10 Awful Video Game Spin-Offs That Insult The Original

2. Shadow The Hedgehog

Shadow The Hedgehog
SEGA

Besides making Sega's mascot relevant for the first time in over a decade, can you guess what else last year's Sonic Mania did for the industry icon? It reminded us that the Blue Blur is all about speed, style, and slick platforming. About bloody time.

Sonic has been forced to suffer through years of playing guinea pig for Sega's spectacularly bad gimmicks. Werehogs, bloated casts, Secret Rings and Black Knights - they all belong to a kingdom of trash, ruled over by the worst offenders of all: Shadow and Silver The Hedgehog.

Thankfully, Sonic '06 was so monumentally bad that Sega opted never to give Silver his chance to drag Sonic's name through the mud even further, but Shadow? Well, you saw the title. Guns, an angsty anti-hero and a 'gritty' tone: none of those themes have any place in Sonic's universe, spin-off or otherwise. Imagine if Nintendo turned around tomorrow and announced a photorealistic survival horror featuring Mario. The tonal upset would be absurd.

Thankfully, the gameplay was total guff and reviews scathing, so we won't be seeing Sega attempt anything similar in the near future. We hope.

Contributor
Contributor

Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.