Shadow's cool ideas are not enough to hide the terrible execution
GRAPHICS: Heroes looks pretty solid when it was first released in 2003 (in Japan), but its engine shows age in Shadow. Not only that, but this game manages to look worse technicaly, with terrible textures, and bland artisticaly, with way too many levels looking alike. The cutscenes are still solid looking, but everything else is sub-par and generic looking. 2/5
SOUND: Most Sonic games have great soundtracks, and in a way Shadow is no different. The rock-centric soundtrack is pretty good, albeit unmemorable. Some levels which have a different sound, like The Doom, have a unique sound to them and become memorable, along with the opening theme. 4/5
Voice acting was never a strong point in the series until Colors in 2010, and this game had a major problem to deal with. This was the first game to use 4Kids voice actors, which were the same as the anime Sonic X. While they would improve by Sonic Unleashed and the like, here they sound confused as to how they are suposed to sound, and some voice just sound awful, like Rouge and Tails, which sound awful in all games which have these voice actors. Shadow, the main antagonist and Eggman all sound great, but the rest is a bit flat. 3/5
STORY: Sonic Adventure 2's story was the best of the series up to that point. Heroes was more of a traditional story, similar to the 2D games. Now where Shadow takes it? Well, it introduces an alien race that wants to conquer Earth, and Shadow's decision to either join them, fight against them, or remain by himself. It tries to convey a serious tone with its world-ending theme, along with finishing the storyline of Shadow's memory loss from Heroes.
The big question is, does the game succeed on what it is trying to accomplish? No. Not at all. In fact, this story is so bad, weird and bizzare, that it will get laughs out of you at certain points. None of the characters are well handled, with the main enemies being extremely bland and the Earth soldiers (GUN) being portrayed as just a*holes to the Hedgehog for no reason. Besides that, the main story about Shadow's past is irrelevant because, unlike him, we know what happened in Adventure 2, and the only revelation is where he came from, which is extremely anti-climatic because of how simple it is. There is no reason for this game to exist story wise, other than to put under the rug the terrible sub-plot invented in Heroes.
The supposed "darker" theme in the game is also questionable. If by "dark" you mean shouting DAMN like there is no tomorrow to appeal to teens, then yes. If "dark" means everyone being a di*k, then yes. But the tone of the story is just silly. The following game, 06, although had a storyline much much worse than this one, was trying to be dark and taken seriously. Here in Shadow, you never get that feeling. It only gets points for being enjoyably bad. 1.5/5
GAMEPLAY: The game is a 3D plataformer. You play as Shadow, going on a path to reach one of the 10 different endings the game has. If you get all of the 10 endings, you will then unlock the Last Story.
The best word to describe this game would probably be "gimmicky". It tries a lot of different things with its gameplay to try and differentiate itself from past games and make it unique since it stars Shadow, and in some ways it succeeds. We will go by them throughly.
First of all, this game has a morality system, where you can choose to be good or evil. In case, there is a mission to be done in each level depending on which side you chose. The problem with this otherwise good idea is how black and white it is, and how little impact it makes in the end. The suposedly "chose to be good or evil" thing is irrelevant since you have to get all endings to get the Last Story, which is the only one cannonical and that explains what is Shadow's past. Worst of all, you can do an all hero path, and then change to the evil side at the end, and the story shifts with absolutely no sense of pacing, making it just jarring. There are 24 levels to play, which is a solid number, but there are really only abou 14 different level styles, and the others are just slightly modified versions. It feels lazy and at times a chore to play levels too similar to each other.
Speaking of the missions, remember Team Chaotix from Sonic Heroes, and how most people hated playing as them? Well, imagine a game just of that. The missions in this game require you to kill a certain amount of enemies, of specific items, and all that stuff. There are many that are relatively harmless, and there is a "neutral" path where you just reach the end of the level, but not for every level. And the vast majority just suck, being frustrating and boring to do. Also often the level design is made around certain missions, and end up being really boring and feelling un-Sonic like.
One of the most controversial aspects of the game is its gunplay. In this game, Shadow can pick different handguns and weapons to use against enemies. And I have to say, it has two side that balance out. The first is that it is quite fun to blast enemies, definitely a highlight of the game. On the other hand, it feels completely out of place in a Sonic game, just to enhance the "dark" tone. So, all in all, it is kind of silly, but fun nonetheless. Besides the guns, there are also a few vehicles that Shadow can pilot. You can plow through enemies with them, but since you run slower with them than on foot, they just get kind of boring all around to use.
Very commonly criticized points of this game are its camera and controls. And I have to say, while the camera is just as bad if not a little better than Heroes and Adventure 2, the control is much worse. Shadow feels really slipery, and his acceleration is through the roof, making it harder than needed to control. You get used to it, but there is no reason for it to be this sensitive.
Now, for all the bashing I have done to this game, is it completely worthless? Not really. Going through a neutral path, of just getting to the goal and killing enemies, can be kind of fun. But the fun to be had with this game is not that big compared to the boredom you will have most of the time.
OVERALL:rnShadow the Hedgehog is a poor execution of what could have been a great title. It is just bland and rather boring overall. If you had me to chose, I would say that this game is better than Sonic 06, a title truly bad. This one's crime is just not being very interesting. Pick it up if you are really curious, but don't be alarmed at its mediocrity.
The good:
-Soundtrack is pretty good
-Just plowing through levels can be pretty fun
-Gunplay, while a dumb idea, is kind of fun
The bad:
-Story is bad. Just bad
-Graphics are rather poor
-Missions are most of the time either frustrating or boring
-Control is extremely slipery
-Useless vehicles
-"Good or evil" idea is not well structure, and ends up being pointless