Shadow “rising up to the same popularity as Sonic” & was meant to be killed off in Sonic Adventure 2

Sonic Team boss Takashi Iizuka has been doing the media rounds lately to further celebrate Sonic the Hedgehog’s 35th anniversary. Mr. Iizuka has participated in a new interview with One More Game during which he revealed that Shadow is now almost as popular as Sonic himself. That’s not all as the team had intended to kill Shadow off for good in the SEGA Dreamcast title Sonic Adventure 2, but because he turned out to be popular with the fans, they decide to revive him in the Sonic Heroes video game for the PlayStation 2.

“Now, the third movie is out, and the popularity of Shadow has been on the rise. Before that, the most popular characters were Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, and it has always been that way. But now, Shadow has been rising up to the same popularity as Sonic. And me, personally… that’s my favorite character (Shadow). I want to have more places where Shadow can appeal more. I want to focus on him a little bit more.”

Shadow’s popularity has always surprised Sonic Team. In fact, he was originally meant to die permanently in Sonic Adventure 2. “If you have played Sonic Adventure 2, people may know that Shadow basically sort of died at the end of that game. We were originally intending to just kind of “die the character out” (kill him off), but the character Shadow was just so very popular that we decided to revive him in Sonic Heroes.“

Thanks to Sonic Galaxy 27 for sending in the news tip!

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