This Week In Retro: Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) (Patreon)

November 15, 2005: He's totally in my face.

by Diamond Feit

As someone who spent the entirety of their teenage years in the 1990s, I'd like to think I know a thing or two about edginess. We tend to over-exaggerate the colorful excesses of the 80s, celebrating day-glow neon spandex while ignoring the ubiquitous ashtrays, but I'm old enough to remember how quickly tastes changed after December 31st, 1989. T-shirts I wore in middle school became unwearable in high school. The guys on Miami Vice went from the coolest cops ever to instant punchlines. Look at any sports uniform database and marvel as team after team made dramatic logo changes in a rush to present themselves as newly-hip for the millennium.

Video game publishers certainly had their share of freakouts as well during this decade. After Nintendo revitalized the United States console business with the NES, competitors pushed back with more advanced technology and more aggressive advertising. In 1990, Sega lauded their all-black Genesis as doing "what Nintendon't" in highlighting their exclusive titles.

As Nintendo launched its own next-generation console, Sega responded by creating a mascot named Sonic the Hedgehog who immediately became the face of the company. Television commercials presented Sonic as the fastest, coolest video game character ever, unlike Nintendo's Mario who trudged around in overalls and looked like your least-favorite uncle.

I can't claim any immunity to propaganda but despite living squarely in the coveted teen demographic at the time, I knew enough about Nintendo's output to reject Sega's baseless assertions. It took serious balls to present Mario as behind the times while insisting a blue hedgehog wearing red sneakers represented the future. They're both cute little guys who run and jump on my TV screen, why do we have to argue like this?

As the 90s wore on and even more electronics giants entered the console wars, the balance of power shifted again. Mario and Sonic never left the public eye but Sega found themselves struggling to even maintain second place once Sony's PlayStation took over the top spot. Things got so bad, the company pulled the plug on the Dreamcast in 2001 less than two years after its much-hyped 9/9/99 U.S. launch. Sega truly did what Nintendo't by bailing on the console biz.

Yet an end to Sega machines in the living room did not mean the end of Sonic the Hedgehog. The company restructured from a first-party publisher to a console-agnostic third-party, preparing Sonic games for Nintendo hardware within months of announcing the Dreamcast's death.

Amidst all of this turmoil, Sega knew their once up-and-coming hedgehog had become mainstream. Sonic starred in cartoon shows and comic books targeting children—hardly rebellious behavior. He needed a new, edgier rival who reflected his darker attributes like Wario or Venom or Bender. 20 years ago this week, Sega's sinister spiny mammal starred in his very own video game, appropriately titled Shadow the Hedgehog.

Now the tale of Shadow the Hedgehog does not start with Shadow the Hedgehog as we can trace his origins back to the year 1999 and development of Sonic Adventure 2. That game features two campaigns, one starring Sonic and his friends, while the other stars Dr. Eggman/Robotnik and two co-conspirators created for this sequel. In a 2024 Anime Expo panel, Sonic Team's Takashi Iizuka cited the then-burgeoning popularity of dark heroes like Spawn in influencing the design of Shadow. Fans have also noticed that early sketches of Shadow include the name Vegeta written in the margins, a Dragon Ball character who starts out as a villain but later joins forces with the good guys.

After Sonic Adventure 2 launched in 2001, Shadow returned (along with almost every other critter in the series' menagerie) for Sonic Heroes in 2003. For this multi-platform title, Sega sought a wide audience who might not have played a Sonic game before. The strategy paid off: A 2004 financial report highlighted Sonic Heroes as a million-seller that exceeded expectations.

With back-to-back all-ages releases, Takashi Iizuka and Sonic Team took aim at more mature gamers. In a 2005 conversation with 1up.com, Iizuka says "I have been trying really hard to make Sonic the Hedgehog appealing to the younger audience, and I have done that successfully. Now, my new mission is to capture the older audience."

Iizuka figured offering new kinds of gameplay would cater to a new demographic, and that meant shining the spotlight on a new face. Iizuka told IGN as much in 2005, saying "We wanted to expand the Sonic franchise by offering a more mature game with features that has [sic] never been possible before in a Sonic game. With this in mind, we decided that giving Shadow his own title was the way to go!"

Sega revealed Iizuka's vision to the world at the 2005 grand opening of the Walk of Game, a short-lived attraction in San Francisco celebrating iconic video game characters and developers. Sega used the ceremony to introduce Shadow the Hedgehog via a trailer that wistfully recounted past Sonic adventures before riddling the screen with bullet holes and having Shadow walk towards the camera gripping a semi-automatic pistol.

While much of the actual gameplay shown in this initial trailer looks similar to past Sonic antics—Shadow explores a three-dimensional city, dashes along tight corridors filled with hazards, and jumps onto enemies to defeat them—nothing caught people's attention like Shadow carrying a gun. Multiple guns, even, ranging from simple small arms to laser blasters to full-on automatics.

Iizuka rationalized the inclusion of guns in that aforementioned 1up.com article, saying "a weapon can be used for either the good side or the bad side…I want to make sure people understand you don't use guns to kill people, to do bad things. You can use weapons to do good things. That's what I wanted to communicate."

Booting up Shadow the Hedgehog triggers a sensory overload as Shadow stands in the moonlight with an assault rifle as hard rock music plays in the background. Monsters run amok in a nearby metropolis and Shadow rides a motorcycle into town to wipe them out. Rapid cuts and guitar riffs accompany Shadow taking out the rampaging creatures, although we also see human beings trying and failing to subdue the pint-sized tyrant. Just whose side is he on?

In fact, players get to determine exactly who and what Shadow fights for in Shadow the Hedgehog as the story unfolds via a flowchart based on your choices. Focus on fending off the invading forces and Shadow will advance along the Hero path, but turning your anger against the local populace sends him down the Dark path. Rejecting both extremes is also an option, as simply dashing towards the goal and grabbing a Chaos Emerald maintains Shadow's neutrality.

The game offers advice from visibly positive and negative voices to guide players towards the Hero and Dark paths, respectively, and a slider on the pause menu helps players confirm which outcome results from which deeds. Shadow's moment-to-moment actions also fill his Hero or Dark gauges depending on his behavior. These meters fuel temporary power-ups that grant Shadow invincibility, super speed, and unlimited ammunition.

Shadow the Hedgehog's morality systems predate those that would come into vogue following later releases such as Mass Effect or BioShock, although in Shadow's case the sheer number of variables make it more than a simple binary outcome. A breakdown of the story on SonicRetro.org shows that players can experience up to 326 different narratives that lead to one of ten separate endings. Viewing all ten outcomes unlocks a Last Story with a final showdown against the real instrument of evil behind the events of the game. Spoilers: The alien with the gravely voice who tells Shadow to hurt people has ulterior motives.

Shadow's solo debut proved financially rewarding for Sega; a 2006 investor briefing reports Shadow the Hedgehog sold in excess of 1.5 million copies. Critics, on the other hand, soundly rejected Sonic Team's attempt at embracing mature themes. Reviewing the game for 1up.com, Shane Bettenhausen compared Shadow to Poochie, the notorious Simpsons character meant to satirize corporate attempts at capturing what audiences want. "Are kids so jaded these days that they really need a hipper, tougher, and more 'tude-filled alternative to Sonic the Hedgehog?" Shane asks in his C+ assessment. X-Play rated the game an abysmal 1 out of 5, a score normally reserved for utter trash like Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror and The Guy Game.

After this starring role, Shadow returned to the status of supporting player in future Sonic games. Even in subsequent outings where players could control Shadow, he never used any guns again. In a 2024 interview promoting Shadow's return to the limelight in Shadow Generations, Takashi Iizuka compared guns and vehicles to tools that Shadow uses only if necessary. "[Shadow] is a weapon," Iizuka says, "So as long as there’s no need for Shadow to use a gun, he will probably not use one."

2024 was also the year the general public first met Shadow in the feature film Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Director Jeff Fowler actually worked on the 2005 game as an animator, a story he eagerly recounted to The Hollywood Reporter to promote the film. "I never would’ve imagined this possibility 20 years ago. One of my first jobs in the industry was working on that [Shadow the Hedgehog] game and animating that character," Fowler says. "And to be here 20 years later and be responsible for his introduction to audiences on the big screen, it’s incredibly surreal that it’s all come full circle."

The movie version of Shadow sticks closely to his behavior in the games, depicting him as fond of motorcycles and potentially violent. He even escapes from a maximum security prison by beating up a dozen armed men. While Shadow does use guns in the film, I find it notable that he only wields fantasy weapons rather than anything realistic.

Could all this renewed attention lead to a Shadow the Hedgehog 2 or a remaster of the first game for modern platforms? I'd certainly appreciate the latter. I had little interest in any hedgehogs 20 years ago so I missed the entire controversy, only discovering the game at Long Island Retro Gaming Expo this summer and marveling at its audacity.

I can see why Sonic Team took a chance on arming a children's mascot—the early 2000s was the heyday of Grand Theft Auto III and other crime-focused titles—but actually using the guns feels bad. With no means to lock on to a target or even aim manually, I had no choice but to mash the fire button and hope something happened.

That said, between the game and his recent cinematic outing, I have 100% fallen for Shadow the Hedgehog. I view his character as a triumph of nurture over nature; regardless of his (fictional) creator's intentions, he chooses to live life on his own terms. I admire his choice to wear rings as accessories, not on his fingers but on his wrists and ankles. Also, this could be the 90s teenager inside me speaking, but a black and red hedgehog just looks cooler than a blue one.

The video game landscape has grown and expanded many times over in the last couple decades. As much as certain loudmouths insist their wants outweigh all others, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to mass market appeal. Grim and sorrowful can sell well, but so can candy-colored and joyful. If Sonic Team wants to court older players and tackle adult topics, they don't need to invent a brand-new anthropomorphic animal to glower and sneer—but I'm glad they did.

Writer/podcaster/performer Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but xer work and opinions exist across the internet.