Shadow the Hedgehog

Look, okay, please hear me out. Yes, Shadow the Hedgehog is a woefully misguided “dark” take on the Sonic franchise that gives a hedgehog a gun. For some reason, Shadow swears all throughout the game and every time he gets hit or dies. On top of all this, the level design is some of the weirdest, most plodding nonsense Sega has ever dropped a super fast hedgehog into, and the plot is ridiculous. But Shadow the Hedgehog has ideas. The premise of a character going through dozens of “what if” scenarios as he learns more about his past, interprets these things in one way, and follows those conclusions to their natural endpoint. Shadow can become a lot of things at the end of these various routes, whether that be the hero Sonic wants him to be or the villain the world thinks he is. Even if everything around Shadow the Hedgehog is a trainwreck of bad ideas and worse execution, there’s something I’m drawn to in the spaces between. Plus, “I Am… All of Me,” the opening song, is top-tier Crush 40.

Read more: Let’s Rank (A Few) Sonic Games