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One of the best Sonic stories ever. This is why I make Sonic story videos. I have often said that I don't think most video game stories are worthwhile. But Sonic, when they really go for it and they hit, you get something like this.

If you haven't, I recommend listening to the song from the last episode of Dark Beginnings, Without You. The lyrics tell it all.

Here is Windii's blog. Show her some love.
https://browniehideout.wordpress.com/

Trying something a little new with the titles of my story vids... at the end lol. But I plan to do more for other games. And when we get another Sonic game, I'll certainly be there.

Honestly, this is the most excited I've been to make a video in a long time. I've not been feeling video making as much lately. I think that's because I've been talking about stuff way after the fact, when my enthusiasm dies down. Going forward, I think I'm going to do whatever I feel like in the moment, rather than planning stuff out so far in advance.

Sadly, this video doesn't give my haters much to work with. What kind of Japanese Sonic elitist would love a story written by a filthy American? It's almost as if I don't have such simplistic views. But obviously that's not the case. I did still play in Japanese, after all. And it's not okay to have a preference.

More seriously, this is what I'm talking about. This story destroys things like the Metal Virus or Frontiers. Turns out when a story has a message, character arcs, setups and payoffs, meaningful events, and competent writing, it's actually worth caring about. Who woulda guessed? I don't know what changed with Ian here, but I'm very glad it did. And I hope we see more like this. This may be the most extreme improvement I've ever seen a creator demonstrate.

At least, I assume Ian is responsible for how good this story is. He's credited as writer, story and script, and there are no other story credits in the game. So perhaps he had a lot more creative control this time. It certainly feels too cohesive to be a Sonic Team story that they handed him. I don't know, but I'm giving this to Ian until proven otherwise.

One last bit of criticism. The Emerl fight in Dark Beginnings is still pointless. And I think that could have been easily fixed. That's Emerl's introduction, and then he's in White Space instead of Orbot and Cubot. Maybe he's broken and deactivated, and you're collecting the parts to repair him. When you get them all, he wakes up and you get some really nice dialogue from him. That would have been nice. Also, in Battle, Shadow doesn't recognize Emerl. So that fight wouldn't fit. But as I said, we don't know how much of his memory Shadow regained. And Battle just doesn't fit with anything else. So whatever.

For anyone wondering, I didn't bother to go in to the Japanese script here because it's nearly identical to the English one. A few very minor line changes, but it's the exact same story. Thankfully. Hope we're done with having different regional Sonics. Though maybe not, if Sonic Gens here is anything to go by.

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0:00 Intro
3:10 Shadow the Hedgehog Recap
10:04 My First Impressions of Shadow Gens
13:50 I Was Wrong
17:15 Shadow Generations
44:03 Sonic Generations
45:38 Final Thoughts