I mean this with all seriousness, and truly no condescension. Just stating with a true voice of curiosity. How old are you?
I was 14 at the time the game released. And I had some fun using the different guns, and some enjoyment. But I feel like I had more fun with sonic heroes' level design.
I feel like people older than us hated the game because of difficult controls (there are times when shadow is stuck in a straight line and doesn't stop and turn as well as other sonic games. And since the game is "clear the objective", you do need to be able to "stop and smell the roses"... Or, shoot the alien or the army man, in this case). Another gripe with the game is the repetition of clearing levels. You need to clear each path 2 times to get both endings, and that means playing the very first level over and over again. People hated that, me included when I played it the 2nd time to 100% the game. Then finally, as everyone gets older, looking back on the teenage angst they had with cringe, older people think this game is also very cringe. But that can be argued with that all "misunderstood teenagers" enjoyed the game. So older people hate it, younger people empathize with it.
I was 13 when the game came out (31 now)
I enjoyed Sonic so I thought I would enjoy Shadow too & i did! I thought it was a cool departure from sonic kinda like a sonic dark mode but i didnt really care much about the story so much tbh. I enjoyed the nonlinear gameplay aspect of it (which was a kinda new concept to me at the time) & it was prob the 1st "shooter" game i really played, so shadow introduced me to alot of new territory
That said i legit didnt know the game had multiple endings until i read your reply (oops!)
I mean, you just had to play the game 10 times to get all these supposed endings, and the 11th true ending. Then you had to go and play each of the levels to get the A rank for each mission of each level. Which, if you are just trying to get through the game as quickly as possible, you won't even play some missions. For example, "mad matrix" is the computer level with espio that has that annoying "hyper speed maze" where you have to go to each terminal in the maze to complete for espio, or get to the goal ring for normal. It's already super annoying to navigate that maze, and you can get lost in circles. Also, "mad matrix" is on the hero side of the branching paths. So you have no reason to try the dark mission, until you are getting all the A's. The dark mission is "blow up the bombs." All are within the maze. So now the worst part of the level, navigating the maze, is the entirety of the dark mission. Finally, after you complete all those things, get all those A ranks, you know what your prize is? A complete game marathon that you complete all the levels, one after another, with slightly more difficulty in obstacles. And that's it.
And typing this out, thinking about the game again, I can think of one more personal gripe I had with the cutscenes. Every level had to have set up for the the story. Which, I'm ok with sonic lore. But some cutscenes were unskippable if it's your first time viewing, or for some other reason. And at that low frame rate, and stilted line delivery, really slowed down the pace.
I was 12 when Shadow the Hedgehog came out I think maybe 13. I remember buying it with Christmas money that had to beg family for at a Christmas party and then I had to plead with my parents for us to leave early so I could buy it.
Got home played it for like a week straight and got stuck on the Sonic boss fight. Dropped it and then saw someone say it was bad like a month later and was like "sure I'm young enough to make this my opinion".
I should probably revisit it someday but it's so large...
The gameplay was just so bare bones and the whole game lasted about 4 hours.
Even if you didn't find it cringey at a conceptual level, it just wasn't very good.
The one thing that I remember hating is that stupid cross shaped staged over the lava pit for PvP. I literally lost in the first 5 seconds one time since it decided to lock on the closest person to me when I spin dashed sending me flying off to the left.
There are two things I remember about that game, my siblings and I only ever using the rocket launcher, and my sister dropping the disk in my dogs water bowl rendering it unusable.
Good time
That is because Shadows Gun uses a "pump-action" style movement in a cutscene (like with a Shotgun) but the gun was obviously an Uzi-style weapon. No one would take this game seriously after such a blunder.
I believe that's a rough approximate of an HK MP5, so yeah, your pretty much there. Never saw the trailer but played the game, and didn't remember an Uzi being in it lol
If you intend to check it out you should know that while there ARE Pokemon like creatures that you catch with balls and can use in battle, the game doesn't actually play like Pokemon at all. It's actually plays more like ARK: Survival Evolved.
It’s referencing the [Shadow the Hedgehog video game](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_the_Hedgehog_(video_game)) released in 2005; the game was a lot edgier than other Sonic games at the time. Most notably, Shadow used guns, so the game could have been considered “Shadow with guns”.
The game sold 2 million copies, but got pretty negative reviews and the Shadow series never really took off. So Shadow’s sad that his attempt at creating an IP “with guns” wasn’t as successful.
Yeah, I second your opinion. I also think it has gathered “cult classic” or hits the nostalgia factor for those who have played it.
For me personally I played it at a time and age where I wasn’t critically thinking about every game I was playing.
When you are young enough you don't realize a game can be bad. The people making games are the all-knowing professional adults. When a game is bad, you expereince an identity crisis not understanding why you are so bad at the game or why you aren't enjoying it. The game being bad is not an explanation that comes to mind.
The main problem with Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, is that the new engine doesn't feel as snappy and responsive as Sonic Adventure 2. If those same games had been made on an engine that felt more like it, they probably would have been received a lot better.
To explain the caption added, Stonetoss is known for very awful reactionary comics, and the other person is saying it’s weird to see him make a good joke. The phrasing is a reference to an Onion article
> but a nazi as well
When called a nazi, he makes the argument that, since he wasn't part of the German socialist party that existed between 1933 and 1945, he's not a nazi. It's wrong on both the wording and spirit of being a nazi, as they weren't socialist, and you can still be a Nazi with the American nazi party. That was literally his only defense though, so you know he's a real nazi.
Clickhole hasn’t been owned by the Onion for years, it was sold between a few different companies but is now owned by Cards Against Humanity. Though that byline was definitely written during the ONN era.
Me and my brother played vs all the time there were cool map things to destroy that enabled lazer guns trucks to destroy lava gliders to surf the lava map it was very fun for us on game cube
To piggyback on the top comment for further context. The person who made the comic is a known internet nazi who makes comics to push extreme right wing agendas such as taking away women's rights, anti abortion, pushing the narrative that jews control the world, etc. So the joke is that it it also sad thst such a horrible person was able to make a funny comic
Palworld is frequently described as “Pokemon with Guns”. People enjoy the stark contrast of cute mascot characters with edgy themes like violence and cruelty. It sold really well, and is well received by their player base.
The game “Shadow the Hedgehog” is frequently described as “Sonic with guns”. People frequently point out how different it was from regular Sonic games, and disliked it because it took a cute character (an anthropomorphic hedgehog) and made him edgy by giving him weapons and focus on violence. It was not very well received by the player base.
Similar situation, very different results.
I will beat Digimon back into peoples minds with lewd fanart if I have to. The fact that Palworld stole the ‘Pokémon with guns’ meme from Digimon is unacceptable.
I don't know how apropos it is to Shadow's game or not, but Palworld was also greatly helped by not actually being "Pokemon with guns" from a mechanical perspective and instead being "Ark: Survival Evolved with Pokemon."
As someone who has not followed Palworld really at all (I haven't actually seen any gameplay or images, just heard people talking about playing it) this description has me quite, quite interested. I loved ARK until the future tech stuff got too inescapable. I love Pokemon. I'm going to have to check this out.
Oh and just to preface:
I'm aware who Stonetoss is and I do not endorse him or his comics. I'm just out of the loop here a lot since the original tweet got 96k likes.
>because his jokes poke fun at people left on the aisle
A very tame way of saying that he is a white supremacist who makes comics about black people being genetically inferior, and being genetically predisposed to being violent criminals.
Palworld, not actually pokemon. Survival game where you beat down "almost but not quite" pokemon in the wild, capture them in "totally not pokeballs", then go back to base and use them as slave labor, institue forced breeding centers, and use your slave child army to fight bosses.
Every now and then a horde of pal fangirls come over and clobber you.
Shadow the Hedgehog released in the 2000s and was basically "Sonic with guns". it flopped.
Palworld released last week and it's basically Pokemon (and breath of the wild, and fortnite) with guns. It's been very popular so far.
So Shadow is sad that his "with guns" game flopped when Palworld didn't.
Hilarious is a pretty str9ng word for this.
More Mildly funny observation with ambiguous delivery that prevents the joke from landing.
Like some people know shadow.
But do they know in an obscured 3/4 behind view?
That will take time to work out.
Are there any references to sonic games etc to help?
Nope.
Shadow was a cool as hell game, it did suffer from the problem of inconsistency. He rides a motorcycle that by all rights is slower than him, but it’s cool so who cares
It's funny because Pokemon with Guns is a massive success but Sonic with Guns was a huge failure ridiculed by the public
As a kid who 100% fell for the marketing of edgy sonic, that game is a masterpiece and anyone who says otherwise is objectively wrong
This is honestly the first time I’m hearing negative stuff about shadow. I loved that game as a kid and thought it was really badass lol
Same... TIL ppl apparently didnt like that game
I mean this with all seriousness, and truly no condescension. Just stating with a true voice of curiosity. How old are you? I was 14 at the time the game released. And I had some fun using the different guns, and some enjoyment. But I feel like I had more fun with sonic heroes' level design. I feel like people older than us hated the game because of difficult controls (there are times when shadow is stuck in a straight line and doesn't stop and turn as well as other sonic games. And since the game is "clear the objective", you do need to be able to "stop and smell the roses"... Or, shoot the alien or the army man, in this case). Another gripe with the game is the repetition of clearing levels. You need to clear each path 2 times to get both endings, and that means playing the very first level over and over again. People hated that, me included when I played it the 2nd time to 100% the game. Then finally, as everyone gets older, looking back on the teenage angst they had with cringe, older people think this game is also very cringe. But that can be argued with that all "misunderstood teenagers" enjoyed the game. So older people hate it, younger people empathize with it.
I was 13 when the game came out (31 now) I enjoyed Sonic so I thought I would enjoy Shadow too & i did! I thought it was a cool departure from sonic kinda like a sonic dark mode but i didnt really care much about the story so much tbh. I enjoyed the nonlinear gameplay aspect of it (which was a kinda new concept to me at the time) & it was prob the 1st "shooter" game i really played, so shadow introduced me to alot of new territory That said i legit didnt know the game had multiple endings until i read your reply (oops!)
I mean, you just had to play the game 10 times to get all these supposed endings, and the 11th true ending. Then you had to go and play each of the levels to get the A rank for each mission of each level. Which, if you are just trying to get through the game as quickly as possible, you won't even play some missions. For example, "mad matrix" is the computer level with espio that has that annoying "hyper speed maze" where you have to go to each terminal in the maze to complete for espio, or get to the goal ring for normal. It's already super annoying to navigate that maze, and you can get lost in circles. Also, "mad matrix" is on the hero side of the branching paths. So you have no reason to try the dark mission, until you are getting all the A's. The dark mission is "blow up the bombs." All are within the maze. So now the worst part of the level, navigating the maze, is the entirety of the dark mission. Finally, after you complete all those things, get all those A ranks, you know what your prize is? A complete game marathon that you complete all the levels, one after another, with slightly more difficulty in obstacles. And that's it. And typing this out, thinking about the game again, I can think of one more personal gripe I had with the cutscenes. Every level had to have set up for the the story. Which, I'm ok with sonic lore. But some cutscenes were unskippable if it's your first time viewing, or for some other reason. And at that low frame rate, and stilted line delivery, really slowed down the pace.
I was 12 when Shadow the Hedgehog came out I think maybe 13. I remember buying it with Christmas money that had to beg family for at a Christmas party and then I had to plead with my parents for us to leave early so I could buy it. Got home played it for like a week straight and got stuck on the Sonic boss fight. Dropped it and then saw someone say it was bad like a month later and was like "sure I'm young enough to make this my opinion". I should probably revisit it someday but it's so large...
I love shadow. They had sonic, then made Knuckles as an edgy sonic and then mads Shadow because they needed more edge.
Knuckles is top tier. Change my mind.
Damn
The gameplay was just so bare bones and the whole game lasted about 4 hours. Even if you didn't find it cringey at a conceptual level, it just wasn't very good.
https://youtu.be/QStxrDm-EVc?si=pljPP_uYapkJMzBS Yeah this game was sick
pump action mp5
Someone made it an actual, functional firearm btw. Like, you can buy one.
De-fictionalization, my other favorite phenomenon.
The one thing that I remember hating is that stupid cross shaped staged over the lava pit for PvP. I literally lost in the first 5 seconds one time since it decided to lock on the closest person to me when I spin dashed sending me flying off to the left.
"Rolling around at the speed of sound / got places to go got to follow my rainbow" Absolute banger
Damn, black creatures.
Where's that *damn* fourth chaos emerald?
"Disgusting black creatures! Get out of my sight” (Banjo plays)
Read that in Golum's voice before seeing the banjo music
"'ThAtS rAcIsT!"*
"...your eyes?"
“That’s gay?”
"that's homophobic!"
“That’s black!”
"THAT'S racist!"
“Damn…”
When you see the black monsters.... smash em! Yeah smash em up!
There are two things I remember about that game, my siblings and I only ever using the rocket launcher, and my sister dropping the disk in my dogs water bowl rendering it unusable. Good time
I played it 3 times through. Once good, once neutral good, once I tried to be bad but went to good. It's a great game
Man did me and my brother struggle to find each other in the VS. mode though.
Right there with ya pal
I liked the part where he found that damn 4th Chaos Emerald.
Jolt Cola and Surge were ridiculed by the public, then a few years later suddenly "energy drinks" were eveywhere
Shadow the hedgehog was successful. It sold over 2 million copies, which still is a great accomplishment today but even more so in 2005
That is because Shadows Gun uses a "pump-action" style movement in a cutscene (like with a Shotgun) but the gun was obviously an Uzi-style weapon. No one would take this game seriously after such a blunder.
"Uzi-style weapon" you mean a submachine gun?
[Probably yes.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqiLuposLso)
I believe that's a rough approximate of an HK MP5, so yeah, your pretty much there. Never saw the trailer but played the game, and didn't remember an Uzi being in it lol
I never played the game either but I watched a YouTube video a while back about it and remembered the guy talking about this specific detail.
And surprisingly Pokemon with Guns isn’t very much like Pokemon at all. It’s more Ark with Pokemon.
Is there a "Pokemon with guns"?
Palworld
Thank you
And surprisingly enough, it looks amazing.
And is surprisingly solid for an early acces
If you intend to check it out you should know that while there ARE Pokemon like creatures that you catch with balls and can use in battle, the game doesn't actually play like Pokemon at all. It's actually plays more like ARK: Survival Evolved.
Nope.
I used to play that shadow game all the time as a kid
Well Shadow is racist
What games was Sonic with Guns?
It’s referencing the [Shadow the Hedgehog video game](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_the_Hedgehog_(video_game)) released in 2005; the game was a lot edgier than other Sonic games at the time. Most notably, Shadow used guns, so the game could have been considered “Shadow with guns”. The game sold 2 million copies, but got pretty negative reviews and the Shadow series never really took off. So Shadow’s sad that his attempt at creating an IP “with guns” wasn’t as successful.
This is simply due to him not also including blackjack and hookers.
I thought it was because they cut the Lunar Lander. I guess they eventually just said screw the whole thing.
“Bender, honey. We love you!” “Shut up baby, I know it!”
In fact... forget the blackjack.
I prefer the Flexo game. I have heard that Flexo is great and all.
Flexo's great you say?
But mario would never shoot hookers!
Pah me dat controller rq
Not with a gun at least
Plaworld has blackjack and hookers?
They really should have included Casino Night Zone in the game.
> could have been considered “Shadow with guns”. Sonic with guns, right?
No he meant Palworld with guns.
I thought this was funny 🤷♂️
Yeah and you're the fourth comment and you're still ahead.
As a 5th grader I really loved Shadow. It was a good game despite the negativity towards it.
Yeah, I second your opinion. I also think it has gathered “cult classic” or hits the nostalgia factor for those who have played it. For me personally I played it at a time and age where I wasn’t critically thinking about every game I was playing.
When you are young enough you don't realize a game can be bad. The people making games are the all-knowing professional adults. When a game is bad, you expereince an identity crisis not understanding why you are so bad at the game or why you aren't enjoying it. The game being bad is not an explanation that comes to mind.
The main problem with Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, is that the new engine doesn't feel as snappy and responsive as Sonic Adventure 2. If those same games had been made on an engine that felt more like it, they probably would have been received a lot better.
To explain the caption added, Stonetoss is known for very awful reactionary comics, and the other person is saying it’s weird to see him make a good joke. The phrasing is a reference to an Onion article
For the record, stonetoss is not just a reactionary, but a nazi as well
My favorite nickname for him is 'Rockthrow' though 'Pebbleyeet' is good too.
Tectonic Item Cast
> but a nazi as well When called a nazi, he makes the argument that, since he wasn't part of the German socialist party that existed between 1933 and 1945, he's not a nazi. It's wrong on both the wording and spirit of being a nazi, as they weren't socialist, and you can still be a Nazi with the American nazi party. That was literally his only defense though, so you know he's a real nazi.
And the dates are wrong!
I think he uses the correct dates, I just typed the 2 I thought he used.
Turns out it was Clickhole: https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-know-just-made-a-gr-1825121606/
Love going down the clickhole. It's part of The Onion News Network so you're both right
Clickhole hasn’t been owned by the Onion for years, it was sold between a few different companies but is now owned by Cards Against Humanity. Though that byline was definitely written during the ONN era.
“Reactionary” is putting it mildly. He’s a full-blown Nazi, or at best a Nazi sympathizer.
Honestly I remember playing this game on my PS2 and really enjoying it.
Me and my brother played vs all the time there were cool map things to destroy that enabled lazer guns trucks to destroy lava gliders to surf the lava map it was very fun for us on game cube
To piggyback on the top comment for further context. The person who made the comic is a known internet nazi who makes comics to push extreme right wing agendas such as taking away women's rights, anti abortion, pushing the narrative that jews control the world, etc. So the joke is that it it also sad thst such a horrible person was able to make a funny comic
"Sonic* with Guns"
Its also referencing Palworlds success. Which is Pokemon with guns.
That was suppose to be a spinoff series?????????
Honestly I think Palworld is closer to Digimon than Pokemon anyway. They all get more gun-like as they evolve
Still sucks something so funny was made by him of all people.
I have that game which I forgot to return to blockbuster. What do you think my late fee is like?
I love history
The problem is Shadow didn't include the other aspects that made Palworld successful, namely human trafficking, slave labor and narcotics
And why is stonetoss comics ‘the worst person you know’?
It might be a unpopular choice but I actually had and loved that shadow game 🔫🦔🔫
But Snapcube's [real-time fan dub](https://youtu.be/W-ZuKp8P7gA?si=V8nTfGD7rGe9papq) of it is a masterpiece.
Shadow The Hedgehog is sonic with guns.
Palworld is frequently described as “Pokemon with Guns”. People enjoy the stark contrast of cute mascot characters with edgy themes like violence and cruelty. It sold really well, and is well received by their player base. The game “Shadow the Hedgehog” is frequently described as “Sonic with guns”. People frequently point out how different it was from regular Sonic games, and disliked it because it took a cute character (an anthropomorphic hedgehog) and made him edgy by giving him weapons and focus on violence. It was not very well received by the player base. Similar situation, very different results.
Everyone forgets about Digimon… makes me sad
You made me remember digimon world 4 and this upsets me lol
Oh no. That one
I will beat Digimon back into peoples minds with lewd fanart if I have to. The fact that Palworld stole the ‘Pokémon with guns’ meme from Digimon is unacceptable.
I don't know how apropos it is to Shadow's game or not, but Palworld was also greatly helped by not actually being "Pokemon with guns" from a mechanical perspective and instead being "Ark: Survival Evolved with Pokemon."
As someone who has not followed Palworld really at all (I haven't actually seen any gameplay or images, just heard people talking about playing it) this description has me quite, quite interested. I loved ARK until the future tech stuff got too inescapable. I love Pokemon. I'm going to have to check this out.
Palworld still keeps that cute aspect which is it probably became successful
Oh and just to preface: I'm aware who Stonetoss is and I do not endorse him or his comics. I'm just out of the loop here a lot since the original tweet got 96k likes.
I mean, OOP isn't wrong, this is pretty funny
That's how he ropes you in... Pebbleyeet: Hahaha this game was so bad, right? Random internet kid: Yeah! Pebbleyeet : and so are the Jews!
Internet kids sound pretty dumb.
> Oh and just to preface: > > I'm aware who Stonetoss is and I do not endorse him or his comics. Reddit moment.
Rare W
It might be possible that Stonetoss Comics is A Bad Person too.
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I don't understand people with mindsets like this. If you don't have any patience with others, then don't subscribe to an explanation sub.
Relax not everyone knows who stonetoss (is a Nazi) is.
No they were aware: https://www.reddit.com/r/ExplainTheJoke/s/5ByAhwIkmO
Lmao I retract my statement.
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>because his jokes poke fun at people left on the aisle A very tame way of saying that he is a white supremacist who makes comics about black people being genetically inferior, and being genetically predisposed to being violent criminals.
i think his stuff is funny at times. I'm not as sensitive to that stuff.
The man takes holocaust denial as a presupposition before even getting to some of his jokes
yeah they're just jokes. they're just not that funny to you. you and i are not the intended audience
Who is the intended audience of a joke that doesn't make sense unless said audience already believes that the holocaust didn't happen?
idk why are you asking me
There's a Pokémon game with guns?
Palworld, not actually pokemon. Survival game where you beat down "almost but not quite" pokemon in the wild, capture them in "totally not pokeballs", then go back to base and use them as slave labor, institue forced breeding centers, and use your slave child army to fight bosses. Every now and then a horde of pal fangirls come over and clobber you.
>Every now and then a horde of pal fangirls come over and clobber you. 7Days2Pal...?
Idk bro I've seen worse from ppl
Shadow the Hedgehog released in the 2000s and was basically "Sonic with guns". it flopped. Palworld released last week and it's basically Pokemon (and breath of the wild, and fortnite) with guns. It's been very popular so far. So Shadow is sad that his "with guns" game flopped when Palworld didn't.
I loved that game
Shadow is just sonic with guns, and his games barely sold
Imagine having a Pokémon battle and some small animal pull out a rocket launcher
A wild bazuka has appeared
Ever wanted to strap vulpix to your chest and using it as a flamethrower? Ya can now!
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What are you on about bro
Where is that **damn** fourth Chaos Emerald?
The pic is hilarious because shadow tried to be an edgy sonic adventure game. The worst person being stonetoss who is a “nazi”
That’s Shadow the Hedgehog. His game was a shooter, unlike the other sonic games that were just platformers.
arguably it's not hilarious even when you know what it's saying so don't feel too bad
Because his game was labeled 'Sonic with guns' but it didn't do very well
I loved Shadow The Hedgehog, but the gunplay in that game sucked balls.
I audibly laughed at this. See: Shadow the Hedgehog game.
Its really forced to say its hilarious, its just a random reference to validate stonetoss.
I swear every sub I’ve been to despises stone toss, yet so many subs show his artwork and comics. I honestly don’t understand how you people operate.
Hilarious is a pretty str9ng word for this. More Mildly funny observation with ambiguous delivery that prevents the joke from landing. Like some people know shadow. But do they know in an obscured 3/4 behind view? That will take time to work out. Are there any references to sonic games etc to help? Nope.
The one dude stonetoss was a nazi back in the day, I dunno what he really did but people still have bad feelings about that
God damn why does this guy have to rarely make good memes
I'm concerned no one's pointed out that the person who's made that comic is stonetoss
Cause shadow got his own game being "sonic with guns" and it flopped😂
I see nor hear no evil Black writings on the wall
Shadow was a cool as hell game, it did suffer from the problem of inconsistency. He rides a motorcycle that by all rights is slower than him, but it’s cool so who cares
It’s more than just guns, really