Sonic Riders!

Just looking for people's opinions on these games! I've been watching some videos on it recently going on a bit of a nostalgia trip.

Granted not the most popular in the franchise, and I haven't played them in years. but I remember having one heck of a time playing Sonic Riders, and Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity back when all I would play is PS2. I haven't played Free Riders with the exception of a demo in a shop and it was...Too difficult to control really so I won't be discussing it, feel free to throw in your own opinion of it though :')

The games for me seemed really fluid and super fast paced which always got me excited, and this was kinda surprising cause I'm not very fond of any other racing games with the exception of Mario Kart. I especially enjoyed Zero Gravity with the addition of the gravity gimicks, the boosts it gave to you, learning when to use it~ I also appreciated the Sonic Heroes style Speed, Fly and Power classes each character would have, having you find different paths/shortcuts depending on the character you're playing as~ 

I will admit, with Zero Gravity it really did take a while to learn the controls and adjust to it, making me actually not play the game for a while when I first got it. But! When I did take the time to get used to the controls I do remember it being one of my favourite Sonic games ever

I also enjoyed the addition of the Babylon Rogue characters, even if they were only for this series. I enjoyed the sort of story of them being this group of rogue's with advanced technology, searching for this "Babylon Garden" their ancestors once lived. My favourite was their leader, Jet, even if his voice was extremely, extremely, annoying.

Lastly! I really do adore the Sonic Riders 2D art of the characters, and also the little design adjustments given to the characters through the series - even if majority was just the addition of sunglasses or goggles :')

*crashes into thread* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I LOVED SONIC RIDERS WHEN I WAS LITTLE except it made me rage out when I couldn't beat the thing cause I was stupid and didn't get how to use the air canals at first BUT THEN I MASTERED THE CONTROLS AND EVEN BEAT THE HARDEST MISSION FOR MY YOUNGER BRO and it was WONDERFUL
And I really need to play it again, just gotta find a nice site to download it from, yes. I loved it no matter what the rest of the fandom thinks of it. Might be because it was one of the very few new gen games I actually COULD play, because I couldn't play a lot of games cause lack of consoles and good emulators ><"
My brother has a PS2 so I was planning on getting Zero Gravity?? Never played it but also want to and maybe will at some pooooint.
Also I used to love love LOVE Wave and Jet as characters a whole lot and I still like their designs.
Storm not really. Get out Storm.
although it always confused me a bit on why would sanic use a flying desk when he can run much faster than that
And I remember my old art with Elec and my trying to design her flying gear. IT was godawful and I wanna try that again too
But still I loved it and now you got me hyped up and I need to play it, damn you VV.

III loved the first, never played the sequel. I've never been huge on racing games, but something about it felt really nice - maybe a large part of it was the whole aesthetic of the thing, with all the hoverboards and stuff, and some nifty gimmicks to do with the idea of having to manage their power and stuff.
My only issue is, sometimes the controls and mechanics weren't exactly... well-maintained. Clipping through objects wasn't exactly uncommon.

Ahh Sonic Riders. I still have fun playing this game with my friends even to this day. I used to play Sonic Rider's nonstop when it first came out,(Knuckles being my main.) I would commit myself to complete every part of this game. I didn't really think much of it when I first saw it, being that I'm not really into racing games myself. But being that it's sonic, I gave it a chance, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. As for it's sequels. Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, I enjoyed just as much, even if they changed the controls a bit.(I also really love the theme song for that game.) As for Sonic Free Rider...I can't really say the same for that one. But other than that,I really have fun playing the games.

I've only ever played the PC demo of the first game. For one reason or another, the Riders series has always alluded me, though I was always interested in it. It's pretty funny, considering how much I love racing games. I remember being really excited about Zero Gravity coming out on the Wii, theme song and all. I even had the Nintendo Power poster put up in my room, though it got lost a long time ago. As for Free Riders, that one came out of nowhere...for all the wrong reasons.

I'll echo Midknight and say that I liked the artstyle of the first game, too.

I only played zero gravity, sadly enough. 

I loved the addition of the characters, the music (like all sonic games), and UNLIKE the game we do not speak about, it wasn't glitchy and had a good story. I have not much else to say...

Okay I have to say that I really like Riders. I like their models/designs. Somewhat taller with glasses for everyone just makes it look more futuristic and for me atleast more cool. The first game's gameplay is fantastic. It really did something different than other racing games.

But in my opinion, zero gravity took a big step backwards. No drifting, no tricks, all the fun stuff for me was gone. I really didn't like this gravity mechanic. It felt like it only slowed you down. Also the music didn't really appeal to me. They're just stuck in my head because I've heard them 'too' much.

ALSO CROSSOVER YESSSSSS

Now you see, I much preferred Zero gravity to the first game. I don't know what it was about it, but it was just.. so much more entertaining to me. Heck, I even managed to beat the campaign and such, a fair few times... admitedly, using a controller ;D

My one problem with the game was like.. how much you needed to know right off the bat. Due to it's mechanics, you couldn't ease yourself into if you wanted to do well. Once you knew how to do everything you were fine, but somethings took such an annoyingly long time to figure out, half the time it felt like I was the only person who hadn't recieved instructions ;D

spark tb wrote:Heck, I even managed to beat the campaign and such, a fair few times... admitedly, using a controller ;D

I didn't even realise it was on anything without a controller? Unless you mean like, the Wii - in which case I didn't realise it actually made use of the motion controls.
Or did you mean like, the alternative was beating it with raw psychic energy? Because if so, uh, that's toats how I beat it. Honest guys.

It took me awhile to work it out, but the wii version was 100% compatible with a game-cube controller, but not the classic controller extension for some reason. Once I realised that was a thing, it was MUCH easier

UPDATE: 

I was out at a shopping centre today and snooped around all the pre-owned Wii Games to see if I could find anything to my interest, and whad'ya know I found Zero Gravity and so I picked it up!

Gotta say it was REALLY bad at first cause I don't find the Wiimote very comfortable, but as soon as I was somewhat good with the controls I gotta say I was having a hell of a time. I'm most likely going to purchase one of these "Fight Pads" which is basically a Gamecube controller you plug into a Wiimote, making it then compatible with Wii U.

I went straight into the campaign and honestly paid no attention to the story other than there is few robots and that the gravity stones are something to do with the Babylon Rogue's ancestors or whatever so I should probably try and learn what's actually going on... BUT ANYWAY I had so much fun! The tracks are pretty nice and they become easy to memorize, because admittedly I had to restart races a couple of times just to adjust myself to the new levels. As of now I've only done the "Hero" campaign and I'll probably do the Babylon one tomorrow~

And just to repeat myself I really love the Speed, Fly and Strength character thing, personally right now from having a bit of playing around I enjoy the Fly characters a lot more than the others~ And the gravity gimmick is just as fun as I remember it being, blasting by everyone will flying in mid-air with a gravity controlling stone? HECK YEAH.

Also the general idea of Cream the Rabbit having control over an ancient relic which manipulates the gravity around the user is just a beautiful sight to see :') GRAVITY BUNNY GOOOOOO

Gonna be honest, I haven't played much Riders. I thought the concept was really cool, but when I played it, dear lord I was AWFUL. I just couldn't comprehend the controls, and always struggled with how it worked. I dunno if it was the first or Zero Gravity, but oh god, I remember playing it for an hour but never picking it up again.
Cool game though. I would have played more if I wasn't so incompetent.

Hey Spek, I still have the original at mine if you want to race some time. I promise I'll toats go easy on you, and not take any advantage of your implied inherent badness to feel good about myself. ;D

Dregan wrote:Hey Spek, I still have the original at mine if you want to race some time. I promise I'll toats go easy on you, and not take any advantage of your implied inherent badness to feel good about myself. ;D

YOU'RE ON, YOU SCUMBAG

See you at the finish line! Where I shall be waiting. ;D

God I can swear I played one of the rider games before. Which one was it again that was compatible with the kinect? Because I remember that one and it's absolutely awful motion direction.

I will stick to the fact that I do really like the designs in the game though. All the subtle details and the boards and just tracks. Aaand the official drawn art style which I hold many memories to; like I recall everybody trying to copy it back when it just came out.

I really should copy you Mid and see if I can find a copy somewhere for cheap of well, any of them!

Sonic Free Riders, I think is the Kinect one.

But I love the huge style behind Sonic Riders. Not to mention the soundtrack. Like guys seriously I loved that game to death, I spent HOURS playing it with my cousin and uncle even trying to unlock Super Sonic. The original for the XBOX. Metal City infinitely looped. Darn that game was a gem.

The final boss was wtf though. Though I enjoyed the game none the less! A lot of it creeped me out too. o_O The hands in that one hell level. Jeez.

Burning-Fox wrote:The final boss was wtf though. Though I enjoyed the game none the less! A lot of it creeped me out too. o_O The hands in that one hell level. Jeez.

There...
there was a final boss?
In a riders game???

Well not really a boss
But kind of

...Babylon... Guardian...?

...I remember that being the final boss thing.
You're either joking around or you genuinely didn't know about it.

Which is it, I'm confuse. DX

Both Sonic Riders and Zero Gravity had Final Bosses "battles" during their campaign, the first one was some guardian of sorts and Zero Gravity (Which I completed yesterday) had you fighting a giant robot that controlled gravity and was creating a black hole

I honestly dont even know

Suddenly the whole babylon gaurdian thing from the comics makes sense now. Hu, didn't knew that!

I remember really enjoying the final boss fight for zero gravity, against... uh.. -looks up the name- 'Master core Abis'

Mainly because like, the fight itself consisted of mainly a race, with the damage parts just being stunts and stuff. Infact, it reminds me a lot of those rail-shooter games you find in arcades.



Heres like, the first video I could find on it. I remember as a child thinking the design was amazing and wanting to make a character based off of it.

Sonic Riders. Loved it to death! Still a big fan of the series. ;v;

Even if I couldn't learn to play Zero Gravity as a kid, the Main Menu music was pretty darn good:

I could listen to that junk all day.

Let's forget Free Riders existed because it doesn't count when I say we should get a Riders gave that let's up play with friends online, with the controls of the first game. 

On the subject of Sonic Riders' soundtracks? This one stands out very much to me. Specifically in Dark Desert, the eclipse was just awesome.

I'd agree in saying that the music for the game was pretty good, and really suited the environments you were in, and always matched the fast paced nature of the game

Heck I thought I would've played Zero Gravity for a day or two then got bored but I'm still at it now, doing the extra missions you can do after the campaign

Was actually thinking, would not even mind one bit if they brought out another game like this, that uses a controller, NOT KINECT god damn I've seen so many people trying to play it and just getting so frustrated with how stupid it is with the Kinect.

Anyway, what do you think they could bring to the series if they made another Riders game? Like mechanics, gimmicks, story, characters?