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Sonic Riders .:: Sonic Riders


Sonic Riders

Name: Sonic Riders - All three nations

Other Names (Nicknames): N/A

Release Dates:
February 21st, 2006 - USA
February 23rd, 2006 - Japan
March 17th, 2006 - Europe

Quality: 128-Bit, 3D Racer

Game System(s): Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox

Also released on: N/A

Developer(s): Sonic Team

Character Introductions: Jet the Hawk, Wave the Swallow, Storm the Albatross, E-10000G, and E-10000R.

Region Game Takes Place On: An assortment of race tracks across the world.

Concept Introductions: Sonic Riders itself is pretty much an entirely new concept introduction. Like the Drift series, it goes off into the direction of a vehicle-utilizing racer. Except this time, Sonic and co. are behind the wheels (or rather on the paneling) of Extreme Gear hoverboards. However, there are more types of Extreme Gear than just hoverboards. There are also hover skates and air bikes; most of which can only be purchased with rings from the shop.

Anyway, the most distinguished feature of this particular racing game is its new innovation of turbulence (which some players find to be more of a drawback). In Riders, turbulence is basically deposited air from you and your opponent as you ride along. If you can get your character caught onto a path of turbulence (which is essentially the same path your rival(s) is heading) and do some tricks on it when able to, you can easily catch up. The disadvantage being… your opponent can ride your turbulence as well, which is why you'll notice it's hard to get far ahead.

As the last paragraph suggested, Extreme Gear isn't run by electricity, Chaos Energy, gasoline… not even ring energy. Instead, Extreme Gear operates on good ole' air. S'ah damn shame we can't use them here in the states, huh? But yes, Extreme Gear runs on air, and as you race along, you steadily lose air from your air gauge. Some types of Extreme Gear consume more air than others, and to replenish some, you need to do one of four things. First thing you can do to get some more air is to do tricks off of the trick zones (they usually appear as ramps) or on a path of turbulence Your tricks are rated from C to X (C, B, A, AA, S, SS, and X). C and B's are usually given to tricks that are not landed correctly, while the rest are given to tricks ranging in quality. An X-graded trick is the best one, but requires a very complex assortment of tricks while in the air. But on the upside, an X-graded trick will pretty much refill your air gauge to the top if you're on your first level.

Second thing you can do is simply run into an air powerup to refill a bit of your air gauge. Third is to perform the function corresponding to your character type, a concept resurrected (unfortunately) from Sonic Heroes. There are speed, flying, and power type characters. In the end, there is little difference except for what shortcuts they can take. In pretty much every track, there is 1 or 2 shortcuts for each character type (lucky for you, the COM barely ever takes them), usually labeled prior by a floating speed/flight/power monitor of the accommodating color. For speed characters, there are rails to grind across. For flight, there are air ride ramps (or sometimes it is required to do a trick off of a normal ramp) to lead you to ring-shaped accelerators that sit in the air and boost you to other ones and thus through the shortcut. And finally, power-type characters can knock obstacles and barricades out of the way, most likely leading to a shortcut. Doing these actions gives you a lot of air.

Last but not least, you can dock at one of the Air Pits scattered around most of the tracks and refill your air gauge. If you run out of air, your character will revert to tried'n'true running, which, for the first time in a Sonic game, is a BAD thing. Sounds like quite hassle for a simple racing game, huh? Not really. If you just keep an eye on your air gauge and use your air boosts (temporary boost of speed; consumes a lot of air) and air slide (blasts a jet of air out of one side of the vehicle to maneuver sharp turns effectively) sparingly and with restraint, you'll be fine. And plus, if you level up your character, especially to level 3, your air gauge will increase to the max, giving you a lot of room to take home the gold, especially since it gives you more chances to boost and attack your opponents. Leveling up, by the way, requires good ole' rings. 30 gives puts you to level 2, and 60 to level 3.

Another concept intro is that this is the first Sonic game that has playable characters outside of the Sonic series (though, they must be unlocked): Nights from the cult favorite Nights into Dreams, Ulala from the pop culture hit Space Channel 5, and AiAi from Super Monkey Ball. Lastly, Eggman is finally given his own official company: Robotnik Corp.

Concept Deductions: Of course, with the introduction of a different game genre comes the deduction of a lot of the features of the main game genre. Checkpoint markers, special stages, zones, loops and what not are all gone. However, rings and ring and magnet shield powerups are still around (of a similar shape as SA and SA2's powerups, no less). Chaos Emeralds are obtained throughout the story instead of through Special Stages. Of course, the biggest concept deduction in general is that the game, although it may utilize it, does not focus around running but instead using Extreme Gear.

Storyline: (Taken from the manual.)

          At midnight one evening in Metal City, Sonic and friends uncovered a valuable Chaos Emerald. As they stood admiring it, a mysterious trio on floating Extreme Gear appeared out of nowhere and snatched the precious gem. As they raced away, one of them dropped their airboard and Sonic jumped aboard to pursue the thieves. But unaccustomed to riding, he lost his footing and the they got away.

          Later, as Sonic and friends gathered in Metal City plaza, they were interrupted by Dr. Eggman speaking from a giant building monitor. "I've put together a little extra something to spice things up! I call it the 'EX World Grand Prix!' A tournament to see who is the best of the best with Extreme Gear!" Eggman stated.

          Sonic groaned with disdain… "Eggman again! Just what is he up to this time?"

          At that moment, the three mysterious Chaos Emeralds thieves appeared as top ranking entrants on the monitor and Sonic's attitude changed. "The EX World Grand Prix, huh? Let's do this!" Sonic said confidently.

          Sonic's mind was made up. But just what is Eggman really planning? And who are the three mysterious characters?

Personal Criticism/Opinion:

          Whew, when I wrote this, all I had left on Sonic Riders was to earn some rings and buy out all of the rest of the Extreme Gear in the shop. Otherwise, I've unlocked it all and pretty much wiped the game clean… so what a better time for a review than at that point, right?

          Sonic Riders was definitely something that surprised many fans, since before its initial announcement, it was floating around as a full-fledge sequel to Sonic R. (Which many fans, for some odd reason, still think that is what it is.) But in the end, Riders is far from it. Personally, I think the airboard concept is pretty neat. Especially since they go so indepth with them by giving them a name (Extreme Gear), gimmick, and purpose. I mean sure, they'll only get you up to 260 MPH tops as opposed to the supersonic speeds we're used to with true blue in the ole' Zones, but come on.

          But probably, the most impressive thing about this game is its difficulty. Since its release, Sonic Riders quickly grew controversial because of how hard it is and the seemingly cheap AI. Most like a good challenge, but considering all of the unlockable goodies in this game, you probably want to get at the prize nice and quick. Let's put it this way, if you want to unlock it all, you WILL grow impatient and irritated many, many times with how many times you may have to restart the race or mission. It's one of those games where a lot of the time, you'll need to make everything PERFECT. But yes, Sonic Riders is definitely one of the more difficult of the second-generation 3D Sonic games. If not that, then it is the most difficult. Maybe not time consuming, but most difficult.

          In story mode on most of the final races, it is true that the AI is just a bit cheap since you'll notice your main rival is going through obstacles much faster (even ones you have no control in) and catch up to you unreasonably. Most of the time, however, it's not the cheap AI. It's because your rival is riding your turbulence. The best thing to do is to slam the trigger buttons to release a tornado behind you and whip their ass into shape.

          Alone, Sonic Riders is a pretty innovative title. But this is to be expected since Knuckles' creator, Takeshi Yuda was the mastermind behind this title (thus it's lack of suckage in comparison to the abominations made by Iizuka lately). It basically raises the bar for the racing genre, and in spite of the major new features of questionable integrity, it is still fun as all get out. If you grow to like Sonic Riders, odds are, you'll form an addiction until you unlock everything there is to unlock… which is a lot, especially the excessive playable cast of 17.

          As usual, the voice acting blows ass. The worse part is, I really wish I could use the excuse that all video games have sucky voice acting… but Sonic games are different — they have corny lines and crappy voices to go with it. Most of the time, the only problem is the acting. But for Sonic games, the script and acting is bad. As far as the voice acting goes, this game is pretty much on par with Shadow the Hedgehog: same corny lines, same voices. Though, this game is pretty funny since there is a lot of comic relief in Riders, and believe it or not, some of it will give you a bit of a chuckle.

          But in the end, the voicing in Riders is a just a tally better than Shadow the Hedgehog. Not enough to make it stand out… just a bit. It's mostly Jet's voice that is the vomit-inducer, which leads me to the new characters. One thing that is impressive about the Babylon Rogues, as they are called, is that they are the first birds since Bean the Dynamite to show in a Sonic game. And they are the first birds, period, to show in the second generation of Sonic. Other than that, they were made mostly for the story and don't seem to have a future in any Sonic games of the platformer persuasion. Jet, Wave, and Storm will probably be restricted to the Riders series (which Yuda has already said there will be Sonic Riders 2 and maybe 3).

          Me, I've always had a taste for the flamboyant and dynamic character. But Jet's voice promptly killed off the chances of what I thought would pretty much be an automatic interest in the character. I swear, he literally sounds like a more masculine version of the cliche squawky parrot voice. I mean, what the HELL is that? The Japanese VA sounds pretty damn good, so at least that makes up for how bad the acting is (yes, the acting is still bad in both languages). But man, Jet's English voice just SUCKS. You'd think they'd look for a more serious and, well… how do I say, umm, cool voice for a master thief and extreme hoverboard expert. But nope, Griffith just kills it. Stick to Sonic, Jason… you suck as him too, but it's tolerable.

          As a character, like I said, Jet is neat. He is lazy, rude, double-crossing, and arrogant. He's obviously the showcase of the Babylon Rogues since he is all extreme and flamboyant with how he rides his Extreme Gear or how he backflips onto it when the race starts and what not. He's also the best at doing tricks, so he's a good character to use in that department. Overall, everything about Jet is pretty cool and original… but his voice kills it for you if you are a die-hard English translation gamer.

          Wave stirred a tinge of controversy since her bio on the English Sonic Riders gamesite said she, like Tails and Eggman, is a mechanic and her skills surpass both of theirs. But that little problem was easily fixed in the manual since it says her skills surpass theirs only in the field of Extreme Gear. Wave is the brains behind the Babylon Rogues and is responsible for building the boards they ride on. Her voice is pretty good, and is basically a more tomboyish and cooler version of Blaze's. Out of the new characters, Wave's voice is probably acted the best, so she has that advantage. As for her personality, she has the snappiness and temper of Amy but with the subtle yet so obvious air of arrogance that Rouge has… except, like her partners, she is also very rude. You'll get used to her wailing on Sonic and friends' Extreme Gear.

          And in the end, Storm is the one I like the most. As Jet's right-hand man, he is very loyal to the boss of the Babylon Rogues. You'll probably like Storm because he has a lot of character since he grows flustered a lot if he makes a mistake and will usually become very submissive at the drop of a dime even if a second ago he was acting all tough and intimidating (which he definitely can be). His voice is pretty cool and real brawny. It's not nearly as bad as you think. Better than Jet's, that's for sure.

          As for E-10000G and E-10000R, I think they were completely and totally unnecessary. Not only do they look very uninteresting and have absolutely NO purpose in the storyline, but overall, they're just very… redundant additions to the game. The cast would still have been excessively high and the plot unchanged if they weren't there. Or they could've been replaced with one of those resurrected scrappees that all of the freakin' fans want instead of having to once again add to the endless Sonic character list.

          But overall, the cons of this game are heavily outnumbered by the pros. You get awesome unlockable characters, a pretty cool set of new characters, and most importantly, a very fun, very addicting, and very, very challenging Sonic racer. It's money well spent.
         
Let's see some GAMER'S PERSPECTIVE:

Replay value? With 10 unlockable characters, over 25 types of Extreme Gear that need to be bought or obtained, 100 missions (which you are ranked on, no less), and a very fun gameplay, Sonic Riders has very good replay value. But once you get it all, you're bound to put it down for the count.

Graphics? The in-game graphics are the same as any normal 3D Sonic game. However, the models are freakin' stupid. They could've pulled off this extreme look just fine without having to further intensify the Sonic characters' already exaggerated proportions. And once again, they got the horrible gloss thing going with the character models. When will they learn to stop that? Bringing back texturing on the models like in Sonic Adventure 2 will work JUST fine. The FMVs are very impressive, though. A notch behind Shadow the Hedgehog's, in fact. Much better than Heroes, not as good as Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow the Hedgehog's were more crisp and the textures were obviously much more well-done. Overall, as far as graphic quality goes, this is the second best of the second generation of Sonic.

Music & Sound Effects? Of course, I'd love the Sonic Riders OST since it is very techy. As for your taste in it, who knows? Pretty much the entire OST is techno, trance and club music with the mere exception of the themed race track songs and of course the two main themesongs. Ultimately, it's very catchy and fitting for the game genre and all of the features it utilizes.

Storyline? Quite indepth and detailed for a racing game. It may not be good as what you'd see in SA or SA2, but this is still only a racing game. That negates the need for a good storyline. But what I am saying is, as far as racing game storylines go, this one is pretty damn decent and is also the first Sonic game since Sonic 3D Blast to add a new terrestrial body of land to the Sonic universe.

OVERALL RATING? I rate Sonic Riders as a 8.8/10
Last modified: May 24th, 2008