Shadow the Hedgehog Review (Gamecube)

Shadow the Hedgehog follows, well… Shadow the Hedgehog, as he travels on a quest to discover his true identity. It seems that Shadow now suffers from amnesia and has no memory of his past. If that wasn’t enough, a war is taking place between humans, aliens, and none other than Dr. Eggman. Of course, with no memory, this means Shadow has no way of telling friend from foe or whether he is good or bad. These choices will all be made by the individual who will be playing as Shadow!

The game opens with a cinema of Shadow watching Westopolis being invaded by the aliens known as the Black Arms. Suddenly the leader of the aliens, known as Black Doom, appears before Shadow, commanding him to acquire the ever famous Chaos Emeralds. While Shadow would prefer not to get involved, it seems that Black Doom has some sort of familiarity with Shadow and his past. In an attempt to develop some sort of memory, Shadow decides to work alongside Black Doom.

Of course, Shadow doesn’t actually have to work alongside Black Doom. Like I said earlier, the player will be able to choose the path that Shadow takes. For the most part, many of the missions feature the choices of taking the dark path, hero path, or the normal path. Each of these missions features one objective that, upon completion, will result in you receiving the path that objective is linked to. For example, the dark path might request that you defeat a certain number of human soldiers, but the hero path may ask you to save the humans and defeat the aliens. However, there are some missions that are a little more difficult to decipher which choices will lead to which path. If you need a little help, there is always the option of pressing the pause button which will show your objectives.

Along the course of the game, the choices you make will also have some effect on the actual storyline. In fact, the certain choices you make along the line will determine which levels that Shadow participates in. For example, if Shadow takes the path of darkness, then many of the levels will be very different from, say, the ones along the hero path. The path you take can also have an effect on the characters you meet along your mission and the final boss.

The idea that the player is able to determine most of the storyline throughout Shadow the Hedgehog was one of the key things that interested me in the game. However, no matter what path you choose, it seems that both your enemies and allies will attack you throughout levels. This…