Lost Impact is a stage in the game Shadow the Hedgehog. It is set aboard the Space Colony ARK and can be reached by completing the Hero mission of Mad Matrix or the Hero mission of Death Ruins. The stage is set in Shadow's memories as an extended flashback after Artificial Chaos experiments have begun to attack the colony. Maria Robotnik has begged Shadow to help, leaving Shadow with two options to choose from.
Lost Impact is one of the five fifth stages.
Story
After helping Espio the Chameleon hack Dr. Eggman's Mad Matrix, or helping Rouge the Bat clear the Black Arms out of Death Ruins, Shadow comes out of a Chaos Control in Iron Jungle and spots Sonic standing on the wing of Tails' new spacecraft. Sonic informs Shadow that the Black Arms are on their way to the ARK, and the black hedgehog agrees to follow them. However, during the spaceflight, Shadow finds a capsule containing the ship's power source: the cyan Chaos Emerald. Making a comment that it's "like taking candy from a baby, which is fine by me", Shadow decides that gathering the Emeralds for himself is the most pressing priority, and breaks the capsule.
The Emerald's energies, combined with the ship's alarm's siren, trigger a memory from Shadow's past, which he slides into. Maria comes to Shadow (who was in the research lab at the time) and tells him that "something's gone terribly wrong with Grandfather's experiments". Maria recruits Shadow to stop the "monsters", which are the rampaging Artificial Chaos. Shadow can agree and hunt down the gelatinous blobs with the GUN forces, or head for the Professor himself in order to ensure his safety.
While never made entirely clear, it seems that this incident is entirely distinct (and preceding) from the eventual G.U.N. attack on Project Shadow depicted in The Doom. Lost Impact has the G.U.N. soldiers fighting with Gerald's staff to suppress the Artificial Chaos. If this is the case, Lost Impact may be the second life-threatening research malfunction on the ARK, the first being Emerl the Gizoid's rampage recounted in Prof. Gerald's Journal (Sonic Battle).
Behind the secret door is an armored car, which doesn't have much use in this stage.
Missions
Dark
No Dark mission is present in the stage.
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Normal
"Get to Gerald's Laboratory!"
- Objective: Reach the Goal Ring.
- Tips: There are no shortcuts available, so you will require raw speed. The Goal Ring is past the seventh checkpoint.
You can speed up the GUN lifts by pressing the action button.
Ranking:
| A | ≥ 34,000 points |
| B | 31,000 points |
| C | 25,000 points |
| D | 15,000 points |
| E | < 15,000 points |
Leads to: Cosmic Fall
Boss : Egg Dealer
Hero
"Defeat the Artificial Chaos!"
- Guide: Maria Robotnik
- Objective: Destroy the 35 Artificial Chaos.
- Tips: The GUN soldiers will not attack you, so harming them will only lower your score.
At each checkpoint, you should have these many Artificial Chaos destroyed:
- Checkpoint 1: 01/35
- Checkpoint 2: 08/35
- Checkpoint 3: 12/35
- Checkpoint 4: 21/35
- Checkpoint 5: 25/35
- Checkpoint 6: 26/35
- Checkpoint 7: 27/35
- Checkpoint 8: 33/35
Ranking:
| A | ≥ 16,000 points |
| B | 13,000 points |
| C | 10,000 points |
| D | 5,000 points |
| E | 5,000 points |
Leads to: Final Haunt
Trivia
- Like The Doom, this level is a flashback, though possibly unlike The Doom, it might be set long before the raid on the ARK.
- This is the only level where a dark character (Black Doom) is not present.
- As such, this is the only level without a Dark mission.
- Early in the stage, Maria makes four interesting comments about the Artificial Chaos:
- 'You used to have so much fun here, remember, Shadow?'
- 'Those are the experiments, based on the god of an ancient culture.'
- 'The experiments..... their eyes look so.... sad.'
- 'Many G.U.N. soldiers have been killed by the monsters. Could they have been created as a weapon?'
- In the room with the sixth checkpoint, Maria makes a comment about the experiments looking cute when they break apart.
- In the opening cutscene where Shadow appears in Iron Jungle, Sonic says 'We're on our way to the ARK, so I guess that means we're going too!'. This was the result of a mistranslation from the Japanese script to the English. The line should read 'They're (the Black Arms) on their way to the ARK, so I guess that means we're going too!'