Anyone else think the Sonic Riders series deserves another shot?

Sonic Riders is great. I feel like it was unfairly hated when it first released because of a knee-jerk reaction to "Sonic on a hoverboard?!", focusing on that aspect alone, and then judging it by the quality of it's peers. Out of the 2000's third party era, it's honestly one of the few console games that actually holds up - Heroes is a slippery mess, 06 is... 06, and Shadow is Shadow, and Secret Rings doesn't play well until you've finished the game. Adventure 1 DX and 2 Battle both have their own issues - issues that still muddle their reception today.

It was unique compared to other mascot racers and imo, was an incredibly solid racing game. It did have a difficulty curve to it with a ton of mechanics to understand: your air gauge, the slipstream mechanic, how ramps worked, tricks, the different racer types, all alongside dealing with the different track hazards they threw in there. But once you get over the learning curve? I feel like it rivals SaSASRT in terms of fun. Was it perfect? Not really - there's bugs, the story is pretty generic, the handling takes some time to get used to (it doesn't handle like a kart racer, handling closer to games like Wipeout), and the skill floor needs to be lowered some to help ease people into the game.

I haven't played Zero Gravity (although that's on my list of games to play), but the original is fantastic, and it gets slept on because people think it's another Shadow. It's one of the few games I come back to every so often to play through and I honestly hope that the original gets remade in the future with online multiplayer.

 

No. Just give me a new Sonic racing game that feels like a Sonic racing game.

 

Maybe a mixture of both (no idea HOW it would work tho...)?

 

Riders is definitely a Sonic take on the racing genre, focusing on the XTREME stuff and all. Its as 2000's as you can get.

First game has a very learning curve, which might explain why it never quite took off. It took me quite a few days to actually get the hang of it, because you WILL lose if you do not get the mechanics down. I lost so many races in the campaign mode because of that when that's meant to be the easy part lol. Just wish I had more people to play it with....


The story is typical for the series at the time, but its very charming. Especially how the Babylon story contextualizes stuff in the Hero side. This is definitely 4Kids at its worse tho in terms of voice acting.


Didn't get ZG, but I never heard anything good about it so maybe I dodged a bullet.

 

This reminds me of a post from just after Sonic 06's initial reveal, where someone said, "There you go. Riders for the kiddies, this for the fans. Ironic he's being used as the killer app for a non-sega console."

Just you wait...

But yeah, I do think there was a degree of resentment from some older fans that the series we'd all grown up loving as children was targeting CHILDREN as its primary demographic, and we lacked the perspective to have any self-awareness about it, haha. I don't really even remember much in the way of discourse about Riders, so I'm guessing a lot of folks in the periphery demographic ignored it. We were too busy getting our hopes up for Sonic 06 as the savior of the series.

 

Don't go thinking that's just us Sonic fans. I've seen tons of fanbases of older properties that feel the same way.

 

I always liked the first Riders. Zero gravity...less so. The OST is super good, and I still absolutely adore the completely unexplained super-slick futuristic look of both games, but Zero Gravity is much slower and more rigid with core gimmicks that slow things down instead of speed them up. I didn't play Free Riders, which is apparently absolutely awful so I don't think I'm missing out on much, lmao

I gotta admit though: for a series who you'd think would be a natural fit for racing games, I don't think ANY Sonic racing game has actually fully translated the idea of Sonic into that genre. For one, most Sonic racers are honestly weirdly slow compared to, say, the boost titles, and there's never been an attempt to make them based on physics or anything else very "Sonic". There are times when I'm playing Onrush and think that it's honestly a lot closer to the chaotic style and completely unironic RADICAL flair (not just in gameplay but presentation) that fits Sonic, but then again that's just me probably (I am also probably literally the only person on this site that's played Onrush to be frank).

I don't think my nascent thread idea of "a Sonic racing game should be Excite Truck mixed with Onrush in Sonic environments" is very worthwhile so I guess I'm putting that idea in here because I guarantee no one else will ever have that thought

 

I actually did play it for a while, didn't like complete it or anything, but it's probably the only recent racing game that held my attention a bit more and was unique with it's style, any other attempt for other racing games didn't work for me.

 

I think the first Riders, as it was, made for a very good foundation. It just desperately needed some more content and maybe more player interaction. Its sequels totally missed their chance to live up to the potential of the first game and meaningfully improve upon it.
It's not boost-tier speed, nor does it use any of the series's founding physics principles, but I'm fine with that—if anything, that sounds like it'll get extremely annoying in a competitive game, especially if you want players to interact with each other in any capacity. Not to mention the huge ramifications it has on environment and track design. I like Riders as this cool inexplicably-futuristic hoverboard racer with a risky boost meter that you refill with tricks and pickups. Pretty much the only cool bit of level design Zero Gravity had was that you could use the gravity jump to cut some corners in that one tower track.

 

If the Riders games are going to get another shot, it's not going to be with the current ST management; that's for sure. I don't know if the decision to make a third Riders game, and/or make it a blatant tech demo game for the then-upcoming Kinect; was settled on before or after Iizuka and company assumed control of the Sonic IP. But the damage was done with Free Riders, and they've shown no interest in trying to bring that branch of the series back. And to be frank, after seeing the most recent effort at a Sonic racing game with TSR, with its creative mandates and limited budget...I don't think I would want them to revisit it either.

Should Riders ever get that second chance, though. I hope the team in charge completely reverts to the first game's design and focus on refining the formula from there; ignoring both of the sequels. I think it's not for nothing that of the various spinoffs the series churned out in the 2000s, the first Riders was the among the better-performing titles on the sales charts; whether you count the NPD charts or Sega's FY reports. To the point that its LTD numbers are actually higher than the each of the (much-better reviewed) ASR crossover games. The series had something of a Kirby Air Ride on their hands, but then blew it up to oblivion. The way they hit on a complicated-but-compelling foundation with the first game, and proceeded to throw it out the window in favor of more automated and/or gimmicky mechanics; is such a typical, cynical Sonic TeamTM maneuver of what they consider to be gameplay management.

If nothing else, I would also be satisfied with the mechanics the first game had being retrofitted into the next 3D Boost game, whatever that one may be. I think the gameplay for both are contemporaneous enough that you could crosspolinate between the two, without much issue. Moreover, I think taking notes from the first Riders would actually benefit the Boost gameplay quite a bit, for what it's worth.

 

I would like to see another game more in line with the first one, but I can't see it coming back after three strikes.

I'd really be cool with anything that tried to be as skill based as that first riders game. It was still chaotic but I appreciated the relative lack of RNG and thought it helped set Sonic apart.

 

I know it's not an official sequel or anything, but this exists and I think it looks pretty sick.

 

I liked Sonic Riders but I don't think it was very good. The air system was very punishing if you didn't know the tracks inside out and there was a lot of automated segments where you just spun the analogue stick. Doing sharp turns was also atrocious. But it was obviously a much better game than Sonic R (a game I like a lot but is terrible). I thought the different character types shortcuts were also neat.

 

Yes I think they should, the games have a really nice aesthetic and concept to them that's worth tapping into. There aren't much hoverboard games out there either, it might just do well with the right promotion.

I think if they want to make a new Riders game they should take criticisms from SomeCallMeJohnny's review on the first two games. The air system was pretty hard to control and, as Laura said, punishing at times, and there was too much to process in a race that you couldn't sit back and actually enjoy the game (not all the time, of course, moreso a factor of getting used to). Not to mention accessing flight routes or trying to jump on grind rails were a disaster. These are all simple changes that can be made, though, as I said, the concept of the game is very engaging.

There's a lot of cool gimmicks they could probably come up with too, as long as they're not too... disruptive. Sonic Team doesn't have the best track record when it comes to new gimmicks with the critics and GP...

It's also worth mentioning that I've seen a loooot of people outside the Sonic fanbase and even the gaming community as a whole really express nostalgia for the old Riders and desire for a new one. Maybe that's just on Twitter though.

 

Being able to ride the Hang On/Super Hang On cabinets with Theme of Love and Outride a Crisis playing is still the greatest bit of Sega fanservice ever.