Sonic Riders Review

[Zera]

Greetings, folks. Do you think Kirby Air Ride is too simple? Too slow? Too easy? Do you wish it had 100% less Kirby and 100% more Sonic the Hedgehog? Well then, have I got THE racing game for you! Although Sonic Riders and Kirby Air Ride are very different, I've noticed an unusually high number of parallels between them. (This review is wordy, so I've condensed it with spoiler tags)

[spoiler=Parallels between Sonic Riders and Kirby Air Ride]

-Both have "ride" in the title.

-Both are racing spin-off games of classic 2D platformer series.

-Both let you play as the villain of said series, who can ONLY ride bikes.

-Both mostly involve vehicles that hover above the ground.

-Both have automatic acceleration. There is no acceleration button.

-Both let you grind on rails, fly through the air, and destroy certain obstacles by ramming into them.

-Both have lots of paths and shortcuts in every track.

-Both have lots of different vehicles, some of which have extremely unique attributes.

-Both have been overshadowed by Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and F-Zero GX.

-Both have received mixed reviewed despite being generally good games.

Indeed, there is no doubt in my mind that the folks at Sonic Team played Kirby Air Ride and decided that they could do it better. BUT DID THEY?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzRsy_d1JCE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDmI1lsO2i4

How does this game play?

The characters in this game ride Extreme Gear. Most Extreme gear are hover-boards, but skate and bike varieties can be unlocked later on. The core mechanic of Sonic Riders is the Air Tank, which I sometimes refer to as the Boost Gauge because that's basically what it is. All Extreme Gear run on air, and there are many ways to gain and lose air.

[spoiler=How to Lose Air]

-Air depletes slowly as you move.

-Air depletes faster while drifting.

-You can use a chunk of air for a boost, which also acts as an attack.

-If you are hit by an attack, you will lose all your rings and can Level Down, reducing the size of your Air Tank.

-You can use a chunk of air to spawn a tornado. This move slows you down, but an opponent behind you that gets caught will spin out.

If you run out of air, you must continue the race on foot until you get more.

[spoiler=How to Gain Air]

-Air Pits refill air quickly, but you can't move while using them. They release you automatically, but you can leave earlier if you don't need the entire Air Tank filled.

-Perform tricks off ramps. The greater the number and variety of tricks, the better rank and more air you receive upon landing. The ranks are C, B, A, AA, S, SS, and X. If you perform no tricks or land incorrectly, you'll get a C rank and gain little air.

-Attacking an opponent will restore some air and cause them to lose all their rings.

-Item capsules sometimes contain air in various amounts.

-Every course has one Automatic Trail, such as a zip-line or river rapids. On these, rotate the control stick clockwise to slowly increase your speed and air.

-When you Level Up, your Air Tank becomes larger and fully refills.

Wait, you can LEVEL UP in a racing game? Yes, you can. You'll start the race at Lv. 1 and become Lv. 2 and Lv. 3 with 30 and 60 rings respectively. Rings are found on the tracks as well as in item capsules, and you can hold up to 100. As your level increases, your Air Tank, speed, boost power, and boost length increase. Also, your attacks stun opponents for longer. However, boosting consumes more air. Rings are also used to buy more Extreme Gear in the Shop.

-The final way to gain air is to take shortcuts. Like in Sonic Heroes, characters come in three different types: Speed, Flying, and Power. Speed characters can grind on rails. Flying characters can fly through accelerator rings in the sky. Power characters can destroy obstacles by driving through them. What's cool about these unique actions is that they are used for shortcuts in addition to gaining air, meaning different players will take different paths through the course. The unavoidable trade-off is that if you want to master all three types, you'll have to memorize three times as many shortcuts.

[spoiler=Ramps and Tricks]Press the A button to start charging, and release it on a ramp to jump. While in the air, tilt the control stick to rotate and perform tricks. With no input you will automatically balance yourself. The better your jump is, the more tricks you can perform. The quality of your jump is based on where you left the ramp, and how much you charged. In addition, you can jump farther by front-flipping or higher by back-flipping as you leave the ramp, and these can be used to reach higher levels for shortcuts. After about a second of charging, your vehicle will start slowing down, so it's important not to charge too early. You can also charge in turbulence without slowing down.

[spoiler=Turbulence]One of the most unique mechanics in Sonic Riders is turbulence. A racer who is going very fast will sometimes leave behind a half-pipe of wind called turbulence. Surfing someone's turbulence is faster than normal and doesn't consume air. Occasionally you can move to red arrows in the turbulence to automatically perform tricks and gain even more air. To leave turbulence, press L and R at the same time. Generally you'll only want to leave turbulence if it prevents access to a very good shortcut.

As for any flaws in this game, there are a several but all of them are minor.

[spoiler=Flaws]

Attacks make you lose all your rings. This is the tradition for Sonic games, but it doesn't work as well with the Level Up system. You could spend an entire lap or two collecting rings, only to have all that progress crushed by a single attack. There have been a couple races which I lost because I got hit just once and my small Lv. 1 Air Tank simply wasn't enough to keep up with all the Lv. 3 racers. It would be better to instead subtract a specific amount of rings, like 30 or 50. Doing so would lessen the permanent damage from attacks and encourage players to collect rings beyond the 60 required to become Lv. 3, as a buffer zone.

Every track has two large yellow item capsules. One contains a full air refill, and the other contains 100 rings. These items do not respawn and they're usually difficult to reach. I don't mind powerful items, but these harm the game in my opinion. In a multiplayer match one player might grab the 100 ring capsule early, instantly becoming Lv. 3 and gaining an advantage that the other players can't recreate, regardless of their skill. And since these items are so powerful, they arguably add more memorization to a game that already has enough.

Drifting is much, much more challenging than in Mario Kart and similar games, but it is also more punishing. For the tightest corners you need to start drifts well ahead of time, and colliding with the outer or inner curve will slow you down dramatically. I don't mind challenging mechanics, as they can be rewarding to master, but the drifting alone raises the "skill floor" by a large amount, making the game less accessible. Also, drifting and braking are both controlled with the R Button (or L Button), so if you attempt to drift before turning you'll break instead, which wouldn't happen if you could map them to different buttons.

On the topic of sub-optimal controls, there are some completely unnecessary inputs. To grind on a rail, you must press A after jumping above the rail. Why is this necessary? I'm already above the rail, the only reason not to take it is that a different path might give me more rings, in which case I can easily avoid the rail. Remember what I said about rotating the control stick in Automatic Trails? That applies here as well. It serves no purpose other than to keep your hands busy. Personally, I would rather rest my hands for a few seconds every race. I only have one GameCube controller, and if it ever breaks from repeatedly spinning the control stick, now I know who to blame.

The speedometer is useful, but it doesn't have units. Am I traveling in miles per hour? Kilometers per hour? Feet per second? I feel like this is something I should know in a racing game. Also it becomes very difficult to talk about speed. "When I boost, I go 200... something." There's a timer on the top of the screen, but it is unaltered in multiplayer, so in a two-player match player one will have his vision obscured.

Sonic Riders contains a Story Mode, but as you might expect from a racing spin-off game, the story itself is nothing to write a story about. After beating the Hero's Story, you can play the Babylon Rogues' Story. The six tracks in the latter are heavily altered versions of the six tracks in the former. For example, Ice Factory is an ice version of Egg Factory, which is lava themed. Ice factory is more challenging and has unique course obstacles and shortcuts, but the basic shape and music are the same. If you've played Pandora's Tower on the Wii, you know exactly what this duplicity is like.

The music is pretty catchy and it fits the tracks well. The graphics aren't as impressive as those in F-Zero GX, but they look good enough for the speed you move at. There is a Grand Prix Mode, and a few multiplayer modes. There is also a Mission Mode, and if you manage to clear all 100 missions you'll unlock some sweet bonus characters from other Sega games. In fact, I played this almost entirely because NiGHTS is a playable character. As it turns out though, the game itself is plenty good on its own merits. I really enjoyed the character types that have their own shortcuts, the strategy created by the air and turbulence systems, and the sense of speed. If you're looking for a great Sonic racer, you've found it.

8 out of 10 (Great!)

I also hear that Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is good, but I haven't played it.

Edited October 26, 2016 by Zera