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I always thought the skating of Shadow felt awkward even though it's essentially just a change in animation. Sonic Riders Shadow feels awesome, and Shadow The Hedgehog Shadow felt awkward again. The cars in ShTH are absolute rubbish. Not only do they control even more awkwardly than Shadow himself, but you've got such a limited area to drive around in when you do come across one that there's NO REASON WHATSOEVER to bother.

With this here game I think that they're essentially trying to make a varied experience - sort of like they tried in the past - much to the same effect as Frankenstein's monster cuddling - while using proven-to-be-popular characters. Shadow is by far the most popular character after Sonic, so including him in the game was pretty much a given. Many have rightfully questioned how he fits into the story believably, essentially being created in a lab by Robotnik's father, but that's yet to be revealed, obviously.

Anyway, to prevent Shadow from being a mere palette swap of Sonic, they're sticking him with other things to do, and I'm cool with that. As long as the vehicles handle well and there's an appealing gameplay mechanic in place, I welcome the change in pace. Silver will have his slower telekineses stuff, Shadow with his action, vehicles and presumably Chaos Control, and Sonic can be all about speed.

I like it.