How I Learned to Stop Hating and Start Loving Shadow

 Shadow The Hedgehog, easily the one of the most popular and well loved characters in the Sonic franchise. I mean, the only character who beats him in terms of popularity is Sonic himself, and even that is sometimes up for debate. So with that in mind, I'm sure you may be asking "how can you hate this character that pretty much everyone loves?" As well as exactly what made me do a complete 180 and consider him to be among my top characters? Well let me attempt to explain myself. Though to do that, I should probably start when how I was first introduced to the character and what made me hate him in the first place.

So my first exposure to the character wasn't actually his debut game, but rather in the Game Boy Advance title, Sonic Battle. I thought his design was pretty cool, but didn't really know anything about him, so I had just assumed that he was either some evil clone of Sonic or his brother (keep in mind I was like 8 at the time). And from there, I would continue to see him appear in more and more stuff. Sonic Heroes, Sonic X, I mean, he even got his own game. He really was everywhere, but I didn't really care all that much. Outside of his unique design, I didn't really feel all that strongly about him one way or the other.

Once I got into high school, that's when I started getting deep into the Sonic fandom. Now keep in mind when I say this, the Sonic fandom can be a really cool community filled with some of the most creative people you'll ever meet. However, the Sonic community is infamous for the toxic side of the fanbase, And surprise surprise, that's the part of the fandom that teenage me would end up being a part of. And to make an extremely long story short, it was that side of the fandom that made me hate the character. It also didn't help that he was getting shipped with every other Sonic character, which I admittedly was way more bothered by than I really should have been.

And that's pretty much how my feelings of the character would remain from then on. Seeing him appear in games and comics, and hearing people constantly talk about just how cool he was would always annoy me. Then cut to 2024. It was the Year of Shadow, a year (technically 2 year) long celebration of the character. This was all to help promote the upcoming Sonic Movie 3 at the time, and I decided to at least attempt to see why people loved this character so much. So, I played Shadow 05 via a mod that fixed a lot of the original releases issues, watched the Dark Beginnings prologue, played Shadow generations, and went to the Sonic orchestra, which because of the upcoming movie, had a heavy focus on Shadow.

All of this, including the movie itself, caused me to have a change of heart on the character. I made me realize exactly why people love this character so much , and its definitely more than just because "he's a cool edgelord". In fact, now that I understand the character better, I wouldn't even call him an edgelord, even if he does give off that vibe sometimes. He's easily one of the most complex Sonic characters with one of the most interesting back stories that help flesh out the world of the Sonic franchise. I'm glad he's getting the spotlight lately, as not only are diehard fans of his eating well in terms of content, but its also doing a really good job when it comes to turning people who were cold on the character, or maybe didn't know much about the character in to fans of not just Shadow, but of the franchise as a whole.

 

Saturday Morning Magic

 Remember Saturday mornings, waking up, grabbing a bowl of cereal, and turning on the tv to watch cartoons that came on exclusively on Saturday mornings? Well I bring this up because lately I've been feeling extremely nostalgic, specifically about the early to mid 2000s (and 90s too, kinda). And since the magic of Saturday mornings has died awhile ago with the rise of streaming services and the ability to watch a lot of those Saturday morning exclusive shows pretty much whenever you feel like, I figured I'd talk about it for a bit. After all, they were a huge part of my childhood, as I'm sure it was for a lot of  millennials, Gen X, and Gen Z kids. So stick with me as I go on a nostalgia trip for a bit.

Speaking as someone whose childhood mostly took place in the 2000s, Saturday morning tv blocks on channels like Fox, ABC, and WB (now known as The CW) had a certain vibe to them that 24/7 cartoon channels couldn't fully replicate. I'm not sure how to fully explain what I mean by that, other than it kinda felt like being part of a world that only existed for about 3-ish hours out of the week. And I know that probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but like I said, it was a certain feeling that channels like Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon just didn't really have. Sure, they tried to replicate that feeling with Saturday morning blocks of their own, but it just wasn't the same. Just using Cartoon Network as an example of what I mean, sure it had shows that came on exclusively on Saturday mornings like Sitting Ducks, but those shows always had something of an indie feel to them. The kind of shows from your childhood that you wouldn't remember unless someone on the internet made some kind of content like a Youtube video or, in this case, a blog post on it.

I mentioned how different channels outside of just the channels that ran cartoon basically all day, everyday, had their own Saturday morning cartoon blocks. well the ones I grew up with were Disney's One Saturday Morning on ABC, Kids WB, and Fox Kids. That third one rebranded as FoxBox (yes, the blog name "RoxBox Reviews" is a reference to that) before just going by 4Kids TV. 4Kids being the company behind a lot of the shows that came on the program, mostly known for dubbing anime like Pokémon, Yugioh, One Piece and Sonic X at the time, a long with some original stuff. They're also known for their hilariously bad censorship that more often than not make to sense.

The three channels I named off were basically the kings of Saturday mornings for a lot of kids growing up in the 90s and  especially the early 2000s. Each of the three gave off their own unique vibes, with ABC focusing on pretty much shows that were owned by Disney, which admittedly you could already watch on Toon Disney most of the time, Kids WB having more of a focus on wackier cartoon, as well as cartoons featuring DC characters  like Batman, and Fox having more of a focus on anime and cartoons inspired by anime, like the 2003 TMNT show. that's not even to mention the commercials and the sweepstakes that a lot of these Saturday morning blocks had going on. And for some families who maybe didn't have cable, these Saturday morning cartoon blocks where pretty much their own way of watching cartoons at all.

In recent years, you can find a lot of the shows that came on these blocks on some streaming service like Netflix or Prime Video. And for the shows that aren't on any streaming service, there's always other ways you can find them, if you look hard enough online. With Saturday morning cartoon blocks being a thing of the past, Saturdays definitely feel as if something is missing. Ether way, thanks for reading and I hope maybe I was able to spark a bit of nostalgia in you too.

2000s Sonic was an Era

Now, reading that title might make you think that the 2000s for Sonic wasn't great. And, well, while it wasn't exactly "peak" there was something special about this era. After all, there was a lot of ideas and characters introduced to this franchise around this time. Some good, some bad, but all of it interesting. So to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Sonic franchise, I figured that I would talk about the era of the franchise that I happen to be the most nostalgic for.

Just thinking about some of the games that came out around that time, the 2000s was definitely the most ambitious era up until recently. This is when we got the Adventure games, with Sonic Adventure first releasing in 1999, but I mean, most people consider this a 2000s era game. This was the starting point when it came to the franchise having more ambitious story telling, which outside of comics and shows, was kind of a first. But that would be nothing compared to the bigger, more high stakes story of Sonic Adventure 2, which newcomers Rouge The Bat and Shadow The Hedgehog. The latter of which became such a popular character that ended up getting his own game (or games if you want to count Shadow Generations as its own game rather than a side story) later on.

The 2000s actually gave us a lot of new characters, such as Big, Blaze, Silver, The Babylon Rogues, ect. This is also when the Chaotix made their return to the series. Up until Sonic heroes, the last time they were in a game was actually their debut game, Knuckles Chaotix, on the Sega 32 X (well, except for Espio, where his last game was actually Sonic The Fighters for Arcade). This was also the era when Sonic games were starting to introduce a new gimmick for every game. Examples include Heroes having the team mechanic, Shadow The Hedgehog having gunplay, the Wii titles having a heavy use of motion controls, and Unleased introducing God of War esc gameplay with the Werehog. This was also when boost-style gameplay started with the Rush trilogy on the DS. A gameplay style that stuck with the series and is still being used as recently as Shadow Generations.

Looking back on it, the 2000s was arguably the most influential era for the Sonic franchise. It may not have been the best, or even the most consistent era, but it was definitely unique era in just how much it introduced to the series, from characters to mechanics. some of which were only one off character, sure, but most of whom would end up becoming mainstays to the series. And while a lot of us yearn for this era of the franchise to make some kind of return, I'd imagine it would be pretty difficult to replicate the impact that the 2000s had on the franchise as a whole. Still, its nice to see fans hold this era of Sonic games in such high regard, despite the many ups and downs.   

Favorite Pokémon, Best Generation?

Ah Pokémon, the multimedia franchise that took over the world in the late 90s and is still going strong to this very day. Sure the video games may have dropped in quality in recent years, or rather, up until recently with games like Legends Z-A and Pokopia showing that they can still pull people in, but the franchise is still very much going strong. with this being the 30th anniversary for the franchise, its painfully clear that Pokémon isn't going anywhere anytime soon. After all, not counting the games, the TCG is still a huge deal (for better and for worse), and the anime, while no longer focusing on Ash Ketcham as the long running protagonist, its still going in some pretty unique directions. So with all of that said, I figured I'd celebrate the 30th anniversary by talking about some of my favorite Pokémon, as well as what I personally consider to be the best generation of the games and why.

So I wanted about start with my favorite Pokémon since my reasons for why they're my favorite aren't deep in the slightest, and therefore I'd kind of struggle to talk about them outside of the basic reasons. That being said, they are Braxien, the entire Sprigatito evolution line, Sylveon, Zeroroa, Lucario, and Ninetales. now in terms of why these are my favorite, in the case of Braxien and Ninetales, is pretty similar reasons; they're both fox-themed fire types and foxes happen to by my favorite animals, with fire being my favorite element. For the Sprigatito line, its because they're cats, which also happens to be my second favorite animal, and I really like the magician theming it has. in the case of Zeroroa, Lucario, and Sylveon, it honestly doesn't go any deeper than them just having some of my favorite designs for a Pokémon in the franchise.

Now with that out of the way, I wanna talk about what I personally think is the best generation, and why. So this is of course is very subjective, especially everyone has a different opinion on what the best gen is. Though for me, I honestly think that Gen 5, also known as Black and White, is the best generation. Serving as somewhat of a soft reboot for the series, generation 5 was the most ambitious the mainline games had gotten with its storytelling, with its actually being a bit darker in tone. Yes, Pokémon has always had dark undertones ever since the beginning, but gen 5 was the first time, in the mainline series, that they actually leaned into it, giving it a slightly more mature tone than we were used to at the time. Pokémon wouldn't really lean this hard into darker, more mature storytelling again until the release of Legends Arceus, where they arguably leaned even harder into it, talking about the possibility of humans being killed by wild Pokémon. 

This generation also made the interesting choice to only use brand new Pokémon, at least for Black and White part one. Which at the time was a pretty controversial choice, but nowadays is looked back on as kind of a bold choice to make. There was a lot of "firsts" and "lasts" that were a part of this generation that definitely make this gen stand out from the others, as this not only was this the first gen to limit the Pokedex, but this was also the last sprite based game before the franchise started its transition to 3D.

Anyway that's pretty much all I've got on this topic. Given the recent success of Pokopia, as well as the current excitement behind the upcoming gen 10, I'm pretty excited to see where this franchise goes next. Thanks for reading and happy 30th anniversary, Pokémon!

First Blog, First Game

 Hi, hello! Welcome to RoxBox Reviews. I'm Rox, this blog will more or less be my soapbox, hence the name. Anyway, thanks for checking out my first ever blog, where I will be talking about....more or less whatever I feel like. And since this year is an anniversary year for at least three of my favorite gaming IPs, I figured I'd commemorate the occasion by talking about one of the first games I ever played, which happens to be from one of said IPs. The IP in question is Super Mario, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and the game is Super Mario 64.

This game is easily one of the most influential games ever created, as it full-on created an entire sub-genre of platformers. without this game we wouldn't have other big hitters like Banjo Kazooie, Ratchet and Clank, or even Kingdom Hearts. Yes, I know that last one isn't a collectathon, and is instead an action RPG, but it has been stated that the creation of Kingdom Hearts was inspired by Mario 64. I mean, the whole idea of calling the player's field of view the "camera" comes from this game. Since 3D games were fairly new at the time, Nintendo decided to explain how the player's field of view works by having it be represented by an in-universe character following the player throughout the game, acting as the camera man, and the entire game is being seen from his viewpoint.

For as important and influential as it is though, Mario 64 isn't a perfect game. There are aspects of this game that didn't exactly age well, like the camera for example. Yes I just finished gassing up how big of a deal it is, and how smart it was to explain its function by having it be an actual character, but despite how influential it is, I wouldn't exactly call it good. The camera has a bad habit of getting stuck on walls and other structures, as well as the fact that its pretty limited in terms of how much you can move it and where you can move it. The graphics also didn't age well, which can lead to some things looking more unsettling than they probably were supposed to, Though despite this, I think the unrefined graphics does have a certain charm to it that I can't exactly explain outside of just saying that its very...nostalgic. And lastly the power ups are easily the weakest they've ever been up to that point in the series, with the wing cap having terrible controls, the invisible cap being extremely situational, and the metal cap for as iconic as it is, is kind of useless if you know what you're doing.

Just to wrap things up, Super Mario 64 is one of the most influential games ever made, not just in the Mario franchise, but in the gaming industry as a whole. Yes, there are certain aspects of 64 that didn't exactly age well, but I still give it a lot of slack considering 3D games were still a new thing at the time, and the entire industry was kind of just winging it. Either way, I'm glad this was the first video game I ever played, as this definitely helped shape me into the gamer I am today.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and stay tuned for more posts from me. Happy 40th anniversary, Super Mario!