Shadow Generations Needs to Say Goodbye | PostMesmeric

Comments · 141

• SO

  @somedude3820 · 1 year ago (edited)

  I think one key difference in Shadow moving on in Shadow 05 vs Shadow Generations is that in Shadow 05, he concludes that the past is just too painful to think about and basically throws out the baby with the bathwater. Shadow Generations Dark Beginnings even showcases this mentality, when he begins to think about Maria and the Ark, he begins to have a panic attack until he commands himself to just stop thinking about it in order to focus on the mission. I don&apos;t think what he did is truly moving on, that&apos;s just repressing trauma.<br><br>Shadow Generations forces him to take another look at the past and to get a proper goodbye to the people he cared so dearly about, instead of brushing off all of the memories of them as too painful. It essentially forces him to look at his past and go: &quot;Yeah there was a lot of bad, but there was also something precious here too.&quot; I think the takeaway from Shadow Generations is that Shadow is finally acknowledging the valuable things in his past while facing towards the future, instead of trying to bury it all and just not think about it.

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• CH

  @ChawedMirthPrattEnterprise · 1 year ago

  I&apos;m not a huge Sonic fan, never really liked the classics and I&apos;ve had many problems with his 3D era, but I absolutely adored Shadow Generations. In terms of design, it feels like this team has finally found its stride. I&apos;m just hoping they can use that for something more original soon.

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• BR

  @Brian.Henken · 1 year ago

  I like looking at this game as a celebration of the past and something of a reset. It could be that including shadow in this big of a way, using a character who has classically been unable to let go of the past, could be sonic team giving one last nod to their past. It shows that with this ending, symbolically destroying the worst of their past with Mephiles, is a way for them to finally move forward while bearing in mind what has always made them great. At least one can hope! <br>Excellent EXCELLENT video!

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• TI

  @timothymclean · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8jGuMUmuII&amp;t=1670">27:50</a>: If I had a nickel for every Sonic-adjacent YouTuber I follow who has defended <i>Shadow the Hedgehog</i> (2005), I&apos;d have two nickels, which isn&apos;t a lot but I don&apos;t follow that many Sonic-adjacent YouTubers in the first place.

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• MI

  @Miju001 · 1 year ago

  Great video! I really liked your observation in the last ten minutes. You&apos;re definitely right. I hope the next game(s) will be less reliant on the past. I vaguely recall Kishimoto saying that they had noticed some Sonic fans&apos; fatigue with throwbacks and the like, so let&apos;s hope for the best.

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• SP

  @SpaceKingScot · 1 year ago

  The answer is yes. They will move on. This game was developed during the same time as frontiers. It&apos;s structure and narrative are based on existing within the framework of generations. Generations is a design compromise in and of itself. Following unleashed, everyone wanted daytime unleashed sonic game play. The problem there is that, that style of design is an expensive and time consuming process. That&apos;s why it is wherehog is probably more then 60% of the total experience back then. So generations took advantage of its timing to weave a nostalgic picture. One that would allow them to reuse a tremendous amount of assets and ideas whilst providing more of the desired game play style within a timely fashion. And it&apos;s a framework that was largely well received due to the dark age games venturing out into an uncertain future and stumbling. <br><br>The problem then, is that sonic was afforded too little of a budget, and too strict a development timeline to produce the desired faithful generations game design side successor we wanted. We received sonic forces. A game whose dev history was dominated by the creation of its engine first, and actual core game design cobbled together quickly near the deadline. And in the process, missed the core of what made generations a success. And that sent a message to sonic team. As forces was failing, the callback game and critical darling of mania was blowing up. The room was misread. The message received by sonic team was that fans were tired of boost, that the narrative needed to get better, and that fans were still attached to nostalgic throwbacks as evidenced by mania. These elements informed frontiers designs. <br><br>Open zone was created as a means of pushing the sonic franchise into the future. It had a bold and darker narrative. And it reused famous level layouts. All to service the message they received in 2017 from fans. Frontiers then did something that most sonic games never do. It sold tremendously well. Because it pushed the series forward. Because its positive elements were taken to heart by fans. Frontiers single handedly made sonic a priority again for sega, at least concerning the core games themselves. To illustrate the sorry ass state of affairs before this point. It&apos;s worth considering that Izuka had to fight for a one year delay to improve frontiers. We all know the rough state it arrived in. Imagine how much worse it&apos;d be if they had to release it a year early. That&apos;s how badly sonic was treated by sega. Meanwhile, properties like persona or yakuza were lighting the world on fire, sonic team wasn&apos;t extended that same courtesy of time and care, not till frontiers seriously moved units. <br><br>Sonic is in a better state now. Hedgehog engine 2 is a mature enough technology to match the scope of their ideas. The fans were loud and clear about cyberspace. We were tired of the old level themes. But we loved the darker story, the emphasis on lore, getting characters back on track. We loved the lyrical music returning in boss fights. We loved the spectacle of the bosses themselves, hearkening to those dragon ball inspirations the series often invokes. And we wanted to return alternate playable characters. We wanted momentum game play. We wanted a more challenging experience. The developers? To their credit, they tried within reason to answer on those things. Developers stating as much. Including that future affairs would both be an open zone, (this avoiding the lost world mistake) and that old levels would take a huge back seat. <br><br>So that gets us back to the present. Shadow generations, much like the original generations. Is a compromise. It&apos;s a large expansion pack to the original generations. Developed within a 3 year dev timeline, roughly. That incorporates open zones. And reuses level themes. It&apos;s the last remnant of sonic designed under a non-confident sega. Sonic frontiers 2 won&apos;t be a nostalgic romp. It&apos;ll be the sa2 to sa1. The game that will define an era, and refine the new formula. It won&apos;t be the generations to frontiers sonic unleashed. Because unlike frontiers 2, generations was built under non-confident sega. Reeling from the dark ages, unwilling to put down major time or money, operating under the assumption that the game would be lucky to move even 1 million copies. No. Frontiers 2 is different. How do I know that? Well following frontier&apos;s release, everyone was dead set on laughing off the games claims that it was to establish a new era for sonic. But Shadow generations followed through. It’s an open zone game. And it’s much more polished and refined than Frontiers. Izuka and his peers&apos; promises were kept. (in large part due to Izuka himself receiving a huge promotion, and thus being able to determine deadlines and set higher budgets) Sonic team is keeping their promises. Thus, it’s only logical that the promise of a fresh experience is the next barrier to overcome. And I’m confident it will.

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• MB

  @mbii7667 · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8jGuMUmuII&amp;t=735">12:15</a> by who exactly? I never had that problem

• BA

  @banjo9158 · 1 year ago

  I want to say 2 things about what is said in this video: <br> <br>1 - About the point that Shadow and Sonic needed to have a boss fight because their rivalry is an iconic part of his history in SA2. Shadow as a character grew out of that a long time ago. Shadow have not been a rival of Sonic since that same game. he always goes through his own personal stories instead of doing things connected to Sonic. even in the game called Sonic Rivals, Shadow act idependent doing his own thing instead of being a Sonic Rival. He seens concerned, protective, an even an ally of Sonic, in games like Sonic 2006, and even Sonic Colors DS. Shadow don&apos;t see Sonic as a rival anymore, and it would be too much of a step back from the growth (or change depending on how you see it) of his character throughtout the decades if that side of him was explored in depth. which sure, it does sting in the feeling of celebration, but it&apos;s understandable. <br> <br>2 - As much as I am not a big fan of this constant need to go back to the past and cash in nostalgia, that not only this series have, but a lot of companies and IP do nowadays, I&apos;d say both Sonic Generations and Shadow Generations, at their point in time, were justified to do that, and were even needed to do so. before 2011, the series have gone into many directions and tried many things, to the point that it&apos;s difficult to say what even was Sonic identity back in the day, is the journey of being a fan of this franchise really worth it? what are the developers trying to accomplish? what should be valued? is there any way to look back at things in this series in a good way? Sonic Generations was a necessary effort to re-contextualize the bad and show that there was care even in the darkest times of the franchise. a reminder of why we should care. a reminder of what Sonic is supposed to be. Generations, be it Sonic or Shadow, is not just about cashing in nostalgia, but to invigorate the series and it&apos;s history. kinda like what Super Smash Bros. does to Nintendo in a way. it sucks that after Generations, somehow, Sonic lost it&apos;s way again, and kinda needed that same re-evaluation that Generations provided in the past again. but yeah, it was necessary. besides basically officially licensed fan projects like Sonic Mania and Murder of Sonic (and I guess some spin-offs like Sonic all stars racing transformed and mobile games like Sonic Dream Team). all of the sonic team developed games since Generations have been mixed. even Frontiers, have a lot of mixed feelings and opinions. and that&apos;s not counting all of the problems brought by the Sonic Boom Era. Sonic had another huge identity crisis after Generations, just like it happened after Shadow 05 and before Generations. and in both cases, Generations was the necessary step back to understand and re-evaluate, what the series and these characters are supposed to mean, in a gameplay stand point as well as story, soundtrack, identity, etc... and since Shadow have an extremely rough history, since, most of his appearances in games are in either very obscure spin-offs or bad games. a step back, is definetly a good thing to do. <br> <br>PS: I encountered your channel recently, and have been binge watching a lot of your videos. your channel have some great stuff, I&apos;m so surprised you don&apos;t have that many subscribers, cause the videos are really good. I really liked the Conker and DKC ones. and the Furnace Fun one as well. and Burnout 3? that&apos;s a classic I have dear to my heart, always great to see people talking about it. feels like an underrated gem at this point.

• MB

  @mbii7667 · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8jGuMUmuII&amp;t=1498">24:58</a> obviously his past is part of the identify and why the character is so interesting

• SK

  @SkipperWing · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8jGuMUmuII&amp;t=1329">22:09</a> &quot;&quot;I don&apos;t mean to assert myself and play armchair developer...&quot; and yet it didn&apos;t stop you from doing just that, huh?<br><br>If it was a boss fight...<br>1. How do you work in Chaos Control and Chaos Spear (and, potentially, Doom Wing, on replay) in a way that doesn&apos;t trivialize the fight in gameplay, without also compromising the fight from Sonic&apos;s perspective?<br>1-a. What power is racing Sonic meant to highlight? Biolizard tests Chaos Spear and Chaos Control, Metal Overlord tests the Doom Surf, Mephiles tests the Doom Morph, and Devil Doom tests the Doom Wings. What power of Shadow&apos;s would Sonic highlight? The boost?<br>2. How do you make the fight not feel redundant? If you&apos;re playing Shadow Generations, you also have Sonic Generations and have played the same thing<br>3. How do you not trivialize the player&apos;s victory if they&apos;re not meant to win?<br>4. How do you tie Sonic in thematically with the other bosses representing negative aspects of who Shadow could have become/has overcome, given that he represents positivity in Shadow&apos;s life? <br><br>And whatever answer you come up with has to work within the constraints of the game we were going to get, not a perfect dream scenario.<br><br>Odds are, if you&apos;re thinking it, so too did the devs, and their conclusion was that a cutscene preserving Shadow&apos;s rep (i.e. He lost, but was holding back in order to do so) was better than trying to answer those questions I posed. <br><br>It really helps to ask &quot;If the devs didn&apos;t do what I wanted/hoped, why not?&quot; and then ask yourself why, if you were in their shoes, why you would have made the choice they made, not &quot;What I would have done with unlimited time, money, resources, and the benefit of hindsight, and no accountability if my choice goes wrong.&quot;<br><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8jGuMUmuII&amp;t=1471">24:31</a> Sonic Team picked Shadow because its an easy way to experiment with Sonic&apos;s gameplay without having it tied to Sonic himself. Give Sonic an alternate form? People don&apos;t like it (the Werehog). Give him temporary powers? People sour on it eventually (the Wisps). Give powers to a (from a gameplay standpoint) identical clone known for having extra powers (Chaos Control/Spear) and an origin that allows for experimentation (the Black Arms)? Easy money. It doesn&apos;t hurt that Shadow is either the first, second, or third most popular character (depending on how you feel about Sonic or Knuckles), so people will eat it up no matter what (which they did, looking at Sonic movie 3 and Shadow Gens&apos; sales data). <br><br>This was also done in the context of an anniversary game; &quot;looking back&quot; is basically the whole deal. <br>Sure, they could&apos;ve made a whole new game for Shadow (re: White Space, and updating Gerald, Maria, Black Doom and the Black Arms),<br>But:<br>1. easy nostalgia from fans<br>2. reusable assets<br>3. reused levels rather than having to create new material wholesale <br>(#2 and #3 are why I suspect we got Radical Highway (to the extent we did, not just the singular level), Sunset Heights and Chaos Island and not Westopolis or the Black Comet)<br>You&apos;re also ignoring/forgetting that, from Shadow&apos;s perspective, Sonic Forces and Sonic Frontier haven&apos;t happened yet, and Sonic 06 never did. So, in-universe, it IS forward thinking (Gerald speculates as much) even if, by its very nature, out of universe, it can&apos;t be.

• BO

  @Boomblox5896 · 1 year ago

  I think you might be a little too cynical about some of the details of the story here. I think it&apos;s a good approach to Shadow&apos;s past to show respect to what used to be (plus don&apos;t be so ashamed for defending Shadow &apos;05, it&apos;s okay to love the games before the 2010s). SEGA did their best to try shunning all of it as soon as they failed in &apos;05 and &apos;06, but they only got worse with time until they embraced the shaky past. Nowadays we WANT to see a Sonic &apos;06 remake and see Shadow featured in more games, just without that humiliating caricature like the one we saw in Sonic Boom. No more self-deprecating humor, only pure proud love.

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• KA

  @kaobunn · 1 year ago (edited)

  the whole point of shadow gens was to re-introduce his arc to newcomers, it&apos;s gonna rehash, frontiers did the same thing, ontop of that the nostalgia stuff is because it&apos;s shadow&apos;s version of generations, the very idea was how it sounded from the beginning (though idk if id say its nostalgia if a frontiers location is back lol) im pretty certain the next mainline game was all but confirmed to be ditching it<br><br>shadow&apos;s past is tied to him because it&apos;s iconic, it&apos;s his bruce wayne&apos;s parents moment, his uncle ben moment, it&apos;s gonna be something revisited in a year dedicated to him, to expect nothing less is silly and having the movie revisit it, something that is a loose adaptation of sa2 with a introduction of shadow in the universe, is not it&apos;s fault, why wouldn&apos;t you touch on his past with maria in the movie?<br><br>i hope you don&apos;t hate people that like the game