GamesPlatformerSonic GenerationsShadow Generations finally pays off narrative threads 20 years in the making, and yes that’s important to true sickos like meWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesPlatformerSonic GenerationsShadow Generations finally pays off narrative threads 20 years in the making, and yes that’s important to true sickos like meWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Sega)
Though this is technically a version of Shadow The Hedgehog from the canon as it stood in 2011 – Shadow Generations is firmly concurrent with Sonic Generations – in truth he’s barely moved on since that period anyway, with a relatively minor appearance in 2017’s Sonic Forces, and being entirely absent from 2022’s Sonic Frontiers which stripped back the cast of characters.
Chaos control
(Image credit: Sega)
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to those familiar with the work of Shadow Generation’s writer, Ian Flynn. He is the Lore Wrangler manifest. Before beginning to work on the games with Sonic Frontiers, he’s best known for his lengthy Sonic comic career. He still works on the current run of IDW-published books, but got his start on the Archie comics in his early 20s, transitioning from a fan to its lead writer.
A later moment where Shadow is zapped back into the main Sonic Generations plot is a perfect example of how Flynn often works. (And minor spoilers for this scene here.) Shadow appeared in the original game as a brief rival fight, referencing his role as the final boss in Sonic Adventure 2’s hero story. Here, you don’t play through the defeat, but it instead becomes a crucial moment in Shadow’s arc. Briefly tempted to utilize his new Doom powers to defeat Sonic, he recoils at the thought of using these strange new dark arts to defeat Sonic unfairly – leaving just enough time for Sonic to strike and make off with his chaos emerald.
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(Image credit: Sega)
Except, we also discover that Shadow is able to use this moment to swap the real emerald with the fake emerald from Shadow Generation’s opening – which he can then swap back to Sonic later on in the speedster’s simultaneous story. Old plot threads elegantly come together, all while interrogating what makes Shadow tick. It all pays off further down the line when Shadow finally clashes with the revived Black Doom and has to grapple with how far he’ll allow embracing the Doom powers to take him.
Shadow Generations is filled with moments like these. It’s got more story threads than the original Sonic Generations, but still isn’t excessive – they’re just expertly deployed. Beyond finally giving Shadow more closure to the events of his own game through bringing back Black Doom as a threat, there’s plenty to massage Shadow’s growth from his other prior experiences that are dredged up and re-examined through the timey wimey theming.
In a new clash with the Biolizard, one of the final bosses of Sonic Adventure 2, a creature created using the same methods that were used to craft Shadow himself, he displays real empathy towards its “tortured” existence. Even Mephiles The Dark, one of the 2006 Sonic The Hedgehog’s ultimate villains, who looks like a dark and twisted Shadow from a ruined future timeline, gets a brief spotlight – and finally some acknowledgement that he mirrors Shadow as he attempts to restore himself to the timeline. Though there’s only so much you can do to rehabilitate that particular entry, it’s still great to see it more elegantly folded into Shadow’s journey. After all, he’s been around for over 20 years – there’s more than enough Shadow-specific history to pull from. And, following on from the success of Shadow Generations, hopefully plenty more.
Who can blame me for loving this game whenShadow the Hedgehog is peak Sonic, he’s always been peak Sonic, andShadow Generations features some of the best levels in Sonic’s 3D history?
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