The case for Shadow the Hedgehog: A masterpost

[AntagonisticGalaxyCetacea]

Now this is a topic that comes up very often. Is Shadow the Hedgehog in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate? I'm fairly late to this, but I feel it was worth it because over time I feel that his chances are looking much more likely. Maybe it's too late to post about this, or perhaps it's too early. But with possible Smash news coming soon(ish) I feel it's a better time than never.

1) Shadow's evidence.zip
Shadow's Assist Trophy was replaced by Knuckles. The most common reason I see most people say is because of the new mechanic; being able to KO Assist Trophies and gain points. Which is a valid reason to why Shadow was replaced. But, it isnt entirely. Shadow does not attack the player, however there are still characters who do not directly attack the players and are still Assist Trophies. Examples: Ashley, and the Squid Sisters. Shadow has been in Smash as an Assist Trophy since Brawl (10 years!) and is suddenly removed in favor for Knuckles. Why is this important? Because some Assist Trophies have been promoted to playable status. Little Mac was given this treatment in 4, and now we have Dark Samus and Isabelle; hers was even replaced as well!

The Sonic™ series got a small bump in songs as seen in the Smash Direct; 20 songs. In Brawl, Sonic™ had 12 songs and 14 in Smash 4. The songs replaced in Smash 4 were Scrap Brain, Emerald Hill, Sonic Boom and Super Sonic Racing. The first two possibly being due to weird copyrights for the first two games and Sakurai not wanting to get the licenses for the last two. Now why is this important? Sakurai could add a few songs to represent the new games (Forces and possibly Mania) as well as a track or two for Shadow. He has quite a few songs they could pull, these are just a few I could see getting used;
Rhythm and Balance (White Jungle)
Vengeance is Mine (Radical Highway)
Enemy Territory (Westopolis)
All Hail Shadow
I Am..All of Me

When we got that absolutely stunning reveal at E3 we were also graced with the possibilities of Echo Fighters, basically giving some characters who werent as likely before, a bigger shot of being put in. Daisy has been an alternate palette since Melee, and finally we got her as a playable fighter. Happy for you, Daisy fans. When we were given this concept, a ton of characters came to mind such as Dixie Kong, Galacta Knight, Proto Man, and of course; Shadow the Hedgehog. With this, people were very confident that Shadow would be in because it would be very easy for him to be an Echo Fighter for Sonic. Or would it...? With the Smash Direct that revealed Simon Belmont, we were given more fuel to the fire; Richter as Simon's Echo Fighter. A third party character from the same series was given another rep which was a common made up rule from fans. Shadow's chances shot up once again with fans, this time for sure that he would be in. But..can we be confident he'll be an Echo Fighter...?

2) Sakurai and Sonic the Hedgehog™
I will not claim to know Sakurai or how he thinks, I am mostly going on his actions and making probabilities. I firmly believe that Shadow will be a semi-clone, and here's why. The following info comes from Source Gaming's interview with Sakurai on Sonic's inclusion in Brawl;

Sakurai: Speaking of Sonic, there are many different variations of him from his history. I was a little lost on which iteration I should draw from. I thought long and hard after playing his both his classic and newer games.
Interviewer: If you only judged the character from the newer Sonic games, would Sonic in Brawlhave been any different?
Sakurai: He would have been very different.

Many people complain that Sonic's depiction in Smash is very lackluster and I believe this is why. Sakurai wanted a way to have Sonic represent the Classic games while also drawing influence from the Modern games, most notably a very certain one...

I do this with all characters, but I decided I needed to first immerse myself in the original games and absorb the creator’s intention. Even though Sonic has a lot of games, I decided to base the core of Sonic on the ones I played. Of course I played the older titles, but I also completed the newest installment at the time—Sonic the Hedgehog for the Playstation 3. Naturally, I also played Sonic the Fighters, Shadow the Hedgehog and other supplementary games to the series.

Sonic was indeed based on how he appeared in Sonic 06. Which might be obvious to some; his victory theme is even ripped straight from Sonic 06. Silver also appears in Green Hill Zone and has a Trophy. But why does this matter for Shadow's chances? Because Sakurai draws influence from games he plays. A lot of people question why Sonic doesnt fight like he does in Sonic Battle and the answer is simple; Sakurai didnt play Sonic Battle. He's an arcade boy and played Sonic the Fighters which is where majority of his moveset draws from. Sakurai played two (possibly more, they just werent stated) games that Shadow starred in; Sonic 06 and Shadow the Hedgehog. Which goes into my next point;

3) Shadow the Echo Fighter? ...Maybe not.
The following quote comes from this Source Gaming article

Sakurai: Isabelle is based off of Villager. She pockets items and rides on a balloon swing. However, she is not an Echo Fighter. This is because Isabelle and Villager have fundamentally different body types and personalities, so we couldn’t have made her an Echo. All of her animations are different; not a single one is the same.

Isabelle opened a brand new door for Shadow the Hedgehog. While it is possible that Shadow could work as an Echo Fighter, it would be doing him a huge disservice. Yes, I know that Shadow played very similar to Sonic in games such as Sonic Adventure, Sonic Heroes and recently Sonic Forces; it's why I also suggested he could be a Echo Fighter in the past. But because of Isabelle, I feel this is not the case anymore. While Shadow's body type is similar to Sonic, this does not rule him out of being a semi clone. Are people forgetting we have Ganondorf, Falco and Dr. Mario? Personality is a HUGE factor in why Shadow would be wasted as an Echo Fighter. I cannot see Shadow fighting similarly to Sonic at all, winding up his punches, doing the splits, stuff like that wouldn't work for Shadow at all. The Smash team even makes this very clear in all of his trophy descriptions how different he is compared to Sonic;

A black hedgehog created by Professor Gerald Robotnik to be the Ultimate Lifeform. Though he looks a lot like Sonic, he's ruthless and will do anything to achieve his goals. In this game, he uses Chaos Control to warp time and space, slowing down everything around whoever summoned him.

Now what do I see being likely to stay? Homing Attack, obviously. Could be styled like Shadow's homing attack in Sonic 06; being able to attack after. Legacy XP nailed it. Another reason why I think Shadow would be better as a semi clone is because of the way he fights in the Sonic™ universe. Shadow is all about teleporting like he's in Dragon Ball Z. Hell, this is even how he washed Infinite in Sonic Forces. Sonic's playstyle is all about the Spin Dash, so why cant Shadow's be about teleports and chasing opponents with crazy combos? I think that's a good enough reason for some people to choose Shadow over Sonic, much like how different Luigi and Mario are, or even Roy and Marth. And this is part of what Sakurai mentions, it's all about making a character feel fresh and unique.

October has rolled up and now we have the possibility of new Smash news on the horizon and personally I believe it's Shadow. If it's not, I wont be mad or upset, it's just speculation on my part. What's so special about October? It's the month that Sonic was revealed in both Brawl and Smash 4. October 10th for Brawl, and October 1st for Smash 4. Before Isabelle's reveal, the Japanese Fighter playlist updated with unlisted videos intended to be posted for the Nintendo Direct before it was delayed. The same has happened recently, and was confirmed with the removal of NEW! on the fighter tab of the Smash site. The pattern still holds up, and it's speculated that we will get news on October 10th.

Another possibly chance of Shadow's reveal is that Sonic™ has not had a song posted on the site yet. If Shadow is revealed, it's quite possible that the new song will be related to him. Simon was accidentally leaked on the site and I very much believe they don't want to repeat the same mistake again. The Tuesday song will be delayed for Wednesday, like Simon.

Sorry for the long and possibly scatterbrained thread; I have lots of thoughts and am not good with words. Hopefully you all understand my points. Thank you for reading!

 

[IsmaR]

1 ) - General Discussion section isn't for character specific threads.
2 ) - We tend to limit thread topics to one per character, there's already an existing Shadow support thread here:

https://smashboards.com/threads/the...for-smash-ultimate-echoes-of-the-past.455546/