Shadow Complex: The Return of Console Side-Scrollers

Playing through Shadow Complex has got me thinking; at what point did game designers stop listening to what we want, and instead let focus groups (and the people who never really buy the games) dictate what we want?

A perfect example of this would be Sonic the Hedgehog. For years the gaming community has been screaming for an old Sonic; a 2-D Sonic, side scrolling Sonic. One day a video leaked and it was for a new Sonic game; a new side-scrolling Sonic game. Classic Sonic fans everywhere were excited. We patiently waited for confirmation that it was a real game. It was real, but the joy we felt wouldn’t be lasting too long. The next video they showed us featured something different, something we didn’t want. What we got was a video of a hack-n-slash level, where Sonic became a “Werehog”. We all groaned, knowing this was not going to be the game we all wanted.

It seems to be that designers have decided that side-scrolling games should be relegated to the handhelds and only handhelds. They do this because it’s harder to produce 3-D, third person games for handhelds, but a lot of these games end up getting overlooked. This is where Shadow Complex comes to switch things up. Everyone seems to be enjoying it and it reminds many people of the old Metroid style of game-play. Why has it taken this long for a game like this to be made for consoles? We did get Symphony of the Night (originally a PS1 title), but after that the rest were handheld only.

Every year someone makes a list of the top 100 games of all times. Every one of those lists almost always has Symphony of the Night and Super Metroid somewhere in the top 20. Those games sold well, reviewed high, and people respected them; so why haven’t we seen more games like this nowadays? Developers, we keep telling you what we want, you just need to listen. Shadow Complex is a step in the right direction. The Castlevania series keeps trying to go into 3-D on consoles, but it has always failed to live up to expectations. Metroid managed to do well in 3-D, but people want to see a side-scrolling Metroid game again. Maybe The Other M will give us that return to the old Metroid games we loved, but it could just be a “bait and switch”. I only have one more thing to say and it’s directed solely at Sega; bring us the Sonic we want, not the Sonic you think we want.