Shadow the Hedgehog 1.3

i found out that randomly while i was playing as Shadow on main campain
btw I recommend adding the spoiler tag

Eh. I'll probably get heat for saying this, but I do agree with the criticisms about the control overlap. True, you are told if using the midair ability will result in a Homing Attack or a Chaos Snap, but I still found it cumbersome having to constantly correct for both. And I'm sure this next thing is only happening to me, based on how nobody else mentioned it so far, but the Homing Attack itself is sort of finicky? Supposedly holding the button retains momentum and tapping the button resets momentum, but it doesn't seem to work consistently in my experience. I think it'd be better if it was just one way or the other.

(to be blunt i would get rid of the HA completely since i don't think it adds much and makes shadow's airgame too similar to werehugs, bandages and modernsonic, but that is just me and not a suggestion for the character at all)

I think it was worth the hype, though. I mean I don't use Discord so I missed most of it, but when I saw "Shadow the Hedgehog [Real]" in the forum, and then I watched that video and saw Shadow using that one sick-ass Sonic Battle pose when Chaos Snapping, and then I downloaded him and then he did it HE DID THE THING. That is sick, I wish Shadow was associated with that pose more. Chaos Snap is incredibly satisfying to use, especially in more open levels where you don't have to be as precise to maintain your speed - it could have very easily been Shadow's sole ability and would have still made him all-kinds of awesome. Lastly, spoilers:

Aw yeah this is happening. I was never in the SRB2 community for 2.1's Shadow so this being my first instance of control him and he was so good I actually played through SRB2 twice just because of how good his movement is

Only grip, homing attack seems to attack things I can't see, if there was an indicator on the edge of the screen as a warning that'd be nice

Oh yeah. The Homing Attack momentum thing was something I forgot to mention. It was most apparent to me during the Metal Sonic boss, where using the Homing Attack would sometimes send me flying off the map. I would suggest making it cease momentum, since the Magnet Shield's ability already offers a Homing Attack that keeps your momentum as an option. Also, to people saying that the arrow always tells you when you're going to do a Homing Attack, that's not always the case. In TH2, there's a ring monitor under a platform. You can't see it from on top of the platform, but Shadow will target it and bonk off the floor. Gets me every time. And that wasn't the only time Shadow would HA things I couldn't see.

It doesn't work perfectly, but it's still a very fun mod I'm going to continue to use.

I'll go ahead and add a few thoughts that I had which relate to these past comments.
You guys know/remember that token at the first cave section in GFZ2? the section with tons of springs and badniks?
While playing as Shadow, I instinctively tried to go a more creative route of Chaos Snap up -> forward to get it. As you can imagine, I constantly homed into springs or Badniks... Which if I'm too close, makes sense.
I tried moving away from them, even having them out of my sight, and it still happened. Personally, that does kinda bug me, I'll be honest. Going fast and having a large Homing Attack radius, while useful, can have issues like that.

Another point is the Homing Attack's momentum cancelling; something GrayAngel mentioned as well, somehow it feels inconsistent? Maybe I can chalk it up to me not knowing how to handle that part of the Homing Attack, so I'm not sure how much this part is worth mentioning or adding on to, but it feels weird.

... Regardless, I like everything else about this mod! The sprite work, the smooth movement, the easter eggs I've seen and found so far... Everything's great. I say it's worth the wait and hype despite the hiccups found!

RoimWolf said:

I'll go ahead and add a few thoughts that I had which relate to these past comments.
You guys know/remember that token at the first cave section in GFZ2? the section with tons of springs and badniks?
While playing as Shadow, I instinctively tried to go a more creative route of Chaos Snap up -> forward to get it. As you can imagine, I constantly homed into springs or Badniks... Which if I'm too close, makes sense.
I tried moving away from them, even having them out of my sight, and it still happened. Personally, that does kinda bug me, I'll be honest. Going fast and having a large Homing Attack radius, while useful, can have issues like that.

Another point is the Homing Attack's momentum cancelling; something GrayAngel mentioned as well, somehow it feels inconsistent? Maybe I can chalk it up to me not knowing how to handle that part of the Homing Attack, so I'm not sure how much this part is worth mentioning or adding on to, but it feels weird.

... Regardless, I like everything else about this mod! The sprite work, the smooth movement, the easter eggs I've seen and found so far... Everything's great. I say it's worth the wait and hype despite the hiccups found!

Click to expand...

Just to clarify, the momentum retention for the homing attack depends on if you hold the key down when you're attacking an enemy. If you just tap the key, you won't retain momentum.

That being said, I'd personally have just kept Shadow's thok from 2.1 or changed the button for Chaos Snap, because I do agree that it can be frustrating trying to use two moves bound to one key. Games like P-06 eliminate this problem by having the reticle warn the player, even if the enemy is out of sight, but this seems a bit harder to do in SRB2.

I think even with the thok, Shadow would still be pretty balanced, but I can see why it's not there. I do agree that some sort of fix should be included for this problem though.

Wheres that DAMN 4th chaos emerald?

saying that this charachter is perfect it's just an insult. This is the first time that i can play as one of your mods, but seeing all the videos of your mods maked me dream to play as something cool like this, and now i can. Just thank you to putting this masterpiece here so we can enjoy it

TheNewOne said:

saying that this charachter is perfect it's just an insult. This is the first time that i can play as one of your mods, but seeing all the videos of your mods maked me dream to play as something cool like this, and now i can. Just thank you to putting this masterpiece here so we can enjoy it

Click to expand...

To be more accurate, no mod is perfect. Every mod has problems

TechBlade9000 said:

Only grip, homing attack seems to attack things I can't see, if there was an indicator on the edge of the screen as a warning that'd be nice

Click to expand...

This tends to be an issue with any character with the homing attack, and this also happens with the Attraction shield at rare times. Perhaps someday the homing attack arrow that pops up for the shield and the ability will be updated to slide along the corners of the screen showing you're targeting something off screen, akin to Smash's off-screen indicator, but that's a bit off topic for this.

Back on topic, I get why some are annoyed with the Chaos Snap and Homing Attack being mapped to the same button, but I think it's perfectly okay. It's not only one less control you have to learn, but it follows the philosophy of classic Sonic control and 2D Mario controls too, if you think about it. You have a much more consistent flow when you can easily do everything with simple control, and if things got remapped to new buttons it would feel awkward- again with the Mario analogy, the Cat suit used to be controlled with a single button as with other Mario power-ups, but they remapped the moves for Mario Maker in order to stop dive cancelling used in 3D World speedruns, and thus made controlling the suit awkward breaking the dive move completely in the process. Keeping the snap and homing attack on one button is honestly for the best.

I was waiting for this guy for so long, and I can already tell it was worth the wait

Saturn Ross said:

You have a much more consistent flow when you can easily do everything with simple control, and if things got remapped to new buttons it would feel awkward

Click to expand...

I agree, but only to a certain extent. I think that only applies in specific contexts regarding how controls are implemented, because in some cases that can actually lead to more problems, which I think in the case with having Chaos Snap and the Homing Attack bound to the same button. It's more similar to having the Homing Attack and the Boost button bound to the same button in Sonic Unleashed on the Xbox and PS3 with respect to the flaws that comes from it.

The reason why I think this to be the case, and not similar to the analogy you gave with Mario and the cat suit, has to do with the nature of the Homing Attack being a "Relative" move in activation, where as the Cat Claw and Cat Dive activation was never relative when they were first implemented. The player was always given a choice that remains consistent to activate just the claw, or to use both the claw and the dive by pressing or holding the Y button, and that choice remained consistent enough as it's not based on any other factor, and as such it's not likely to trip up a person regularly playing. The choice of having the dive on a separate button never addressed any issue on that part because no issue existed with respect to gameplay (as dive cancelling isn't a real gameplay issue that fundamentally breaks things, just a speedrunning trick), so the opposite happened, and separating the two created problems that never existed prior.

With the Chaos Snap and the Homing Attack on the other hand, the "relative" nature of the homing attack regarding activation can interrupt the activation of the completely non-relative Snap, which causes the interruptions in gameplay and flow that people have. Moments of using the Snap stop because an enemy or item just so happens to be nearby, and there isn't much a person can do to manage that (esp given how Homing Attack targeting is), and for a movement based ability like the Snap that works more like a multi-directional dash or teleport, that makes it more unreliable than anything (i mean, imagine trying to Snap away from the Knight-like badnicks from CEZ while they are charging at you, only to HA into their charge. That literally happens almost all the time in my case, when playing the 2006 mod). Having it on a separate button I think helps by allowing something relative like the HA to not interrupt something that requires specified activation like the Snap, similarly to how separating the HA from the Boost in later games after Sonic Unleashed did the same, based on those same constraints.

Logan8r said:

Here we go!

Click to expand...

disco party also isnt partying on elevators with your friends while being attacked by a high spec robot dangerous

Honestly, I do wish either the snap or the homing attack was on a separate button, while it would seem a bit finnicky it would be beneficial since it'd mean that you can use the snap a lot more freely as a movement option rather than snapping in certain areas only to homing attack onto a hazard or enemy, for example, the mines in deep sea, the TNT in arid canyon and the egg guards in castle eggman, with the egg guards sending me flying off the bridge at the end of act 1 because I was trying to use the snap to get through quickly.

GentlemanOctopus said:

Honestly, I do wish either the snap or the homing attack was on a separate button, while it would seem a bit finnicky it would be beneficial since it'd mean that you can use the snap a lot more freely as a movement option rather than snapping in certain areas only to homing attack onto a hazard or enemy, for example, the mines in deep sea, the TNT in arid canyon and the egg guards in castle eggman, with the egg guards sending me flying off the bridge at the end of act 1 because I was trying to use the snap to get through quickly.

Click to expand...

It can also apparently lock onto Eggman monitors.

I don't know what you think, but I suppose it will be too powerful. Shadow is a good character. I don't know what about the balance, yes, it is a little powerful, but still, they enjoy playing.

No wonder he had a lot of testers.

Speaking of button configuration. I do wish chaos spear when super is mapped to RingToss rather than Spin.

I wonder if this mod is compatiable with jeck jims md2 for shadow


Oh what am i saying it is compatible

xd100278 said:

I wonder if this mod is compatiable with jeck jims md2 for shadow

Click to expand...

uhhhhhhhhhhhh
Jeck made the model specifically for this shadow lol

Love this character, but...

I had a blast playing as Shadow, but one thing really bothers me about his abilities: I came across many points in the game where I wanted to chaos snap, but since there happened to be an enemy, item box, or spring nearby that I was obviously not targetting, Shadow would homing attack to it instead. This caused a lot of problems and a few kind of unnecessary deaths. I know this is only version 1 of the *new* shadow, but I kind of wanted to suggest maybe just axeing the homing attack altogether, to allow for more consistent chaos snaps and just better exploration in general. I think giving him some variation of a Chaos Spear could prove to be a better combative maneuver without getting in the way of Chaos Snap, because Chaos Snap is REALLY fun to use outside of these problems.