The trouble is, the game is the prequel to the TV show. The TV show just seems to be a comedy that isn't going to expand on anything about the characters. So if they don't explain everything in this game, it's going to be awkward, as they'll have the TV show coming in between this and the sequel (and they'll probably want to use all the characters in the TV show).Just one more thing about backstory for these characters: The developers shouldn't feel obligated to try and explain it all in one game. Making Shadow's history more ambiguous than not in the two upcoming Sonic Boom games could be a good way to generate story ideas for future titles. You can resolve all the loose ends related to Lyric and still have enough open material to meaningfully link the upcoming games with future ones without blaringly-obvious sequel hooks.
It'll be like Sonic Heroes, where Shadow was there, but they didn't really want to do too much with him as they were saving him for his own game, so they just came up with some poorly developed half-story.
GG! used to describe Lego Star Wars as "Marketing Jegna". I wonder what he would have made of this!There just doesn't seem to be any conviction here, probably because this is just a licensed game for a game-licensed TV show.