Riders

<3

For my money, the best character/gear choice.

 

I htought Sonic Riders was amazing! the music was great the story was really good for a sonic game, it had that cartoony feel that Unleashed has to it. It played great aswell.

But I hated zero gravity, the main reason being that every time you used the gravity thing the game almost slowed down to a complete halt it just made it feel broken...

 

That's not the usage of the term 'broken' I've been accustomed to using :/

Either way, some of the better routes require use of gravity to access. You want a shortcut? You gotta pay for it with a little stop here and there. Seems fairly unbroken to me, although the break in tempo did take some getting used to.

 

I guess "broken" was a bit harsh. I Just really didn't like it.

 

I just don't understand the following:

• Sonic runs at goddamn MACH 10 or some shit, why does he need an airboard? It's Sonic Drift Syndrome. When I was a kid, I loved the game to death, and even then I still wondered why Sonic drove a car.
• Why can't a Hawk or an Albatross fly when a mutated fox can?
• Where did the futuristic setting come from?
• Why is Super Sonic NOT fun to play as?

Other than these issues, I loved the first game, but couldn't figure out how to play SRZG correctly. We need another Sonic R.

 

I quite enjoyed the series, amazingly enough. Controls take a really long time to get used to, but after a while, they do seem to come naturally. Air might feel like an issue in the first game, but that too can be adapted to. I was really fond of being able to uncover branching pathways, and the large selection of tracks (especially in the second game, which didn't reuse track layouts) kept me playing long after I had unlocked Super Sonic in both games. While I generally prefer Zero Gravity, there were some things I missed from the first game, such as corner drifting (which is much quicker than using gravity) and more distinction between character types.

Unfortunately, Super Sonic is a mess - definitely the worst character in the entire game, despite the fact that he's supposed to be, you know, the best... especially after all the trouble the player had to go through to get him. Rendering him totally unusable was like a gob of spit in the face.

I think Jet is mentally deranged, though. A bird (who uses a hoverboard to fly rather than his wings) claiming to be better than a hedgehog (who only needs his feet and nothing else) calls for a little too much suspension of disbelief for me. His voice was also definitely the most grating in the games.

 

I loved the first one. Got it for my birthday a few years back, and took a while to get used to it. The thought of Riders brings up one of the skits in Sonic Shorts Volume 5, where Sonic falls off his board, Jet taunts him, then Sonic does a super peelout backwards, and flips off Jet as he passes by. For a while, I mainly played as Sonic on the Omnipotence. After a week or so of doing the challenges, I managed to unlock Super Sonic, the first time Sonic Team has ever let people play as Super Sonic in any level. It was fun for a while, but the excitment wore off shortly after. One day, out of boredome, I decided to do a 99 lap race as Super Sonic through the first level. I won of course, overlapping the other racers at least 10 times. I still have yet to play Zero Gravity, but from what I've seen of it, it looks like it would be a little bit more tricky to master than the first one. Should there be a third one? Definately, Riders was one of the best games I had played in a long time.

 

Super Sonic is definitely worse in Zero Gravity than he was in the first game, but that's hardly saying anything. One is just horrible and the other is even moreso.

In the first game, Super Sonic depletes rings at an insane amount whenever you drift, making using him thoroughly impractical. I guess if you were really skillful and extremely conservative about your rings, then you probably stand a chance actually controlling him properly. But after all the trouble the player goes through to unlock him, it's really not worth trying to master him in the long run.

However, it's flat-out impossible to master Super Sonic in the sequel, I'm assured of this. Mainly because of that mandatory boost you get when you reach 60 rings. Oh yeah, and any use of gravity will almost guarantee lowering your ring count to zero.

 

I liked the Riders series. It has so much more replayability than the main series of Sonic games, and I like the futuristic world it's set in. My only problems with it is that Super Sonic is one of the hardest characters to use in the game. If you're going to make us work so hard at getting all gold ranks, at least give us a decent reward. And by the way, if you believe 4chan's "Wentos", we'll probably see a Sonic Riders 3.

I wouldn't mind another one.

 

I like the futuristic setting... in many places it feels more Sonic-y than almost everything ever done in 3D for the series.

 

The first one had needlessly complex controls, haven't got around to the second one yet

 

The second one does tricks for you, which I find annoying. All you have to do is jump at the right spot on a ramp. It sounds simple, but it's actually harder to X rank a trick than in the first one.

 

I haven't had a chance to play Zero Gravity, but I liked the first Sonic Riders.

The game had some definite problems, though. I mean, the only way I play the game nowadays is by picking Heavy Bike or whatever it's called, because I don't have to deal with that slipstream nonsense. It was a nice concept - like a flashier version of drafting - but getting stuck in somebody's slipstream without being able to escape is stupid as hell. I hear Zero Gravity does away with the slipstream stuff, which definitely sounds like a good thing.

But yeah, I guess I'd like to see a third game. I think the whole "futuristic" thing is a little bit silly, though. I know there are some people who are in to that - goggles that exist only as a fashion accessory, etc. - but I'm not one of them (at least, in regards to Sonic characters). At the same time, though, I couldn't see the game without that sort of stuff.

I have to wonder if maybe it would have been better received if it was not attached to Sonic, however. It's one of those games that doesn't need Sonic attached to it, and may have benefited from having original characters in its stead.

 

Zero Gravity also has slipstreams, but not as many and they're harder to get stuck in.

 

I don't see how they could make a sequel though, seeing as how in the last one the concept was controlling gravity.

You name one more thing you can do with a hoverboard that looks more awesome.