With Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in theaters and a reported Knuckles miniseries on the way, it’s important to look at the post-2D era of Sonic and the strange directions the series took in of storytelling. While each Sonic plotline has been unique, games like Sonic The Hedgehog 2006, Sonic Unleashed, and the Sonic Adventure titles have been criticized for strange story choices. Still, their strangeness is what makes them fun to come back to years later and their campiness contrasts the more cartoony nature of today’s Sonic games.
The newly-released Sonic the Hedgehog 2 drops a bombshell during its after-credits scene. Given an extended expository scene explaining the origins of G.U.N, a reference to the Space Colony ARK in the after-credits scene, the reveal of Shadow, and a resurgence in popular culture of retro consoles like the Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo GameCube, it seems like Sega and Paramount will most likely try to adapt the game's Shadow storyline faithfully. Looking at the lore that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has already drawn upon, it’s strange that Paramount would want to try its hand at adapting this story for younger audiences.
Shadow’s backstory is probably most famous because of his flashbacks to Maria during Sonic Adventure 2, but the entire game is strange. The team obviously wanted to create an epic storyline featuring the Sonic the Hedgehog characters and designed something that’s hard to look away from. Unlike the newer, streamlined-looking Sonic Frontiers, the design issues of Sonic Adventure 2, the wonky voice acting, and the intergalactic story all contribute to a wonderful mess of a game that shoots for the stars and is both silly and serious.
Sonic’s Story in Sonic Adventure 2 is Strange
Sonic Adventure 2’s story is split into two separate parts - a “Hero” story featuring Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails, and a “Dark” story featuring Shadow, Rouge, and Dr. Eggman. While Shadow’s origin story is more fleshed out than Sonic’s story, half of the game still takes place from Sonic’s perspective, and there are strange plot points to boot. At the beginning of the game, Sonic has been captured by a military organization called G.U.N having been mistaken for Shadow. Sonic continually has to clear his name, breaking out of prison and evading the police, who have put a bounty on him and his friends.
Much of the first half of the game consists of Sonic escaping from Dr. Eggman to harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds. However, as Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, and Amy all hone in on stopping Eggman, the game transitions into a world-spanning adventure going from San Francisco to Egypt to a remote space colony. The Hero story is always put a step behind the Dark story, with the entire game’s lore resting more on Shadow and Robotnik’s pasts.
Sonic Adventure 2 And The Origins Of Shadow The Hedgehog
The beginning of the game has Eggman breaking into a military base to find some top-secret information about his grandfather Gerald Robotnik’s research, hoping it would help him take over the world. There, he finds Shadow, who tells him to meet him on the Space Colony ARK. Eggman, Rouge, and Shadow then meet on the Space Colony with the Chaos Emeralds and stage a power play, blowing up half the moon in the process while still participating in Chao Races. While Eggman’s plan is to use all the Chaos Emeralds in Sonic Adventure 2 to force everyone to bow to his power, Shadow’s plan is shrouded in mystery.
Maria, the girl who shows up in Shadow’s flashbacks throughout the game, is integral to understanding Shadow’s angst as well as his origins. Maria suffered from a fictional disease called NIDS and was quarantined on the Space Colony ARK so that someone could find a cure. While there, Gerald created both a being called the Biolizard and Shadow as prototypes for the “ultimate life form.” Shadow stayed on the ARK while Gerald continued his research, and thus Maria’s only companion was a sentient hedgehog.
Space Colony ARK & Gerald Robotnik Have A Haunting Backstory In Sonic
As Gerald Robotnik continued his isolated research on the Sonic lore's sicknesses, his mindstate began to deteriorate. Eventually, the ARK was raided by G.U.N. and Gerald was captured. Maria was able to save Shadow but not herself, presumably dying in the space colony shortly after activating an emergency chute. With Shadow having returned to earth, he swears revenge on humanity for their actions and plans to carry out Gerald’s plans for himself.
In the game’s final chapter, a haunting video of Gerald plays as he’s tied up to a chair, implied to be facing a firing squad for his experimentation. Gerald explains that he had rigged the entire colony to fall out of space upon collecting all the Chaos Emeralds as an act of vengeance on the people of Earth. Shadow only changes his mind when Amy tells him that they must fight for the people of Earth and re that Maria wanted the same.
The Final Boss of Sonic Adventure 2 Has Sonic & Shadow Fight A Giant Lizard
At the end of Sonic Adventure 2's 3D adventure, Sonic and Shadow have to fight the Biolizard. Shadow is able to defeat the lizard by grinding up its life- tubes, but the colony begins to shake and the Biolizard reveals its true form. It teleports outside the ARK growing out of a metal spire that has been hooked up to the power source of the ARK and is sending it on a collision course to Earth. Sonic and Shadow harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds and turn into Super Sonic and Super Shadow, fighting the Biolizard on the outside of the Space Colony.
To make things even stranger, Sonic and Shadow have to evade the Biolizard’s laser and drone attacks as they fly through space, destroying bulges on the lizard’s skin as the Great song Live and Learn plays in the background. Although Shadow appears in future games, Sonic Adventure 2 makes it seem as though Shadow dies in the final fight, with him losing the power of the Chaos Emeralds after the Biolizard has been defeated. The last shot of Shadow shows him hurtling toward Earth, finally understanding what it means to protect and love humanity.
These plot points are strangely uncharacteristic of a series that had never dealt with many serious issues, but they definitely leave an impact on the lore. After the era of the Sega Genesis and the Saturn, the push toward 3D in the Dreamcast era forced games to take on more cinematic storytelling. The Sonic Adventure games have more complex plots than their earlier counterparts and heavily rely on cutscenes and dialogue. There hasn’t been a Sonic game with a simple plot since Sonic Mania, and the Sonic film series seems to be following up its antics similarly with a direct adaptation of Shadow’s backstory.
