People love to say that Shadow hasn't been portrayed in a faithful way since Sonic '06, but I'd personally argue that Sonic Rivals 1 and 2 still had really solid versions of the character too.

Obviously Shadow's development in those games is more stagnant, and as a result he's not as sympathetic as in that game, but I'd argue his overall demeanor is what we'd expect from the character.

He's stoic, focused, confident, and yes, kind of arrogant. But he's not an asshole to people who are genuinely worth his time. Yeah, he belittles people like Knuckles because he doesn't take him seriously or knows anything about the greater conflict he's a part of, but Shadow's pretty respectful to others like Rouge, Silver, Eggman, and even Metal Sonic, because he knows they're just as involved in his mission as he is. He doesn't let his ego cloud his judgement and he's not so stubborn that he won't take new information into consideration when trying to achieve his goals.

And for good measure? Iizuka wrote the scripts for both Rivals games. Iizuka, who wrote the script to Shadow's own game. Iizuka, the scapegoat everyone uses to bash on the mandates. Iizuka, whose favorite character is Shadow. He's got more of a track record for correctly portraying Shadow than not... at least assuming it's a common opinion to say the Rivals games treated Shadow well.

So like, did they? What's your stance on Shadow in this obscure duology? Did they do him justice or is there stuff missing about him?