Sonic x Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings

This 3 part series, which serves as a prologue to Sonic X Shadow Generations, follows Shadow and his journey to unravel the mystery of black dooms return. Each episode is directed amazing, and I'd say the characterization is the best part. Team dark is back and the way they play off each other works really well. Shadow himself is the best he's ever been in the late 2000s, he shows emotion, he's not just grumpy all the time. The ending scene with rouge and the gun commander talking about Maria, then the cut to shadow in the aircraft thinking of her, with the song "without you" in the backround, in my opinion is the best directed scene. Overall, this animation definitely helped fix shadows character as of recent.

SXSG: Dark Beginnings was made to promote and be a prelude to the game that is coming soon, and has a script by Ian Flynn (author of titles such as Sonic Dream Team, SXSG itself, Sonic Frontiers and the Sonic comics produced by IDW Publishing), and with animation done by a new studio in the franchise, the Studio Giggex. Since I saw the trailer, I thought the animation was going to be average. I was very mistaken.

The way the fights are animated, the 2D lighting and visual effects, the script, the dubbing, everything in this miniseries resonates in an impressive and vibrant way. In every episode it was clear the love and dedication they put into producing the best material possible, and they characterized the characters absurdly well, especially Shadow (Ian Flynn rocks the scripts so much).

I've always liked Shadow, and seeing him finally shine the way he deserves makes me smile every time I remember it. Thank you SEGA, you guys are awesome. Keep it up. Fans thank you.