At the end of December 'Sonic Heroes(2003)' was released first in Japan and a little later in the rest of the world. By all accounts, the game sold well, unfortunately it also became the lowest-scored mainline Sonic game at that point. The average score ended up being between a 6 and 7 out of 10, while certainly not bad, a far cry from the previous games that regularly received 9/10s or 10/10s across the board.

Sonic was absolutely devastated. It was a massive blow, he always received nothing but the highest praise. It was now late January 2004 and he had spent several weeks just lying in his bed, not being able to do anything. For the days he had to attend work at SEGA he would just go to the company terrace and stare at the Tokyo skyline.

One such day Tails approached him with a cup of coffee while he was sitting on the terrace contemplating. Tails took a chair and sat next to him to try to cheer him up and gave him coffee brewed exactly the way Sonic likes the most.

“Sonic it’s not the end of the world, a 7 out of 10 is not bad, besides the game’s sales are pretty good. We’re still very much in business.”

“How is it a 7? I don’t understand, I put in so much work, and so many sleepless nights and they give me a 7. Have they even played the game?” Sonic puts the coffee cup Tails gave him on the table in front of them after taking a sip.

“Most of the reviews are pretty clear what the flaws were and that’s okay, we will just do better next time”

“They think I’m some second-rate director, how could they give me a 7? They gave those upstart mascots at Sony 9s.” Sonic placed his hands on his face in anguish and started breathing heavily. “Do you know who also got a 7?”

“Who?”

“'I-ninja(2003)'”

“What’s that?”

“Exactly, what the fuck is that. They are putting me in the same bracket as fucking 'I-ninja(2003)', a game the people who made it forgot it existed” Sonic is on the verge of crying, his voice cracking with this last sentence

“That’s not fair Sonic that’s also someone else’s work that they feel passionate about the same way you feel about the-“

“Tails do you think it’s a bad game?”

“'I-ninja(2003)'?”

“No damn it, I mean 'Sonic heroes(2003)'?”

“Of course I don’t I think it’s bad.” Tails responded firmly. “I love it. I played to completion and frankly, it’s probably my favorite game so far we made together”

It was a lie, this was his second favorite, he told this little white lie to try to uplift Sonic. Tails’ number one was 'Sonic 2(1992)' because it was just the two of them, best friends just having fun working on something together. That time was filled with a lot of treasured memories. 'Sonic Heroes (2003)' was his second favorite mostly because of the great banter they wrote in the script and the general message of teamwork and the simple story evoked those feelings from the past when things were fine. Hearing the lines they recorded and wrote in the first level:

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Sonic: There they are!

Tails: Eggman’s robots!

Knuckles: Leave’em to me sonic.

That little dialog exchange made him for a brief moment forget the state of the broken friendship between the three of them. It made Tails very nostalgic and happy but also very melancholic and depressed upon finishing the game. A slap to the face, a wake-up to the reality that the three of them are close to each other only in the fiction they make together. Ironic.

Apart from the purely personal ways the game moved him, Tails also thought that it was a game that was well-designed, had great pacing… Overall he genuinely thought the game was just as good as 'Sonic Adventure 2(2001)', the previous game that got 9/10s and 10/10s but he also understood why a lot of people didn’t like it. He continued to tell sonic:

“I think it’s a fantastic game. You said yourself that you are proud of it and that you love it. Isn’t that enough?”

“No.” sonic said without hesitation. “It doesn’t matter what you or I think at the end of the day, a game isn’t good unless it gets good scores”

Sonic was inconsolable and Tails decided to give up leaving him alone. Sonic sat there sulking; it would take him a while to recover.

While Sonic had his depression phase the president of SEGA decided to hold a board meeting where an official vote was taken and it was decided to greenlight Shadow’s directorial debut in the form of a game that would hold the name 'Shadow the hedgehog'. Due to the lukewarm reception of 'Sonic Heroes(2003)', the board was now sure a fresh face was needed to bring new life to the franchise. Shadow would get chief director, scriptwriter and lead designer. The board also voted that Shadow would be the only playable character and was scheduled to release sometime next year in 2005. He was given full creative control something that wasn’t awarded to sonic since his first game in 1991.

The day after, Sonic found out about the board meeting. His negative energy which was at first despair turned into anger, he was going to do something about this.

He demanded to speak directly to the president of SEGA and arranged a meeting. He went up to the floor of the president’s office and once he got off the elevator, he was faced with a spacious lobby. It was filled with marble naked statues of men and women, there were also marble statues of lions and tigers. A woman was sitting there at a reception desk and in the room, there were several men in black suits carrying uzis. The men were the president’s guards.

The woman was the president’s secretary and also served as a kind of receptionist for those waiting to go into the president’s office. The secretary was in her 20s, wore all pink down to the nails and had beautiful natural blonde hair. She also had really large breasts (like comically huge). She was on the phone while the room was empty. Noticing Sonic, she put it on her desk and stood up to greet him.

She spoke with a very thick and strange accent, “Hello darling, the president will be with you very soon!” The way she said darling made it sound like doooorling. “Can I get you something to drink Sonic?”

Sonic shook his head. He was kind of bothered that she pronounced his name SOooooonic like she would dooooorling. He sat on a sofa bouncing his feet impatiently as he waited, the guards didn’t even react to him. The secretary sat back down and continued to talk on the phone. From what little Sonic was able to hear she was talking to a friend. He didn’t wait long and then he arrived.

Out of the elevator came out a man accompanied by 4 guards also carrying uzis in one arm. He was very tall, looking like he was in his 50s although he had a type of look where most of his life he looked like he was in his 50s so it was hard to tell his actual age. He had black hair, a receding hairline and for some reason even though he was indoors he wore sunglasses. He wore an all-maroon-colored suit worth several thousand dollars, under the suit he wore a white shirt unbuttoned and it showed off a golden necklace. It wasn’t the only golden thing he wore, there was a gold watch and his fingers were covered in almost endless gold and diamond rings.

The secretary immediately put her phone down once again, stood up and bowed in silence, all the guards bowed in silence as well. Sonic approached him, the man extended his hand and asked “You wanted to see me?”

Sonic took his hand, bowed and kissed it. He raised his head and said, “Yes Mr. Polanzo.”

“Step into my office” The man snapped his fingers and everyone stopped bowing. Sonic and he left the lobby room and went to his office.

The man was none other than Marchiano Polanzo, president of the SEGA corporation (a subsidiary of SEGA media group).