You wouldn't understand, you could never understand.
If you find yourself thinking about this game too hard, you'll end up falling into an abyss of headcanon glory. With enough of a surprisingly good foundation for rumination to make you never wanna leave.....

Shadow the Hedgehog is STUPID, but it becomes fascinating to think about if you over-analyze it into being a story about getting manipulated and imagining all the different "what ifs" and possibilities that could arise from allowing yourself to be changed by others before deciding what it is you really want.

Obviously the major beats and endpoints of all the various narratives PROBABLY DON'T return the love you could end up dumping into this thing in any truly vindicating or resolutely satisfying way, but it's just so damn stupid and ultimately wholesome with the whole edgy cool thing its got going on - on top of all the potential heavy shit you could end up thinking about and projecting from playing anyway that you couldn't possibly stay mad at such a endearing and cheesy creation! You can just kind of end up making your own fun out of the whole thing; the acts of justifying plotholes with headcanon and deriving semblances of meaning through only the most tangential story relations being all a part of the fun! This is my absolute favorite kind of shallow, cartoon fodder to get overly into. Hit me up with those 'find and kill all 35 artificial chaos' mission types, I'll do em. I've lost my mind~ All of this slippery gameplay, probably-not-good bullshit is apparently well enough for me as long as I'm given a fun enough vessel for some melodramatic rumination <3

Can YOU imagine yourself having fun in such a space? do it if you dare...
at the very least, shooting dudes and strafe jumping around in a sonic game actually feels pretty decent...