I meant playing as them, not fighting against them. Each knight has varying special attacks.
I believe I already conceded that Secret Rings has the overall greater boss selection (much as I love Dark Queen, the creatures that Secret Rings brought up provided much greater variety).
Well, given the lack of any "lock-on" with your shooting attacks, some excuse for the occasional stray is necessary.
There's also the fact that, regardless of Shadow's deeds, G.U.N.'s commander is an [dark hold] who has it in for him. Well established after the first stage. As for scenarios in which you ally yourself with Black Doom, I just see that as, should Shadow turn evil, you just need to stay the hell out of his way. Sort of a Vile-esque "loose cannon" thing. I'm also not really sure how intelligent his army is supposed to be.
I get what you're saying with the lack of Godzilla Unleashed style AI variance, but IMHO that's beside the point. I see Shadow's "allegiance", if you can call it that, as less a matter of who he's allying himself with and more a matter of what he believes is right, irregardless of what those around him think. Especially in the case of G.U.N. Sure, maybe they patch things up when it's all over (This is mainly a STH06 thing so I'm not that familiar with it), but for the majority of the game itself, that's a different story.
A game which is a platformer first and a shooter second, not the other way around.
In fictional storylines, protecting the world from annihilation is more often than not a full-time job. I just find it bizarre that one threat is over and he assumes his job is done, whereas his promise to Maria was regarding no particular threat but rather the general "give them a chance" shpiel. That's a matter of constant vigilance. If he can't do it, and he has to pass the torch, so be it. But for him to just dive into the atmosphere after the day is saved is senseless.
Oh, yes. Different characters do matter alot in a game where all you do is press forward and shake your right hand like a maniac. Why improve the standard gameplay when you can add general bullshit to the game by changing the gameplay slightly and adding new skins, by way of characters who don't even have much of a motivation to join you other than that you've just kicked their ass easily and repetitively?
As for the shooting attacks, they're erratic as they can be, just bad gameplay on top of bad gameplay. When any game wants to implement shooting into a fast-moving character, they need to do it in one of three ways.
- Lock-on mechanism via trigger, aided by a target that appears when an enemy is locked-on (Metroid Prime, Matrix: Path of Neo, Grand Theft Auto, Devil May Cry)
- Standard "point and shoot" mechanism, through third-person controls via a dual analog stick control, perhaps shifted (Ratchet & Clank, FFVII: Dirge of Cerebrus, Uncharted)
- A "shoot where character is pointed at" system that WORKS (Jak II and 3, Mario Sunshine <having a wide enough arc and range to hit enemies in front of you is a way to make things easier on the shooting front>)
But they didn't. They simply added "bullets come out of a gun Shadow's holding whatever way he's pointed at... oh and sometimes he points at enemies when he has a handgun". It was more of a badly-done mod than a professionally-added gameplay mechanic.
Story issues Shadow may have with the two factions are no excuse for him to kill humans in front Sonic and friends. When they even tell you not to do it. (and evil as Black Doom is, he doesn't want you to kill his soldiers either, and expects you to do as he wishes) Specially, because this issue is brought up due to a gameplay problem. Nothing more, nothing less. The combination of the gameplay itself and the objectives is what stops you from playing the game right. And no matter what you do, you still feel "wrong", because you're not supposed to do it, but a game flaw forces you to. The game tells you to pick who you want to fight as enemies, and who you want to spare. When everyone shoots at you and your gameplay offers you no choice on the matter, you KNOW this is wrong. Regardless of motives, inclinations, or allegiances Shadow may have or not. (in the case of Sonic 06, I'll get to it in the last part of my argument, as it kinda suits the living-versus-dying thing as a story issue.)
Also, the game is an action platformer. Although you can homing attack alot of things, guns ARE openly necessary for quite alot of parts, specially when it comes to bigger enemies and bosses. They're a main mechanic of the game. But notice as you will, other games such as Jak 2/3 and Ratchet & Clank can do the shooting thing way better than Shadow could ever hope to achieve. Can you imagine trying to beat every single enemy and boss by way of wrench and melee attacks in either of those games? And they're quite good platforming titles. Hell, for the love of God, I can't really think of one single 3D title that handles enemy shooting as badly as Shadow does (and has it as main gameplay mechanic).
And now we come to the storyline issues. Let's take a look at Shadow's character (in SA2). Guy's a brooding [dark hold] who cares for nobody but himself and a single memory. He does things he HAS to do as a direct objective, never to save anyone (except when Rouge reminded him of Maria). It's his attitude. It's the way he works. His personality is that way, and that's how he functions better. He's a good character because he doesn't give a crap in the first place. So, he takes this revenge journey to fulfill Maria's wishes. Since he pretty much activated the whole "destroy the Earth" mechanism and left it in Eggman's hands, who wanted to use it for ransom instead of destruction, we can see he was aware of the whole "crash colony, destroy earth" plan. Making his whole affair a suicide mission, no matter how you look at it. He planned to die from the start.
Now, can you see a character with his personality being a hero? CARING for the world enough to save it everytime Eggman puts it in peril? I don't think so. Is he well-suited for a hero role? No. It just would NOT work with a character of his personality. He's a dark "reluctant savior" in the end, and his attitude is just to fulfill Maria's last wish. So, he fulfilled his purpose. Does he have any will to go down there and coexist with the monkeys who killed the only human being he cared for? No. Does he even KNOW anything about the earth, aside from the fact that the only thing to threaten it so far, is himself? Not a chance. His death serves a meaningful purpose. A loss of a "last-minute hero" at the end of the game. The guy who redeemed himself before dying. Shadow lived his purpose in that game, and he would have been remembered as an AWESOME character if he had just kept being dead. He was brought back for the sake of the whiny fans in a game that had no story whatsoever, then his entire existance was "justified" by retconning large portions of SA2 badly, mixing aliens and more vendettas, and bringing the whole thing into a clusterfuck that ruined the everything good SA2's story originally had brought us. And now, we have to stand Shadow's existance as a "hero" in the Sonic games, by saying he works for GUN (which is basically like saying Bruce Wayne becomes a mugger when he grows up) and giving him "missions to save the world", and "shadowy purposes" which make no sense at all. So... he's suddenly got a job? And "Team Dark" got all friendly all of a sudden? It's all unexplainable drivel, just to justify having Shadow in the games to begin with. Thankfully, he's been kept out of the latest outings, which hopefully say most post-Genesis characters have been dropped from being regulars, and it's back to trying to find a damn gameplay that suits Sonic while hanging out with Tails, Knuckles and Amy in a few cameos and supporting characters.
My point? Shadow's not a hero. He'll never be, and he definetly doesn't work as one. So far, Sega's been trying to sell him as "dark character with own purposes and objectives in game", but they've done so with bullshit stories. Dying in SA2 made sense. He was done. No need to keep saving the world, dude's not Batman. Bringing him back defeats the entire purpose of it.
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Xenoblade (Wii)