Sonic the hedgehog is a well known videogame character ever since his first debut on the Genesis with "Sonic the hedgehog". The game introduced 2-D platforming mix with a sense of speed. On that time he was Mario's rival because both were 2-D platformers but both have their own different style. Later the Dreamcast didn't sell too well in the end and made Sega to stop making consoles and join forces with all of their other console rivals. Yet the biggest surprise was seeing Sonic arrive on Nintendo's Gamecube with "Sonic Adventure 2 Battle". Sonic was bigly successful on the Gamecube and also the console in which he has sell more games then on the PS2 or Xbox. Yet Sonic decided to take a rest and bring some spin off titles that includes: Shadow the hedgehog and Sonic Riders. Shadow got mixed reactions on people; it was still overall a decent adventure. Sonic Riders brings back finally the hedgehog in another racing game experience.
Sonic, Knuckles and Tails are once again together looking for chaos emeralds around the streets. Suddenly a team of 3 racers steal a chaos emerald from the building using air boards. Knuckles takes down one of the members while Sonic steals his airboard and chase the leader that stole the chaos emerald. The leader then makes Sonic fall and his able to escape along with his team. Dr. Eggman later starts a racing competition in which requires everyone to bring a chaos emerald to participate on the race and the winner will take all of them. Sonic then finds out that the guys that stole the chaos emerald are on the competition and so decides to enter the competition.
Sonic Riders brings back sonic and company in another fast speed racing experience and it truly delivers a strong feel of speed. The main objective just like pretty much every other racing title is simply win your opponents but also has a few twists here and there that make it different from other racing titles. Sonic and co. hop onto hovering boards that can grind through rails and also throw air in the back that is a turbulence that helps opponents on the back of that character be able to gain quite a lot of speed and do crazy tricks in it.
Air power is the other twist in the game in which you always lose a bit of it every time you make a boost. The tricky thing is that once your air bar is completely over your character will start running instead of using the hover board. In order to get your air back they will be gas stations in certain areas of the course but by also making cool tricks in ramps will give you air. The more tricks you perform while in the air, the more your air gauge refills but you can also get some special capsules that give you air that appear a bit in every course. And the other way to get your air back is by hitting your opponents. Your air gauge capabilities when you collect a certain amount of rings so don't ignore the rings while racing. The air power idea makes the game quite a challenge but also makes it feel different from the common racing titles. It will certainly be pretty tricky at first but the more you play, the more you will master it.
The singleplayer campaign let's you play first through Sonic's story and basically your mission is to get first place in every race. Team Babylon's story which is the new team of characters in this Sonic installment, is also about winning all the races in the first place but through this story you can learn a bit more about this new characters: Jet, Storm and Wave. This new characters are certainly quite a challenge for Sonic's team because they know everything about hovering boards and are simply professionals at it. Let's just hope that this will not be the last time we will see this new sonic characters.
Sonic Riders delivers something a bit similar from Sonic Heroes in which characters are divided into speed, power and flying. Tough you don't control a team of 3 characters: speed characters have the ability to grind through rails, power characters can take down all their obstacles in their way and even open new shortcuts and last the flying characters can fly through big rings that will make them gain more speed. This certainly adds a bit of style to the game and makes characters gameplay be more varied. Has mention before the game offers you a boost and while on the boost if you get close to an opponent you will be able to hit him. Plus the bigger your air gauge is, the more powerful the attack can be.
What truly shines in Sonic Riders is simply the course design. There is just so many different twists in every course that keeps the gameplay very solid and varied has it should be. Graphically also the courses look pretty fantastic colorful and great special effects through them. The characters while on race also look pretty nice too not even mentioning how good sonic team has been able to give you that high sense of speed in the game. The game also features a few real-time cut scenes that are done very nicely. And just like many say graphically the game has a similar style to F-Zero GX with high speed and futuristic theme.
In terms of audio Sonic Riders delivers a strong electronic beat with a bit of rock also in each of the courses that sound nicely and fit with the racing action. The voices of the characters are ok they are not great but they are not that bad either. The sound effects are fairly decent with special sounds like when doing tricks or going through turbulence. There is nothing exactly special about Sonic Riders in terms of the audio but fits pretty much for the most part with the game.
The biggest problem found in Sonic Riders is the replay value. Even tough the multiplayer is simply great with up to 4 players and can enjoy the thrilling racing speed that Sonic Riders delivers, yet when playing solo you will not get a big interest of playing the game more frequent like Mario Kart titles. Plus the game also offers a mediocre battle mode of multiplayer that can be enjoy if 4 players are playing but with only 2 is not exactly so much fun. Still is great to see that Sonic Riders delivers different modes for multiplayer.
Overall Sonic Riders is a nice racing new style of racing title and is certainly the best racing sonic title out there. Sonic however is still more to do races with him on foot then in vehicles or hover boards. If you are a sonic fan you should definitely give this game a try. The controls will be tricky at first and the gameplay might also seem a bit confusing but once you are able to master the game mechanics you will have a fun racing experience.
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