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- DESCRIPTION:
You've probably guessed by now, based on the design of the medal and the border of these videos, that the winner of this hundred's Diamond VGM will go to the Sonic the Hedgehog series. I wasn't intending to keep it subtle, because the "gimmick" for this part of the list will be a Top 5 List within the Golden VGM list of my favourite Sonic games. The reason for this is because I absolutely love this franchise. And with the sheer quantity of games available, and through the ones I played, I have good reasons for each spot in the Top 5 list.

For every 20th spot from now to #600, I will put the next favourite Sonic game. So, to start off this mini-list, let's have a game that doesn't even have Sonic as the protagonist. ...Wait, what?

Yeah, believe it or not, I do very much like Shadow the Hedgehog. But I was very uncertain about whether it should make the Top 5 or not. The reason is pretty obvious, isn't it? A cartoon character holding guns, shouting minor obscenities and fighting Gears of War alien rejects. I won't deny the concept to this game, on paper and in execution, is absolutely silly. And I can totally understand why it's so hard for anyone to stomach it and say it's decent.

But I'm gonna go on a limb here and say that, despite the parody-worthy concept, the game is actually pretty fun if you give it a chance. Perhaps nostalgia blindness played a role in this choice, as I did grow up with this game. But out of all the games I had at the time, Shadow the Hedgehog is one that I surprisingly kept playing for most.

The controls are actually not that bad, the guns handle well (most of them anyway), Shadow is honestly a pretty cool character in my book, and most importantly, the mission system was a pretty damn good idea. I like how you can take your own approach through the levels to face the numerous final bosses and this can mean either playing every level you can, or even avoiding the ones you don't want to play. I really love this idea, and this leads to a multitude of ways the game can be beaten. It even records each path you take through a numbered list that reaches beyond the 300 mark. And on top of that, the missions have good variety. And I like that.

And yes, while it is annoying to have the other characters follow you and pester you to do their job, I still like working with the many characters the franchise had built around that point.

So yeah, Shadow the Hedgehog is a serious guilty pleasure. If you don't like it, I can completely understand. But for me, I'll hold it high as one of my favourites. But it's not going any higher than #5 though.

By the way, a little off-topic here, but I took a look at the new trailers for the new Sonic Boom cartoon series and video game. My description is going on a bit, so I'll describe what I think about it for the next Sonic-related video in this list.

- DEVELOPED BY: Sega Studio USA
- PUBLISHED BY: Sega
- DIRECTED BY: Takashi Iizuka
- PRODUCED BY: Yuji Naka
- DESIGNED BY: Takashi Iizuka
- COMPOSED BY: Jun Senoue / Yutaka Minobe / Tomoya Ohtani / Mariko Nanba
- PLATFORM/S: Nintendo GameCube / PlayStation 2 / Xbox
- GENRE: Platforming / Action-Adventure / Third-Person Shooter

- WHERE MUSIC PLAYS:
[LEVEL] - Lost Impact