Sonic Riders
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Sonic Riders is a racing game developed by Sonic Team's UGA Division (a second-party developer for SEGA) for the video game consoles Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation 2. It is the fourth racing game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, preceded by Sonic Drift, Sonic Drift 2 and Sonic R. This time, the characters race on floating airboards, air shoes and motorbikes powered by wind, the Extreme Gear.
Sonic Riders was revealed by Famitsu on September 7, 2005 prior to 2005's Tokyo Game Show.
The game was released to start off the 15th anniversary of the release of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. This game introduces five new playable characters, the Babylon Rogues and the E-10000 series.
- 8.1 Character Trivia
- 8.2 Track Trivia
- 8.3 Story Mode Trivia
- 8.4 Extreme Gear Trivia
- 8.5 Music Trivia
- 8.6 Miscellaneous Trivia
Features
- All-new air board racing. New blend of snowboarding, surfing and high-speed racing combat.
- Innovative “Turbulence" air-system. Catch the drift of your opponents and leave them in your wake!
- Insane tricks. The more difficult trick combo you pull off, the more air you get!
- 4-Player Ultimate Battle. New rival group, the Babylon Rogues sets the stage for scorching head-to-head multi-player battles up to 4 players.
- Choose from 16 different playable characters, the largest selection in any Sonic game to date!
- 16 outrageous tracks, plus multiple modes, and tons of bonus unlockables.
- Collect and ride over 50 unique Extreme Gear.
- Unravel the mystery in Story Mode. You’ll play as two opposing teams, complete with cut-scenes.
- Opening movie done by the legendary animation production company Production I.G.
Criticism
The game received much criticizing comments when it was first released in the U.S. It was stated from sources, like IGN.com for example, that even for dedicated veteran gamers, this game can be significantly difficult. Players increase their level whilst also increasing their air capacity and initial stats of the gear being used by collecting rings, with the highest possible level being 3. However, if a player is attacked, that player loses all rings and goes back down to level 1 regardless of which level the player is. Loss of all rings also occurs when the player falls off the track in certain courses.
Depending on the level of the attacking computer player, the player attacked could be stunned for several precious seconds. The game was also referred to having "hidden catches" since after obtaining certain gears, they are not automatically added to your collection, instead, they must be purchased from the shop and this was sometimes seen as a misguided attempt at increasing replay value. Otherwise, though, the game received numerous other criticisms by devoted fans for other various opinionated reasons.
The game was also criticized by some fans for one of the levels entitled, "Digital Dimension". It was in this level that "Heaven" and "Hell" elements were constantly present, adding a different perspective to the game, as well as some religious connotations making some fans feel slightly uncomfortable, even though it was derived from the Chao World in Sonic Adventure 2.
As well, the whole story line centered on the Ancient Babylonians and sometimes was criticized for its misrepresentation of the ancient civilization.
Story
Plot
It is midnight in Metal City, and Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower and Knuckles the Echidna are searching for a Chaos Emerald Tails detected on his radar. Glass shatters and from the Future City bank falls Jet the Hawk, Wave the Swallow, and Storm the Albatross, the legendary band of thieves known as the Babylon Rogues. The thieves are riding on Extreme Gear, floating airboards. Sonic tries to get Jet to pull over, but the hawk ignores Sonic. However, Knuckles manages to send Storm flying off his airboard. As Tails notices a strange symbol, Wave appears to catch Storm. Seeing the Babylon Rogues escape, Sonic grabs the board Storm left behind to pursuit Jet. The two are racing, but despite his inexperience, Sonic gets ahead. Sonic notices that Jet is gone, but when he looks up, Jet uses a tornado to send Sonic flying off his board. Jet makes a snide remark and flies away, as Wave and Storm arrive so Storm can grab his board and flee.
The next day, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are still in Metal City, and they see a familiar face on the monitors. Dr. Eggman announces that he's created a race called the EX World Grand Prix. It is a competition to see who is the best on Extreme Gear. Sonic decides to pass, but when Eggman announces that the prize is all seven of the Chaos Emeralds, and that the current racers are the same thieves Team Sonic met up with yesterday, Sonic quickly changes his mind saying his famous battle line, "Let's do this!"
Sonic, Tails and Knuckles have a hard time getting through to the final match. Tails and Knuckles defeated Wave and Storm (respectively) in the semifinals, whilst Amy Rose, who had also joined the competition, was defeated in the earlier heats by Wave. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Jet make it to the final race, taking place on the Sand Ruins track. Sonic almost reaches the finish line during the final race, but, unexpectedly, Wave activates a bomb attached to the bottom, blowing up his gear, allowing Jet to win. Jet then activates the odd cube he had recieved from his ancestors which causes the Chaos Emeralds to fire a beam of light to the desert in the distance which causes a giant island to rise: Babylon Garden. Out of the blue, Dr. Eggman steals Jet's cube and heads off into the Garden with it (unknowingly to Eggman, Amy was hanging on the the back end of his vehicle after a failed attempt to stop him when he left). The heroes give chase, and a final encounter to chase Dr. Eggman causes Sonic and Jet to race one last time, leaving Sonic victorious.
Dr. Eggman, at the front of the door leading to the Babylon garden is confronted by Sonic who sends him swirling up a whirlwind causing him to drop the cube (and Amy in the process). Sonic believes the cube should go to its rightful owner, Jet, and the Babylon Rouges continue past the door to find the entrance to the location of the Babylon Treasure. Just as they find the treasure, they awaken a genie, and, as a result, the only exit door starts to close. Sonic, Amy, Tails and Knuckles hear the loud cry and see the door rapidly closing. The four of them rush inside the room, barely making it and as the door shuts, the seven of them are confronted by a hulking evil genie known as the Babylon Guardian, who guards the Babylon Treasure.
Conclusion
After defeating the Babylonian Guardian, Sonic and Jet opened the treasure chest only to find that the Treasure of Babylon was a Magic Carpet prototype Gear. Eggman then dashed in and held the heroes and Babylonians at gunpoint, demanding that they give him the carpet. When they gave it to him, Eggman ecstatically examined his new prize. It dawned on Eggman that he exerted the effort of organizing the EX World Grand Prix for something utterly useless to him, he faints in shock. Jet then decides to leave the island because of the "words of wisdom" on the back of the carpet. Everyone says their farewells, Sonic and Jet throw their boards into the air and jump on them while "Catch Me If You Can" plays. They make a U-turn, cross paths in the middle of the air in the shape of an "X" and Jet vows to return and show Sonic the Hedgehog who really is the fastest (in the air).
Characters
In Sonic Riders, there are 16 characters with varying types. The seventeenth one isn't actually a 'character,' but is an improved version of one of the characters using the Chaos Emerald Extreme Gear.
Speed
Power
FlightAllNon-Playable Characters
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Notes
Some notes about the list:- Jet the Hawk, Wave the Swallow, and Storm the Albatross, all new, are members of a new organization of thieves known as the Babylon Rogues and are led by Doctor Eggman during the tournament until a certain point in the game. Jet is Sonic's rival at the time, Wave is Tails' one and Storm is Knuckles'. Other than that, very little is known about them except that Wave is a master mechanic.
- Only Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Jet, Wave, and Storm are playable in Story Mode. However, Amy, E-10000g, and E-10000r do race against the other players. Amy, E-10000r and Eggman also make appearances in the plot of Story Mode.
- Amy is also the only character not playable in story mode to be unlocked from the start.
- On the official US Site, in the character section, it was revealed that there were a total of 17 Characters in the game, and this, turned out to be true, as Super Sonic was considered to be the 17th Character although he did not get a spot of his own on the character selection page.
- In all versions, Eggman has clips of his voice by Deem Bristow AND Mike Pollock. This is apparently because they decided to reuse some of Eggman's Sonic Adventure 2 2-Player Mode quotes in Sonic Riders. The rest of the characters use brand new quotes.
- It has been confirmed that Omochao is the announcer.
- Apparently, the Chao in the Shop area identifies his shop being located in Dark World, which could possibly refer to the Dark Chao Garden from Sonic Adventure 2, or it could refer to some other world that was not explained in the game.
- E-10000g and E-10000r, despite the confusions with the US/European gamesites, actually have flipped types from what everyone thought they were. E-10000g is power, and E-10000r is speed. Also, E-10000g makes more appearances than E-10000r.
Courses
There are 16 courses in the game. Six of them appear in the Hero Story, seven appear in the Babylon Story. The Battle arenas, Digital Dimension, and the unlockable Sega themed parks do not appear in Story mode.Extreme Gear
These air vehicles are called "Extreme Gear" which consists of bikes, skates and boards. There are 54 Extreme Gear in total [link]. There is no button used for acceleration, nor is there a "trick" button; tricks are done by moving the control stick.Each character has a default gear, for example, Shadow uses a modified version of his air shoes called "Darkness", while Eggman uses a bike called "E-Rider". Some characters have gear that is exclusively for him/her, however most gear can be used by others (Eggman can only ride bikes, and E-10000g and E-10000r can only ride boards).
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Controversies
- Sources claimed that the game was rated E10+ but this information was inaccurate. Fans wondered why the game would be rated such by ESRB in the first place for there was no language in the game, the violence was pretty mild, so naturally, the only other thing some fans concluded that the game got the rating for was because of the Digital Dimension stage, which, some believe is intended to parallel the Chao Gardens. Some have been lead to believe that this claim may have been stated due to some of Rouge's trick names such as "sexy charm" and "sexy eye" and other trick names of that nature. Also, Rouge and, surprisingly, even Wave's racing outfits have been considered to be somewhat questionable as well.
- There is also speculation that the forceful and repetitive rotation of the joystick required for a large Air tank refill on the automated sections of the courses can be strenuous and wear out the joystick. It reminded some of the issue with some of the mini-games from Mario Party.
Trivia
Character Trivia
- This game, while technically developed by "Sonic Team" actually comes from the part of Sonic Team that used to be United Game Artists, who developed Space Channel 5 (the game Ulala comes from), and Rez along with , and The Rub Rabbits. UGA eventually merged with Sonic Team.
- Wave uses some of Blaze the Cat's voice clips from Sonic Rush; they both are voiced by the same person.
- When you are using Super Sonic he will start off with 30 rings, instead of the usual 50 in other games. Also, when you lose all your rings, Sonic only needs one ring to change back to Super Sonic again.
- The inclusion of NiGHTS, Ulala and AiAi was confirmed very early on at [The GHZ], although some denied their reliability.
- The appearance of AiAi was officially confirmed by Nintendo Power magazine, however, many were in such disbelief, that they believed the report to be a mistake, and wanted to hear it from Sega and/or Sonic Team first. Nintendo Power also started a false rumor that Mario would appear as a racer on the GameCube version.
- The Babylon symbol is a "magic lamp" with wind markings around it as a reference to being descendants of "real genies".
- When playing as Super Sonic, you ride Blue Star instead of just floating across the track with no board.
- AiAi from the Sega game Super Monkey Ball is a playable character. Also playable is Ulala from Space Channel 5 and NiGHTS from NiGHTS Into Dreams. Their appearances, since they are not Sonic characters, can be likened to the inclusion of Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Blinky in Mario Kart Arcade GP and R.O.B. in Mario Kart DS (although they are Sega characters, so their inclusion would make sense).
- When watching the story cutscene before the Babylon Guardian race, Amy Rose is wearing her normal red dress, but when the race starts, she is wearing her pink racing clothes.
- E-10000R is said to be made using the engine parts of Metal Sonic according to the Japanese Sonic Riders website.
- Despite the fact that E-10000G is a power character, in Story Mode, E-10000G can be a speed, flight, or power character.
- In Rouge's official art her eyelids are blue, but in races, on the tailing map at the bottom of the screen Rouge's icon has pink eyelids, this could be because these images are just snapshots from other 3D sonic games, and Rouges image was ripped from Sonic Heroes.
- Voice clips are used for Dr. Eggman from Sonic Adventure 2 when you use him to race.
Track Trivia
- Metal City is probably based off Mute City, from the F-Zero series. Both of them are similar.
- In the Sega Carnival, when you are entering Crazy Taxi's city you may see a big sign telling you to turn right, but if you go in the small space (on the left) you can get a free ride in a taxi with a man named Axel. He drops you off near the finish line, and during replays you can see that Axel pushes a button on the Crazy Taxi, then flies away... literally.
- When you start a race in Metal City and an overview of the track is shown, during the second shot of the track, at the top right is visible a billboard with a picture of Sonic running from the whale off Sonic Adventure, next to that, a picture of Sonic's artwork from Sonic Heroes.
- The Sega Carnival and Sega Illusion stages feature numerous references to several other Sega franchises, including Samba De Amigo, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, NiGHTS Into Dreams, Super Monkey Ball, Crazy Taxi, Space Channel 5, ChuChu Rocket!, and Fantasy Zone.
Story Mode Trivia
- If you listen closely during the beginning of the Hero story, but before the Babylon Rogues interrupt, you can hear the Future City theme. This is actually the basis for the music of the SEGA CARNIVAL track.
- In the Heroes Story opening scene, during Eggman's announcement, a city that appears to be "Central City" can be seen in some monitors behind him. Either that is the case or the monitors are actually windows.
- The Heroes Story contains six races; Babylon Garden is the final Heroes story mode stage. Babylon's Story contains 7, but the last race, Babylon Guardian, is played as Sonic.
- In the CG introduction to the Heroes Story, the exhaust coming from the Type-S is green, as though Storm is at Level 1. After Sonic steals the board, the exhaust coming from the back is blue. Also, when Wave is using the Type-W, the exhaust is green, which changes to blue immediately when Storm grabs on.
Extreme Gear Trivia
- The Crazy Gear is a taxi from Crazy Taxi, and that's the reason you "pay rings" to ride it.
- The Hovercraft Gear could possibly be another of the Sonic series' references to Dragon Ball, as it closely resembles the Flying Nimbus cloud.
- The High Booster Gear has a pattern similar to the Shadow The Hedgehog symbol running down the side of it.
- The Turbo Star's name is a name of a vehicle in Kirby Air Ride, a game to which Sonic Riders has often been compared.
- In addition, the ability of Flight-type characters to soar across the sky is referred to as "Air Riding" in the instruction booklet.
- Originally, the (now) High Booster Gear was actually meant to be Shadow's Default Gear.
- On the back of Heavy Gear(bike), there is a picture of the USA flag.
- Also, The Heavy Gear looks like a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
- One of the unlockable Gear, the Opa-Opa, is a reference to the classic Sega game Fantasy Zone.
- All three of the cover bike gears look more like mopeds than motorcycles.
- There is a small error in the Hang-On's information, it claims "It has great Value". The Super Hang-On doesn't have the error.
- There is also a small error in the information on Blue Star and the Blue Star II, it states that both are "speed gear built by the Robotnik corp." when they were REALLY built by Tails, as stated in story mode.
Music Trivia
- When riding the Hang-On or Super Hang-On gear, a music track from the game with the same title will replace the normal course music track.
- "High Flying Groove" is Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles' first instrumental theme song.
- "Sonic Speed Riders" and "Catch Me If You Can" were performed by the same person/group (Runblebee).
- The game is the first post-Sonic Adventure console game in which Crush 40 did not perform any theme songs, excluding Sonic Shuffle, which lacked a theme song entirely.
- If you play as NiGHTS on the Metal City track, the music will change. It is unknown if Aiai and Ulala change music on tracks as well.
Miscellaneous Trivia
- Speed, located in the bottom right corner, does not actually refer to mph (it is doubtful that Eggman can run 20 mph backwards, or that he can run forward at 150 mph. However, he does run as quickly as Sonic in Chao World in Sonic Adventure 2).
- This game has similarities to other racing games, such as the F-Zero series, Kirby Air Ride, and SSX.
- As with Sonic Rush and Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Riders features the 4Kids Entertainment voice cast from the anime Sonic X. As a result, some fans have chosen to boycott these games. However, in early versions of the game, voice clips were a mixture of the Sonic X actors and the original actors from earlier Sonic Adventure titles, likely because all the dialogue with the new actors had not been recorded yet. In the Sega of America boards Sonic Games forum,there was a thread about a boycott on Sonic next-gen if Ryan Drummond did not return.
Other games
Sonic Riders 2 was announced by Takashi Yuda (the producer of Sonic Riders) to Eurogamer in an interview [link]; the game will appear on next-gen consoles, Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.Rumors
- In the same interview with Eurogamer that talks about the next-gen sequel, Yuda suggests that Sonic Riders may be ported to the PSP, but nothing has been decided yet.
- In an interview with Nintendo Power, Yuda says he doesn't know much about the Wii; but based on what he does know, he believes that the system could bring Sonic Riders "to the next dimension" [link].
External links
| Main series | Sonic the Hedgehog | Sonic 2 (Beta) | Sonic CD | Sonic 3 | Sonic & Knuckles | Sonic 3D Blast | Sonic Adventure\ | Sonic Adventure 2\ | Sonic Heroes | Shadow the Hedgehog |
| Upcoming Titles | Sonic (2006) | Wild Fire | Rivals |
| 8-bit series | Sonic the Hedgehog | Sonic 2 | Chaos | Triple Trouble | Blast |
| Handheld series | Pocket Adventure | Sonic Advance/N | Advance 2 | Battle | Advance 3 | Rush |
| Spin-offs and related titles | Flicky | Eraser | Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car | SegaSonic the Hedgehog (Cosmo Fighter) | Chaotix | Spinball | Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine | Labyrinth | Drift/Drift 2 | Tails Adventure | Tails' Skypatrol | Sonic the Fighters | Schoolhouse | R | Shuffle | Pinball Party | Sonic Battle | Riders |
| Compilations | Classics | Jam | S&K Collection | Mega Collection/Plus | Gems Collection |
| Cancelled titles | Sonic Crackers | Sonic X-Treme |
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