Sonic X Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings Episode 3 Is Out Now

That animation!!!! Pffff amazing

Her forehead...it's just so big.

Lmao showing the moon like that after it being ignored for 20 years, maybe this all takes place in Sonic’s World’s Sonic World where only the events of Sonic Adventure 2 took place.

The Japanese version also has English subs for those who prefer the original voices. They have never changed in Japan while they've been recast at least 3 times in English. Better performance in my opinion. Actually conveying some emotion

This was a great one, very well made.

Nice. Great to see Emerl again. I did enjoy Sonic Battle on the GBA back then when I was still in middle school.

@LexKitteh Japan built an entire industry dedicated to voice acting. America didn't. Such a career was never highly valued in the west. In some ways it still isn't.

It's an unstable field, many English VA's are self trained, and many get replaced easily.

Don't forget that the japanese version online is subbed on the japanese channel. Better VA too

Edit: Since NintendoLife isn't doing the obvious, I'm just gonna place links here
Part 1

@GooseLoose1 Did someone say forehead? I'll go get the markers!

TIC TAC TOE HERE WE COME!!!

"the **Blur** Blur isn't getting a whiff of attention"

Looks like you made an oopsie.

The animation was incredible! Wish it was a full 22 minutes at least but I guess we get that over 3 episodes

@TyroKith Say “Blur Blur” 15-times fast. You end up sounding like a strange aquatic vehicle or something.

I love how you can hear notes of "I am... All of Me" playing.
You can hear the sad version of the notes playing after Shadow rants how he isn't able to cure Maria's illness.
You can hear an epic orchestra version is playing after Maria begged him to save Professor Gerald.

The red glitching in the video reminded me of Infinite. I wonder if he'll be the actual villain of the game

"It starts off on a slightly positive note, but things quickly descend into chaos with Shadow going head-to-head against a robot who's seemingly after Professor Gerald Robotnik. It all goes a bit wacky at this point before cutting to the 'present day' in which we find Shadow pondering the potential survival of Robotnik before heading off in seach of 'answers'."
Don't think we really needed a summary of the short - especially one that doesn't even recognize Emerl.

Liked Steamed Hams reference

@Samalik Is it? I can't find the Japanese version.

@Jamie64326 Official JP youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSoJ9zSTNM8

@Samalik Thank you for the link.

dang, i cant believe its only 4 minutes. I hope the last episode is longer than the last two! That being put aside, looks great as usual! Im so glad theyre setting this precedent that all new big sonic releases get lil animated shorts before release. Colors' was okay, but that knuckles prologue for frontiers was awesome and so are these! Also, its interesting that this confirms shadow gens happens at the same time as sonic gens. I mean it was kind of obvious and i assumed as much, but it'll be interesting to see how they handle the story in shadow gens if its happening at the same time as sonic's (without rewriting sonic gens, though I certainly wouldnt be opposed to that)

Great animation! Team Dark... Join Forces Once More!

"I'm counting on you, guys!"
"Hmph!"
"Affirmative!"

This reinforces my theory that this whole Shadow Generations thing exists so they hammer you in the head about Shadow’s “true” origin that the movie rightfully ignores, anything else from this episode was short and pointless, it makes the battle action scene against the jobber bots needless filler
@PikaPhantom
Oh don’t worry because the episode doesn’t bother to mention who that is either! Another pointless scene that looks cool but doesn’t do anything beyond that, a short scene where Gerald mentions it and the idea of it being a cold ruthless killing machine in contrast to Shadow would have been great and provided context. Being reminded that Shadow is a alien with a alien dad takes priority though unfortunately.

@SalvorHardin i smell confirmation bias

@SalvorHardin Well, it IS in continuity now, they can't ignore Black Doom.

@MegaVel91
I’d question it myself if they were vague about it but no we have Shadow talking about it himself and he has freaking looking alien powers that look like they’re from the game Prototype, this seems to me like it’s a huge point of emphasis for them for whatever reason.

Episode 2 was good, but I think episode 1 was better.

finding....da waeee?

The marketing for this game has made it seem like we're back in the 1998-2008 era of Sonic which was amazing. It's almost tempting enough to get me to buy it day 1. Almost...

Edit: So that's why Shadow was at Sonic birthday party at the end of Sonic Generations LOL!

@SmileMan64 SONIC HEROES REFERENCE YEAAAAAAAAA

@Aurumonado i dont blame you for being apprehensive LOL

these are fantastic, I love the lore continuity by bringing in a younger GUN commander (with the Archie name "Abraham Tower" basically being confirmed canon with Maria calling him Abe), and Rouge making Shadow go to Sonic's Birthday Party, justifying his presence in Generations. Ian Flynn is just built different to be able to make everything connect so naturally like that!

but DAMMIT THESE ARE TOO SHORT!

@LexKitteh While i get where you're coming from, I can't agree personally. Yes, they've had the same VAs for decades and skilled ones at that, but I don't think that discredits the modern-day English VAs. Maybe it comes from your sub preference but they aren't perfect either, many times the lines sound a bit monotone in the japanese version when the scene doesn't match that sorta tone.

Here's something new to complain about!
Who the heck writes these? I must assume Flynn, since Sega is incredibly predictable these days.

So, whoever wrote the shorts has no idea who Omega is, or what he's supposed to be like.

"I call dibs!" Omega is an ally of Shadow and Rouge, he is not a bag of jokes and one-liners, this character has only had a meaningful appearance in 3 games, in which his main purpose is to assist Shadow or Rouge. None of those games represent Omega as a dumb joke machine that only enjoys destruction.

See, the problem with this is that by the writer's logic Shadow should also be saying "This is the ultimate power!", or "I'm the coolest!" on every other line, based on the fact that that's what Shadow says in the games, that's how he writes Omega!

Plus, I feel the writer failed to read the room with these shorts, it's supposed to be a serious story this time around. No need to shoehorn jokes or push pathetic 'improvements' to a character's personality. Omega says "I call dibs!" in ep.2 and ep.3, excellent work there.

Something, something, Star Trek Generations, something, Data, emotion chip, blah blah.

@AlienX As someone who watched subbed, it felt like a bad localization to get a character who's stoic demeanor was overwritten by skater lingo.

@AlienX @SalvorHardin no, that's pretty in character for Omega. if you pay attention to his dialogue in Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, he very much loves fighting and destroying things and has a lot of fun doing so.

06 was the only time he was completely serious. the only lines we had from Omega in these shorts were "I call dibs" and "I wanted to destroy it", both are pretty in-line with his personality.

That scene where Shadow in the rocket was thinking about Maria was so good!

Pretty good overall, though it feels a little weird having Shadow again G.U.N. again after he joined G.U.N. prior to Sonic 06.

why don't sonic games reach this level of polish?

Pretty good. Interesting to hear the GUN Commander being called Abraham Tower, which was his Archie Sonic name. Did they get the rights to the name? Or did they just have it period? Amazing episode, neither the less.

@AlienX TERRIBLE GAME 0/10 I HATE STUPID SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS

@epicgamner HE DOESNT SAY IT IN THE JAPANESE VERSION YOUR GAME IS SAFE DUDE... FOR NOW.

@AlienX well thank god we're saved that was almost a code red for us sonic fans we really havent been getting anything good recently

@konicstar : Ian Flynn was the one who originally named the GUN commander "Abraham Tower" back in his Sonic Archie comics writing days, and he's also the writer behind Dark Beginnings.

I'm usually a little iffy whenever Flynn 'sneaks' in Archie & IDW stuff into the games' canon lore but in this case I'm okay with it. The GUN commander was due for a proper name anyway.

@Coolmusic Wow, I used to read the Archie's and could spot Flynn's writing from a mile away, it's almost uncanny.

I never understood why but he always wanted to drive the point that Omega loves to destroy stuff and talks in a child-like manner, which is never expressed in the games. But in the few lines he has in Dark Beginnings it's made pretty obvious.