i think shadow the hedgehog can work and be unironically really cool while using a Real Actual Gun, he just needs to use it alongside normal sonic combat and chaos abilities and other ultimate lifeform powers
like think about it. think about shadow john wicking around, teleporting behind robots when they’ve locked onto him (nothing personnel), throwing a sweep of chaos spears pinning a group of them to the wall, and then using CHAOS CONTROL to stop time and jump up and fucking unload dual wielded machine guns into a really big robot and getting blown back by the recoil as the robot explodes when time resumes and he lands a fucking sick backflip jumping away from it DO YOU UNDERSTAND MY VISION
i never said he wasn’t—you misconstrue me. point that finger at someone else, and i will join you, because this is about the people going “shadow with a gun is too weird and tonally jarring for a sonic game, they were trying to chase trends and it’s too edgy and uncool 🙄 we need to take away his guns for him to work, it doesn’t fit him or the series at ALL” and im like Okay what about executing gerald by firing squad in sa2. what about fuckin maria. hell what about the cop guys that shot at chaos zero. you (general) lack vision you (general) lack creativity this hedgehog has the right to bear arms and it WILL be fucking awesome