Here we go with 10 facts about the most popular character among Sonic franchise fans apart from the blue blur himself... We are, of course, talking about Shadow the Hedgehog!
Since his first appearance in Sonic Adventure 2 for Dreamcast, Shadow has taken part in several games, TV series, comics, spin-offs, marketing products, and more. His past was a complete mystery until the game Shadow the Hedgehog revealed various events surrounding his creation. In contrast with Sonic, Shadow is considered an antihero who can easily serve both the forces of good and those of evil. The character knows how to handle firearms and bladed weapons, drives cars, and is a master at manipulating Chaos Energy, in addition, of course, to his natural hedgehog abilities (common in the series).
10 – Blaze Was One of Shadow's Early Designs
Art by BlazeGTR (DeviantArt).
While SEGA was producing Sonic Adventure 2, it created several designs for Shadow, and one was very similar to what Blaze would become a few years later. The black hedgehog emerged, and Blaze was "put away in a drawer," but during the production of Sonic Rush a few years later, the character appeared as a cat from another dimension. Curiously, in the first Rush she essentially serves as Sonic's rival, and her poses closely resemble Shadow's.
9 – Shadow Is Proven to Be the Series' Most Popular Character Apart from Sonic Himself
Taken from the 'HD Wallpapers' website.
In a survey conducted by SEGA itself asking which Sonic series character was the fans' favorite, thousands of votes were cast, and the black hedgehog finished second, losing to the blue hedgehog by only TEN votes. Crazy, right?
8 – He Is Takashi Iizuka's Favorite Character
One of the people most responsible for and involved in creating the Sonic series has said in several interviews that Shadow is his favorite character. Curiously, he is also the black hedgehog's creator and wanted Sonic to have this kind of rival as early as the first Sonic Adventure, but because of a lack of time, Sonic's rival did not appear until the second game in the Adventure series.
7 – He Was Going to Die in Sonic Adventure 2
The idea was for Shadow to be exclusive to Sonic Adventure 2. That is why his story is well developed and the entire game focuses heavily on him, dealing with both his past and present, among other things. Anyone who watched the game's ending saw him falling toward Earth as he lost his super transformation and paid a final tribute to Maria, moving many fans of the black hedgehog at the time (and frustrating them too). Fortunately, Shadow achieved unexpected popularity, even surpassing Sonic himself in other general surveys, and amid pressure for the character to return in a subsequent game, SEGA decided to bring him back from Sonic Heroes onward.
6 – It Is Official: The Shadow in Sonic Heroes Is the Same One from Sonic Adventure 2
In Sonic Heroes, it is ambiguous whether the Shadow we control is an android copy of the black hedgehog or the same Shadow from Sonic Adventure 2. In Shadow's game (PS2), it becomes quite clear that he is the real one, since the copies created by Eggman are far inferior and serve merely as ordinary enemies of the black hedgehog in one of the included stages. But to remove any doubt, eight minutes into the battle against the boss Devil Doom, Dr. Eggman tells Shadow through his communicator that one of his robots found him lying on planet Earth some time earlier, and that the robot then took him to the capsule seen in Sonic Heroes (image). This strongly suggests the robot may have been Omega, who was guarding him at the beginning of Sonic Heroes.
5 – Shadow Was Going to Appear in Sonic Unleashed
The first decision made during Unleashed's production was to drastically reduce the number of characters. The reason was the media's constant complaints about a supposedly excessive number of unnecessary characters. For this and other reasons, after Unleashed there were no more playable characters or significant new appearances by the likes of Silver, Rouge, Cream, Espio, Charmy, Blaze, Omega, and so on. Even so, Shadow and Knuckles were going to appear in the game because of their immense popularity, but they were eventually cut as well in favor of what the media was asking for at the time. Fortunately, they were not completely removed from later games.
4 – He Has Acknowledged Sonic as the "Ultimate Life Form"
If the player takes a long time during the Final Hazard battle in Sonic Adventure 2, leaving the last attack to Shadow but switching to Sonic at the final moment, the black hedgehog says, "Haha, now I understand what this Ultimate Life Form is... it must be you, Sonic." The term Ultimate Life Form is commonly used in this game to refer to the black hedgehog, a creation made in a laboratory for that purpose in the title.
3 – His Original Name Was Going to Be Terios
Terios is a word of Asian origin meaning "reflection of." Throughout production, the character was called Terios precisely because he was a kind of dark reflection of Sonic, with similar powers but a completely different personality. Eventually, the name Shadow was adopted, carrying a similar meaning and having a sound considered more appealing in the West.
2 – Many Fans Theorize That Silver Is Shadow's Descendant
This theory makes a lot of sense thanks to the game Sonic and the Black Knight. In the game, Shadow plays the role of Lancelot, while Silver appears in multiplayer as the unlockable Galahad. In the story of King Arthur, Galahad is Lancelot's son and, curiously, in Black Knight, Silver is unlocked when we defeat Shadow in the "Lancelot Returns" stage. There is also the fact that Silver is a hedgehog and a very powerful character with the ability to trigger Chaos Control, leading people to believe that the silver hedgehog has some direct connection with the black hedgehog.
1 – Shadow Used Weapons in His Game Because of Requests Sent Directly to Sonic Team
This is paradoxical: SEGA included weapons in Shadow's game precisely because many fans had flooded its email inbox asking for a Sonic game that used them. Curiously, after the release, people began criticizing the very fact that the game had weapons. It is worth emphasizing that requests to do something involving weapons had existed since the Mega Drive and Sega Saturn era, and this was also why Gamma was included in the first Sonic Adventure, with a "shooter" style designed to please those who wanted to run and shoot. In Shadow's case, because the character has a darker nature and the game was aimed more at an older audience, it was the perfect moment to fulfill that request. It was one of the biggest, if not the single biggest, reasons the game was criticized, yet it was a commercial success.
Bonus: Shadow Would Probably Have Been an Android in Sonic Boom
Although Shadow was created in a laboratory, he is not considered an android but rather a life form, or the "Ultimate Life Form." Even so, because Sonic Boom is an alternate universe, doubts arose over whether Shadow would in fact be an android. The video below explains the situation and offers a plausible answer for the character in Boom.
