Shadow the Hedgehog's Contest History

Who is Shadow the Hedgehog?
We have that pathetic excuse for a badass, Shadow. What, Knuckles wasn’t badass enough? Sega probably thought he was, AND HE WAS, so they turned him into a wuss so that the fanboys would leave him alone and cream their pants over a poop-coated carbon copy of Sonic. Because that’s all he is: a plot device that was overdone way before Waluigi even saw the light of day. Look like main character, do bad stuff that’s blamed on main character, police goes after main character, hilarity ensues. That’s SA2 for you in a nutshell.

But time to go into this more into detail. Shadow’s first appearance ever (I’ll be using game chronology) happens after the first stage of the Dark story. Eggman expects some WMD to magically fall into his hands, but instead… he gets Sonic! Well, at least that’s what Eggman thinks, anyway. It takes him a few seconds to catch on and realize what’s happening. Now it’s Shadow’s time to talk. Dear God, somebody kill me. His first line, EVER, is this piece of pure, unadultered crap: «Since you were so kind to release me, my master, I will grant you one wish!» Wait, so he’s a genie now? I though he was just a hedgehog that happened to look like Sonic! Even Eggman, in one of his rare moments of lucidity, is all «WTF is that crap?» That’s the only intelligent thing I’ve ever seen him do or say. Seriously, people. They made Eggman out to be some kind of super-genius, but your first impression upon seeing him for the first time, «Man he’s dumb», is totally correct. The first time most of us saw him, he attached a disco ball under his pod and tried to kill Sonic by swinging the disco ball wildly… ten feet above Sonic’s head.

Now Shadow is using his jet shoes to hover above thin air. Of course, this is all to make Shadow look badass, it’s not like we won’t be able to use that in actual gameplay or anything. Damn, this might have been helpful for the 3-minute Radical Highway emblem. «Behold the true power I possess!» Then he whips a guardian robot, which Eggman calls «spectacular». Idiot, it was because I was in control of Shadow that he did that. Well, I’ll take that as a comp – no, wait, I don’t, this comes from Eggman, and Eggman’s an idiot. They speak some more, then we cut to Knuckles and Rouge arguing.

We later re-join him as Eggman learns on TV that Sonic stole a Chaos Emerald. Eggman puts two and two together and figures out that it was Shadow, since Shadow asked him for more emeralds. Yay, maybe he’ll be able to beat Eugene Dinsmore in a game of chess by the end of the game. Now we see Shadow standing on top of a bridge BCUZ HES T3H BADDA55, and having THE typical RPG plot device, the flashback. It’s all weird and stuff, we don’t know what’s going on, and it’s like all the other flashbacks in the game: «Maria! Shadow! Maria! Shadow! Maria! Shadow! MARIA! SHADOW!» He promises revenge, whatever that means. Enter Radical Highway.

After the stage, we see the first Sonic/Shadow confrontation. The whole point of this scene is to get the point across that SHADOW IZ T3H BADDA55 to those who started with the Hero story. We also get our first taste of Chaos Control. We see Shadow passing by Sonic and ending up on top of a building. Wait, I though Chaos Control was teleportation! Sonic remarks that Shadow is fast, yet both were going at the same speed during that slo-mo of the two of them passing by each other. Then he realizes he’s using the Emerald he has. Sonic thinks about how Shadow is a lamer for cheating, while Shadow spurts out some more so-called badass line. Stop it already, I could puke and still sound more badass then you. Sonic still isn’t done recovering from the aura of crappiness he just fell into, and the police catches him. I’ll go off on a tangent and mention that in the Hero story, the Knuckles/Rouge argument scene happens right after this, yet we saw it three stages earlier in the Dark story. Whatever.

Next time we see him, we’re in the ARK central control room. Nothing of note here, Shadow just provides some exposition on the Eclipse Cannon and the Chaos Emeralds. This is where Rouge joins their little party. Eggman has a plan, and halfway through it, none other than Amy throws herself onto Shadow. Yes, he looks like Sonic, WE GET IT. Eggman attempts to take care of Amy – GO EGGMAN KILL HER! – boo! Bad Tails! Bad Tails!

A while after that, Shadow meets Sonic again, and when Sonic rightfully calls him a faker, Shadow throws the Most. Childish. Insult. EVER. «Faker? I think you’re the fake hedgehog around here. You’re comparing yourself to me? Hah! You’re not even good enough to be my fake!» Unfortunately, Japanese is spoken much faster than English, and since Sonic has a line left, it sounds more like «You’re not even good enough I’ll to make be you my eat fake those words!» If you’re playing as Sonic at that point, Shadow has even cheesier lines in store. «I’m the coolest!» Even compared to the bowels of a volcano it’s disputable. Think compared to Sonic, now. «I see, so you’re not just a hedgehog…» I’m not sure what that’s meant to mean, but Sonic doesn’t look like the product of a hedgehog and a tuna to me. «Not bad for an imposter!» That again. Oh my god, it almost makes me beg for Tails’ SH voice acting.

Then Shadow gets a call from Rouge, and she tells him she’s been caught and locked inside the military base. More «Maria! Shadow!» flashbacks, then Eggman tells him the island is about to blow up! Great. We’re allotted 10 minutes to go through the White Jungle stage. Oh please. I know Shadow sucks, but come on. It’s a 3-minute stage! If you can find a way to run out of time in this, I suggest you DON’T touch the Genesis games. But no matter whether there’s seven minutes or seven seconds left on the clock, the clock on the bomb magically lowers (or raises if you actually came close to running out of time… how can THAT happen?) to thirty seconds. In a James Bond-esque moment, Shadow uses Chaos Control on him and Rouge at the last second. Except James Bond would NOT have teleported the girl’s clothes. Shadow did. Complete idiot. No, I’m no furry, but Shadow probably is. Which leads me to question… no matter, I think you get the point.

After that point in the game, we get to play a little more as Shadow (damn) but on the plus side, we don’t have to endure him in cutscenes as much. So there’s not much to bash. Oh wait, yes there is. Shadow finds out that Rouge is a spy working for the government, and she kinda buys his silence when she shows him a piece of paper showing that Shadow is NOT the ultimate lifeform, and he throws a tantrum. He’s about to cry, but then he remembers Maria. Oh geez, not that again. NOW Shadow stops doing noteworthy (read: lame) stuff.

So besides me killing him a few times on Final Chase just to see him go down in flames for my personal amusement, it’s on to the Last Episode.

God loves me, so I don’t have to endure Shadow until Amy tries talking to him. Then he has one more flashback, where he remembers his promise to Maria. «All the people on this planet, give them the chance to be happy!» Whoops, I think Shadow was a wee bit off, huh? A space colony’s about to fall on Earth thanks to him, so it’s only natural that he switches sides and tries preventing it from happening. He rejoins Sonic and Knuckles at the Eclipse Cannon’s core in record time, thanks to the other five characters doing all the work for him. Loser. Anyway, Knuckles puts the Master Emerald on the pedestal, and whoops! A giant lizard creature appears from nowhere. Shadow recognizes the creature from Rouge’s newspaper cut, when she told him he was not the ultimate lifeform. So naturally, Shadow fights it. Successfully, eventually, but not before I let him fall at the hands of the Biolizard a few times. «That creature is pathetic, but it’s more of an ultimate lifeform than you will ever be!» I say. I love it. Eventually I beat the thing, because I have to finish that game someday.

So the Biolizard teleports, and he sticks the colony up his ass and attempts to crash it on Earth. Of course, that means it’s time for the Super Sonic final boss! Hey, Shadow wants to join too, so Sonic is going to teach him how to turn super. Sonic figures he can sacrifice some of his extreme coolness to make Shadow look like even more of a loser, and begins doing… well… some obscene gesture. Shadow follows suit, thinking «Damn, if only I had a wang too.» Sonic doesn’t pull out his own rocket launcher, because his partner is already enough of a loser, he doesn’t want to give him a complex on top of that just before saving the world.

So now it’s time to fight the final boss. I’m going to skip that because the best moment happens after it.

Sonic and Shadow charge toward the colony, Shadow gets another flashback (audio only, this time), and then they Chaos Control the colony to safety. But Shadow’s so dumb, he didn’t think to teleport himself along with it, so his super form runs out and he’s falling… yes, my dream is about to come tr… wait, what’s this? NO! PLEASE! DEAR GOD NO! IT’S SHADOW SPEAKING WANKESE! Well, I’ll be damned. I can’t even be happy at his death sequence.

So Sonic comes back on the colony to deliver the good news, but for some reason everybody’s sad.

Now, of course many people, for some reason, weren’t happy either, so they wanted Shadow back at all costs. And they got him back. God knows how he stayed alive through that fall, Sonic Heroes never explained it. Deus ex machina resurrection, I guess.

Since Sonic Heroes is much more gameplay-oriented than SA2, of course there’s not going to be nearly as many complaints from me. But there are still a few. Such as after the fight with the Egg Albatross, when Shadow finds half of a Shadow robot lying alongside the fake Eggman.God no, not another personal crisis moment. Of course, this all gets amplified with the ending when Rouge finds, much to my horror, hundreds of Shadow clones. So, is he a robot, a regular lifeform, or the ultimate lifeform? Geesh, I hate it when I have no idea what’s happening and it’s never explained eventually.

And since Shadow just HAS to have a totally horrible line somewhere (regular horrible ones abound for every character in this game), he gets one before the battle with Sonic. «Is that so? Well then, it’s going to be a date to die for!» I half-expected him to start doing the chicken dance right there and then. That idea is scary. And not just scary, but Rikku-on-a-sugar-trip scary.

Finally, I have to mention the kind of fans Shadow has. Just check Heroic Billy Hatcher’s quote. It quotes a SH review, saying something to the effect of «I expected cool characters like Mario, Luigi and Yoshi, but instead I get crap like Cream the Rabbit and Rouge the Bat.» Yay.

"I am the ultimate lifeform!" -Shadow the Hedgehog

writeup courtesy of Slowflake

Shadow the Hedgehog's Contest History
Win-Loss Record: 2-3

Summer 2003 Contest: South Division - 9 Seed

Southern Round 1 --- Defeated (8) Wario, 67886 [64.90%] - 36721 [35.10%] Southern Quarterfinal --- Lost to (1) Mario, 48694 [44.90%] - 59756 [55.10%] Extrapolated Strength --- 12th Place [33.79%]

Summer 2004 Contest: 20XX Division - 9 Seed

20XX Round 1 --- Lost to (8) Tidus, 46788 [49.19%] - 48334 [50.81%] Extrapolated Strength --- 27th Place [24.94%]

Shadow the Hedgehog is a character who, despite having a mixed fanbase at best, is a very strong character in contest polls. Through two contests, Shadow has proven to be the second strongest Sonic character in the field, and what's amazing about this is the fact that he never appeared in Sonic games that initially made the series famous back in the 2D days. Shadow blew the hell out of Wario in a match in which he was the heavy underdog back in 2003, and in that same year, he went down in respectable fashion to Mario in the very next round. Shadow failed to win a single match in 2004, but this is mostly because he was once again underseeded. He was forced to go up against Tidus in the first round, and even though he gave it a good effort, he fell just short in the end.

Shadow, like many others in the contest, is a character who could cause some serious damage if he were ever given a proper seed. Whether or not he'll actually get it, no one knows.

Summer 2007 Contest: Division 2 - Third Group

Division 2 Round 1 --- 2nd place, 39185 [26.26%] - Auron, 64543 [43.26%] - Pyramid Head, 24148 [16.18%] - Chris Redfield, 21339 [14.30%] Division 2 Round 2 --- 4th place, 18842 [13.94%] - Auron, 48423 [35.83%] - Ryu, 35350 [26.16%] - Bowser, 32529 [24.07%]

After a two year absence, people expected more out of Shadow than he delivered. He got destroyed by Auron in the first round, lost multiple updates to Pyramid Head, and needed the Sonic day vote to get him over 25% of the vote. Shadow didn't do any better in round 2, but I can cut him some slack because he was thrown into a match with three very strong characters who could be considered near elite. Still, it seems that Shadow isn't quite as strong as we thought.

Summer 2008 Contest: Division 1 - Second Group

Division 1 Round 1 --- 3rd place, 21054 [15.47%] - Link, 82662 [60.72%] - Zidane Tribal, 24085 [17.69%] - Luke fon Fabre, 8333 [6.12%]]