Ranking EVERY Shadow The Hedgehog!

Yes. I agree. While Sonic 06 was not the best Sonic game. It certainly gave us a perfect representation of Shadow!

Sonic Riders Shadow: "Shadow is a dick, but I like his drip... C tier."

Did you know that in Shadow The Hedgehog 2005, Eggman straight up reveals that the Shadow we've been playing as IS the ORIGINAL Shadow that Gerald created

For Sonic X (Japanese version), they show in the credits that Shadow is alive. He's visiting Molly's grave (you don't see him, but his shadow is on top of the grave that was built).

46:11 Shadow did survive this. There is a Japanese version of the show, which shows in the last scene Shadow’s shadow next to Molly’s grave. After the final battle he visited her grave. It is removed from the English version because they thought it was too much for kids. So yeah, Shadow is still alive in Sonic X

With Shadow Generations already showing us that Shadow does have a caring side in the game, understanding that the Biolozard is suffering and wanting to end that suffering, it makes me optimistic that Shadow will be done justice once more after the awful 2010s

Fun fact, Shadow is in the DS version of Sonic Colors! He only has like 10 lines though 😅

The problem with the Metal Virus arc for Shadow is not due to the writers. Ian Flynn stated on his podcast, the Bumblekast, that the thing was going to go differently — Shadow was going to take off his inhibitor rings after getting overwhelmed, trying to save everyone, and it would cause the virus to spread quicker; not only that, it would have caused Shadow to become corrupted as he turned into a Zombot — but SEGA is literally mandating that Shadow be portrayed as Vegeta 2.0. NONE of the writers like the way they're being forced to write Shadow because this isn't Shadow. But it's a SEGA mandate, so they can't do anything about it if they want to include Shadow in the story. So, please don't say that Ian Flynn needs to take inspiration from how he wrote Shadow in the Archie comics. He WANTS to write Shadow that way but SEGA WON'T ALLOW him to. And whatever SEGA says goes, and unfortunately, there is a mandate on how Shadow needs to be portrayed. Ian Flynn can't go against those mandates and just write Shadow how he wants, ignoring the mandates, because then SEGA will just tell IDW to fire him and find a new writer for IDW Sonic, and as this is a licensed comic… yeah, SEGA can actually do that.

Shadow from Sonic X will forever be the perfect Shadow… He was everything in that show. Perfect balance of tragic hero and antihero. Edgy but in a more “dutiful” kind of way Caring even when he doesn’t want to show it

Shadow in IDW gets a LOT better in the Eggperial City arc. Somehow the mandates don't apply to Evan Stanley I guess because he's back to liking Team Dark, helping Sonic and getting character moments with Silver. Worth a read.

Sonic 06 was a tragedy. I really like what they were trying to do, it's a shame the game released in the state it did. Shadow and Silver's stories were the highlight.

I agree I really liked Shadow in Sonic X and The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. But I also think Sonic Prime had one of the best Shadows.

We do play as the original Shadow from SA2. During the final story (canon ending) while Super Shadow against Devil Doom, I believe around 9 minutes in, Eggman contacts Shadow telling him he is the original. Makes sense, as all the androids were stored together in one room, whereas original Shadow is guarded by Omega in a base by himself.

Shadows lacking representation in IDW mostly comes down to the writers having to work around SEGAs mandates. Ian has talked about it extensively in the past but he just finds it kinda difficult to write for shadow in the current canon since SEGA is insistent that he’s just Sonic rival antihero friend and that’s it. Things have got a bit better since Metal virus since Shadows decisions aren’t directly putting more people in harm now at least. But quick extra thing regarding the mandates; in Sonic prime a stipulation was given to Man of Action saying Shadow and sonic could meet in a cave but their could be no indication he actually lived in said cave. That is how specific and weird SEGA gets about the characterizations. Anyway here’s to hoping ShadowxSonic Gen gives shadow a bunch of cool stuff to do!

I like Shadow's SA2 voice the most, so that iteration is probably my favorite. He sounded melancholy in a way, which made a lot of sense to kid me given his backstory.

I like all varients of Shadow, doesn't matter if the writing is good or bad, hes still shadow no matter what

The way that shadow says "It's still me, Shadow!" has to be the funniest delivery of that hard ass line. He sounds more like a child than serious.

so glad to see many agree that despite what the game is, sonic 06 has the best written shadow hands down and its truly a shame that it was the last time he was written in such a way for such a long time... hoping for better things moving forward for his character 🙏

10:00 It says a lot that people STILL aren't sure if the Shadow from Heroes onward is the real one or not. The answer to that question is during the True Final Boss of Shadow the Hedgehog, but you have to spend TEN MINUTES in the fight in order for the dialogue to trigger, even though the boss only really takes 3 minutes to beat. For context, Eggman radios Shadow and admits that he lied to Shadow, and that he is the original.

Though we don't know much about Sonic movie 3's Shadow I'm not worried at all at this point. Jeff Fowler clearly loves him if he was willing to get to Shadow as quickly as possible. Fowler clearly wants to be the director to introduce him to the general audience and with that kind of passion we can expect amazing results. He's handled the other charachters so well too even better than Sega until recently.