Sega's on the right track...riding a broken-down train.

There is something in the human soul that hates to see a legend die. You know it’s just wrong to see a legend crumble to a mere skeleton of their former glory. So it is with Sega, and more importantly, their flagship series, Sonic the Hedgehog. The disasters of the Sega Saturn and Sega Dreamcast kicked the company off the perch of one-upping Nintendo to making not-so-great games for the three console systems. But hey, Sonic got them off the ground, so I guess they and Sonic Team thought his series could revive them. And so, here is Shadow the Hedgehog.

Story

This is where the game makes a strong showing. Basically, it all starts with our hero Shadow, who is basically Sonic’s opposite: moody and violent, as opposed to Sonic’s Disney-esque heroic attitude. Shadow’s having the ultimate identity crisis here: he can hardly remember his past. All he remembers is a girl named Maria that he might have loved, and that she was killed.

All of a sudden, a giant red cloud forms over the city of Metropolis, and aliens called the Black Arms begin falling from it. The leader, named Black Doom (ooh, scared now), comes to Shadow and tells him to gather the seven Chaos Emeralds and give them to him. Shadow wants to know how this guy knows him, but a spark goes off in his brain: getting the Emeralds will allow him to learn his past. So he races off on a quest to find them…or destroy these alien freaks…or destroy the human pests…and that’s where you come in. The branching storyline’s been done, but Shadow the Hedgehog (StH from now on) takes it to the extreme. Not counting boss fights, you’ll run through six missions, and there’s about 25 or more to choose from. They’re not long, but that gives you more incentive to beat the game again to learn the other storylines.

A few nice twists: first, once you start a storyline, you can change it. There are three mission styles that will determine your story: Hero, Normal, and Dark. If you go through one mission as a Hero, there’s nothing stopping you from being Dark the next mission, and vice versa. Heck, you can change from evil to good in the same level. This is a sweet setup, but I still don’t think a branching storyline is an excuse for just six levels. Give me 16 levels in the same format, and I’m happy. But this is good enough.

Gameplay

I’ve thought for a while that Sonic would be a good fighter, with those giant fists and feet coupled with his ridiculous speed. StH answers that thought, and now, you don’t just kill guys with jumps and Spin Dashes (although the latter still works). First, Shadow can punch and kick. But the real reason for a button devoted to attacking is the added feature of guns and swords/stop signs/branches/etc. Yes, we have a pseudo-shooter on our hands. Hiding in crates, or next to foes you’ve destroyed, there’s usually a weapon. And this adds a whole new twist to the game. Ranged attacks were something the series has always lacked. And here they are, infamous as critics have made them (but I’ll get to that in Mechanics).

What slipped through the radar was the Homing Attack, one of Sonic Team’s smartest moves. Now, with just a double-tap of X, you can bounce on your enemies to your heart’s content (or their death, whichever comes first). Replacing the old “jump on their heads” system, the Homing Attack just lets you pound guys to oblivion. Where this shines is when enemies are clustered. This makes a pinball-esque experience that’s hard to beat, since you can bounce from foe to foe. It also adds a long-jump element of sorts, so my bad platforming skills can be ignored. However, the system isn’t too good near a chasm (and these levels are full of them). Sometimes, your attack will go awry, and you’ll fall to your death for trying to kill some alien freak, or you’ll kill the wrong guy.

Playing up the whole “hero vs. anti-hero” trick, there’s also a Hero Gauge and Dark Gauge in the game. Doing heroic deeds, like exterminating aliens, will fill up the Hero Gauge, and when it’s full, you can cover a huge chunk of the level in a few seconds with Chaos Control, although you’ll pass some objectives in certain cases. Filling up the Dark Gauge, usually by killing GUN (yes, it’s back) soldiers (read: good guys), will allow you to pull off Chaos Blast, which destroys everything living in sight, good or bad. There are also other objectives (get to point X ASAP, activate however many objects, whatever), and I like how they’re spread out; sometimes you have to pass the end of one type of mission to find the end of the other.

Also available are your Dark, Hero, and Normal scores. Depending what type of mission you chose, your score is determined by how high you scored in that category versus how high you scored in its opposite. Example: if you got 10,000 Hero points, 1000 Dark points, and 5000 Normal points (how many Rings you got, how long it took you to win) in a Hero mission, you’ll get 14,000 points (Hero minus Dark plus Normal). If you did a Normal mission, you’ll just get your Normal score, nothing else counts.

As far as other modes…well, it’s limited. There’s a Select Mode, which gives you the option to play beaten levels and better your score. There’s a really lame multiplayer mode, which is pretty much “first guy to get the gun and shoot the other one wins”. Honestly, what I want in a Sonic multiplayer game is either a race or a demolition derby, not a one-shot deathmatch in a tiny level. Bad move, Sonic Team.

Graphics

After spending years on a Genesis when most people had an N64 and spending years on an N64 when most people had a PS2, I think my standards are finally close to most other critics’. For a while, if a game had bright colors and didn’t clip much, I was fine. Now, StH has plenty of color and no noticeable clipping. However, for some reason, the in-game graphics aren’t amazing. They’re not terrible, but it seems like sharpness is lacking a bit. Although one level, “Mad Matrix”, has flashy colors that remind me of Amplitude. Anything that reminds me of Amplitude is on the right track.

The opening cutscene, though, is on a whole 'nother level. It is fantastic; it literally looks like a movie, and a fairly realistic one. However, the other cutscenes are just the in-game engine, no improvements. And I HATE how the game has to load from one part of a cutscene to another. That’s just ridiculous, especially when the one part isn’t even a minute long. Anyway…as far as menus, they’re very simple, so there weren’t any noticeable flaws. The game’s alright in this department.

Sound

Lately, all things Sonic-related have encountered the huge problem of voice acting. There’s always a character or two with a pitiful voice. Tails is present in this game, but the slot of “worse voice in the series” has been taken by Charmy. Oh. My. Gosh. AWFUL VOICE. Grating, raspy, and just plain cheesy. Vector, some crocodile possibly from the old game Knuckles Chaotix, doesn’t have a great one either. But Charmy is almost beaten by Sonic. Yes, Sega’s flagship character now has the voice of a five-year-old with Power Rangers dialogue. And then he curses, which is extremely weird from his voice. That brings me to this point: this game has a total obsession with the d-word. It’s the only profanity, but Shadow says it half the time he gets hit, and every time he falls to his death. I guess Sega just wanted a macho factor, but I can’t believe this got an E10. This has T written all over it.

But it’s not all bad: Shadow’s voice is awesome; very dark and sinister. Espio, the purple long-nosed monkey thing, who I think is new to the series, has a cool voice too: it’s almost sage-like, but it works. And Black Doom reminds me of the Protoss from Starcraft, and that’s not a bad thing. The music is also ok: it fits the mood, whether it be raw adrenaline (mostly) or emotion (rarely). Nothing spectacular, though.

Mechanics
This is the main reason the game has gotten bashed by reviewers everywhere. Recent Sonic games have had trouble with mechanics, and this game has them too. The biggest flaw is the camera.

A videogame camera is supposed to be like pizza: it’s supposed to be good, and you only notice anything when it’s bad. Continuing with this metaphor, StH’s camera is like a slice you pulled out of the garbage and let a school cafeteria cook. The system sounds great in theory: standard fully rotating view, which works average, and locks in a certain position when it seems necessary. The problem is when the game deems locking necessary. The first few levels are no problem with this, but one of the levels has you jumping between falling sections of a space station. Naturally, if you’re in space and you mess up a jump, you fall to your death. StH’s camera likes to lock in positions that make it impossible to see the platform ahead of you. INSANELY ANNOYING.

Other than that, there’s the aforementioned Homing Attack glitch, not-so-great driving controls, and of course, the lack of a targeting system. Basically, when you get a gun, you’re expected to just line your gun and the target up, no assistance added. This was something critics hated, but I don’t have that much of a problem with it…except for the fact that I usually end up shooting the wrong guy as the game auto-targets without me knowing it. That’s annoying. If the game’s not gonna help you aim, they should turn off friendly fire or something like that.

I encountered no problems with control responsiveness; in a game this fast, you need tight controls. Of course, driving cars was a bit awkward, but that’s not too frequent.

All told, Shadow the Hedgehog is a decent game. The levels that let you just unleash your need for speed are a blast and bring back old-school Sonic memories. It’s the slower levels and wonky mechanics that do a number on the game. While the multiplayer is weak, the short, branching storyline almost forces replay value, making this a good game for Sonic diehards like me and an average one for normal gamers. Although $50 bucks might be a bit too much to pay for it; a rental or pre-owned buy is probably better.

Final Score: 80% (3.5 stars)