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if you play sonic x shadow generations you get the full backstory to him and in HD crisp graphics what happens after this animation. just boot shadow generations and in the main menu select shadow's story and you will see it right away.
Favorite character is Shadow (maybe Blaze if I knew more about her). Always has been since my first introduction to Sonic in Sonic Adventure 2. I’d rather have stories about Shadow than Sonic
One little character development bit. In episode three the robot, Omega, was absolutely out for blood. The reason Shadow intervened was not just to disable the machine but to save the pilot from Omega.
a small thing -- *technically* shadow is about 50 years old but he isn't... *reeeally* over 50 years old, in body and mind...... it's inaccurate both ways -- he didnt age at all for the 50 years he was sealed away, and he was already in the form of a teenager when he was born. saying shadow is 50+ years old is like saying captain america is 100+ years old
You're forgetting a very important detail He is immortal. Time won't kill him. While he was sealed away for 50 years, it wouldn't make any difference if it was 100, 200 or even 1000 years. He would still be there.
@@0retro0no, thats confirmed in '06 where in the far future (i think it was 300 years?) Shadow is still alive and sealed away. He basically doesnt age and is immune to all disease.
@@0retro0 No. They sealed him away because they thought he caused everything in the future, but it was kinda pointless cuz he can't age. He just remained there. Hopefully that timeline is gone so that never happened.
So fun little detail, (or saddening, take your pick) the scenes that Shadow is seeing while on the rocket up to the Ark are actually him thinking about how life would have been with Maria around, had she been able to be cured. Those flowers are the same ones that were on the hill in the first episode.
And even sadder, he didn't even wish for a house. He's fucking laying on grass, and being covered by Maria's blanket... shadow used to be so simple minded 😭
@@veronikamajerova4564 yeah used to be :| If you don't realize, we've passed the generations timeline... the story has happened IN THE PAST and the series is even more INTO THE PAST. So, yeah. USED TO BE.
@_-MG-_ having simple desires isn't a bad thing tho. Can't tell if you're insulting him for that or not. All he wanted was to visit earth and face it with maria at his side. Nothing more nothing less.
To give you a rundown, Shadow was created by Gerald Robotnik who is the grandfather of both Maria and Dr. Eggman (the main villain of the series). Gerald wanted to create the ultimate life form and use its DNA to cure Maria who was suffering from Neuro Immune Deficiency Syndrome (NIDS). He had created a few prototype specimens before Shadow but they were all failures. Desperate to save Maria, Gerald ended up making contact with an alien race known as the Black Arms and he used the DNA of their leader, Black Doom, to create Shadow. During his time living on the Ark, Shadow formed a very close bond with Maria and the two of them dreamed of visiting Earth together. However, G.U.N (the government organization that owned the base Shadow raided in this prologue) ended up raiding the Ark to shut down the project and destroy all evidence and Maria was killed while helping Shadow escape. After landing on Earth, Shadow was captured by G.U.N and sent to a secret facility where he was imprisoned for 50 years. Shadow has what are called "Chaos powers" which you saw a couple being used in this prologue. Those two powers you saw are "Chaos Snap" which allows him to teleport short distances and "Chaos Control" (the move he used to take out the missiles) which allows him to stop time. The thing about Chaos Control is Shadow can only use it if he has a Chaos Emerald (that yellow gem he was holding) on hand. All his other powers don't require a Chaos Emerald.
Chaos Control also lets you teleport, it's not just a time stop (case and point Sonic could not have gotten back to the Ark in SA2 by stopping time). Shadow and other characters have also used Chaos Control before without an emerald, and it's really unclear if that's meant to be canon or not. I know Shadow says you need one in the IDW comics, and he was surprised Sonic could use it all with a fake one, but in the following fight Shadow uses it without any emerald, and Metal Overlord, Black Doom and the Biolizard have all used it without any; Metal Overlord even did so after Shadow's statement in the IDW, muddying the issue further.
@@ShaleLee I know Chaos Control is also used for teleportation. I was just describing it in regards to how it was used in this prologue because I felt that would be simpler for someone who isn't familiar with the lore.
The robot from the flashback fight is Emerl, from the Game Boy Advance game Sonic Battle. And the clever detail about the fight scene is that Shadow is literally pulling moves from his kit in that game. Those jabs are recreations of sprite work from 2 decades ago.
Surprised that no one has mentioned it, but this animation is almost fully 3D with some additional 2D effects added in post. That helps to explain why the light sources affect the characters and the environments, as well as explaining how they kept the positions and stances of the characters consistent between cuts. The shaders in most of the scenes are so convincing, theres only a few shots where you can really see the 3D models, it mostly passes as high quality traditional 2D animation to my untrained eye which is super impressive to me
True. Especially after the movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the use of 2D and 3D animation assets and their potential is becoming more common, especially in high production value pieces. The anime adaptation of Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Kaiba) and the recent (2024) movie The Good Robot are examples of animated projects “coming full circle” by utilizing 2D and 3D together in animation
@@brianahanson6449I would say fortiche became the first well established use of 2d and 3d animation. Aka riot games aka league of legends. It was mostly in gaming circles and less mainstream that hollywood movies but it's the first time I consistently saw the beautiful art style of combining both mediums
Fun fact about how shadow is so op: he was made as the ultimate life form to protect earth, he originally was so powerful his own body couldnt handle the amount if energy inside of his veins too where the professor needed to make “inhibitor rings” to help shadow not faint, which is the rings on his wrists and ankles. With them off he is really something else entierly. Also fun fact, shadow is supposed too be a hero if the past and sonic is a hero of the present and silver (a lesser known character) is the hero of the future.
Despite being made with alien DNA and not looking like an alien at all, Shadow looks like a hedgehog because before his creation, Gerald came upon the mystical Angel Island where the Master Emerald is, and in it's chamber is a mural depicting a hedgehog-like being in the middle of a great battle; this was actually a foreshadow to the true final boss in Sonic 3 & Knuckles where the mural depicted Sonic in his Super Sonic transformation fighting against one of the mech trying to escape with the Master Emerald being piloted by his grandson, Dr. Eggman. So Gerald took down notes while he was there and based Shadow's design off the being in the mural. Trust me, it's some deep lore shit, and we love it.
@@ultrachristian28 Nope, they just mention that Gerald went to Angel Island at one point and explored around the many biomes, and that part was already obvious, he HAD to have been in Angel Island considering the architecture of the core of the ARK in SA2 is extremly simillar to Lost World (the stage in Sonic Adventure) and in the center of the Space Colony there is a recreation of the Master Emerald shrine made to harnass more effectively the power of the Master Emerald and neutralize the 7 Chaos Emeralds But the diary says that Gerald didn't stay for extremly long because he thought it was sacred ground, the theory could still be true tho, the diary doesn't "disprove" it, and it doesn't specify which areas or biomes Gerald passed through in Angel Island aside from the shrine which is the only place where the diary straight up confirms he was in (and that he saw Sky Sanctuary floating in the sky at some point), the journal also has many "ripped" pages and skipped entries, so it could theorically have a page talking about he finding Hidden Palace and the mural of Super Sonic vs Dr. Eggman I do believe in the mural theory too, and according to Takashi Iizuka, the director of Sonic Team and one of Shadow's creators, there IS a reason for Shadow to be a hedgehog, a reason that they purposefully never awnsered like many other things on this series and are happy to see fans coming up with their own interpretations, The theory has many things that makes a lot of sense, especially considering the Perfect Chaos mural on the Mystic Ruins and how it could also be the inspiration for the Biolizard, just like how Super Sonic was the inspiration for Shadow, but at the end it's STILL just a theory
I see a lot of people explaining Shadow's backstory, but here's info on bis two modern day friends. (I will note that theres not as much backstory) 1. Rouge the Bat: She's a treasure hunter who specializes in jewels. She has a big selfish streak and belives she's entitled to all the gems in the world (even the macguffins, the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald, which unlike other characters she only wants for their beauty). She's also a free lance agent, willing to work for the President, G.U.N., and even Eggman's time travelling descendant, Eggman Nega. She has a flirty rivalry with Knuckles over the Master Emerald, and while her first time working with Shadow was only out of neural benefit and they didn't even like eachother, their next adventure made her one of few people Shadow trusts. 2. E-123 Omega: The 23rd and final robot in Dr. Eggman's E-100 line. Eggman had him locked in a room with Shadow (possibly to guard him), and wether it was abandonment or a waste of his talent, he was digusted with Eggman and desires to kill him and destroy of all of his robots. He has a bit of a friendly rivalry with Shadow, and of the recurring characters is the least friendly with Sonic and co. But he's always willing to work with Shadow and Rouge because they don't hold him back from destroying all the robots in his way.
9:34 Shadow grabs and holds the missile. “This is the missile…there’s no way he’s gonna throw that back at him-“ Unleashes the missile. Jaw drop 😮”WHAT?! Oh man, he’s OP. He literally just sent a missile at the-“ Shadow teleports, catches the missile again, and slam dunks it onto the ship. Stunned silent, stupefied. “WHAT?!” Again 🤭 THAT was fun to watch 😁
My favorite Sonic character besides Shadow is called E-102 code name Gamma, probably one of the most underrated but emotional story of a 1 off character from the "Sonic Adventure" game. 👍
I don't know if it's funny or depressing that most people don't know anything about Sonic lore and are genuinly surprised when they see that it's good.
@@WhatISawJuly7th Some people were mad for some reason that Sonic wasn't a bad western Saturday Morning preschool cartoon show and was instead very anime-like and took itself more seriously (even though it's a Japanese IP what did they expect?) and so in the 2010s they decided to turn it into a bad western Saturday Morning preschool cartoon show to appease them for some reason and then made fun of their more serious anime-like past. Intentional brand-defacing to try and SAVE face is a weird backwards marketing strategy but that's what they did.
I think that's part of what made both this and the Knuckles Prologue for Frontiers so special. They focused heavily on the lore for the two characters with easily the most interesting lore (imo)
Shadow's Lore Summary in case no one had dropped yet (spoilers for old Sonic games): Shadow was created as part of "Project Shadow" on the Space Colony: ARK under the direction of the military body, Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N.), by Eggman's grandfather, Gerald Robotnik. G.U.N. wanted to Gerald to create a weapon, while Gerald took the opportunity and funding to research a cure for his granddaughter Maria's illness. Gerald's research takes him to Angel Island, the setting of Sonic 3 and Sonic Adventure. On Angel Island, there are murals of ancient prophecies depicting a dragon-like water monster (who goes on to be the final boss of Sonic Adventure) and a hedgehog utilizing the power of the Chaos Emeralds, seven magical relics that grant wishes. Both murals can be seen in the games before Shadow's debut game, Sonic Adventure 2, with the former being in a level in Sonic Adventure and the latter being in the background of a boss fight in Sonic 3. Gerald's first attempt is to recreate the water monster by using salamanders, which he chooses for their regenerative abilities. This attempt fails and eventually becomes the final boss of Sonic Adventure 2, the Biolizard. The second attempt was to recreate the hedgehog, who as the player we know to be Sonic, which results in Shadow. However, to successfully complete Shadow, Gerald made a deal with an alien race called the Black Arms to obtain their DNA in exchange for allowing them to come to Earth in 50 years to use the lifeforms on Earth as a power source. Gerald builds a contingency weapon on the Ark called the Eclipse Cannon for when that day comes, since he can't turn down the deal because of his desperation to cure Maria. Eventually, G.U.N. learns of this deal and executes everyone on the Ark and takes Gerald hostage. Maria sends Shadow down to Earth in a pod in her dying moments. When Gerald learns that Maria was a casualty of the raid, he goes insane and reprograms the Eclipse Canon and the Biolizard to one day destroy Earth to avenge her. In Sonic Adventure 2, Eggman breaks into a G.U.N. base and finds Shadow, who begins to enact Gerald's plan for revenge upon waking up. Throughout the game, Rouge questions whether he is the real Shadow because she finds data on the Ark that contradicts the facts that lead to Shadow's presence in that game (the game's manual also states Shadow's escape pod was never found). It's highly implied that the Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2 is a fake Shadow that Gerald might have created after the raid to help fulfill his plan for vengeance. Eventually, this Shadow realizes that revenge isn't what Maria wanted, and helps Sonic defeat the Biolizard after Sonic stops the Eclipse Cannon by himself. This Shadow dies in the process, but in the next game, Rouge discovers Shadow sleeping in stasis in one of Eggman's bases, and he has no memories of the Ark, Maria, or the events of SA2. We learn in this game that Eggman has multiple clones of Shadow and the Shadow that Rouge found questions whether he, too, is one of these other clones. The next game is Shadow's standalone title, Shadow the Hedgehog, where the Black Arms return as promised, and their leader, Black Doom, attempts to coerce Shadow to join them. By the end of the game, he chooses to reject the Black Arms and the memory of SA2 Shadow that the other characters keep forcing onto him and decides to be his own person, still with no memory of Maria and the ARK. During the final boss against Black Doom, Eggman tells Shadow that he is indeed not one of his many clones, but rather Eggman found him after the events of SA2. This also implies that he perhaps was the original Shadow that Maria sent down to Earth if the one in SA2 was indeed a clone that Gerald created, hence why he doesn't remember the events of SA2. The animations for Sonic x Shadow Generations seems to be Shadow regaining his memories of Maria, which scares him as it tempts him to go back on the choice he made to not let his past define him, which is what the story of the Shadow part of the Sonic x Shadow Generations game explores. Quick sidenote, at the end of the first part of the animations, when he says "could he have survived?" he's referring to Black Doom. Other neat tidbits: - Gerald discovered other things during his research, including an ancient combat android, Emerl, from a long-gone civilization; this android is the focus of Sonic Battle, and is the robot Shadow fights in the first part of the animation, which was a nice call back to a more obscure Sonic character - Shadow specifically resembles Super Sonic, because the mural in Sonic 3 depicts Sonic in his Super form - In design concepts, Shadow resembles Sonic's regular form a lot more closely and lacks his black and red color scheme (people have named this form "Terios the Hedgehog"); in lore, this could be explained as Shadow prior to getting Black Arms DNA, as the Black Arms have the same black and red color scheme; this design is also brought back as a costume for Shadow in the Sonic x Shadow Generations game - The kid who becomes the G.U.N. commander, Abraham Tower, was an antagonist in the Shadow the Hedgehog game, as he believed Shadow was the reason Maria died because he was escorted off of the ARK before the raid, and so has no knowledge of what actually happened (hence why he now works for them as an adult); by the end of the game, he realizes that Shadow has no memories and thus he can't blame him for what he thinks he did, choosing to forgive him and move on (a core theme of Shadow the Hedgehog is moving on from the pain of your past to live a better future)
I believe Shadow Generations implies Shadow has since regained a few memories from his past, including some of the events of SA2. It’s implied he managed to survive the sacrifice he committed to, and Eggman found him afterwards. The trauma from what happened caused him to suffer amnesia. Shadow, in his nightmare, recalls Gerald and the confessional, the entire G.U.N. raid, Maria, and so on. He’s just stuck to his promise to move on. I believe Sonic 06 may have had a transition that led to some of this development but I can’t remember much of the plot from that game. So Shadow is the original, is implied to be the same one that survived SA2 or at least was informed a great deal on it, remembers a lot of what happened before, and is struggling to keep looking forward now that his past is haunting him. Having played the game and seen all the extra content, that’s what it seems to imply to me at least?
A few things though (and forgive me, my Sonic lore is rusty so I could be totally wrong in this or this was debunked in future Sonic games), but if I recall, it is confirmed that both Shadows are the same because he DOES regain the memory of when he fell to Earth after the SA2 battle when he reboards the Ark with Sonic. I don't think that sequence was meant to imply that the characters were forcing the memory onto him, it's something he concluded to himself, and it's reassured to him by Eggman that he is not an andriod/clone, and with that knowledge still decides to identify as his person regardless of his memories. He also regains memories of the Ark incident, including Maria, and remembers his true purpose of his creation aka being a protector of the world against Black Doom, to which he does decide to achieve. I think the manual included information about his escape pod never being found to create suspense for the story, since it opens the doorway to ShTH becoming a multi-path adventure based on whatever choices you make Shadow choose, the "good ending" being the true ending. Gerald's journal and narration for the SxSG game do include that Shadow was captured and put on Prison Island, clarifying the alleged contradiction in the previous games that ever suggested there were multiple Shadows as mains in other games besides the androids in the one game (and the Phantom Copy, but obv it wasn't meant to be a mystery to the players). --- sorry if this is what you meant and I just misinterpreted what was written, just wanna clarify that Modern Shadow is the same character in SA2 both the one Maria sent and the antagonist/antihero in the game that "died" (but didn't) Also the mural discovery was just a theory (which I fully support since Sonic Team intentionally skirts the explanation of why Shadow looks the way he does, making it a fun mystery for the fans). The direction of his quills may be meant to resemble Super Sonic, but it ends up resembling the shape of Doom's Eye since they spread out (also same number of large head quills as the number of tentacles) and the tips curve upward like the claws of the Black Arms larvae. TBF I think I heard that Sega has been getting more open with allowing interpretations of Shadow to really lean into his past so they've been adding more to it and readapting some parts to correlate to how they want Shadow to behave in the games, so some inconsistencies in new games are just small rewrites in old games. Don't quote me, but I believe this is something Ian Flynn had mentioned because in the past he was frustrated with the strictness of Shadow's writing, so now he is relieved that with them basically giving Shadow's backstory and character a fresher and more refined take, it means he can add more nuance to the character. Hopefully lol
I'm just gonna have to say this as part of whatever comment I leave on newcomers reacting to something Sonic-related from now on... "This is not what I was expecting from Sonic" is something I've been hearing for the past 2 years straight from people who don't know about Sonic! LOL Regarding music, animation, story, etc. And yes, the newest things are often a bit unique to the series, but not surprisingly so. Usually, people are extremely surprised by the heavy metal of Undefeatable or the animation of Dark Beginnings because all they know about Sonic are chiptunes and loop-de-loops from 32 years ago. (I mean, generally speaking.) While Sonic fans are pleasantly surprised by some of these recent things as well, we've experienced both simplistic silly stories and dramatic in-depth stories from Sonic as well as just about every genre of GOAT-tier music in some form or fashion with good to great animation here and there that seems to get better over time. We're surprised. But yeah, you're much more surprised I imagine. lol People going into Sonic Movie 3 are going to be saying the same thing when they see that one of these fluffy cartoony character's backstory being about grieving over a child dying. (I mean... same with this animation I guess. lol) It's been so cool seeing outsiders become aware of the good parts about the franchise.
So, Apparently…Some of the people who worked on Rise the TMNT also worked on this! Which is incredible! You can tell its theme, because their animation style is Heavily inspired by anime, Specifically Studio trigger stuff.
6:20 OH BOY. Was gonna give the rundown on all the lore, the robot in the beginning, all the stuff in this that are SO enhanced with background information, but this question is such an interesting rabbit hole, that only recently got officially recognized. Haven't played the game yet, won't until Christmas, but I am INTIMATELY familiar with Sonic lore and fan theories backed by solid circumstantial evidence. Plus others will have me covered. Shadow is a hedgehog because Sonic is a Hedgehog. In Gerald Robotnik's search for a cure for Maria's illness, he visited a number of the ruins of ancient (usually very powerful, technologically advanced) civilizations. It's how he found the robot in the beginning, the "Gizoid", later named Emerl by Sonic (in Sonic Battle for the Gameboy Advance). In his search, Gerald finds 2 important ruins with murals. The first is in the Mystic Ruins, the remains of an ancient temple dedicated to Chaos, the "God of Destruction" a giant reptilian water monster responsible for the destruction of the Echidna civilization, depicting him in his final, civilization ending form, having gathered the 7 Chaos Emeralds, and Angel Island, a giant landmass lifted from the Echidnas' home by Tikal, the resident priestess of the time, in an attempt to end the the devestation by hiding the Master Emerald and sealing herself and Chaos inside it. Knuckles' home. On Angel Island, in the Hidden Palace Zone temple, is a prophetic mural depicting a battle between a giant mustachioed figure, and a powerful hedgehog like figure with upturned spines, the final battle between Eggman's doomsday robot and Hyper Sonic (or Super Sonic depending on how dedicated to emerald collecting you are) in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It is HEAVILY implied, if not outright stated in Gerald's journal, that before making Shadow, Gerald got to work on the prototype to the Ultimate Lifeform, based on the mural in the Mystic Ruins temple, the Biolizard. You actually see the Biolizard itself in the trailer at the end of this. After the failure of the Biolizard to be the immortal, disease immune, perfect being Gerald was looking for, Gerald found and went to Angel Island, where he saw the prophecy mural depicting the battle between Sonic and his grandson in the future, and based Shadow on that hedgehog like being. You can actually look up the mural, there's no accompanying text or anything, it's very open to interpretation, which would've been true for Gerald too. So Shadow is a hedgehog because Sonic, the prophesied savior of the planet by the ancient Echidnas, Knuckles' ancestors, is a hedgehog. He's based directly ON Sonic, both in terms of his real world character design, and the lore surrounding him.
Shadow looks like a hedgehog because Gerald Robotnik modled him after a mural of Super Sonic found in an ancient Echidna temple (the mural was a prohecy of the final boss of the game it shows up in, one of the 2d games, tho I forget which). Its actually why Shadow's spines curve up, they match Super Sonic's appearance in the first Sonic adventure game (with Sonic Adventure 2 being Shadow's debut game) Gerald basically looked at that mural of a prochecy of a demigod and said "Yah I can build that" and then proceeded to do so (after his failure basing the Biolizard off of Perfect Chaos, anyway)
The sonic franchise has had a lot of ups and downs over the years, namely, the experimental nature of some of their material like the werehog and some other problems with gameplay mechanics that didn’t quite work well in some games have made it a bit tenuous. when sonic actually does things right, it typically provides some absolutely stellar character and story writing; the live action movie had a bit of drama when it came out a few years ago and the studio did something unprecedented, which was delaying the release to listen to fan feedback and they produced something that has been overall very well received. One of the most iconic pieces of the sonic lore was sonic adventure 2 on the Dreamcast and it introduced shadow for the first time, the movie coming out in a few months will also have shadow for the first time in the films so they have basically been stepping up their game very hard the past couple years to make this a success. that’s probably why they put so much work into this mini video
shadow has quite an extensive backstory - it's impressive you picked up on the main beats! he was first introduced in sonic adventure 2 as an antagonist - at this point in time, he was reawakened after 50 years of being in cryo. created as the 'ultimate lifeform', he has the ability to use 'chaos control' - a move used to freeze time with the use of a chaos emerald (shown here in dark beginnings to take out the helicopter). his whole arc revolved around him taking revenge on humanity for killing both maria & the professor gerald (essentially his family) during the raid on the space colony ark. maria was infamously shot and killed by a soldier, and the professor was executed by a firing squad (both deaths were depicted in dark beginnings ep1). at the last minute, shadow remembered maria's final wish for everyone on earth to be happy, teaming up with sonic and sacrificing himself. however, shadow did't die - the next few games revolve around him having amnesia. the black arms also invade earth (the alien species used to create shadow), but shadow recovers from his amesia and kills the leader, black doom (basically space satan), who was planning on using the human population as livestock for his species. you missed the post credits scene in dark beginnings - it shows that black doom had regenerated from the larvae held on the space colony ark. black doom is once again the primary antagonist for the newest game, shadow generations.
@PhilipHarts you noticed that there were martial arts and close combat in this promotional series. This is more specific to Shadow. It’s been listed in official info about Shadow that he is a master of close combat. I don’t know the exact source, however.
These guys can regularly take out Robotnik's various Mechs. Hulking Chunks of Metal equipped with multiple Armaments Ever since the First Sonic Game Eggman Bossfights features a Mechanical contraption of some kind.
It really is an amazing animation. For context its a prologue tie-in animation for a new game being released called Sonic X Shadow Generations. Its actually a remaster of a game from 2011 made for Sonic the Hedgehogs 20th anniversary. So in the whole game, all the levels are iconic locations from previous games. But now they're re-releasing it, and adding a whole new campaign on the side just for Shadow the Hedgehog. Decently big too, about 2/3rds the size of the existing game. SEGA has gone all out about the character Shadow this year, theyve literally called it the Year of Shadow. I dont know if you know but the 3rd Sonic movie is also releasing next month and Shadow is the movie's antagonist. Not only that but in the movie he is played by Keanu Reeves!
Since everyone is explaining Shadows backstory I'll explain the power scaling, basically the Chaos Emerald are special crystals that give you limitless power, having all seven brings out a special form within you. Chaos Control is basically a special ability from the Chaos Emerald that makes you be able to stop time as a whole. Shadows power comes from the Emeralds as he was made from the miracle of Chaos Control by yhe black arms. He also had limter rings on his gloves and shoes to hold back his true power as ge can be unstable from that power.
small note!! not everyone can get a “super” form from the chaos emeralds. only a few can handle it. Often they’re used as a power source due to their endless ability.
You asked about Chaos Control. Long story short. It's the catch all term used when referring to using the Chaos Emeralds (The Main Collectibles of the series) Energy to Control Time and Space. As the Ultimate Life Form, Shadow can do it to a lesser extent without any of the 7 Emeralds. The abilities are: Chaos Control: Name used for both Long Range Teleportation and Stopping Time in an area. Chaos Snap: Short Range Teleportation. Dual Chaos Control: Requires two Users and Two Emeralds, used to travel through time. Shadow also can use Chaos Energy in a more direct and offensive way. Chaos Spear is a directed energy lance used to damage and or stun opponents. Chaos Blast is a far more powerful omny directional explosion of Chaos Energy.
The robot in episode 1 is Emerl, which definitely surprised Sonic Battle fans. Also, this Prologue was so top tier---I watched it the moment the Preview released, and was SUPER excited for the whole prologue to come out. Then, I watched each episode when it came out....I rewatch each episode to this very day, due to HOW AMAZING the animation, music, and writing is. Not surprised Ian Flynn was behind the writing of the Shadow Generations Prologue and Game----Ian also did the writing for the IDW, and with how amazing THAT is, I was not surprised to hear he wrote this too. Seeing Team Dark fight together for the first time in a long time made me emotionally ascend. Additionally, the final episode hit me in the feels. Especially the lyrics. The flowers seen in the premonitions Shadow was having in episode 3 (12:44) are called *Balloon Flowers,* and they represent *endless love* and the *desire for the return of a friend.* 😭
Breif character explanations for your context needing pleasure! Shadow - The Ultimate Lifeform, created by Gerald Robotnik in order to create immortal life, in hopes they could reverse-engineer a cure to Maria's illness from there. Dark, blunt, and not one to follow orders, his heart is still pure, even if his methods can border on extreme. Can use the Chaos Emeralds to perform Chaos Control, which acts as a breif time stop and teleportation. Rouge - A theiving bat with an eye for gemstones, and one of the few people Shadow can call a friend (to which she returns the sentiment). While they started out often only working together out of convenience, they've grown a true bond over time to the point you rarely see them apart in things like the comics. She's also one of the few mutual friends of both Shadow *and* Sonic. E-123 Omega - The last of Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik's E-Series combat machines, loaded to the brim with weaponry. Tasked with guarding an amnesiac Shadow rather than being put on the front lines, Omega took GREAT offense to his potential being wasted and swore to destroy everything Eggman had created. While his main motive is hate, he appreciates Rogue and Shadow for not telling him to stop shooting things. Maria Robotnik - The grandaughter of Gerald Robotnik and cousin to Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, she was diagnosed with "Neuro-Immune Deficency Syndrome" at a young age, a fatal disease that painfully affected her immune system, but couldn't harm her positive, hopeful view on life. She was taken to the Space Colony ARK to better treat her illness, and made fast friends with Shadow when he was brought into the world. Professor Gerald Robotnik - The grandfather of Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik and Maria Robotnik, he created the Space Colony ARK and many, many other wonderful (and terrible) devices relevant to Shadow's story. While he had a good heart, he had a tendency to try and make deals with untrustworthy sources with the beleif he could outsmart them and come out fine. This had many, many dire consequences...
Just a small thing. I don't think Omega was even aware of his actual task. He didn't know anything about Shadow and he find the notion that Eggman basically wanted Eggman to protect Shadow from Metal as ridiculous. Said notion was apparently Rouge's.
"This is not what I expected from sonic" is something I've heard way too much in my life, sadly... Okay so, some things "How powerful is he?" Well, I always like using the fact that he easily soloes all of dragon ball as an example when someone asks this about him or sonic He was introduced in sonic adventure 2, from 2001 He looks like a hedgehog because gerald based him off of a mural in angel island depicting super sonic fighting against dr eggman seen in sonic 3, that's why his quills are actually angled up. The mural was left by the echidna, aa now extinct tribe of very powerful warriors of whom knuckles is the laast survivor, which is why he guards the master emerald in angel island (where the tribe lived) with his life The robot shadow fights is emerl, a "gizoid", which are very advanced fighting robots built by "the ancients" (who we actually saw in sonic fromtiers!), who can copy and save all fighting data about aany opponent they fight and have crazy amounts of energy, so they are very powerful robots. Eggman uses this robot in sonic battle. Emerl was later turned into g-emerl and he is now a good guy...except when he's a bad guy again for a game, but yk Rouge is another character introduced in sonic adventure 2, who is a jewel thief who works with the government to collect data from eggman. She is a playable character in the dark story alongside shadow and eggman (there is also a hero side with sonic, tails and knuckles) Omega is a robot created by eggman who ended up hating eggman with a burning passion introduced in sonic heroes. He *REALLY* wants to destroy and kill everything related to eggman lmao
If you’re curious about Shadow’s story, DEFINITELY check out the new game, but also check out some of his other appearances. The best starting spot is Sonic Adventure 2
I'm a month late, and everyone else gave their two cents, but I figured I'd give mine just to add on and summarize: *Shadow the Hedgehog - The Ultimate Lifeform* Shadow is a Mobian hedgehog/Black Arms hybrid who was created by the genius Prof. Gerald Robotnik. He cannot age, get sick, or even die, making him one of, if not, the most overpowered character in the franchise complete with teleportation, freezing/slowing down time, and firing energy projectiles from his hands. Shadow was designed to find a cure for Gerald's granddaughter, Maria, who was suffering from an illness known as Neuro-Immune Deficiency Syndrome (N.I.D.S.), which is only manageable thanks to the low gravity of space. During their research, Shadow and Maria formed a close, sibling-like relationship, becoming practically inseparable until the day that the Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N.) raided the Space Colony ARK to destroy any and all remaining traces of Project Shadow. Maria wanted to get Shadow to safety, leading him to an escape pod aboard the ARK, but the soldiers were hot on their trail, and Maria was caught in the crossfire. Clinging to her last moments of life, Maria made Shadow promise to protect all of humanity by any means necessary before pushing the button that sent the dark hedgehog down to Earth. Shadow was apprehended not long after and put in cryostasis for fifty years, eventually being reawakened by Gerald's grandson, Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik. Upon regaining consciousness, only one word rang out through Shadow's mind: revenge. And thus, the events of Sonic Adventure 2 began.
I think one of the coolest (and relatively overlooked) detailed moments in this animation has to do with Omega (the red and black robot that keeps calling "dibbs"), where he jumps out of a window at a high speed, activates his vulcan canon, and jump-starts his gun's rotation by dragging it along the metal grating through his sliding momentum. We get a bit of a slow motion look at him performing the move, and it's SO DAMN COOL.
Chaos control is just a move shadow (and sonic) can do, it can warp/teleport you and and stop time when using one or multiple chaos emeralds. Also check out the sonic lore it goes crazy
The Robot from the first third is Emerel. It's a robot that learns from observing it was likely made for war or something thanks to an ancient technologically advanced civilization. That robot breaking out is one of many bad accidents that happen on the Ark. Thanks to many accidents the Governmental Organization which funded the creation of the Ark storm the Ark and try to wipe out all evidence of what happened there. This includes capturing Gerald Robotnik (Eggman's Grandad, Shadow's "Dad", Maria's Grandfather, the "Professor") shooting and killing Maria (while shadow was trapped and could only watch), and cryo-stasising Shadow. Shadow eventually gets discovered by Eggman 50 years in the future and Eggman breaks into a base in order to release him. Shadow has his first moment of inconsistent memory Syndrome and is convinced that Maria's final words to him were to get revenge on the planet. Shadow has his one game where he is a villain. Realizes that he was mistaken, Prof. Gerald actually turned crazy (this was retconned to not be an instant Snap but a gradual progress) after he realizes that Maria died and he then repurposed the A.R.K. (Big space Colony in the sky next to the moon) from it's Original Purpose of stopping the Faustian deal with Black Doom (Shadow's DNA Donor) into instead falling and Crash landing into the Earth. (Eggman "test fires" the laser part of the A.R.K. into the Moon at minimal power early in Shadow's debut game in order to threaten the entire world. Yes, that's the moon.) Obviously Shadow becomes a good guy and Eggman temporarily teams up with Sonic and friends in order to stop the world from ending. Shadow then runs out of energy from going into his Super form (he gets one too) and falls back down to Earth. This doesn't kill him but reactivates his Amnesia where right then Black Doom starts invading the Earth. Gerald originally accepted the deal with Black Doom (alien Warlord) in order to try to create the Ultimate Lifeform to save Maria but realizing that Black Doom's plans are to Destroy the Earth after getting the Chaos Emeralds he creates the big lazer weapon on the Ark in order to destroy Black Doom's Mothership. (The reason why the big weapon was created before he went crazy.) Shadow collects all 7 Chaos Emeralds and recovers his memories (again) before manipulating Space and Time to teleport the Black Comet (Black Arms mothership) in front of the Cannon before it fires at Earth. and then Saves the Earth from Black Doom. In this game is where you first meet the heterochromia kid. You first meet him as the head honcho at Gun in that game before learning his backstory later. (He was born on the A.R.K. due to some scientists uhhh you know.) Shadow then has a couple other games where he is playable. Omega (Big Robot guy that looks like a Dr. Eggman Robot that likes calling dibs) is the second time a Dr. Eggman Robot has gone Rogue, except unlike the last time Omega's main priority is to kill Eggman. Rouge first appears in Shadow's debut game. She is an undercover operative for G.U.N. who pretends to be a mere jewel thief (she likes stealing Jewels regardless of her cover or not). They work together Often especially after Sonic started taking jobs from G.U.N. in order to protect the planet that Maria so dearly cherished. He's cool.
The robotnik family (that I know about): -Gerald Robotnik, creator of Shadow, grandfather of both Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik and Maria, also apparently genius runs in his family, from archeological discoveries to scientific invention. According to his journal, he srarted out loving life, loving humanity and his creations in general having humanity's beat interests at heart, but Maria's death broke him, and big time. He began the Shadow Project (which was commissioned by the president at the time to create a means of giving people immortality, though Gerald thought that aspect to be a distasteful perversion of life), though he only agreed so that he'd have a means of potentially curing his granddaughter, aka Maria. Shadow the Hedgehog was the result of Project Shadow, along with a creature called the Bio Lizard (which was a salamander before Gerald exposed it to energy from the Chaos Emeralds causing the salamander to grow to massive size). He's also tinkered woth the archeological doscoveries from one of his other relatives, but to my knowledge that relative hasn't been named. -Maria: the morality chain for pretty nuch everyone that knew her, to put it in TV Tropes terminology. Her cousin is nome other than Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, the de facto primary antagonist (basically the Bowser to Sonic's Mario), and was apparently quite jealous of the attention she got and only really understood why she got so much attention around the time Sonic Frontiers was taking place, which iirc takes place after Generations when considering the original release dates. Maria's death (and her last words) are quite literally the entire motivation of literally everything Shadow does, and her death even drove Gerald down a brief villain arc of his own. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik: th e Bowser to Somic's Mario, the Ganon to his Link, tge Ridley to his Samus, the Dracula to his Belmont Family, and so on and songorth. Makes robots as his flunkies, and in terms of publication, the first family member any of us would have known about. However, he technically becomes a father during Sonic Frontiers, having created a sentient AI hologram called Sage (who quite literally calls him father, and asks if the other robots he nade would count as her siblings). The relationship he and Rose develop during that game basically gives him insight as to why Maria got so much attention, but by then it was already decades too late to actually clear the air with Maria for obvious reasons. Technically part of the family in the "the family created/discovered them" sense: - Shadow: as a creation of Gerald Robotnik, this arguably makes the old professor Shadow's father alongside alien whose DNA was used to make him. Guy gets memory problems out the wazoo in every game he appears in, whether it take the form of actual amnesia (trauma or impact, both have happened iirc), memory manipulation or his head just being a jumbled mess at the time. Even his most valued of memories hasn't been safe, the memory of Maria's last words (which were his sole motivation in his original debut, Sonic Adventure 2) was partially blocked to him, resulting in him initially seeking tevenge on humanity before being made to realize that his path at the time was the exact opposite of what Maria's last words were (which was along the lines of "All the people on that planet... Give them a chance... To be happy... Good ye Shadow...", with the "give them a chance to be happy" being the part he couldn't remember and the part that more tecent flashbacks seem to be forgetting to include). One game even made the infamous memory into a playable sequence, and it is multiple choice like the rest of that game because alignment was a core mechanic. After that game (which he was the star of), he became a "I will do basically what Sonic does, but in a way that's much more violent and much more edgy, and I'll do all yhat my way". -The robot fron the flashback in part 1 that you asked about is an archeological discovery by one of Gerald's sons, it was apparently an ancient superweapon that deatroyed its creators. Gerald's journal says he eventually managed to "give it a heart" like he did woth Shadow, with the robot apparently choosing a name for itself in its debut game. Sage: Does not appear in Generations, she debuts in Frontiers. She is a fully sentient AI hologram created by Dr Ivo "Eggman Robotnik. Views Eggman as a father, asks if his other creations are her siblings. Initially thinks that Sonic is the bad guy because he is the enemy of her "father". - E-123 "Omega": the final entry in the E-100 series robots that debuted in Sonic Adventure 1, however only Beta through (I think) Epsilon actually appears in that game. The E-100 series are named sequentially after greek letters, and to my knowledge we never see Alpha. E-102 Gamma and E-123 Omega are the only two we've been able to play as, all of the others that showed up have been bosses, and Omega is currently the only surviving one as Gamma sacrifices himself by self-destruct in his game. Omega debuts in Heroes, and has stuck around since as a mutual friend of Shadow and Rouge. All E-100 series robots were made by Eggman, with both Gamma and Omega having turned on Eggman (though we get a more up front reason for Gamma changing sides during Adventure 1, Omega coming to that same decision was done offscreen and he's introduced when he joins forces with Rouge and Shadow during Sonic Heroes) Non-Robotnik family characters you asked about: Rouge: a jewelry thief turned government informant, she debuted in Sonic Adventure 2 while trying to steal a majorly important artifact called the Master Emerald (think of it as an 8th, huge chaos emeralt that can power, recharge, control or enhance the other seven in whatever way the plot needs it to whenever the Master Emerald is present). Furing that game she ends up on yhe same side as Shadow, Shadow ends up saving her hide, and she's been on his side ever since even though he tried to play it off as "just saving the Chaos Emeralds she was hokding". Every game after that made her a government informant sevretly workong for G.U.N. - G.U.N.: an international military organization that fancies itself as the planet's official, govenment-licensed protector. Funded nearly everything relevant to Shadow's backstory, literally harassed Gerald into naking weapons for them inder threat of removing funding from his medical research (yep, they did that). They've also mistaken Shadow for Sonic and vice versa a couple times in Adventure 2, but they weren't the only ones to do it in that game. This might have been a relic within the script where Shadow's early concept art made him actually look more similar to Sonic, as it never happens again after the events of Adventure 2, the only game where this running gag happens. -The Black Arms/Black Doom: contributed their DNA (specifically one of their larva) to help Gerald create Shadow,on the condition that Shadow help them invade the planet 50 years later. Depending on player choice you can help or hinder the invasion, the game they come from has about ten endings with over three hundred some odd ways to get to each ending (and the game even named each individual path). This is the group that Shadow saved the world from in the "true" ending of that game, according to Abraham (the grown up version of the kid that called Shadow a freak). Black Doom is their leader, and has almost managed to puppeteer Shadow's body against his will once or twice, but once Shadow broke free for real, Shadow didn't have to worry about being controlled anymore and was actually able to defeat Black Doom, turning back the tide of the invasion more or less singlehandedly using the combined power of all seven chaos emeralds. The Chaos Emeralds being the primary macguffin of the franchise, with the Master Emerald being a secondary macguffin due to its ability to amp/re-power/control the seven chaps emeralds, and the tertiary macgiffin generally only existing if the Chaos Emeralds are either not part of the story (see: Sonic CD, Sonic Storybook Series... and the Sonic Rush duology where a parallel version of the Chaos Emeralds exists called the Sol Emeralds, and the Rush games are very much parallel universe stories). This got a little lengthly and some of this might be outta date, but I hope it helps nonetheless. Edit: Fixed some things I misremembered, and some typos
A brief sort of summery. Shadow was created 50 years ago from modern time (presumably 1950's) as both a cure for maria (the blond girl) by gerald robotnik (the old scientist man shadow calls professer), eggman's grandfather and grandfather to maria. G.U.N the sonic version of america's military, is the ones who provided the funding for which Gerald was tasked to create weapons. Shadow was meant to be one such weapon, but he was also as stated, made to cure all illness. Maria was chronically ill with a disease with no cure.
G.U.N would steadily grow agitated with no progress and fear of Shadow's power, till one day they'd storm the ark (a space colony where this all takes place on) and erase all evidence. Shooting and killing everyone there besides gerald and shadow, who they'd take into custody. Even shooting maria infront of shadow when they tried to escape, maria sacraficing herself to lock shadow in an escape pod sending him down to earth. G.U.N would find this pod shortly after and take Shadow into custody anyway. They'd keep him and herald locked up for a time to continue work on the project, but when gerald found out maria was among the dead he'd start to lose his mind. He'd mess with shadow's mind, reprogramming his memories where shadow would think his last promise to maria is that she wanted revenge. Gerald would be exicuted, and shadow locked away for 50 years in cryostasis , not aging or being unaware, until eggman would free him. In shadow's creation process, gerald would make a deal with a warlord of an alien species to use his dna, as all other attempts prior were failing. Shadow would recall this some time after being freed by eggman, working to destroy the world as he thought he was supposed to, remembering maria's real wish, dying to save the world, being saved by eggman so eggman could use him but being freed by rouge (the white bat lady) and struggling with amnesia off and on trying to figure out who he is and regain bodily and personal autonomy. The robot's name is omega, he, shadow and rouge are all on a team together, and they are some of the ones shadow is closest to. The kid with heterochromia that turns to the old G.U.N general (Abe) would be the only other survivor of the incident, at first blaiming shadow for everyone's deaths, but coming to support him after shadow saved the world a second time So, not so brief, but lore also shadow is immortal
There is so much here to unpack. Okay so Emerl the robot at the beginning fight there is from Sonic Battle. They changed the lore slightly here. Maria Robotnik was killed by GUN agents. His teleporting/Chaos Control makes it look like flying some what. The second bit here is Team Dark. E-123 Omega is a Dr. Robotnik robot gone rouge and wants to kill Dr. Robotnik at any cost along with his Empire. Rouge the Bat well she is a thief with a mix bag of morals. Sometimes she trys to talk herself out of kind acts. She also kinda has a crush on the Hot headed Knuckles the Echidna. Chaos Control is a technique Shadow and Sonic can do with a Chaos Emeralds. There are many other abilities they have. I'm sure I missed some info any questions please ask will reply.
The gem that Shadow is holding is called a Chaos Emerald. There are seven of them and have been around since the first game. They essentially turn thoughts into power and have massive energy outputs. They can power any machine or grant ultimate power if all seven are gathered. Shadow has the ability to warp space-time and essentially teleport around. With a single Emerald his power is increased tenfold and can shoot energy bolts called “Chaos Spear”. They are abilities you can use in the new game.
For context, the Robot Shadow was fighting at the beginning of this animation is a Gizoid, an ancient piece of alien technology, no one knows who created them, either way, this specific Gizoid is called Emerl (pronounced Em-er-al, essentially emerald without the D at the end) and was discovered in an old warehouse, after being found in some ancient ruins, a little context to the context, you can form a bond with a Gizoid if you show it "power," such as a gun firing, it will then in turn, learn how to replicate the demonstration with its own body, and listen to your orders, however if a significant enough demonstration is presented to the Gizoid, It will erase any previous bonds and form a link with whoever showed it the more powerful demonstration, think taking it from the person who showed it a gun firing, and showing it an Atom Bomb exploding, Gerald managed secure the Gizoid, and study is, only to realize it was a super weapon, though he noticed that Emerl would observe and copy his movements, and eventually got it to speak in broken tones and say "Link, show me your true strength, and I shall obey. I am all things, and all shall belong to me" and as such my gun metaphor returns, as Gerald gifted the Gizoid one of his Model handguns as a gesture of power, forming a link, to which multiple Researchers noticed, the Gizoid would take orders from no one aside from Gerald, later he would be forced to hand it over to G.U.N to study after threats of the funding for Project Shadow being pulled came up, However, before that, multiple Researchers tried exposing it to many weapons and a Chaos Emerald in order to override Gerald's bond, the vast ammount of informatiom caused it's original destructive programing to resume, and it went on a rampage before eventually being stopped, and even after all G.U.N. tried, they couldn't crack Emerl's code, eventually they returned him to Gerald, who at first tried to destroy the Gizoid's core so it couldn't go on another rampage, but after that ended in failure, he decided maybe hr should give the Gizoid a code-based AI Soul, one based on Maria's own personality, but in order to reset the Gizoid, and let the new code take hold, he had to create a keyword, one that would only work once all 7 Chaos Eneralds were inserted into it, after some time, "Bring hope to humanity" was what he eventually settled on, the last words Maria spoke before her death, and Emerl was then sealed away by G.U.N. TLDR The robot is the Sonic Universe equivilant if a Sentinel from Marvel.
Shadow's debut game 'Sonic Adventure 2' has a great movie edit here on RUclips. Highly recommend for anyone who wants to see Shadow's story. Even for people who already played the game, since it fixes dialog overlaping/cutting out errors present in the game.
Martial arts in Sonic. While not normal, its not the first it’s happened. Sonic the Fighters and Sonic Battle are fighting games and Sonic Frontiers has Sonic use some form of hand to hand combat, as well as in a couple other games. However the combat was never THIS well done and I hope to see more of it going forward in the series
Sonic power scaling is interesting, what I will say is that Sonic and Shadow, having shared the power of all seven crystals (chaos emeralds), we able to physically push a space station that de-orbited itself with the intent to crash to earth back into orbit with just the two of them. The form they take with all seven emeralds is called a super form, and, at least in the games, no enemy is capable of hurting them while in that form. Super Sonic has been hit by giant Titan robots in Sonic Frontiers for example, and it only really inconvenienced him. Shadow has the ability to make use of a chaos emerald’s power to utilize special attacks, we’ve seen a few of them. Chaos Control (what you see in this animation) allows him to pause time for a few moments and appear to achieve speeds and reaction times otherwise impossible. In the game “Shadow the Hedgehog”, he has Chaos Blast, where he directs the power of the emerald into a massive explosion, taking out all of the enemies in the area. Originating from “Sonic Adventure 2”, Shadow can launch a beam at a target called Chaos Spear, I believe this is what is used against the tree at the end of the first part of this animation. Sonic has been shown to be capable of Chaos Control in addition to Super form, but we haven’t seen him use any of the other abilities. This got much longer than I intended, but hopefully it was helpful
Too explain the hedgehog thing, there's a theory that when the scientists investigated knuckles island they found a mural of Super Sonic fight Eggman from Sonic 3. So they based Shadow off the mural of Super Sonic
If you wanna watch another Sonic animation in this sorta style, I'd totally recommend knuckles divergence. It gives a short overview of Knuckles' character and also has some pretty neat fight choreography 👀 heres a link if you don't wanna search for it :D ruclips.net/video/_gjszHTDjzo/видео.html
You missed a bit at the very end but not too important Q&A The robot guy from the first act is named emerl. Hes a character from the sonic advanced fighting game. Hes kinda like task master where he can copy any fighting style Gerald robotnik (eggmans father) created shadow with the help of an alien warlord named Black Doom, in an effort to cure Marias Space Aids and no im not kidding. Shadow has a lot of abiities, including the power to teleport short distances, and fire energy lances. But when he has one of the 7 chaos emeralds in hand, he can use chaos control, the ability to stop time briefly. In some canons, using 2 or more emeralds can allow for full blown time travel. With all 7 emeralds, shadow (and by extension almost anyone in sonic) can become Super shadow. Which is a full on rip off of super saiyan from dbz, where he glows yellow and is invincible. Shadow is widley considered one of the strongest characters. The vegeta to sonics Goku.
most people already explained shadow's backstory i'm sure as well as who rouge and omega are. i'm just here to add, in case someone missed it, that shadow can use chaos control. it's an ability where he can manipulate time using a chaos emerald
My favorite Sonic characters are Blaze and Silver. Blaze the Cat is a pyrokinetic princess from another dimension and guardian of the Sol Emeralds. She has an (ironically) icy personality and believed she couldn't trust anyone. But meeting Sonic and his friends helped her open up. She is arch enemies with Eggman Nega, Dr. Eggman's descendant. Silver the Hedgehog is a psychokinetic from 200 years in the future. In the original timeline, he lived in an apocolyptic future, ruled by a mindless demon named Iblis. Another demon and the other half of a time god, Mephiles, tricked Silver into believing Sonic caused the apocalypse and they (along with Blaze, who mysteriously appeared in the future) time traveled to the past. In the current timeline, hes more like a protector of the future, going back in time to prevent changes from Eggman Nega and Eggman himself.
So a rundown of the lore is Shadow was created as part of a government funded program called Project Shadow as the key to immortality. Dr. Eggmans grandfather Professor Gerald Robotnik was requested by the president to research immortality to which he was originally reluctant, until his grandaughter Maria was diagnosed with a disease known as Native Immunodeficiency Syndrome or Neuro-Immune Deficiency Syndrome. He then researched the gems called the Chaos Emeralds which are said to cause miracles and also contain an immense amount of energy. The Emeralds can do anything from power machinery to controlling time and space. This research led him to Angel Island which was home to an ancient Echidna tribe who used the Emeralds. Although it's not directly stated, it's thought he saw a prophecy depicting Super Sonic, which is why Shadow is a hedgehog. Research on the Emeralds caused the creation of artificial Chaos Emeralds called Chaos Drives, which were used on a failed prototype Ultimate Lifeform called The Biolizard. The robot seen in the short is a war machine created by another Echidna tribe which was discovered by Gerald during his research. This robot, known as a Gizoid, was created as the original Ultimate Lifeform. It has the ability to study combat and gain knowledge of all fighting styles and weapons in the world. It was said that once it gained knowledge of everything, it went on a rampage causing the destruction of that tribe's civilization. Researchers experimented with it by using weapons on it, which caused it to go on a rampage just like in ancient times. Gerald then gave it Maria's soul to make it gentle and prevent another incident. He would also eventually give Shadow her soul as well. Gerald then made contact with an alien warlord called Black Doom, who in exchange for Shadow giving him the Emeralds in 50 years, donated his blood for Shadow's creation as his blood allowed a living creature to control Chaos Energy. Because Shadow has his DNA, he also is part of the hive mind consciousness of The Black Arms. Because of this, Black Doom can manipulate his memory and create illusions which is what you're seeing here. This information was then leaked to the government who then took action to cover it all up, killing everyone on The Space Colony Ark, the base of operations for Gerald and other researchers, and Gerald was forced to continue his research in prison where he was eventually executed. Eggman released Shadow 50 years later in order to create "despair upon the world." So Shadow is the most powerful being there is, he's immortal, can teleport, and can control time, all with the use of Chaos Energy which resides in him and can be enhanced by using the Chaos Emeralds. Because of this, he has limitless potential and can gain limitless power. He's so powerful in fact that Gerald created Limiter Rings that can be seen on his wrists and ankles to limit his power so he does not become drained. If he removes these, his power will be unlocked however, it causes him to be drained quickly. He can teleport and control time with an ability called Chaos Control. He can also shoot lightning bolts from his hands called Chaos Spear and can cause an explosion of energy called Chaos Blast.
"how strong is he?!" OH BOY!!! YOU HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE! This shadow, takes place during sonic generations, so he's as strong if not a little stronger then the sonic from that game. And that's and older game. With ONE chaos emerald, he can teleport himself and others, stop time, and give himself a mere fraction of the power he has when he turns super. Mind you, that's just his restraint form with the chaos emerald. Without his inhibitor rings, he's almost as strong as his super form. Now, that's THIS shadow, how about an latter shadow? Well, assuming shadow can keep pace with sonic with growing in power, then regular, restraint shadow, is WELL over strong enough to destroy an entire universe!! WITHOUT AN CHAOS EMERALD!! But, that's an if! Oh, and that enemy you were wondering about! He has two names of sorts, emerl and gizzoid. Gizzoid his the type of robot he is, and he's the basis for shadows skeleton of sorts. He was made by a ancient civilization to be a weapon of war, so strong that the gods had to step in and seel most of them in an different realm. They follow the orders of whomever wields the most power, but he unfortunately saw to much power, absorbed it, and lost himself. Dying in front of sonic after a tuff Battle. If you ever want a deep dive on stuff, watch chaomix!
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Shadow is the coldest, most hard-core, badass character in the entire sonic franchise. You can't convince me otherwise
If you’re looking for lore about shadow/the arc, a RUclips channel called Sonic Theory recently did an INCREDIBLE video summarizing everything you need to know about shadow/professor Gerald/GUN/the space colony arc. It’s a long video (40 minutes) but it’s so worth it
The origin story of Shadow the Hedgehog begins in Sonic Adventure 2. The powers of Shadow and Sonic are even. With all 7 Chaos Emeralds Shadow and Sonic can transform into Super Shadow and Super Sonic. It's like Son Goku (Sonic) and Vegeta (Shadow) going Super Saiyan. 😉
Gonna answer your lore questions as simply as possible. Is Maria sick? Yep, Gerald started Project SHADOW with the hopes of finding her cure. Why is Shadow a Hedgehog? It is believed that Gerald visited Angel Island while researching. There were 2 notable murals, one of Super Sonic and one of Perfect Chaos. His first draft of Shadow was based on Chaos and became the Biolizard. His second version took after Super Sonic visually, hence the upturned quills. Chaos Control! This is a powerful ability that the Chaos Emeralds can provide. Do anything from stop time, teleport, and even fire projectiles all while using the Chaos Emerald as a battery. (In older games, it was hinted that a CC with all 7 emeralds could effectively grant a wish) As for Shadow's limits and power scaling, Shadow and Sonic are easily FTL and planet level bare minimum (As the 7 emeralds could put Earth back together in Unleashed), but there are arguments that they are multi-dimensional.
Ooo, lore time! Too much lore! Had to put Shadow's in the reply section. Rouge Lore: Cat burglar? Nah, Bat burglar. Rouge the Bat is a masterful jewel thief through and through. She tends to help others for help from them later on, and is helping Shadow during this to get him to come to Sonic's Birthday Party. Omega E-123 Lore: Omega is the last of Dr. Ivo Robotnik (AKA, Dr. Eggman, Grandson of Gerald Robotnik)'s E-series robots. Omega is mad at Eggman for locking him away, and is determined to destroy anything that has to do with his creator, though he's honestly down to destroy anything. Maria Lore: Gerald Robotnik's granddaughter, Maria helped Shadow learn how life works, giving him his moral compass, his name, and possibly a coffee addiction. She had a terrible illness, but she was brought up to the Ark, an orbital space station designed by Gerald, so that he could have more time to find a cure for her. However, after Shadow's creation, things went wrong after a while... Professor Gerald Robotnik Lore: The good Professor was a genius for his time, and had a good heart to boot. He had 2 sons: 1 he says took after his love of architecture, likely later having Maria, while the other took after his love for robotics, probably leading to Eggman's birth and fanaticism with robotics. He originally tried to make the ultimate lifeform (a being that he hoped would be the key to healing not only Maria's, but everyone's illnesses) with only him and his government funds. This failed, however, creating the Biolizard. Gerald later found himself face-to-face with Black Doom, an evil space warlord that leads the Black Arms. In a moment of desperation, Gerald accepted Doom's offer: use some of Doom's own DNA for his next experiment so that Shadow has access to Chaos Control (a time stopping ability that uses Chaos Energy, usually from a Chaos Emerald. With two emeralds, it's possibly to create a temporal wormhole, which is basically time travel.). With Doom's DNA, the experiment worked, creating Shadow, the Ultimate Lifeform. Why Shadow looks like a Hedgehog, nobody is really sure, but it might just be because Gerald said, "Eh, why not. Can't have him looking like Doom in front of Maria". Abraham Tower Lore: Abe was Maria's friend on the Ark, though he never liked Shadow. When things went wrong on the Ark, Abe believed that Shadow was the cause of everything, and later joined GUN. Working his way up the ranks there, he eventually became the Commander, holding his grudge and beliefs up until he saw that Shadow was still alive. However, this was when Sonic was around as well, leading to a few cases of mistaken identity that got Sonic arrested. Some time later, Shadow reappeared, and Abe, still holding a grudge, told GUN members to keep an eye on Shadow despite an invasion from the Black Arms. This was during the Shadow the Hedgehog game, so there's many different possibilities as to what can happen there, but there is a canon ending separate from all the different possible endings. By that ending, Abe learns the truth of what happened on the Ark, and after Shadow takes care of Black Doom, puts his goals to making sure that GUN stays in line rather than focusing on killing Shadow, hence why he's rather friendly here. GUN Lore: the Guardian Units of Nations are a military force focused on the safety of the world and those that live on it. Back in the day, they helped fund Gerald's projects for the ultimate lifeform. However, some time after Shadow's creation, they learned about what Gerald had made, and things took a terrible turn...
Shadow Lore, and the Ark Event: After being created by Gerald, learning from Maria, and training with Gerald to learn about Chaos Control, Shadow was given a rather large arsenal to work with: He had inhibitor rings around his wrists and ankles, meant to rein in his power so he wouldn't become overwhelmed, he was given jet boots so he could fly and simply get around faster, and, somehow, he was given some ability to teleport. After this, though, disaster struck suddenly. GUN, scared of Shadow's capabilities and Gerald's research planned to take Shadow and destroy all evidence. They quickly captured Gerald, burning his research to ashes to the point that he'd likely never be able to replicate it. Maria tried to help Shadow get away, taking him to an escape pod. Once he was coaxed inside, she hit the ejection button from a panel on the outside, but not before being shot by a GUN soldier, only having enough time to tell him her last wish. Once on earth, it didn't take long for GUN to find Shadow, putting him into stasis for a long time. 50 years later, Ivo Robotnik, AKA Dr. Eggman, accidentally finds Shadow deep in an old GUN facility, now with some slight amnesia, but also a burning hatred for humanity. Despite this, he works alongside Eggman after hearing Eggman's plans, alongside Rouge later on, who is working as a double agent. (Fun little tidbit, Eggman showed the power of his plan, using a laser programmed and designed into the Ark to shatter the moon, blowing off half of it as intimidation. The effects can still be seen.) Eventually, Shadow has an epiphany, remembering Maria's last wish: for Shadow to "let all those humans have a chance to be happy". Around the same time, Eggman's plans were practically done, but a failsafe had begun. Gerald Robotnik, in his last moments (in the same dark area that Shadow sees him chained in a chair under a swaying light), sent a program to the Ark so that, if it's ever fully powered with the 7 Chaos Emeralds, it would crash into the earth, wiping out all of humanity because GUN shot and killed his granddaughter and ruined his work, likely believing that Shadow had been killed as well. The Biolizard was repurposed to be the guardian of this failsafe, meant to make sure that nobody would be able to stop it once it was started. Thankfully, Shadow and Sonic were able to stop the Biolizard and save the Ark from falling out of orbit. However, the exertion was enough to send Shadow crashing to the ground, though he was in his Super form like Sonic was, so he did live. Some time later, Rouge finds Shadow in what was likely a recovery pod, as well as Omega. However, it was clear that Shadow now has serious amnesia. They formed Team Dark, and had their own goals, but eventually gave up the chaos emeralds they had gathered to Sonic's Team so that Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles could use Chaos energy to beat Metal Sonic, who at the time was in a form called Metal Overlord and had went against his creator, Eggman. Some time later, Shadow went on his own to try and piece together his past, but was interrupted by the Black Arm's invasion. Again, this was during Shadow's game, which has a ton of different endings. However, each ending has him question who he is: an Angel of Death meant to kill all that stand against him, a Black Arm member meant to follow orders from or even surpass Black Doom, the sole guardian of the Ark. There is a canon ending, though, where he learns his true origin from Black Doom as well as Shadow's allies. This culminates into Shadow fighting back against Black Doom and the Black Arms, winning with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. After that's said and done, another story happens in Sonic the Hedgehog from 2006, widely known as just Sonic 06, but the story gets reconned in the same game, with only a few things here and there being brought up as hypotheses, such as the Two Chaos Emeralds being able to let you time travel. However, one element of Shadow's story in that game returned: the villain, Mephiles. Good old Memphis Tennessee is Shadow's Shadow, both in his appearance, and in the fact that literally took the form of his shadow, which can explain his of a mouth. This game has a lot of time travel shenanigans: Mephiles the Dark was the mind of a god named Solaris, which was basically a living flame. When he was split from the body of Solaris, he was sealed away by Shadow, who had came from the future. In the present, though, Eggman had found the idol that Mephiles was sealed in, and accidentally released Mephiles when pursued by Shadow and Rouge, who had been contracted by GUN. Mephiles, now free, went into Shadow's Shadow, giving himself a form that he had hoped would be temporary. Mephiles then sends Rouge and Shadow to the future, then bringing Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat from the Future to the present, making them believe that Sonic was who caused the apocalypse, known as the 'Iblis Trigger', Iblis being the other half of Solaris. With more time shenanigans, and learning that a princess was the one housing the other half of Iblis, Mephiles has one last stand with Shadow before almost being sealed away again, only to break free. He then made his way to Sonic, who had grown close to the princess after saving her many times from Eggman and was currently with her. Distracting them with a flashing light in front, he appears behind them, stabbing Sonic in the back, killing him instantly. Princess Elise, having been the seal of Iblis for as long as she didn't cry, broke the seal after witnessing Sonic's death. This let Mephiles connect to Iblis once more, becoming Solaris now with a new goal: destroy every timeline. It was working, until Sonic's friends, now in a void beyond time, revived Sonic with the power of the 7 Chaos Emeralds and a bit more *(cough cough kiss cough cough)*. With the power of Super Sonic, Super Shadow, and Super Silver, they were able to stop Solaris on the past, present, and future simultaneously. After this, Princess Elise and Sonic were sent back to the origin of Solaris, and Elise blew out the living fire, erasing the game's story in its entirety. However, in a time anomaly created by Eggman, Mephiles returns as a boss, with his only goal now being that he just wants to exist. Shadow has no memory about him, despite him knowing everything that happened in 06, and now only knows of him as the odd monster he ran into in a time anomaly, ranting and raving about 'Shadow tag' and wanting to exist.
Answer To All Your Questions: (I'm sure you received them all already, but just to reiterate and make them concrete and clear...) 1. Shadow was created 50 years ago as the Ultimate Life Form. GUN (Guardian Units of Nations) is the military that raided the ARK (space colony) in fear of the project and covered up their massacre as an "accident" that occurred aboard the space colony. 2. The soldiers shot Maria as she was helping Shadow escape. This memory is only artistically alluded to in this animation. 3. Professor Gerald, Maria's grandfather (Also Dr. Robotnik's/Eggman's grandfather) went insane and created a plan to destroy the world and was executed by firing squad. Familiar imagery of him in the chair was alluded to. 4. His reason for looking like a hedgehog is unexplained in-lore. Fans speculate it's because of a mural of Super Sonic on Angel Island (Knuckles' home) as Gerald is confirmed to have gotten information from there to aid his research. 5. The crystal is called a Chaos Emerald. There's 7, and also a giant green one called the Master Emerald that Knuckles, last of the Echidnas, is the guardian of on Angel Island. The Emerald keeps the island floating in the sky. (In the movies, Knuckles' ancestors made the emeralds, merging them to make the Master Emerald. Their roles and the lore is different than the games.) 6. Shadow did a unique ability called Chaos Control that allows him to warp time and space. Others can do the ability to, but not many outside of Shadow and they rarely do it due to it not being an inherent ability of theirs. 7. Rouge is indeed a bat. The robot's name is Omega. These 3 often work together and as a trio are known as Team Dark. 8. The robot at the beginning that Shadow fights is Gizoid. An ancient robot that can observe and copy skills. It goes berserk when presented with too much power, and has the capability to wipe out civilizations if allowed to evolve too far. In present day, the Gizoid is met by Sonic and Co in a game called Sonic Battle where the Gizoid is named Emerl (like "emerald") by Sonic and they become friends until it's overwhelmed with power and its hidden programming emerges. They have to stop him which leads to his self destruction, but not before Emerl's new personality as their friend returns to say his thanks and goodbye to everyone. But his backstory aboard the ARK is alluded to. And this animation is merely showing us a glimps of that for the first time. However, Shadow experienced those past events in pieces, forcing him to realize he wasn't actually there and was in a forced flashback nightmare thanks to an enemy called Black Doom, the leader of the aliens he was talking about with Maria. Black Doom made a deal with Gerald to provide DNA for Shadow's creation but he would return years later expecting Shadow to help him conquer the Earth. Shadow defeated him, but is now realizing he may have survived. Commander Abraham Tower is in the game Black Doom is from and has a vendetta against Shadow until after Shadow saves the world, and they end on good terms. (But the animation does a good job introducing him and to newcomers only to present him as an adult with a different attitude.)
If you like this, you should also check out Sonic Frontiers Prologue: Divergence, which I believe was made by the same team, or at the very least, the same writer
How strong is he? Well there's alot to say. As strong as he may seem, he technically have 2 powerup. By gathering 7 Chaos Emerald, he can pretty much go Super Saiyan which also enables him to fly. And if that wasn't enough, he almost always fight while holding back cause the rings on his body work like a limiter, when he removes them is when you know his truly going all out. And if that aren't enough, just by having 1 chao emerald at all time, he'll be able to harness the power of chaos energy which unlocks additional technique he can use. As fast as he is, even as fast as Sonic, the technique he obtains are ability to stop time, shoot energy blast from a distance, and teleport either himself or someone else with limited range. His called Ultimate Lifeform for a reason, his even stronger than Sonic. His as strong and fast as Sonic despite having a limiter rings, and Sonic doesn't use those techniques either. Lol 😂 At full power as in Super Saiyan form, both Sonic and Shadow should be faster than speed of light. Sonic is a hero, not just cause his the MC, but because of his never-changing personality. Shadow in the other hand is the pinnacle of power, hence why his called Ultimate Lifeform. That's the difference between the 2.
This is what Sonic Movies should have been, Authentic, artistic, dynamic and soulful. Unfortunately, the movies chose the path of cheap humor, lazy dialogue and questionable storytelling...
agreed - those movies don't do sonic justice BUT the success of the movies has allowed for sega to be confident in the sonic brand overall, allowing projects like dark beginnings & shadow generations to exist in the first place. overall it's a net positive
I'm not quite sure I agree with this at the moment, I think they are setting things up for a bigger franchise, but they had to go for approachability first. The sonic 3 movie with Shadow will probably be the indicator of whether or not this will turn into a much more serious movie franchise going forward or if it will stay at the level that it’s at right now but for the moment, I enjoy how they have tackled making something that anyone can go watch with their families and get into the franchise if they’ve never seen it before.
@@HaibaneRakka571 i don't think they necessarily needed to go down the 'family friendly' approachability route for sonic. given how expansive sonic lore is & how naturally the characters lend themselves to animation, there's no reason they couldn't have done an animation movie in the style of the spiderverse movies. this would've done justice to the games and source material - it could have been just as big if done correctly
HARD agree. I wish they’d toned down the humans and just let the sonic cast be themselves. And choosing only well known celebrities to voice each new cast member (except tails hilariously. no one could do his voice i guess) takes out the connection that the longer running VAs build and makes it feel like a money grab and going for flashy names over quality. I also can’t really stand Jim Carry as Eggman or his Snively replacement, I wish they’d gone a more authentic route instead of making it feel like they’re constantly making fun of the characters or going through badly written MCU level “well THAT just happened” type dialogue. The sonic franchise has enough to explore on its own, and I would be fine with a few humans involved, but the characters they chose I just cannot stand. I don’t think Sonic would be much of a cop fan in the first place as a guy that values freedom as much as he does, and the fact they make Sonic seem so helpless and childlike when he’s so independent from his first appearance just makes him seem like a foreign character in a way the other sonic characters don’t. It’s just… not a good adaption. It’s a subpar nostalgia grab, and it functions ok as such, hell I watched them and found things to enjoy, but they’re not GOOD, truth be told. There are some people who REALLY love Sonic and care about the series working on it, but that’s not enough to save it from a company like Paramount getting involved. Many adaptions fall short because of company interference. Long story short, beyond opinions, the movies are mid. Enjoyable and cute, sure, but they’re nothing groundbreaking.
@@therandomvideochannel8589if anything, it may end up maturing more as the series goes on. Especially since they are adding Shadow and his backstory to it now. I agree though it’s a little too childish at times, but hey, it’s broken the video game curse. So let’s take what we get
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if you play sonic x shadow generations you get the full backstory to him and in HD crisp graphics what happens after this animation. just boot shadow generations and in the main menu select shadow's story and you will see it right away.
Favorite character is Shadow (maybe Blaze if I knew more about her). Always has been since my first introduction to Sonic in Sonic Adventure 2. I’d rather have stories about Shadow than Sonic
Blaze Sonic and Tails are my favorites Blaze really needs more love in the series she’s a gem who needs to shine ✨ 💙💜🔥🌪️
Shadow
Definitely shadow. And rouge is close second. Team dark 4 life baby
One little character development bit. In episode three the robot, Omega, was absolutely out for blood. The reason Shadow intervened was not just to disable the machine but to save the pilot from Omega.
Oh yeah! I completely forgot that Omega are one of the few characters who doesn't mind killing
I never noticed that omg thanks for pointing it out. This truly is the best sonic series to date wow
a small thing -- *technically* shadow is about 50 years old but he isn't... *reeeally* over 50 years old, in body and mind...... it's inaccurate both ways -- he didnt age at all for the 50 years he was sealed away, and he was already in the form of a teenager when he was born. saying shadow is 50+ years old is like saying captain america is 100+ years old
You're forgetting a very important detail
He is immortal. Time won't kill him. While he was sealed away for 50 years, it wouldn't make any difference if it was 100, 200 or even 1000 years. He would still be there.
oh is that real?? i thought that was just like a popular fan interpretation lol
@@0retro0no, thats confirmed in '06 where in the far future (i think it was 300 years?) Shadow is still alive and sealed away. He basically doesnt age and is immune to all disease.
i guess i just assumed shadow was captured soon after iblis was released and the way they seal him away keeps him from aging
@@0retro0 No. They sealed him away because they thought he caused everything in the future, but it was kinda pointless cuz he can't age. He just remained there.
Hopefully that timeline is gone so that never happened.
So fun little detail, (or saddening, take your pick) the scenes that Shadow is seeing while on the rocket up to the Ark are actually him thinking about how life would have been with Maria around, had she been able to be cured. Those flowers are the same ones that were on the hill in the first episode.
And even sadder, he didn't even wish for a house. He's fucking laying on grass, and being covered by Maria's blanket... shadow used to be so simple minded 😭
@@_-MG-_ "Used to be?" This series is basicaly prologue to Shadow Generations, the newest game in the series.
@@veronikamajerova4564 yeah used to be :|
If you don't realize, we've passed the generations timeline... the story has happened IN THE PAST and the series is even more INTO THE PAST. So, yeah. USED TO BE.
@_-MG-_ having simple desires isn't a bad thing tho. Can't tell if you're insulting him for that or not. All he wanted was to visit earth and face it with maria at his side. Nothing more nothing less.
To give you a rundown, Shadow was created by Gerald Robotnik who is the grandfather of both Maria and Dr. Eggman (the main villain of the series). Gerald wanted to create the ultimate life form and use its DNA to cure Maria who was suffering from Neuro Immune Deficiency Syndrome (NIDS). He had created a few prototype specimens before Shadow but they were all failures. Desperate to save Maria, Gerald ended up making contact with an alien race known as the Black Arms and he used the DNA of their leader, Black Doom, to create Shadow. During his time living on the Ark, Shadow formed a very close bond with Maria and the two of them dreamed of visiting Earth together. However, G.U.N (the government organization that owned the base Shadow raided in this prologue) ended up raiding the Ark to shut down the project and destroy all evidence and Maria was killed while helping Shadow escape. After landing on Earth, Shadow was captured by G.U.N and sent to a secret facility where he was imprisoned for 50 years. Shadow has what are called "Chaos powers" which you saw a couple being used in this prologue. Those two powers you saw are "Chaos Snap" which allows him to teleport short distances and "Chaos Control" (the move he used to take out the missiles) which allows him to stop time. The thing about Chaos Control is Shadow can only use it if he has a Chaos Emerald (that yellow gem he was holding) on hand. All his other powers don't require a Chaos Emerald.
Should mention that the chaos powers that don't require an emerald get enhanced with an emerald
Chaos Control also lets you teleport, it's not just a time stop (case and point Sonic could not have gotten back to the Ark in SA2 by stopping time).
Shadow and other characters have also used Chaos Control before without an emerald, and it's really unclear if that's meant to be canon or not. I know Shadow says you need one in the IDW comics, and he was surprised Sonic could use it all with a fake one, but in the following fight Shadow uses it without any emerald, and Metal Overlord, Black Doom and the Biolizard have all used it without any; Metal Overlord even did so after Shadow's statement in the IDW, muddying the issue further.
@@ShaleLee I know Chaos Control is also used for teleportation. I was just describing it in regards to how it was used in this prologue because I felt that would be simpler for someone who isn't familiar with the lore.
He also used Chaos Spear to destroy the tree after his first nightmare
Dude should just play sxs 😂😂
The robot from the flashback fight is Emerl, from the Game Boy Advance game Sonic Battle. And the clever detail about the fight scene is that Shadow is literally pulling moves from his kit in that game. Those jabs are recreations of sprite work from 2 decades ago.
seriously??? i never caught that! they put so much work and care into this.
Did not expect Sonic Battle of all games to get so much love from this animation.
another cool thing is how emerl uses his move copying thingy in the fight, for example, when shadow uses a spin dash, emerl does it immediately after
Surprised that no one has mentioned it, but this animation is almost fully 3D with some additional 2D effects added in post. That helps to explain why the light sources affect the characters and the environments, as well as explaining how they kept the positions and stances of the characters consistent between cuts. The shaders in most of the scenes are so convincing, theres only a few shots where you can really see the 3D models, it mostly passes as high quality traditional 2D animation to my untrained eye which is super impressive to me
True. Especially after the movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the use of 2D and 3D animation assets and their potential is becoming more common, especially in high production value pieces. The anime adaptation of Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Kaiba) and the recent (2024) movie The Good Robot are examples of animated projects “coming full circle” by utilizing 2D and 3D together in animation
@@brianahanson6449I would say fortiche became the first well established use of 2d and 3d animation. Aka riot games aka league of legends. It was mostly in gaming circles and less mainstream that hollywood movies but it's the first time I consistently saw the beautiful art style of combining both mediums
Fun fact about how shadow is so op: he was made as the ultimate life form to protect earth, he originally was so powerful his own body couldnt handle the amount if energy inside of his veins too where the professor needed to make “inhibitor rings” to help shadow not faint, which is the rings on his wrists and ankles. With them off he is really something else entierly. Also fun fact, shadow is supposed too be a hero if the past and sonic is a hero of the present and silver (a lesser known character) is the hero of the future.
Despite being made with alien DNA and not looking like an alien at all, Shadow looks like a hedgehog because before his creation, Gerald came upon the mystical Angel Island where the Master Emerald is, and in it's chamber is a mural depicting a hedgehog-like being in the middle of a great battle; this was actually a foreshadow to the true final boss in Sonic 3 & Knuckles where the mural depicted Sonic in his Super Sonic transformation fighting against one of the mech trying to escape with the Master Emerald being piloted by his grandson, Dr. Eggman.
So Gerald took down notes while he was there and based Shadow's design off the being in the mural.
Trust me, it's some deep lore shit, and we love it.
It's just a theory tho.
@@maxentirunos they didn't put the mural in gerald's diary tho?
@@ultrachristian28 Nope, they just mention that Gerald went to Angel Island at one point and explored around the many biomes, and that part was already obvious, he HAD to have been in Angel Island considering the architecture of the core of the ARK in SA2 is extremly simillar to Lost World (the stage in Sonic Adventure) and in the center of the Space Colony there is a recreation of the Master Emerald shrine made to harnass more effectively the power of the Master Emerald and neutralize the 7 Chaos Emeralds
But the diary says that Gerald didn't stay for extremly long because he thought it was sacred ground, the theory could still be true tho, the diary doesn't "disprove" it, and it doesn't specify which areas or biomes Gerald passed through in Angel Island aside from the shrine which is the only place where the diary straight up confirms he was in (and that he saw Sky Sanctuary floating in the sky at some point), the journal also has many "ripped" pages and skipped entries, so it could theorically have a page talking about he finding Hidden Palace and the mural of Super Sonic vs Dr. Eggman
I do believe in the mural theory too, and according to Takashi Iizuka, the director of Sonic Team and one of Shadow's creators, there IS a reason for Shadow to be a hedgehog, a reason that they purposefully never awnsered like many other things on this series and are happy to see fans coming up with their own interpretations,
The theory has many things that makes a lot of sense, especially considering the Perfect Chaos mural on the Mystic Ruins and how it could also be the inspiration for the Biolizard, just like how Super Sonic was the inspiration for Shadow, but at the end it's STILL just a theory
@@maxentirunos they hinted at it in gerald's diary. I feel like they wouldnt had brought up angel island at all if it wasnt the case
I see a lot of people explaining Shadow's backstory, but here's info on bis two modern day friends. (I will note that theres not as much backstory)
1. Rouge the Bat: She's a treasure hunter who specializes in jewels. She has a big selfish streak and belives she's entitled to all the gems in the world (even the macguffins, the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald, which unlike other characters she only wants for their beauty). She's also a free lance agent, willing to work for the President, G.U.N., and even Eggman's time travelling descendant, Eggman Nega. She has a flirty rivalry with Knuckles over the Master Emerald, and while her first time working with Shadow was only out of neural benefit and they didn't even like eachother, their next adventure made her one of few people Shadow trusts.
2. E-123 Omega: The 23rd and final robot in Dr. Eggman's E-100 line. Eggman had him locked in a room with Shadow (possibly to guard him), and wether it was abandonment or a waste of his talent, he was digusted with Eggman and desires to kill him and destroy of all of his robots. He has a bit of a friendly rivalry with Shadow, and of the recurring characters is the least friendly with Sonic and co. But he's always willing to work with Shadow and Rouge because they don't hold him back from destroying all the robots in his way.
9:34 Shadow grabs and holds the missile. “This is the missile…there’s no way he’s gonna throw that back at him-“
Unleashes the missile. Jaw drop 😮”WHAT?! Oh man, he’s OP. He literally just sent a missile at the-“
Shadow teleports, catches the missile again, and slam dunks it onto the ship. Stunned silent, stupefied. “WHAT?!” Again 🤭
THAT was fun to watch 😁
My favorite Sonic character besides Shadow is called E-102 code name Gamma, probably one of the most underrated but emotional story of a 1 off character from the "Sonic Adventure" game. 👍
Wasn't Omega made out of him ?
@@maxentirunos Omega is a more advanced model from 102-Ganma. So yeah you are right.
Yes, Omega is kind of a homage to Gamma, lol. That was always a pretty cool fact about Omega 🫡
If only both of their catchphrases was “I call dibs” 😂
Lol
I don't know if it's funny or depressing that most people don't know anything about Sonic lore and are genuinly surprised when they see that it's good.
Sega did a really good job of putting Sonic's image in the public eye into the dirt for the last two decades so it's no surprise
@@WhatISawJuly7th Yeah that's sadly true.
@@WhatISawJuly7th Some people were mad for some reason that Sonic wasn't a bad western Saturday Morning preschool cartoon show and was instead very anime-like and took itself more seriously (even though it's a Japanese IP what did they expect?) and so in the 2010s they decided to turn it into a bad western Saturday Morning preschool cartoon show to appease them for some reason and then made fun of their more serious anime-like past. Intentional brand-defacing to try and SAVE face is a weird backwards marketing strategy but that's what they did.
I think that's part of what made both this and the Knuckles Prologue for Frontiers so special. They focused heavily on the lore for the two characters with easily the most interesting lore (imo)
People who are new to Sonic: "Wait, there's more of them?"
We are like: "It's always been more of them"
Shadow's Lore Summary in case no one had dropped yet (spoilers for old Sonic games):
Shadow was created as part of "Project Shadow" on the Space Colony: ARK under the direction of the military body, Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N.), by Eggman's grandfather, Gerald Robotnik. G.U.N. wanted to Gerald to create a weapon, while Gerald took the opportunity and funding to research a cure for his granddaughter Maria's illness. Gerald's research takes him to Angel Island, the setting of Sonic 3 and Sonic Adventure. On Angel Island, there are murals of ancient prophecies depicting a dragon-like water monster (who goes on to be the final boss of Sonic Adventure) and a hedgehog utilizing the power of the Chaos Emeralds, seven magical relics that grant wishes. Both murals can be seen in the games before Shadow's debut game, Sonic Adventure 2, with the former being in a level in Sonic Adventure and the latter being in the background of a boss fight in Sonic 3. Gerald's first attempt is to recreate the water monster by using salamanders, which he chooses for their regenerative abilities. This attempt fails and eventually becomes the final boss of Sonic Adventure 2, the Biolizard. The second attempt was to recreate the hedgehog, who as the player we know to be Sonic, which results in Shadow. However, to successfully complete Shadow, Gerald made a deal with an alien race called the Black Arms to obtain their DNA in exchange for allowing them to come to Earth in 50 years to use the lifeforms on Earth as a power source. Gerald builds a contingency weapon on the Ark called the Eclipse Cannon for when that day comes, since he can't turn down the deal because of his desperation to cure Maria. Eventually, G.U.N. learns of this deal and executes everyone on the Ark and takes Gerald hostage. Maria sends Shadow down to Earth in a pod in her dying moments. When Gerald learns that Maria was a casualty of the raid, he goes insane and reprograms the Eclipse Canon and the Biolizard to one day destroy Earth to avenge her. In Sonic Adventure 2, Eggman breaks into a G.U.N. base and finds Shadow, who begins to enact Gerald's plan for revenge upon waking up. Throughout the game, Rouge questions whether he is the real Shadow because she finds data on the Ark that contradicts the facts that lead to Shadow's presence in that game (the game's manual also states Shadow's escape pod was never found). It's highly implied that the Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2 is a fake Shadow that Gerald might have created after the raid to help fulfill his plan for vengeance. Eventually, this Shadow realizes that revenge isn't what Maria wanted, and helps Sonic defeat the Biolizard after Sonic stops the Eclipse Cannon by himself. This Shadow dies in the process, but in the next game, Rouge discovers Shadow sleeping in stasis in one of Eggman's bases, and he has no memories of the Ark, Maria, or the events of SA2. We learn in this game that Eggman has multiple clones of Shadow and the Shadow that Rouge found questions whether he, too, is one of these other clones. The next game is Shadow's standalone title, Shadow the Hedgehog, where the Black Arms return as promised, and their leader, Black Doom, attempts to coerce Shadow to join them. By the end of the game, he chooses to reject the Black Arms and the memory of SA2 Shadow that the other characters keep forcing onto him and decides to be his own person, still with no memory of Maria and the ARK. During the final boss against Black Doom, Eggman tells Shadow that he is indeed not one of his many clones, but rather Eggman found him after the events of SA2. This also implies that he perhaps was the original Shadow that Maria sent down to Earth if the one in SA2 was indeed a clone that Gerald created, hence why he doesn't remember the events of SA2. The animations for Sonic x Shadow Generations seems to be Shadow regaining his memories of Maria, which scares him as it tempts him to go back on the choice he made to not let his past define him, which is what the story of the Shadow part of the Sonic x Shadow Generations game explores. Quick sidenote, at the end of the first part of the animations, when he says "could he have survived?" he's referring to Black Doom.
Other neat tidbits:
- Gerald discovered other things during his research, including an ancient combat android, Emerl, from a long-gone civilization; this android is the focus of Sonic Battle, and is the robot Shadow fights in the first part of the animation, which was a nice call back to a more obscure Sonic character
- Shadow specifically resembles Super Sonic, because the mural in Sonic 3 depicts Sonic in his Super form
- In design concepts, Shadow resembles Sonic's regular form a lot more closely and lacks his black and red color scheme (people have named this form "Terios the Hedgehog"); in lore, this could be explained as Shadow prior to getting Black Arms DNA, as the Black Arms have the same black and red color scheme; this design is also brought back as a costume for Shadow in the Sonic x Shadow Generations game
- The kid who becomes the G.U.N. commander, Abraham Tower, was an antagonist in the Shadow the Hedgehog game, as he believed Shadow was the reason Maria died because he was escorted off of the ARK before the raid, and so has no knowledge of what actually happened (hence why he now works for them as an adult); by the end of the game, he realizes that Shadow has no memories and thus he can't blame him for what he thinks he did, choosing to forgive him and move on (a core theme of Shadow the Hedgehog is moving on from the pain of your past to live a better future)
I believe Shadow Generations implies Shadow has since regained a few memories from his past, including some of the events of SA2. It’s implied he managed to survive the sacrifice he committed to, and Eggman found him afterwards. The trauma from what happened caused him to suffer amnesia. Shadow, in his nightmare, recalls Gerald and the confessional, the entire G.U.N. raid, Maria, and so on. He’s just stuck to his promise to move on. I believe Sonic 06 may have had a transition that led to some of this development but I can’t remember much of the plot from that game. So Shadow is the original, is implied to be the same one that survived SA2 or at least was informed a great deal on it, remembers a lot of what happened before, and is struggling to keep looking forward now that his past is haunting him. Having played the game and seen all the extra content, that’s what it seems to imply to me at least?
A few things though (and forgive me, my Sonic lore is rusty so I could be totally wrong in this or this was debunked in future Sonic games), but if I recall, it is confirmed that both Shadows are the same because he DOES regain the memory of when he fell to Earth after the SA2 battle when he reboards the Ark with Sonic. I don't think that sequence was meant to imply that the characters were forcing the memory onto him, it's something he concluded to himself, and it's reassured to him by Eggman that he is not an andriod/clone, and with that knowledge still decides to identify as his person regardless of his memories. He also regains memories of the Ark incident, including Maria, and remembers his true purpose of his creation aka being a protector of the world against Black Doom, to which he does decide to achieve. I think the manual included information about his escape pod never being found to create suspense for the story, since it opens the doorway to ShTH becoming a multi-path adventure based on whatever choices you make Shadow choose, the "good ending" being the true ending. Gerald's journal and narration for the SxSG game do include that Shadow was captured and put on Prison Island, clarifying the alleged contradiction in the previous games that ever suggested there were multiple Shadows as mains in other games besides the androids in the one game (and the Phantom Copy, but obv it wasn't meant to be a mystery to the players). --- sorry if this is what you meant and I just misinterpreted what was written, just wanna clarify that Modern Shadow is the same character in SA2 both the one Maria sent and the antagonist/antihero in the game that "died" (but didn't)
Also the mural discovery was just a theory (which I fully support since Sonic Team intentionally skirts the explanation of why Shadow looks the way he does, making it a fun mystery for the fans). The direction of his quills may be meant to resemble Super Sonic, but it ends up resembling the shape of Doom's Eye since they spread out (also same number of large head quills as the number of tentacles) and the tips curve upward like the claws of the Black Arms larvae.
TBF I think I heard that Sega has been getting more open with allowing interpretations of Shadow to really lean into his past so they've been adding more to it and readapting some parts to correlate to how they want Shadow to behave in the games, so some inconsistencies in new games are just small rewrites in old games. Don't quote me, but I believe this is something Ian Flynn had mentioned because in the past he was frustrated with the strictness of Shadow's writing, so now he is relieved that with them basically giving Shadow's backstory and character a fresher and more refined take, it means he can add more nuance to the character. Hopefully lol
Damm so to put it short. All the past games are Canon. And this happens some time after the events of shadow the hedgehog game 😯
I'm just gonna have to say this as part of whatever comment I leave on newcomers reacting to something Sonic-related from now on...
"This is not what I was expecting from Sonic" is something I've been hearing for the past 2 years straight from people who don't know about Sonic! LOL Regarding music, animation, story, etc. And yes, the newest things are often a bit unique to the series, but not surprisingly so. Usually, people are extremely surprised by the heavy metal of Undefeatable or the animation of Dark Beginnings because all they know about Sonic are chiptunes and loop-de-loops from 32 years ago. (I mean, generally speaking.)
While Sonic fans are pleasantly surprised by some of these recent things as well, we've experienced both simplistic silly stories and dramatic in-depth stories from Sonic as well as just about every genre of GOAT-tier music in some form or fashion with good to great animation here and there that seems to get better over time. We're surprised.
But yeah, you're much more surprised I imagine. lol
People going into Sonic Movie 3 are going to be saying the same thing when they see that one of these fluffy cartoony character's backstory being about grieving over a child dying. (I mean... same with this animation I guess. lol)
It's been so cool seeing outsiders become aware of the good parts about the franchise.
So, Apparently…Some of the people who worked on Rise the TMNT also worked on this! Which is incredible! You can tell its theme, because their animation style is Heavily inspired by anime, Specifically Studio trigger stuff.
You missed the post credits scene! It shows Black Doom in the Ark resurrected. =)
6:20 OH BOY. Was gonna give the rundown on all the lore, the robot in the beginning, all the stuff in this that are SO enhanced with background information, but this question is such an interesting rabbit hole, that only recently got officially recognized. Haven't played the game yet, won't until Christmas, but I am INTIMATELY familiar with Sonic lore and fan theories backed by solid circumstantial evidence. Plus others will have me covered.
Shadow is a hedgehog because Sonic is a Hedgehog. In Gerald Robotnik's search for a cure for Maria's illness, he visited a number of the ruins of ancient (usually very powerful, technologically advanced) civilizations. It's how he found the robot in the beginning, the "Gizoid", later named Emerl by Sonic (in Sonic Battle for the Gameboy Advance). In his search, Gerald finds 2 important ruins with murals. The first is in the Mystic Ruins, the remains of an ancient temple dedicated to Chaos, the "God of Destruction" a giant reptilian water monster responsible for the destruction of the Echidna civilization, depicting him in his final, civilization ending form, having gathered the 7 Chaos Emeralds, and Angel Island, a giant landmass lifted from the Echidnas' home by Tikal, the resident priestess of the time, in an attempt to end the the devestation by hiding the Master Emerald and sealing herself and Chaos inside it. Knuckles' home. On Angel Island, in the Hidden Palace Zone temple, is a prophetic mural depicting a battle between a giant mustachioed figure, and a powerful hedgehog like figure with upturned spines, the final battle between Eggman's doomsday robot and Hyper Sonic (or Super Sonic depending on how dedicated to emerald collecting you are) in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
It is HEAVILY implied, if not outright stated in Gerald's journal, that before making Shadow, Gerald got to work on the prototype to the Ultimate Lifeform, based on the mural in the Mystic Ruins temple, the Biolizard. You actually see the Biolizard itself in the trailer at the end of this. After the failure of the Biolizard to be the immortal, disease immune, perfect being Gerald was looking for, Gerald found and went to Angel Island, where he saw the prophecy mural depicting the battle between Sonic and his grandson in the future, and based Shadow on that hedgehog like being. You can actually look up the mural, there's no accompanying text or anything, it's very open to interpretation, which would've been true for Gerald too.
So Shadow is a hedgehog because Sonic, the prophesied savior of the planet by the ancient Echidnas, Knuckles' ancestors, is a hedgehog. He's based directly ON Sonic, both in terms of his real world character design, and the lore surrounding him.
quick correction: Eggman is his great-nephew- Maria and Ivo (Eggman) are cousins (a generation removed I believe)
Shadow looks like a hedgehog because Gerald Robotnik modled him after a mural of Super Sonic found in an ancient Echidna temple (the mural was a prohecy of the final boss of the game it shows up in, one of the 2d games, tho I forget which). Its actually why Shadow's spines curve up, they match Super Sonic's appearance in the first Sonic adventure game (with Sonic Adventure 2 being Shadow's debut game)
Gerald basically looked at that mural of a prochecy of a demigod and said "Yah I can build that" and then proceeded to do so (after his failure basing the Biolizard off of Perfect Chaos, anyway)
Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the game you're talking about, the boss fight is called Doomsday Zone
Man that boss fight music goes hard
The sonic franchise has had a lot of ups and downs over the years, namely, the experimental nature of some of their material like the werehog and some other problems with gameplay mechanics that didn’t quite work well in some games have made it a bit tenuous. when sonic actually does things right, it typically provides some absolutely stellar character and story writing; the live action movie had a bit of drama when it came out a few years ago and the studio did something unprecedented, which was delaying the release to listen to fan feedback and they produced something that has been overall very well received. One of the most iconic pieces of the sonic lore was sonic adventure 2 on the Dreamcast and it introduced shadow for the first time, the movie coming out in a few months will also have shadow for the first time in the films so they have basically been stepping up their game very hard the past couple years to make this a success. that’s probably why they put so much work into this mini video
shadow has quite an extensive backstory - it's impressive you picked up on the main beats!
he was first introduced in sonic adventure 2 as an antagonist - at this point in time, he was reawakened after 50 years of being in cryo. created as the 'ultimate lifeform', he has the ability to use 'chaos control' - a move used to freeze time with the use of a chaos emerald (shown here in dark beginnings to take out the helicopter).
his whole arc revolved around him taking revenge on humanity for killing both maria & the professor gerald (essentially his family) during the raid on the space colony ark. maria was infamously shot and killed by a soldier, and the professor was executed by a firing squad (both deaths were depicted in dark beginnings ep1). at the last minute, shadow remembered maria's final wish for everyone on earth to be happy, teaming up with sonic and sacrificing himself.
however, shadow did't die - the next few games revolve around him having amnesia. the black arms also invade earth (the alien species used to create shadow), but shadow recovers from his amesia and kills the leader, black doom (basically space satan), who was planning on using the human population as livestock for his species. you missed the post credits scene in dark beginnings - it shows that black doom had regenerated from the larvae held on the space colony ark. black doom is once again the primary antagonist for the newest game, shadow generations.
this is one of the best summaries I’ve found!! nice!!
@PhilipHarts you noticed that there were martial arts and close combat in this promotional series. This is more specific to Shadow. It’s been listed in official info about Shadow that he is a master of close combat. I don’t know the exact source, however.
These guys can regularly take out Robotnik's various Mechs. Hulking Chunks of Metal equipped with multiple Armaments
Ever since the First Sonic Game Eggman Bossfights features a Mechanical contraption of some kind.
It really is an amazing animation. For context its a prologue tie-in animation for a new game being released called Sonic X Shadow Generations. Its actually a remaster of a game from 2011 made for Sonic the Hedgehogs 20th anniversary. So in the whole game, all the levels are iconic locations from previous games. But now they're re-releasing it, and adding a whole new campaign on the side just for Shadow the Hedgehog. Decently big too, about 2/3rds the size of the existing game.
SEGA has gone all out about the character Shadow this year, theyve literally called it the Year of Shadow. I dont know if you know but the 3rd Sonic movie is also releasing next month and Shadow is the movie's antagonist. Not only that but in the movie he is played by Keanu Reeves!
Since everyone is explaining Shadows backstory I'll explain the power scaling, basically the Chaos Emerald are special crystals that give you limitless power, having all seven brings out a special form within you. Chaos Control is basically a special ability from the Chaos Emerald that makes you be able to stop time as a whole. Shadows power comes from the Emeralds as he was made from the miracle of Chaos Control by yhe black arms. He also had limter rings on his gloves and shoes to hold back his true power as ge can be unstable from that power.
small note!! not everyone can get a “super” form from the chaos emeralds. only a few can handle it. Often they’re used as a power source due to their endless ability.
The Music at the end was 'Without You' Sung by Casey Lee Williams, one of my favourite singer/songwriters ever!
You asked about Chaos Control.
Long story short. It's the catch all term used when referring to using the Chaos Emeralds (The Main Collectibles of the series) Energy to Control Time and Space.
As the Ultimate Life Form, Shadow can do it to a lesser extent without any of the 7 Emeralds.
The abilities are:
Chaos Control: Name used for both Long Range Teleportation and Stopping Time in an area.
Chaos Snap: Short Range Teleportation.
Dual Chaos Control: Requires two Users and Two Emeralds, used to travel through time.
Shadow also can use Chaos Energy in a more direct and offensive way.
Chaos Spear is a directed energy lance used to damage and or stun opponents.
Chaos Blast is a far more powerful omny directional explosion of Chaos Energy.
The robot in episode 1 is Emerl, which definitely surprised Sonic Battle fans. Also, this Prologue was so top tier---I watched it the moment the Preview released, and was SUPER excited for the whole prologue to come out. Then, I watched each episode when it came out....I rewatch each episode to this very day, due to HOW AMAZING the animation, music, and writing is.
Not surprised Ian Flynn was behind the writing of the Shadow Generations Prologue and Game----Ian also did the writing for the IDW, and with how amazing THAT is, I was not surprised to hear he wrote this too. Seeing Team Dark fight together for the first time in a long time made me emotionally ascend. Additionally, the final episode hit me in the feels. Especially the lyrics. The flowers seen in the premonitions Shadow was having in episode 3 (12:44) are called *Balloon Flowers,* and they represent *endless love* and the *desire for the return of a friend.* 😭
Breif character explanations for your context needing pleasure!
Shadow - The Ultimate Lifeform, created by Gerald Robotnik in order to create immortal life, in hopes they could reverse-engineer a cure to Maria's illness from there. Dark, blunt, and not one to follow orders, his heart is still pure, even if his methods can border on extreme. Can use the Chaos Emeralds to perform Chaos Control, which acts as a breif time stop and teleportation.
Rouge - A theiving bat with an eye for gemstones, and one of the few people Shadow can call a friend (to which she returns the sentiment). While they started out often only working together out of convenience, they've grown a true bond over time to the point you rarely see them apart in things like the comics. She's also one of the few mutual friends of both Shadow *and* Sonic.
E-123 Omega - The last of Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik's E-Series combat machines, loaded to the brim with weaponry. Tasked with guarding an amnesiac Shadow rather than being put on the front lines, Omega took GREAT offense to his potential being wasted and swore to destroy everything Eggman had created. While his main motive is hate, he appreciates Rogue and Shadow for not telling him to stop shooting things.
Maria Robotnik - The grandaughter of Gerald Robotnik and cousin to Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, she was diagnosed with "Neuro-Immune Deficency Syndrome" at a young age, a fatal disease that painfully affected her immune system, but couldn't harm her positive, hopeful view on life. She was taken to the Space Colony ARK to better treat her illness, and made fast friends with Shadow when he was brought into the world.
Professor Gerald Robotnik - The grandfather of Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik and Maria Robotnik, he created the Space Colony ARK and many, many other wonderful (and terrible) devices relevant to Shadow's story. While he had a good heart, he had a tendency to try and make deals with untrustworthy sources with the beleif he could outsmart them and come out fine. This had many, many dire consequences...
Just a small thing. I don't think Omega was even aware of his actual task. He didn't know anything about Shadow and he find the notion that Eggman basically wanted Eggman to protect Shadow from Metal as ridiculous. Said notion was apparently Rouge's.
"This is not what I expected from sonic" is something I've heard way too much in my life, sadly...
Okay so, some things
"How powerful is he?" Well, I always like using the fact that he easily soloes all of dragon ball as an example when someone asks this about him or sonic
He was introduced in sonic adventure 2, from 2001
He looks like a hedgehog because gerald based him off of a mural in angel island depicting super sonic fighting against dr eggman seen in sonic 3, that's why his quills are actually angled up. The mural was left by the echidna, aa now extinct tribe of very powerful warriors of whom knuckles is the laast survivor, which is why he guards the master emerald in angel island (where the tribe lived) with his life
The robot shadow fights is emerl, a "gizoid", which are very advanced fighting robots built by "the ancients" (who we actually saw in sonic fromtiers!), who can copy and save all fighting data about aany opponent they fight and have crazy amounts of energy, so they are very powerful robots. Eggman uses this robot in sonic battle. Emerl was later turned into g-emerl and he is now a good guy...except when he's a bad guy again for a game, but yk
Rouge is another character introduced in sonic adventure 2, who is a jewel thief who works with the government to collect data from eggman. She is a playable character in the dark story alongside shadow and eggman (there is also a hero side with sonic, tails and knuckles)
Omega is a robot created by eggman who ended up hating eggman with a burning passion introduced in sonic heroes. He *REALLY* wants to destroy and kill everything related to eggman lmao
If you’re curious about Shadow’s story, DEFINITELY check out the new game, but also check out some of his other appearances. The best starting spot is Sonic Adventure 2
I'm a month late, and everyone else gave their two cents, but I figured I'd give mine just to add on and summarize:
*Shadow the Hedgehog - The Ultimate Lifeform*
Shadow is a Mobian hedgehog/Black Arms hybrid who was created by the genius Prof. Gerald Robotnik. He cannot age, get sick, or even die, making him one of, if not, the most overpowered character in the franchise complete with teleportation, freezing/slowing down time, and firing energy projectiles from his hands. Shadow was designed to find a cure for Gerald's granddaughter, Maria, who was suffering from an illness known as Neuro-Immune Deficiency Syndrome (N.I.D.S.), which is only manageable thanks to the low gravity of space. During their research, Shadow and Maria formed a close, sibling-like relationship, becoming practically inseparable until the day that the Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N.) raided the Space Colony ARK to destroy any and all remaining traces of Project Shadow. Maria wanted to get Shadow to safety, leading him to an escape pod aboard the ARK, but the soldiers were hot on their trail, and Maria was caught in the crossfire. Clinging to her last moments of life, Maria made Shadow promise to protect all of humanity by any means necessary before pushing the button that sent the dark hedgehog down to Earth. Shadow was apprehended not long after and put in cryostasis for fifty years, eventually being reawakened by Gerald's grandson, Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik. Upon regaining consciousness, only one word rang out through Shadow's mind: revenge. And thus, the events of Sonic Adventure 2 began.
I think one of the coolest (and relatively overlooked) detailed moments in this animation has to do with Omega (the red and black robot that keeps calling "dibbs"), where he jumps out of a window at a high speed, activates his vulcan canon, and jump-starts his gun's rotation by dragging it along the metal grating through his sliding momentum. We get a bit of a slow motion look at him performing the move, and it's SO DAMN COOL.
Chaos control is just a move shadow (and sonic) can do, it can warp/teleport you and and stop time when using one or multiple chaos emeralds. Also check out the sonic lore it goes crazy
Maria:Nothing look
*Ad plays*
Me:wooow that was good *laughing*
The Robot from the first third is Emerel. It's a robot that learns from observing it was likely made for war or something thanks to an ancient technologically advanced civilization.
That robot breaking out is one of many bad accidents that happen on the Ark.
Thanks to many accidents the Governmental Organization which funded the creation of the Ark storm the Ark and try to wipe out all evidence of what happened there. This includes capturing Gerald Robotnik (Eggman's Grandad, Shadow's "Dad", Maria's Grandfather, the "Professor") shooting and killing Maria (while shadow was trapped and could only watch), and cryo-stasising Shadow.
Shadow eventually gets discovered by Eggman 50 years in the future and Eggman breaks into a base in order to release him.
Shadow has his first moment of inconsistent memory Syndrome and is convinced that Maria's final words to him were to get revenge on the planet.
Shadow has his one game where he is a villain. Realizes that he was mistaken, Prof. Gerald actually turned crazy (this was retconned to not be an instant Snap but a gradual progress) after he realizes that Maria died and he then repurposed the A.R.K. (Big space Colony in the sky next to the moon) from it's Original Purpose of stopping the Faustian deal with Black Doom (Shadow's DNA Donor) into instead falling and Crash landing into the Earth. (Eggman "test fires" the laser part of the A.R.K. into the Moon at minimal power early in Shadow's debut game in order to threaten the entire world. Yes, that's the moon.)
Obviously Shadow becomes a good guy and Eggman temporarily teams up with Sonic and friends in order to stop the world from ending. Shadow then runs out of energy from going into his Super form (he gets one too) and falls back down to Earth.
This doesn't kill him but reactivates his Amnesia where right then Black Doom starts invading the Earth. Gerald originally accepted the deal with Black Doom (alien Warlord) in order to try to create the Ultimate Lifeform to save Maria but realizing that Black Doom's plans are to Destroy the Earth after getting the Chaos Emeralds he creates the big lazer weapon on the Ark in order to destroy Black Doom's Mothership. (The reason why the big weapon was created before he went crazy.)
Shadow collects all 7 Chaos Emeralds and recovers his memories (again) before manipulating Space and Time to teleport the Black Comet (Black Arms mothership) in front of the Cannon before it fires at Earth. and then Saves the Earth from Black Doom. In this game is where you first meet the heterochromia kid. You first meet him as the head honcho at Gun in that game before learning his backstory later. (He was born on the A.R.K. due to some scientists uhhh you know.)
Shadow then has a couple other games where he is playable.
Omega (Big Robot guy that looks like a Dr. Eggman Robot that likes calling dibs) is the second time a Dr. Eggman Robot has gone Rogue, except unlike the last time Omega's main priority is to kill Eggman.
Rouge first appears in Shadow's debut game. She is an undercover operative for G.U.N. who pretends to be a mere jewel thief (she likes stealing Jewels regardless of her cover or not).
They work together Often especially after Sonic started taking jobs from G.U.N. in order to protect the planet that Maria so dearly cherished.
He's cool.
The robotnik family (that I know about):
-Gerald Robotnik, creator of Shadow, grandfather of both Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik and Maria, also apparently genius runs in his family, from archeological discoveries to scientific invention. According to his journal, he srarted out loving life, loving humanity and his creations in general having humanity's beat interests at heart, but Maria's death broke him, and big time. He began the Shadow Project (which was commissioned by the president at the time to create a means of giving people immortality, though Gerald thought that aspect to be a distasteful perversion of life), though he only agreed so that he'd have a means of potentially curing his granddaughter, aka Maria. Shadow the Hedgehog was the result of Project Shadow, along with a creature called the Bio Lizard (which was a salamander before Gerald exposed it to energy from the Chaos Emeralds causing the salamander to grow to massive size). He's also tinkered woth the archeological doscoveries from one of his other relatives, but to my knowledge that relative hasn't been named.
-Maria: the morality chain for pretty nuch everyone that knew her, to put it in TV Tropes terminology. Her cousin is nome other than Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, the de facto primary antagonist (basically the Bowser to Sonic's Mario), and was apparently quite jealous of the attention she got and only really understood why she got so much attention around the time Sonic Frontiers was taking place, which iirc takes place after Generations when considering the original release dates. Maria's death (and her last words) are quite literally the entire motivation of literally everything Shadow does, and her death even drove Gerald down a brief villain arc of his own.
Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik: th e Bowser to Somic's Mario, the Ganon to his Link, tge Ridley to his Samus, the Dracula to his Belmont Family, and so on and songorth. Makes robots as his flunkies, and in terms of publication, the first family member any of us would have known about. However, he technically becomes a father during Sonic Frontiers, having created a sentient AI hologram called Sage (who quite literally calls him father, and asks if the other robots he nade would count as her siblings). The relationship he and Rose develop during that game basically gives him insight as to why Maria got so much attention, but by then it was already decades too late to actually clear the air with Maria for obvious reasons.
Technically part of the family in the "the family created/discovered them" sense:
- Shadow: as a creation of Gerald Robotnik, this arguably makes the old professor Shadow's father alongside alien whose DNA was used to make him. Guy gets memory problems out the wazoo in every game he appears in, whether it take the form of actual amnesia (trauma or impact, both have happened iirc), memory manipulation or his head just being a jumbled mess at the time. Even his most valued of memories hasn't been safe, the memory of Maria's last words (which were his sole motivation in his original debut, Sonic Adventure 2) was partially blocked to him, resulting in him initially seeking tevenge on humanity before being made to realize that his path at the time was the exact opposite of what Maria's last words were (which was along the lines of "All the people on that planet... Give them a chance... To be happy... Good ye Shadow...", with the "give them a chance to be happy" being the part he couldn't remember and the part that more tecent flashbacks seem to be forgetting to include). One game even made the infamous memory into a playable sequence, and it is multiple choice like the rest of that game because alignment was a core mechanic. After that game (which he was the star of), he became a "I will do basically what Sonic does, but in a way that's much more violent and much more edgy, and I'll do all yhat my way".
-The robot fron the flashback in part 1 that you asked about is an archeological discovery by one of Gerald's sons, it was apparently an ancient superweapon that deatroyed its creators. Gerald's journal says he eventually managed to "give it a heart" like he did woth Shadow, with the robot apparently choosing a name for itself in its debut game.
Sage: Does not appear in Generations, she debuts in Frontiers. She is a fully sentient AI hologram created by Dr Ivo "Eggman Robotnik. Views Eggman as a father, asks if his other creations are her siblings. Initially thinks that Sonic is the bad guy because he is the enemy of her "father".
- E-123 "Omega": the final entry in the E-100 series robots that debuted in Sonic Adventure 1, however only Beta through (I think) Epsilon actually appears in that game. The E-100 series are named sequentially after greek letters, and to my knowledge we never see Alpha. E-102 Gamma and E-123 Omega are the only two we've been able to play as, all of the others that showed up have been bosses, and Omega is currently the only surviving one as Gamma sacrifices himself by self-destruct in his game. Omega debuts in Heroes, and has stuck around since as a mutual friend of Shadow and Rouge. All E-100 series robots were made by Eggman, with both Gamma and Omega having turned on Eggman (though we get a more up front reason for Gamma changing sides during Adventure 1, Omega coming to that same decision was done offscreen and he's introduced when he joins forces with Rouge and Shadow during Sonic Heroes)
Non-Robotnik family characters you asked about:
Rouge: a jewelry thief turned government informant, she debuted in Sonic Adventure 2 while trying to steal a majorly important artifact called the Master Emerald (think of it as an 8th, huge chaos emeralt that can power, recharge, control or enhance the other seven in whatever way the plot needs it to whenever the Master Emerald is present). Furing that game she ends up on yhe same side as Shadow, Shadow ends up saving her hide, and she's been on his side ever since even though he tried to play it off as "just saving the Chaos Emeralds she was hokding". Every game after that made her a government informant sevretly workong for G.U.N.
- G.U.N.: an international military organization that fancies itself as the planet's official, govenment-licensed protector. Funded nearly everything relevant to Shadow's backstory, literally harassed Gerald into naking weapons for them inder threat of removing funding from his medical research (yep, they did that). They've also mistaken Shadow for Sonic and vice versa a couple times in Adventure 2, but they weren't the only ones to do it in that game. This might have been a relic within the script where Shadow's early concept art made him actually look more similar to Sonic, as it never happens again after the events of Adventure 2, the only game where this running gag happens.
-The Black Arms/Black Doom: contributed their DNA (specifically one of their larva) to help Gerald create Shadow,on the condition that Shadow help them invade the planet 50 years later. Depending on player choice you can help or hinder the invasion, the game they come from has about ten endings with over three hundred some odd ways to get to each ending (and the game even named each individual path). This is the group that Shadow saved the world from in the "true" ending of that game, according to Abraham (the grown up version of the kid that called Shadow a freak). Black Doom is their leader, and has almost managed to puppeteer Shadow's body against his will once or twice, but once Shadow broke free for real, Shadow didn't have to worry about being controlled anymore and was actually able to defeat Black Doom, turning back the tide of the invasion more or less singlehandedly using the combined power of all seven chaos emeralds.
The Chaos Emeralds being the primary macguffin of the franchise, with the Master Emerald being a secondary macguffin due to its ability to amp/re-power/control the seven chaps emeralds, and the tertiary macgiffin generally only existing if the Chaos Emeralds are either not part of the story (see: Sonic CD, Sonic Storybook Series... and the Sonic Rush duology where a parallel version of the Chaos Emeralds exists called the Sol Emeralds, and the Rush games are very much parallel universe stories).
This got a little lengthly and some of this might be outta date, but I hope it helps nonetheless.
Edit: Fixed some things I misremembered, and some typos
Small correction!! Eggman is Gerald’s grandnephew, not grandson- Maria is his cousin!
You should watch project shadow fan film it explains his backstory in a very emotional way
A brief sort of summery. Shadow was created 50 years ago from modern time (presumably 1950's) as both a cure for maria (the blond girl) by gerald robotnik (the old scientist man shadow calls professer), eggman's grandfather and grandfather to maria. G.U.N the sonic version of america's military, is the ones who provided the funding for which Gerald was tasked to create weapons. Shadow was meant to be one such weapon, but he was also as stated, made to cure all illness. Maria was chronically ill with a disease with no cure.
G.U.N would steadily grow agitated with no progress and fear of Shadow's power, till one day they'd storm the ark (a space colony where this all takes place on) and erase all evidence. Shooting and killing everyone there besides gerald and shadow, who they'd take into custody. Even shooting maria infront of shadow when they tried to escape, maria sacraficing herself to lock shadow in an escape pod sending him down to earth. G.U.N would find this pod shortly after and take Shadow into custody anyway. They'd keep him and herald locked up for a time to continue work on the project, but when gerald found out maria was among the dead he'd start to lose his mind. He'd mess with shadow's mind, reprogramming his memories where shadow would think his last promise to maria is that she wanted revenge. Gerald would be exicuted, and shadow locked away for 50 years in cryostasis , not aging or being unaware, until eggman would free him.
In shadow's creation process, gerald would make a deal with a warlord of an alien species to use his dna, as all other attempts prior were failing. Shadow would recall this some time after being freed by eggman, working to destroy the world as he thought he was supposed to, remembering maria's real wish, dying to save the world, being saved by eggman so eggman could use him but being freed by rouge (the white bat lady) and struggling with amnesia off and on trying to figure out who he is and regain bodily and personal autonomy.
The robot's name is omega, he, shadow and rouge are all on a team together, and they are some of the ones shadow is closest to. The kid with heterochromia that turns to the old G.U.N general (Abe) would be the only other survivor of the incident, at first blaiming shadow for everyone's deaths, but coming to support him after shadow saved the world a second time
So, not so brief, but lore
also shadow is immortal
There is so much here to unpack. Okay so Emerl the robot at the beginning fight there is from Sonic Battle. They changed the lore slightly here. Maria Robotnik was killed by GUN agents. His teleporting/Chaos Control makes it look like flying some what. The second bit here is Team Dark. E-123 Omega is a Dr. Robotnik robot gone rouge and wants to kill Dr. Robotnik at any cost along with his Empire. Rouge the Bat well she is a thief with a mix bag of morals. Sometimes she trys to talk herself out of kind acts. She also kinda has a crush on the Hot headed Knuckles the Echidna.
Chaos Control is a technique Shadow and Sonic can do with a Chaos Emeralds. There are many other abilities they have.
I'm sure I missed some info any questions please ask will reply.
The gem that Shadow is holding is called a Chaos Emerald. There are seven of them and have been around since the first game. They essentially turn thoughts into power and have massive energy outputs. They can power any machine or grant ultimate power if all seven are gathered.
Shadow has the ability to warp space-time and essentially teleport around. With a single Emerald his power is increased tenfold and can shoot energy bolts called “Chaos Spear”. They are abilities you can use in the new game.
For context, the Robot Shadow was fighting at the beginning of this animation is a Gizoid, an ancient piece of alien technology, no one knows who created them, either way, this specific Gizoid is called Emerl (pronounced Em-er-al, essentially emerald without the D at the end) and was discovered in an old warehouse, after being found in some ancient ruins, a little context to the context, you can form a bond with a Gizoid if you show it "power," such as a gun firing, it will then in turn, learn how to replicate the demonstration with its own body, and listen to your orders, however if a significant enough demonstration is presented to the Gizoid, It will erase any previous bonds and form a link with whoever showed it the more powerful demonstration, think taking it from the person who showed it a gun firing, and showing it an Atom Bomb exploding, Gerald managed secure the Gizoid, and study is, only to realize it was a super weapon, though he noticed that Emerl would observe and copy his movements, and eventually got it to speak in broken tones and say "Link, show me your true strength, and I shall obey. I am all things, and all shall belong to me" and as such my gun metaphor returns, as Gerald gifted the Gizoid one of his Model handguns as a gesture of power, forming a link, to which multiple Researchers noticed, the Gizoid would take orders from no one aside from Gerald, later he would be forced to hand it over to G.U.N to study after threats of the funding for Project Shadow being pulled came up, However, before that, multiple Researchers tried exposing it to many weapons and a Chaos Emerald in order to override Gerald's bond, the vast ammount of informatiom caused it's original destructive programing to resume, and it went on a rampage before eventually being stopped, and even after all G.U.N. tried, they couldn't crack Emerl's code, eventually they returned him to Gerald, who at first tried to destroy the Gizoid's core so it couldn't go on another rampage, but after that ended in failure, he decided maybe hr should give the Gizoid a code-based AI Soul, one based on Maria's own personality, but in order to reset the Gizoid, and let the new code take hold, he had to create a keyword, one that would only work once all 7 Chaos Eneralds were inserted into it, after some time, "Bring hope to humanity" was what he eventually settled on, the last words Maria spoke before her death, and Emerl was then sealed away by G.U.N.
TLDR The robot is the Sonic Universe equivilant if a Sentinel from Marvel.
Shadow's debut game 'Sonic Adventure 2' has a great movie edit here on RUclips. Highly recommend for anyone who wants to see Shadow's story. Even for people who already played the game, since it fixes dialog overlaping/cutting out errors present in the game.
Martial arts in Sonic. While not normal, its not the first it’s happened. Sonic the Fighters and Sonic Battle are fighting games and Sonic Frontiers has Sonic use some form of hand to hand combat, as well as in a couple other games. However the combat was never THIS well done and I hope to see more of it going forward in the series
Sonic power scaling is interesting, what I will say is that Sonic and Shadow, having shared the power of all seven crystals (chaos emeralds), we able to physically push a space station that de-orbited itself with the intent to crash to earth back into orbit with just the two of them.
The form they take with all seven emeralds is called a super form, and, at least in the games, no enemy is capable of hurting them while in that form. Super Sonic has been hit by giant Titan robots in Sonic Frontiers for example, and it only really inconvenienced him.
Shadow has the ability to make use of a chaos emerald’s power to utilize special attacks, we’ve seen a few of them. Chaos Control (what you see in this animation) allows him to pause time for a few moments and appear to achieve speeds and reaction times otherwise impossible.
In the game “Shadow the Hedgehog”, he has Chaos Blast, where he directs the power of the emerald into a massive explosion, taking out all of the enemies in the area.
Originating from “Sonic Adventure 2”, Shadow can launch a beam at a target called Chaos Spear, I believe this is what is used against the tree at the end of the first part of this animation.
Sonic has been shown to be capable of Chaos Control in addition to Super form, but we haven’t seen him use any of the other abilities.
This got much longer than I intended, but hopefully it was helpful
Too explain the hedgehog thing, there's a theory that when the scientists investigated knuckles island they found a mural of Super Sonic fight Eggman from Sonic 3. So they based Shadow off the mural of Super Sonic
To let ya know about shadows voice actor is Kirk Thornton who's a very known voice actor
Seeing the comment section is making me realize how complex sonic lore is to newer fans
If you wanna watch another Sonic animation in this sorta style, I'd totally recommend knuckles divergence. It gives a short overview of Knuckles' character and also has some pretty neat fight choreography 👀
heres a link if you don't wanna search for it :D ruclips.net/video/_gjszHTDjzo/видео.html
bro had one bad dream and decided aliens were trying to destroy the planet
You missed a bit at the very end but not too important
Q&A
The robot guy from the first act is named emerl. Hes a character from the sonic advanced fighting game. Hes kinda like task master where he can copy any fighting style
Gerald robotnik (eggmans father) created shadow with the help of an alien warlord named Black Doom, in an effort to cure Marias Space Aids and no im not kidding.
Shadow has a lot of abiities, including the power to teleport short distances, and fire energy lances. But when he has one of the 7 chaos emeralds in hand, he can use chaos control, the ability to stop time briefly.
In some canons, using 2 or more emeralds can allow for full blown time travel.
With all 7 emeralds, shadow (and by extension almost anyone in sonic) can become Super shadow. Which is a full on rip off of super saiyan from dbz, where he glows yellow and is invincible.
Shadow is widley considered one of the strongest characters. The vegeta to sonics Goku.
most people already explained shadow's backstory i'm sure as well as who rouge and omega are. i'm just here to add, in case someone missed it, that shadow can use chaos control. it's an ability where he can manipulate time using a chaos emerald
Also a little known fact about Shadow, he is left handed.
My favorite Sonic characters are Blaze and Silver.
Blaze the Cat is a pyrokinetic princess from another dimension and guardian of the Sol Emeralds. She has an (ironically) icy personality and believed she couldn't trust anyone. But meeting Sonic and his friends helped her open up. She is arch enemies with Eggman Nega, Dr. Eggman's descendant.
Silver the Hedgehog is a psychokinetic from 200 years in the future. In the original timeline, he lived in an apocolyptic future, ruled by a mindless demon named Iblis. Another demon and the other half of a time god, Mephiles, tricked Silver into believing Sonic caused the apocalypse and they (along with Blaze, who mysteriously appeared in the future) time traveled to the past. In the current timeline, hes more like a protector of the future, going back in time to prevent changes from Eggman Nega and Eggman himself.
So a rundown of the lore is Shadow was created as part of a government funded program called Project Shadow as the key to immortality. Dr. Eggmans grandfather Professor Gerald Robotnik was requested by the president to research immortality to which he was originally reluctant, until his grandaughter Maria was diagnosed with a disease known as Native Immunodeficiency Syndrome or Neuro-Immune Deficiency Syndrome. He then researched the gems called the Chaos Emeralds which are said to cause miracles and also contain an immense amount of energy. The Emeralds can do anything from power machinery to controlling time and space. This research led him to Angel Island which was home to an ancient Echidna tribe who used the Emeralds. Although it's not directly stated, it's thought he saw a prophecy depicting Super Sonic, which is why Shadow is a hedgehog. Research on the Emeralds caused the creation of artificial Chaos Emeralds called Chaos Drives, which were used on a failed prototype Ultimate Lifeform called The Biolizard. The robot seen in the short is a war machine created by another Echidna tribe which was discovered by Gerald during his research. This robot, known as a Gizoid, was created as the original Ultimate Lifeform. It has the ability to study combat and gain knowledge of all fighting styles and weapons in the world. It was said that once it gained knowledge of everything, it went on a rampage causing the destruction of that tribe's civilization. Researchers experimented with it by using weapons on it, which caused it to go on a rampage just like in ancient times. Gerald then gave it Maria's soul to make it gentle and prevent another incident. He would also eventually give Shadow her soul as well. Gerald then made contact with an alien warlord called Black Doom, who in exchange for Shadow giving him the Emeralds in 50 years, donated his blood for Shadow's creation as his blood allowed a living creature to control Chaos Energy. Because Shadow has his DNA, he also is part of the hive mind consciousness of The Black Arms. Because of this, Black Doom can manipulate his memory and create illusions which is what you're seeing here. This information was then leaked to the government who then took action to cover it all up, killing everyone on The Space Colony Ark, the base of operations for Gerald and other researchers, and Gerald was forced to continue his research in prison where he was eventually executed. Eggman released Shadow 50 years later in order to create "despair upon the world." So Shadow is the most powerful being there is, he's immortal, can teleport, and can control time, all with the use of Chaos Energy which resides in him and can be enhanced by using the Chaos Emeralds. Because of this, he has limitless potential and can gain limitless power. He's so powerful in fact that Gerald created Limiter Rings that can be seen on his wrists and ankles to limit his power so he does not become drained. If he removes these, his power will be unlocked however, it causes him to be drained quickly. He can teleport and control time with an ability called Chaos Control. He can also shoot lightning bolts from his hands called Chaos Spear and can cause an explosion of energy called Chaos Blast.
"how strong is he?!"
OH BOY!!! YOU HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE! This shadow, takes place during sonic generations, so he's as strong if not a little stronger then the sonic from that game. And that's and older game. With ONE chaos emerald, he can teleport himself and others, stop time, and give himself a mere fraction of the power he has when he turns super. Mind you, that's just his restraint form with the chaos emerald. Without his inhibitor rings, he's almost as strong as his super form.
Now, that's THIS shadow, how about an latter shadow? Well, assuming shadow can keep pace with sonic with growing in power, then regular, restraint shadow, is WELL over strong enough to destroy an entire universe!! WITHOUT AN CHAOS EMERALD!! But, that's an if!
Oh, and that enemy you were wondering about! He has two names of sorts, emerl and gizzoid. Gizzoid his the type of robot he is, and he's the basis for shadows skeleton of sorts. He was made by a ancient civilization to be a weapon of war, so strong that the gods had to step in and seel most of them in an different realm. They follow the orders of whomever wields the most power, but he unfortunately saw to much power, absorbed it, and lost himself. Dying in front of sonic after a tuff Battle.
If you ever want a deep dive on stuff, watch chaomix!
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Shadow is the coldest, most hard-core, badass character in the entire sonic franchise. You can't convince me otherwise
If you’re looking for lore about shadow/the arc, a RUclips channel called Sonic Theory recently did an INCREDIBLE video summarizing everything you need to know about shadow/professor Gerald/GUN/the space colony arc. It’s a long video (40 minutes) but it’s so worth it
10:17 Chaos “Emerald” but eh, close enough 😅
You probably figured it out, but Shadow's voice actor is Kirk Thornton
The origin story of Shadow the Hedgehog begins in Sonic Adventure 2. The powers of Shadow and Sonic are even. With all 7 Chaos Emeralds Shadow and Sonic can transform into Super Shadow and Super Sonic. It's like Son Goku (Sonic) and Vegeta (Shadow) going Super Saiyan. 😉
Gonna answer your lore questions as simply as possible.
Is Maria sick? Yep, Gerald started Project SHADOW with the hopes of finding her cure.
Why is Shadow a Hedgehog? It is believed that Gerald visited Angel Island while researching. There were 2 notable murals, one of Super Sonic and one of Perfect Chaos. His first draft of Shadow was based on Chaos and became the Biolizard. His second version took after Super Sonic visually, hence the upturned quills.
Chaos Control! This is a powerful ability that the Chaos Emeralds can provide. Do anything from stop time, teleport, and even fire projectiles all while using the Chaos Emerald as a battery. (In older games, it was hinted that a CC with all 7 emeralds could effectively grant a wish)
As for Shadow's limits and power scaling, Shadow and Sonic are easily FTL and planet level bare minimum (As the 7 emeralds could put Earth back together in Unleashed), but there are arguments that they are multi-dimensional.
You just got yourself a new sub
And next you need to react to cutscenes from Shadow Sonic Generations game (Shadow part) 😁
Ah yes, my favorite game, SONIC TIMES SHADOW GENERATIONS🗣️
Sorry, but that made me laugh
he is a hedgehog cause if i remember correctly gerald got some sonic samples it was the black arms dna that made shadow possible tho
There's a Knuckles one that came out before this one that was really good. Not as long or deep as Shadow, but still really well done.
I just hope one day sega will do a sonic anime like this again, like a better sonic x 😫
Shadow is the Ultimate Life Form!
Ooo, lore time!
Too much lore! Had to put Shadow's in the reply section.
Rouge Lore: Cat burglar? Nah, Bat burglar. Rouge the Bat is a masterful jewel thief through and through. She tends to help others for help from them later on, and is helping Shadow during this to get him to come to Sonic's Birthday Party.
Omega E-123 Lore: Omega is the last of Dr. Ivo Robotnik (AKA, Dr. Eggman, Grandson of Gerald Robotnik)'s E-series robots. Omega is mad at Eggman for locking him away, and is determined to destroy anything that has to do with his creator, though he's honestly down to destroy anything.
Maria Lore: Gerald Robotnik's granddaughter, Maria helped Shadow learn how life works, giving him his moral compass, his name, and possibly a coffee addiction. She had a terrible illness, but she was brought up to the Ark, an orbital space station designed by Gerald, so that he could have more time to find a cure for her. However, after Shadow's creation, things went wrong after a while...
Professor Gerald Robotnik Lore: The good Professor was a genius for his time, and had a good heart to boot. He had 2 sons: 1 he says took after his love of architecture, likely later having Maria, while the other took after his love for robotics, probably leading to Eggman's birth and fanaticism with robotics. He originally tried to make the ultimate lifeform (a being that he hoped would be the key to healing not only Maria's, but everyone's illnesses) with only him and his government funds. This failed, however, creating the Biolizard. Gerald later found himself face-to-face with Black Doom, an evil space warlord that leads the Black Arms. In a moment of desperation, Gerald accepted Doom's offer: use some of Doom's own DNA for his next experiment so that Shadow has access to Chaos Control (a time stopping ability that uses Chaos Energy, usually from a Chaos Emerald. With two emeralds, it's possibly to create a temporal wormhole, which is basically time travel.). With Doom's DNA, the experiment worked, creating Shadow, the Ultimate Lifeform. Why Shadow looks like a Hedgehog, nobody is really sure, but it might just be because Gerald said, "Eh, why not. Can't have him looking like Doom in front of Maria".
Abraham Tower Lore: Abe was Maria's friend on the Ark, though he never liked Shadow. When things went wrong on the Ark, Abe believed that Shadow was the cause of everything, and later joined GUN. Working his way up the ranks there, he eventually became the Commander, holding his grudge and beliefs up until he saw that Shadow was still alive. However, this was when Sonic was around as well, leading to a few cases of mistaken identity that got Sonic arrested. Some time later, Shadow reappeared, and Abe, still holding a grudge, told GUN members to keep an eye on Shadow despite an invasion from the Black Arms. This was during the Shadow the Hedgehog game, so there's many different possibilities as to what can happen there, but there is a canon ending separate from all the different possible endings. By that ending, Abe learns the truth of what happened on the Ark, and after Shadow takes care of Black Doom, puts his goals to making sure that GUN stays in line rather than focusing on killing Shadow, hence why he's rather friendly here.
GUN Lore: the Guardian Units of Nations are a military force focused on the safety of the world and those that live on it. Back in the day, they helped fund Gerald's projects for the ultimate lifeform. However, some time after Shadow's creation, they learned about what Gerald had made, and things took a terrible turn...
Shadow Lore, and the Ark Event: After being created by Gerald, learning from Maria, and training with Gerald to learn about Chaos Control, Shadow was given a rather large arsenal to work with: He had inhibitor rings around his wrists and ankles, meant to rein in his power so he wouldn't become overwhelmed, he was given jet boots so he could fly and simply get around faster, and, somehow, he was given some ability to teleport.
After this, though, disaster struck suddenly. GUN, scared of Shadow's capabilities and Gerald's research planned to take Shadow and destroy all evidence. They quickly captured Gerald, burning his research to ashes to the point that he'd likely never be able to replicate it. Maria tried to help Shadow get away, taking him to an escape pod. Once he was coaxed inside, she hit the ejection button from a panel on the outside, but not before being shot by a GUN soldier, only having enough time to tell him her last wish. Once on earth, it didn't take long for GUN to find Shadow, putting him into stasis for a long time.
50 years later, Ivo Robotnik, AKA Dr. Eggman, accidentally finds Shadow deep in an old GUN facility, now with some slight amnesia, but also a burning hatred for humanity. Despite this, he works alongside Eggman after hearing Eggman's plans, alongside Rouge later on, who is working as a double agent. (Fun little tidbit, Eggman showed the power of his plan, using a laser programmed and designed into the Ark to shatter the moon, blowing off half of it as intimidation. The effects can still be seen.)
Eventually, Shadow has an epiphany, remembering Maria's last wish: for Shadow to "let all those humans have a chance to be happy". Around the same time, Eggman's plans were practically done, but a failsafe had begun. Gerald Robotnik, in his last moments (in the same dark area that Shadow sees him chained in a chair under a swaying light), sent a program to the Ark so that, if it's ever fully powered with the 7 Chaos Emeralds, it would crash into the earth, wiping out all of humanity because GUN shot and killed his granddaughter and ruined his work, likely believing that Shadow had been killed as well. The Biolizard was repurposed to be the guardian of this failsafe, meant to make sure that nobody would be able to stop it once it was started. Thankfully, Shadow and Sonic were able to stop the Biolizard and save the Ark from falling out of orbit. However, the exertion was enough to send Shadow crashing to the ground, though he was in his Super form like Sonic was, so he did live.
Some time later, Rouge finds Shadow in what was likely a recovery pod, as well as Omega. However, it was clear that Shadow now has serious amnesia. They formed Team Dark, and had their own goals, but eventually gave up the chaos emeralds they had gathered to Sonic's Team so that Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles could use Chaos energy to beat Metal Sonic, who at the time was in a form called Metal Overlord and had went against his creator, Eggman.
Some time later, Shadow went on his own to try and piece together his past, but was interrupted by the Black Arm's invasion. Again, this was during Shadow's game, which has a ton of different endings. However, each ending has him question who he is: an Angel of Death meant to kill all that stand against him, a Black Arm member meant to follow orders from or even surpass Black Doom, the sole guardian of the Ark. There is a canon ending, though, where he learns his true origin from Black Doom as well as Shadow's allies. This culminates into Shadow fighting back against Black Doom and the Black Arms, winning with the power of the Chaos Emeralds.
After that's said and done, another story happens in Sonic the Hedgehog from 2006, widely known as just Sonic 06, but the story gets reconned in the same game, with only a few things here and there being brought up as hypotheses, such as the Two Chaos Emeralds being able to let you time travel. However, one element of Shadow's story in that game returned: the villain, Mephiles.
Good old Memphis Tennessee is Shadow's Shadow, both in his appearance, and in the fact that literally took the form of his shadow, which can explain his of a mouth. This game has a lot of time travel shenanigans: Mephiles the Dark was the mind of a god named Solaris, which was basically a living flame. When he was split from the body of Solaris, he was sealed away by Shadow, who had came from the future. In the present, though, Eggman had found the idol that Mephiles was sealed in, and accidentally released Mephiles when pursued by Shadow and Rouge, who had been contracted by GUN. Mephiles, now free, went into Shadow's Shadow, giving himself a form that he had hoped would be temporary. Mephiles then sends Rouge and Shadow to the future, then bringing Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat from the Future to the present, making them believe that Sonic was who caused the apocalypse, known as the 'Iblis Trigger', Iblis being the other half of Solaris. With more time shenanigans, and learning that a princess was the one housing the other half of Iblis, Mephiles has one last stand with Shadow before almost being sealed away again, only to break free. He then made his way to Sonic, who had grown close to the princess after saving her many times from Eggman and was currently with her. Distracting them with a flashing light in front, he appears behind them, stabbing Sonic in the back, killing him instantly. Princess Elise, having been the seal of Iblis for as long as she didn't cry, broke the seal after witnessing Sonic's death. This let Mephiles connect to Iblis once more, becoming Solaris now with a new goal: destroy every timeline. It was working, until Sonic's friends, now in a void beyond time, revived Sonic with the power of the 7 Chaos Emeralds and a bit more *(cough cough kiss cough cough)*. With the power of Super Sonic, Super Shadow, and Super Silver, they were able to stop Solaris on the past, present, and future simultaneously. After this, Princess Elise and Sonic were sent back to the origin of Solaris, and Elise blew out the living fire, erasing the game's story in its entirety.
However, in a time anomaly created by Eggman, Mephiles returns as a boss, with his only goal now being that he just wants to exist. Shadow has no memory about him, despite him knowing everything that happened in 06, and now only knows of him as the odd monster he ran into in a time anomaly, ranting and raving about 'Shadow tag' and wanting to exist.
Answer To All Your Questions:
(I'm sure you received them all already, but just to reiterate and make them concrete and clear...)
1. Shadow was created 50 years ago as the Ultimate Life Form. GUN (Guardian Units of Nations) is the military that raided the ARK (space colony) in fear of the project and covered up their massacre as an "accident" that occurred aboard the space colony.
2. The soldiers shot Maria as she was helping Shadow escape. This memory is only artistically alluded to in this animation.
3. Professor Gerald, Maria's grandfather (Also Dr. Robotnik's/Eggman's grandfather) went insane and created a plan to destroy the world and was executed by firing squad. Familiar imagery of him in the chair was alluded to.
4. His reason for looking like a hedgehog is unexplained in-lore. Fans speculate it's because of a mural of Super Sonic on Angel Island (Knuckles' home) as Gerald is confirmed to have gotten information from there to aid his research.
5. The crystal is called a Chaos Emerald. There's 7, and also a giant green one called the Master Emerald that Knuckles, last of the Echidnas, is the guardian of on Angel Island. The Emerald keeps the island floating in the sky. (In the movies, Knuckles' ancestors made the emeralds, merging them to make the Master Emerald. Their roles and the lore is different than the games.)
6. Shadow did a unique ability called Chaos Control that allows him to warp time and space. Others can do the ability to, but not many outside of Shadow and they rarely do it due to it not being an inherent ability of theirs.
7. Rouge is indeed a bat. The robot's name is Omega. These 3 often work together and as a trio are known as Team Dark.
8. The robot at the beginning that Shadow fights is Gizoid. An ancient robot that can observe and copy skills. It goes berserk when presented with too much power, and has the capability to wipe out civilizations if allowed to evolve too far. In present day, the Gizoid is met by Sonic and Co in a game called Sonic Battle where the Gizoid is named Emerl (like "emerald") by Sonic and they become friends until it's overwhelmed with power and its hidden programming emerges. They have to stop him which leads to his self destruction, but not before Emerl's new personality as their friend returns to say his thanks and goodbye to everyone. But his backstory aboard the ARK is alluded to. And this animation is merely showing us a glimps of that for the first time.
However, Shadow experienced those past events in pieces, forcing him to realize he wasn't actually there and was in a forced flashback nightmare thanks to an enemy called Black Doom, the leader of the aliens he was talking about with Maria. Black Doom made a deal with Gerald to provide DNA for Shadow's creation but he would return years later expecting Shadow to help him conquer the Earth. Shadow defeated him, but is now realizing he may have survived. Commander Abraham Tower is in the game Black Doom is from and has a vendetta against Shadow until after Shadow saves the world, and they end on good terms. (But the animation does a good job introducing him and to newcomers only to present him as an adult with a different attitude.)
And he didn't even see the bonus ending....
Oh you definitely should check out the Sonic Frontiers prologue animation with Knuckles
When did Weird Al start doing video reactions???
I find it ironic bro could be a great voice for Shadow
damn, i kinda wanna see you react to the games's cutscenes to learn about sonic's lore
If you get a chance watch the sonic unleashed opening cutscene on the spaceship one of the best bits of sonic media
If you like this, you should also check out Sonic Frontiers Prologue: Divergence, which I believe was made by the same team, or at the very least, the same writer
😮 The Ultimate Lifeform!?
You forgot the bonus ending at the end of the credits.
How strong is he? Well there's alot to say.
As strong as he may seem, he technically have 2 powerup. By gathering 7 Chaos Emerald, he can pretty much go Super Saiyan which also enables him to fly. And if that wasn't enough, he almost always fight while holding back cause the rings on his body work like a limiter, when he removes them is when you know his truly going all out.
And if that aren't enough, just by having 1 chao emerald at all time, he'll be able to harness the power of chaos energy which unlocks additional technique he can use. As fast as he is, even as fast as Sonic, the technique he obtains are ability to stop time, shoot energy blast from a distance, and teleport either himself or someone else with limited range.
His called Ultimate Lifeform for a reason, his even stronger than Sonic. His as strong and fast as Sonic despite having a limiter rings, and Sonic doesn't use those techniques either. Lol 😂
At full power as in Super Saiyan form, both Sonic and Shadow should be faster than speed of light. Sonic is a hero, not just cause his the MC, but because of his never-changing personality. Shadow in the other hand is the pinnacle of power, hence why his called Ultimate Lifeform. That's the difference between the 2.
You gotta catch up on sonic lore, dude
Also Shadow didn't say "Chaos Crystal", he said "Chaos Control". But yeaa, close enough 😂
you should react to the shadow generations cutscenes. it continues this story.
wait you didn't catch black doom at the end? Bounus ending! Come on!
Aaannnddd you missed the post credit scene
Banger
You don't need extensive time with the series to understand Shadow's shtick in general, just play Sonic Adventure 2 and you should be good to go.
Wish it was more show, not tell.
Kind of impossible with sonic games and the necessary brevity of the short- I get it, but I also think it’s spaced out enough that it isn’t cumbersome
This is what Sonic Movies should have been, Authentic, artistic, dynamic and soulful.
Unfortunately, the movies chose the path of cheap humor, lazy dialogue and questionable storytelling...
agreed - those movies don't do sonic justice BUT the success of the movies has allowed for sega to be confident in the sonic brand overall, allowing projects like dark beginnings & shadow generations to exist in the first place. overall it's a net positive
I'm not quite sure I agree with this at the moment, I think they are setting things up for a bigger franchise, but they had to go for approachability first. The sonic 3 movie with Shadow will probably be the indicator of whether or not this will turn into a much more serious movie franchise going forward or if it will stay at the level that it’s at right now but for the moment, I enjoy how they have tackled making something that anyone can go watch with their families and get into the franchise if they’ve never seen it before.
@@HaibaneRakka571 i don't think they necessarily needed to go down the 'family friendly' approachability route for sonic. given how expansive sonic lore is & how naturally the characters lend themselves to animation, there's no reason they couldn't have done an animation movie in the style of the spiderverse movies. this would've done justice to the games and source material - it could have been just as big if done correctly
HARD agree. I wish they’d toned down the humans and just let the sonic cast be themselves. And choosing only well known celebrities to voice each new cast member (except tails hilariously. no one could do his voice i guess) takes out the connection that the longer running VAs build and makes it feel like a money grab and going for flashy names over quality. I also can’t really stand Jim Carry as Eggman or his Snively replacement, I wish they’d gone a more authentic route instead of making it feel like they’re constantly making fun of the characters or going through badly written MCU level “well THAT just happened” type dialogue. The sonic franchise has enough to explore on its own, and I would be fine with a few humans involved, but the characters they chose I just cannot stand. I don’t think Sonic would be much of a cop fan in the first place as a guy that values freedom as much as he does, and the fact they make Sonic seem so helpless and childlike when he’s so independent from his first appearance just makes him seem like a foreign character in a way the other sonic characters don’t. It’s just… not a good adaption. It’s a subpar nostalgia grab, and it functions ok as such, hell I watched them and found things to enjoy, but they’re not GOOD, truth be told. There are some people who REALLY love Sonic and care about the series working on it, but that’s not enough to save it from a company like Paramount getting involved. Many adaptions fall short because of company interference. Long story short, beyond opinions, the movies are mid. Enjoyable and cute, sure, but they’re nothing groundbreaking.
@@therandomvideochannel8589if anything, it may end up maturing more as the series goes on. Especially since they are adding Shadow and his backstory to it now. I agree though it’s a little too childish at times, but hey, it’s broken the video game curse. So let’s take what we get