For all my love for Shadow The Hedgehog memes, I’ve never actually played any of his games. He was a DLC in Sonic Forces, appeared in Adventure 2 and even had his own solo game, sure, but I’d missed out on a big cornerstone of the “Anti-edge” movement that plagued the 2010s.
Despite that, Sonic fans will rush to the Hedgehog’s defense. From ironic memes to too-long explanations about his motivations, Shadow The Hedgehog is a properly beloved part of the Sonic canon.
Having played two levels of Shadow in Sonic X Shadow Generations at Tokyo Game Show 2024 though, I get it. Sonic is cool, yes, but Shadow is cool in that “did you know water bending can control blood” kind of way.
Playing As Shadow In Sonic X Shadow Generations Rules, And That’s Perfectly Fine By Me
Despite moving similar to Sonic with homing jumps and homing attacks and boosting, Shadows kit has so much more added to it that’s just cool. The opening stage has you thrown into a nightmare city looking out of Doctor Strange. The next stage in the demo had Shadow boosting through what I swear was Undead Burg, complete with grabbing on to a bird to fly through a stained glass window.
It’s the kind of tasteful edge you only get by spin-dashing the part of you that might think it cringe. It’s got just the right bits that make you sit back and go, yeah, maybe the 2010s were too harsh on one of the coolest Sonic characters.
Memes be damned, Shadow is cool, man. You can do Chaos Control timestops to clear fast obstacles or corner a boss before hitting them with rush punches. His new Shadow powers let him do things like skate on a manta ray across water. He has a projectile! I’ll never forgive the anti-edge culture of the 2010s for ever making me doubt our red and black ultimate lifeform.
In a way, it almost feels weird that Sonic X Shadow Generations comes packed in with the original Generations since Shadow plays so drastically different- but the way they are now, you’re getting an already solid Sonic game with another great protagonist sharing the limelight.
