What Would've Happened If Shadow Permanently Died in SA2

 First off, the world of Sonic would be vastly different without Shadow.

At the end of SA2 (Sonic Adventure 2), Super Shadow exerted most of his energy to help Super Sonic defeat Biolizard and use Chaos Control to teleport the ARK a safe distance from Earth. But in doing so, he became exhausted and plummeted to Earth, whispering words to Maria, and then vanished. Sonic returns to his friends, explaining that Shadow sacrificed himself for the good of mankind. In the end, Sonic says to the camera, "Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog," walks away, and the screen fades to black.

For Sonic fans who've grown up playing the games that came after SA2 (including myself), this is a strange concept: gamers who were on the Sonic journey when SA2 released saw Shadow "die" and the game end. There was no promise of another Sonic game yet. There was no allusion to Shadow's survival. Thus, everyone thought Shadow was permanently dead, a one-game-only character who made a lasting impression (kind of like Tikal).

But then he reappeared in Sonic Heroes, and Sonic fans were surprised to see him alive--although his memory may have been a little foggy (this unfortunately became a trait, him having amnesia at the beginning of almost every game). And then at the end of Heroes, Shadow comes across a chamber full of Shadow droids--robots that looked exactly like him. And he wondered, is he the original Shadow, the one-of-a-kind? Or is he just one of hundreds, created to be no one special?

In his own game, Shadow The Hedgehog, he learns about his entire past, and also learns those droids were his copies, and he is, indeed, the original. From there, Shadow is a pretty steady character in the Sonic-verse, a moody antihero full of mystery... and some surprising bits of emotion, too. In fact, some of the most gripping emotional scenes in Sonic games, comics, and TV shows revolve around Shadow to some degree. (Too bad he wasn't in Sonic Frontiers with emotional scenes equal to Sage's scenes, or the game would've been a total tearjerker!)

But let's backtrack a bit. It's a little strange that he survived falling from outer space at the end of SA2, and then Eggman found him and rehabilitated him and the events from Heroes takes place. Realistically, that shouldn't have happened. But we are talking about a supersonic anthropomorphic hedgehog wielding a magic emerald and rocket shoes. There's so much in the Sonic-verse, however, that wouldn't have happened if Shadow had permanently died at the end of SA2. Assuming every Sonic game following SA2 was still released, let's go through the Sonic game-verse (not comics or shows, because that would be too complicated) and see what would be different if Shadow never came back.

Sonic Heroes' gameplay might've been completely different with Shadow. If Rouge and Omega solely made up Team Dark while the other teams stayed the same, there would be three teams consisting of three characters, and one team consisting of two. That would be odd, so there would likely be no three-character teams to play. Team Rose might've had Big or Cream and Cheese cut out (we'll assume it was Big. I'll get to why in a moment).

It would be no different for Team Chaotix. Heroes was their first game to feature in as the penniless detective agency consisting of Vector, Espio, and Charmy, since Knuckles' Chaotix. If two-character teams had been the focus, rather than three-character, somone in the Chaotix would've had to go. And while that may not have been drastic for the Sonic-verse, it would've completely changed the Chaotix's reputation, with Vector being the penny-pinching lead detective, Espio being the serious ninja, and Charmy being the goofball kiddo. We'll assume it was Espio who got booted (sadly), because Vector is the lead detective and Charmy is the flying character, and each team requires a flying character (which is why Big would be booted and Cream and Cheese would stay, because Cream can fly like Dumbo).

Aside from those things, for the most part, Heroes wouldn't change much, although there certainly wouldn't be that dramatic ending in Shadow finding his droid copies.

And if there were no dramatic ending with the Shadow droids, there would be no Shadow The Hedgehog game, of course. Without that, there would be no Black Arms invasion in the storyline, and no revelation of the late Shadow's origins (since Shadow The Hedgehog, though revealing Shadow's past, is far from a prequel game).

But what if there was a Black Arms invasion? What if the game was simply Sonic and the Black Arms? What if the game used Sonic in the same way it used Shadow--combat, violence, language, and all? The Sonic series might've taken a drastic turn in that respect, turning Sonic from a kids' colorful game into something like Ratchet and Clank with a Metroid twist. (Gotta admit, though, the major cut scenes had brilliant animation!)

Now let's assume the Black Arms storyline simply never would've happened (as that is far more likely). Everybody's favorite (*winks*) Sonic '06 was the next game in Sonic's main storyline after Heroes. Other than introducing Silver and re-introducing Blaze, 06 impacts the Sonic storyline very little (other than a few repercussions from plot holes--see my blogpost on The Biggest Plot Holes of Sonic '06). Unless Rouge and Omega still had a part in that game, there would've been no Team Dark. Without Shadow, Mephiles would never have been captured, nor would he have taken Shadow's form. Now, someone else would probably wind up capturing him, and he might've taken on their form instead. But the general mood given by three hedgehog protagonists might've been vastly different if that trio was knocked down to a duo.

However, we could assume that at some point far in Shadow's past, he ran into Mephiles in one way or another. (Since we are wildly guessing, we could say Gerald Robotnik had some part in the scientific work of splitting the Flame of Solaris to create Mephile and Iblis, and if Mephiles got out of hand, Shadow may have been the one who contained him.) In which case, we could safely say Mephiles did take on Shadow's form when he re-emerged. That prospect would've been a huge deal for Sonic fans, with whom Shadow's memory would still linger, and to see pure darkness take on Shadow's form... everyone's opinion of Sonic '06, story-wise, might've been completely different. (Or there'd still be a huge love-to-hate opinion of the game.)

Since Sonic '06 didn't have a storyline that echoed in the following games, we needn't worry about how its story affected the others.

Seeing as how we've only touched on three games that came after SA2, and it's brought us this far, we'll stop here for now. But you can already see how drastically different the Sonic-verse would be if Shadow had truly died in SA2 and never came back.