I Am... All Of Me.

Shadow the Hedgehog has been my favorite Sonic character ever since Sonic Adventure 2, so naturally I was looking forward to trying out the one game, where he plays the main role - despite the overall divisive reception of Shadow 2005.

That being said, you know you're in for a ride when the very first level already leaves a sour taste in your mouth. Have you ever wondered how Shadow would control like if he was constantly ice-skating? Probably not, but Shadow 2005 takes that question off your mind by providing you with physics that feel floaty and entirely different from the previous 3D games. Even with those complaints in the beginnning, everything was still tolerable enough for me to keep my motivation to a certain point, but while playing through Iron Jungle, it dawned on me that this game was infamous for a reason. The cherry on top was the Egg Breaker boss afterwards though, who should have been named Camera Breaker, cause that's all he does while Shadow is running little laps around the base in the center of the arena ad infinitum. No offense to Lava Shelter though, it was the final level on the route I played and I actually enjoyed it a good amount after the mess that the previous stage was.

Enough talk about the gameplay, as the unique way of storytelling is also a key aspect of Shadow 2005. There are unironically 326 possible routes to play and they even have their own unique names - but it doesn't change the fact that the storytelling is nonsensical in many cases. So basically there's an alignment system in the levels, which you can advance through completing certain objectives towards your alignment. If you want to be evil, do Black Doom's requests. If you want to remain neutral, just run through the level and get the Chaos Emerald. This way of storytelling is actually an interesting concept for a game like Shadow the Hedgehog, as he is this morally ambiguous character, who can be easily interpreted as a player for both sides. Depending on which objectives you complete, the selection of levels across the stage flowchart changes accordingly and I'm sure the idea is that you don't have to play the same levels twice. Quite ironic, considering you have to play through Westopolis at least ten times in order to see the true ending, all while doing the same, repetitive tasks. Considering the amount of "kill [x] amount of enemy" challenges present, it would have been nice if you weren't required to kill every single enemy in the stage. You missed one? Good luck backtracking and finding them, cause the game surely won't tell you where to search. I couldn't really bring myself to do those challenges, so I went for a run that's mostly on the neutral side, but even that required me to play arduous levels like Iron Jungle to the end. Playing it several times would not be something on my priority list, so I only played a single route and called it quits for now.

Sorry for the amount of unorganized rambling in the second half. I still had my fair share of fun with Shadow the Hedgehog, even if some of it comes from a "so bad it's good again" perspective, cause there's something about it that sticks with me here, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Either way, if I have to give the game some credit where it's due, it's for the soundtrack - the remix for Eggman's theme and the title theme "I Am... All Of Me" are both bangers.

a strong contender for worst game i have ever played. there are two things that i despise most in a video game: long, slow, boring moving platforms, and having to redo the same thing over and over again. shadow the hedgehog commits both of these sins, and then takes them to the extreme. words cannot express my utter contempt for this game, or just how angry and exhausted it made me feel. i came into it looking for answers to shadow's backstory. instead, i was left with even more questions.

who am i? why am i doing this? why do i enjoy torturing myself? why does this boss have so much health? why do i have to collect 400 (four hundred) rings to progress? are the people who enjoy this game even worthy of the title "people"? the existential crisis i felt as i jankily trudged through shadow the hedgehog's abysmal level design was unlike anything i had experienced before. perhaps, that was the intention. what better way to convey shadow's angst than through a game so bad the player has no choice but to feel the same way?

the game seeks to answer the burning question "who is 'shadow the hedgehog'"? is he a hero or a villain? parallels can be drawn between the protagonist and the game itself. is it a fast paced platformer or a methodical third person shooter? it turns out, neither. it's just fucking dogshit. it has zero redeemable qualities. having played almost every mainline sonic game to date, i can say with confidence that this is the worst of them all and nothing comes close. i hated every second of it, and god only knows how i made it through the whole thing. there is no joy to be found within shadow the hedgehog.

This is the tombstone for all Sonic games past this point(except Generations). If you played Adventure 1 & 2 then you could see how Sega was slowly taking the Sonic franchise into a darker and grittier area. This is the culmination of that idea and it is just as cringe as you would expect. I can’t imagine why anyone in this day and age would want to play this. If it’s for the novelty then let me tell you, it’s not a “So bad it’s good” kind of game, it’s just painful overly edgy cringe. What a joke

this is like the anti-sonic forces to me.

the problem with sonic forces is that it's bland, boring and it has extremely little to do. shadow has plenty of levels, hundreds of paths and is ANYTHING but boring.

but it's laggy, unpolished as all hell, extremely edgy in the corniest ways possible, and the level designs are... awful, to say the least. sonic forces, for how much i enjoy shitting on it, is an extremely polished game with so little edge it may as well be a circle.

shadow is better simply because i felt something while playing it. even if that was just laughing at the stupid cutscenes and stupider dialogue, it got something out of me. it also took some risks that, while i don't think they paid off, were at the very least interesting.

bad, but in a fun way.

Boy they really hit rock bottom with this one. It's gonna be a downward spiral all the way from here.

People shit on this game a lot and the criticisms are more than well deserved. This game is a steaming pile of shit no matter how you look at it.

You want to talk about the characters and plot? The characters are super edgy and cringe in this game, with worst offender being our protagonist Edgy the hedgy. Literally none of them are even close to being likeable. The plot also makes no sense whatsoever. You can go the hero route and have Shadow become evil at the very end just because. Also, none of what you do in the main game matters anyway. All of your action is gonna get retconned in the "Last Story" part so brace yourself for that.

The level designs in this game is absolutely fucking hot garbage. I have never seen such a terrible progression system implemented in a 3D platforming game. The hero/dark path makes no sense whatsoever and some missions like the perfect chaos hunt in hero side makes me wanna chop both of my hands off. The game is also very consistent at being terrible as I literally liked none of the levels within this game. Oh did I mention? In order to unlock the last story you need to play ALL endings, which will pretty much require you to play Westopolis so many times you will memorize it better than the layout to your own house.

The controls also sucks ass. The movement somehow got even more slippery than in Sonic Heroes. You can barely control Shadow as he go left and right and often will charge into pits because the game literally couldn't handle Shadow's speed. And please don't bother even try the vehicles. They are somehow the polar opposite of Shadow's control - extremely clunky and slow. The existed just to make Shadow seem more edgy.

Speaking of edgy, guns. The guns are the only functional components within this god forsaken game. The auto aim is always very reliable. Unlike what some people on the internet chose to believe, you absolutely needed guns to get through the game as each bullet pretty much does the same damage as one homing attack. Later enemies and bosses will require several magazines to be brought down and your pesky homing attack simply won't suffice.

I think enough has been said. This is a very disappointing game from Sonic Team and deserves all the hate it got. Shadow is my favorite character in the Sonic franchise. So I particularly hate this miserable game as it tortured me so hard and caused irreversible damage to Shadow's portrayal in the Sonic series from here onwards. You deserve better and you should not play this game at all.

HOTTEST TAKE INCOMING: I like this game and it gets overhated.

It is so weird and over the top stupid, yes. Absurdly edgy, the dialouge is terrible. Yes having to play the first level 10 times is annoying. And yes the controls are a little slippery.

To start, I like the presentation a lot. The CGI cutscenes still look great. The best part is, funny enough, the gunplay. The weapons all feel really good to use, and when you have a full meter with unlimited ammo for a brief period? My goodness you can just go on a rampage. It feels really good. The music is also pretty sweet.

The mission structure I will admit is pretty bad. I'm a big fan of the branching paths on paper, in execution it is lacking because a lot of the missions just suck and they're really specific. But you don't have to do all of these. Maybe like 2-3 max if you do your pathing right. Most of the time you can get to all 10 endings just by clearing the level normally, and running through the levels normally is fun!

I really did not mind replaying the levels over to do this because I was having fun. So I think it dosent deserve all the hate it gets. If any of you have played Sonic Boom, you know that it could be WAAAAY worse.