Shadow The Hedgehog

Shadow The Hedgehog is a 3D action-platformer and action-adventure game about Shadow the Hedgehog, a darker version of Sonic. The player chooses who to be - a villain who kills for his own pleasure and serves Dr. Robotnik, or a do-gooder who valiantly helps people stop an alien invasion.

Prehistory

Shadow Hedgehog has no memory of the past. Snippets of memories flicker in his mind, but it's impossible to piece them together into a logical picture.

The Black Arms (evil aliens) wanted to enslave the earth and characters popular from previous games stepped up to defend humanity:

• Tales
• Sonic
• Bat Rouge
• Knuckles
• Amy Rose

The main character will choose a path:

Dr. Robotnik explains that he is the father and creator of Hedgehog Shadow. So let the hero be grateful and collect the Emeralds of Chaos for the master while the defenders are busy repelling the invasion Shadow the Hedgehog realizes he's a do-gooder who realizes he can't bow down to the villain and must urgently chop up the warships, helping Sonic

Gameplay

Most of the missions along the "hero" and "villain" lines are the same and boring. The developers tried to force drama into the quests, but they failed:

• As a villain, collect Chaos Emeralds and kill people
• As a champion of goodness, collect secret disks and shoot robots in the head

There's virtually no difference - there's no reason to consciously choose one side.

The gameplay looks like this:

• Moving in the breeze on rollerskates
• Jumping on platforms above the abyss
• Shooting self-directed weapons (laser rifles, flares, pistols)
• Close combat with road signs, sticks and rocks
• Fighting fires or setting fires
• Switching to other heroes

The developers intended Shadow to be dark and serious, but the character is almost a parody of himself: he swears for no reason and makes meaningless "cool" jokes. The remarks look like they were written by a twelve-year-old boy who wants to seem important and skip school.