Its true. When Shadow runs his fastest, he skates somewhere around 700mph, and runs around 560mph. He only uses chaos emeralds to use chaos control/chaos blast. Shadow isn't stronger than Sonic (at least, NOTICABLY stronger, play Sonic Battle on GBA), but he does run faster then him. Also, Shadow is technically the original hedgehog, due to the fact he was born a good +50 years before Sonic. And, you really can't be sympathetic for Sonic or any other character except Shadow, because they simply have almost no past or a lost loved one or anything, while Shadow is obviously the only character who is alive.