Sonic Adventure 2 is great but it hurts me every time someone says how good Sonic Heroes was. Sonic Heroes was the most paper-thin every character has been in the 3D era. They just took a couple stereotypical quotes for each character and called it a day. The scant little they did with Shadow was only the barest setup for Shadow the Hedgehog.

Shadow the Hedgehog was overly edgy but at least they tried to do some character exploration and what-ifs. I got some chuckles from how over the top the Dark paths went but some routes and the True ending seemed to fit his actual character just fine.

Character-wise I'd say Sonic Battle was one of the best entries, but the gameplay had nothing to do with anything Sonic.