like" feel by making the game feel more combat oriented (even though Shadow The Hedgehog is still more combat based than most Sonic games) than speed oriented.

Story Mode
The story mode of Shadow the Hedgehog is broken into stages, with cut-scenes in-between. The first stage of a game of story mode is always Westopolis. After that, however, the next stage played is determined by which "mission" was completed in the previous stage. For example, if the "Dark" mission is completed in Westopolis, the next stage will be Digital Circuit, whereas if the "Hero" mission is completed, the next stage will be Lethal Highway and if the "Normal" mission is completed, the next stage will be Glyphic Canyon. Each stage (except for Last Story, which has only The Last Way), has 2 or 3 missions, which can be Dark, Normal, or Hero. There is a door in each stage, which requires 5 keys to unlock. There are bonuses such as weapons and shortcuts behind the door.

Levels
Stage 01: Stage 02: Stage 03: Stage 04: Stage 05: Stage 06: Final Bosses: Last Story:
 * Westopolis (Normal)
 * Digital Circuit (Dark)
 * Glyphic Canyon (Normal)
 * Lethal Highway (Hero)
 * Cryptic Castle (Dark)
 * Prison Island (Normal)
 * Circus Park (Hero)
 * Central City (Pure Dark)
 * The Doom (Semi-Dark)
 * Sky Troops (Normal)
 * Mad Matrix (Semi-Hero)
 * Death Ruins (Pure Hero)
 * The ARK (Pure Dark)
 * Air Fleet (Semi-Dark)
 * Iron Jungle (Normal)
 * Space Gadget (Semi-Hero)
 * Lost Impact (Pure Hero)
 * GUN Fortress (Pure Dark)
 * Black Comet (Semi-Dark)
 * Lava Shelter (Normal)
 * Cosmic Fall (Semi-Hero)
 * Final Haunt (Pure Hero)
 * Egg Dealer (Normal)
 * Sonic & Diablon (Dark)
 * Black Doom (Hero)
 * Last Stage: The Last Way
 * Last Boss: Devil Doom

Ranking
Shadow the Hedgehog uses the traditional A through E ranking also featured in Sonic Adventure 2/Sonic Heroes, etc. A certain minimum total score is required to earn each ranking, with A being the most points and E the ranking earned when less than the required number of points for a D are earned. The number of points required for each ranking varies between stages and between missions within each stage. There are also three types of points earned during the level, and the way the total score is calculated depends on which mission is completed. Normal points are earned by collecting rings and items. Dark points are earned by destroying GUN troops (and sometimes Eggman's robots) and things in the environment (such as signs and lights.) Hero points are earned by destroying Black Arms (and sometimes Eggman's robots), healing wounded or dead GUN troops and civilians, and putting out fires. Your total score for Normal missions equals your Normal score plus your Time Bonus (Hero and Dark scores are ignored.) Your total score for Dark missions equals your Normal score plus your Dark score plus your Time Bonus minus your Hero score, and your total score for Hero missions equals your Normal score plus your Hero score plus your Time Bonus minus your Dark score. By earning an A rank for all stages, "Expert Mode" - a challenging version of all stages is unlocked, similar to "Super Hard Mode" in Sonic Heroes.

Final Levels
Final levels do not feature neutral missions.

Hero: Rouge the Bat. Find the Chaos Emerald. Dark: Doom's Eye. Destroy GUN's computer.
 * GUN Fortress-

Hero: Knuckles the Echidna. Find the center of the comet. Dark: Doom's Eye. Destroy GUN's troops.
 * Black Comet

Hero: E-123 Omega. Find Dr. Eggman. Dark: Doctor Eggman. Activate the base's lava defences.
 * Lava Shelter

Hero: Vector the Crocodile. Find the Computer Room. Dark: Doom's Eye. Find the Chaos Emerald
 * Cosmic Falls

Hero: Sonic the Hedgehog. Find Black Doom. Dark: Doom's Eye. Activate the Comet's defenses
 * Final Haunt

Cast
This is the first game in the series to feature the 4Kids voice actors.

Music
The vocal tracks were released on an album in February 2006, entitled Lost and Found: Shadow the Hedgehog Vocal Trax. They are:
 * "I Am... All of Me" by Crush 40 (Intro song, Main theme, and Final Boss theme)
 * "Almost Dead" by POWERMAN 5000 (Dark and Pure Dark ending theme)
 * "Waking Up" by Julien-K (Neutral ending theme)
 * "E.G.G.M.A.N. Doc. Robeatnix Mix" by Remix Factory (Eggman's theme)
 * "Chosen One" by A2 (Hero ending theme)
 * "All Hail Shadow" by Magna-Fi (Pure Hero ending theme. Following games often use this as Shadow's theme as opposed to the others)
 * "Never Turn Back" by Crush 40 (Last Story ending theme)

4Kids Controversy

 * When Deem Bristow died, Sega decided to keep the 4Kids voice actors in the Sonic The Hedgehog games, one of the first of the new voice casts games being Shadow the Hedgehog. This move has not been well received by many Sonic fans, although some, particularly fans of Sonic X, do prefer the new voice actors; others have grown fond of the new voices in recent years, despite being against it in the beginning.

Trivia

 * In Sonic Adventure 2, a large chunk of the moon gets blasted by the Eclipse Cannon. Scenes of the moon in all subsequent games (including this one) show it is whole and complete.
 * The GUN soldiers mention that, "Yuji Naka is alright!".
 * There are a few Sonic Adventure 2 tunes reused in the game. Event - Strategy, Blue Falcon (uses a remixed techno version of GUN Mobile boss), Heavy Dog (GUN Mobile with different drums), and 2P vs Battle (remixed version of Radical Highway). Event - Super Shadow has a small clip of "Live and Learn", the main theme from Sonic Adventure 2.
 * This game has made the character Vector the Crocodile popular for the line "Find the computer room!" in the Cosmic Fall stage.
 * Big the Cat is the only playable character from Sonic Heroes to not return in this game.
 * This is the first Sonic game to ever get a E10+ rating from ESRB and a +12 from PEGI. It is also the most violent and mature Sonic game made.
 * Orginally, the song 'Who I Am' by Magna-Fi was chosen to be the opening theme. However, it was replaced by 'I Am...All Of Me' by Crush 40. Thus, Magna-Fi recorded another track, 'All Hail Shadow'.
 * The song 'All Hail Shadow' by Magna-Fi became Shadow's theme song, until Crush 40 made a remix for the song.
 * In one of the final boss fights, after fighting Sonic & Diablon, Shadow will say "Game Over, Sonic." which is possibly a reference to Sonic Adventure 2 from the Hero Story, in which Sonic says "Game Over, Shadow".

Plot Hole
At the beginning of the opening, Shadow can be seen standing in front of the moon. Doctor Eggman destroyed nearly half the moon in Sonic Adventure 2. Although it could be possible that it's the side that was left intact, or even the Space Colony ARK judging by how it's rear looks like the moon's surface. The latter seems unlikely, seeing as the ARK's backsurface seems to be mostly brown in color. It is also possible that Sonic's world has more than one moon. A cutscene in Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity seems to further hint at this.