Every time they add a new character to the Sonic games, they get worse. Shadow is no exception. He's an unnecessary character that just further confuses the storyline of Sonic games. They were better when it was just Dr. Robotnik trying to take over, and it was your goal to stop him. Now it's more like.. Meet up with new characters and save the world from evil! But this isn't your ordinary evil! No, this is a brand new unexpected evil! Team up with Dr. Robotnik and [insert new hedgehog] to save the world! ..Why did they turn Dr. Robotnik into a mid-boss..
I agree with you about each time they add a new character they are worse, However Shadow is an exception. How come people complained about him when he first appeared? Was it because he was a hedgehog? He is the second Hedgehog with any DECENT relevance and skills other than sonic of course. When he first appeared in Sonic Adventure 2, he had a plan and was taking the lead, then when he returned for Sonic Heroes he was nerfed by a big amount because people thought he was to powerful and bad ***, then after that he started to go down hill. Especially when he started in his own game and he used guns... there is a limit i say they should have gone with Shadow and guns was too far. SEGA was trying to catch the attention of the gun shooting fans as well as the classic SEGA fans.
Shadow will not be a character costume, Wario's outfit has confirmed no Character Costumes already.
If you want to talk about a monstrosity of bad characters well to Start off Charmy the bee started off the line of worthless characters and it spread to Big the Cat, Cream and Cheese, Silver the Hedgehog and also to now hopefully on to Omega. I liked Omega to start with but since i played Sonic 2006 and heard his voice i almost threw up due to how terrible and rubbish it sounded and how much SEGA nerfed his weapons, his bullets were just like bellets from BB guns... ¬_¬ ouch that hurt ... NOT!
Here i think are the Most appropriate characters in the Sonic series to STAY in the series:
Sonic
Tails
Knuckles
Amy
Shadow
Rouge
Blaze
Eggman/Dr. Robotnik
Metal Sonic
Espio
Everyone else should die off, well Vector and the Babylon Rouges depend... Vector can have his moments. Babylon Rouges (Jet, Wave and Storm). They have only been in the Riders series and stayed there, which is good so they can stay as long as it's only in that series.