So Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for the SNES is pretty great.
If you hold L+R and the Start button when you start up a new game, it’ll take you to an 8v8 Tournament Mode screen.
Pressing Up+Start on THIS screen randomizes your 8 characters. Sometimes you get several copies of the same character. Sometimes you even get this strange E, as pictured below.
That E is Sheeva. Small problem:
Sheeva’s not in this game! As far as I know, using random select on tournament mode is the only way to access her in this game.
And, uh…well. Here she is.
She exists, sort of! She’s not supposed to be here, I guess they forgot to take her out of Tournament Mode. It’s about as glitchy as you’d expect.
Shadow’s relationship with Maria is so important though I feel like both Sonic Team and most of the fans want to forget all about it and write a Shadow who has never had a Maria. why can’t we all just let Shadow’s character be what it is - a result of an emotional connection with Maria. it doesn’t make his character any less interesting to acknowledge that the way he thinks and feels and acts is a result of those feelings that will never leave. and it doesn’t mean he’s stuck in an eternal vortex of misery! he can still find those deep and complicated feelings in other people and he can still love others! there’s nothing wrong with a character who was so profoundly affected by another character that everything they do is marked by those effects! Shadow is still a whole character even if there is no moment of “getting over” Maria or “moving on” from his life with her.
This is exactly how I feel- people love to write Maria out of the picture. Shadow is exhibiting results of post-traumatic stress and the fandom can’t seem to deal with that. Shadow is still a great character with this stress and has shown that he is coping! But people love to shoot down that character development so he can be “uwu Edgy” for no reason.
I mean, seriously, check this shit out. Here he is in Sonic X:
He likes flowers.
Like, really loves him some flowers. This picture is from when he skipped out on a trip to the beach so he could pick a flower to add to a room in Chris’s house solely for the sake of it being pretty:
And in Sonic Lost World’s ice level, instead of just slipping around like every other video game character ever, he freaking SKATES:
Oh, and when he jumps while skating, he doesn’t settle for simply jumping, he PIROUETTES LIKE A BALLERINA: