Sonic Riders

"Even without wings, I can still fly!"

- Sonic


 * You may be looking for this game's sequels, Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity or Sonic Free Riders.

Sonic Riders (ソニックライダーズ Sonikku Raidāzu) is a hoverboard-racing video game spin-off produced by Sega and developed by their second-party, United Game Artists for the Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox and PC. 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 ride on vehicles powered by air, called 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 Sonic the Hedgehog series. This game introduces five new playable characters, the Babylon Rogues and the E-10000 series. A sequel to Sonic Riders, entitled as Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, has been released on the Wii and PlayStation 2 systems. A second sequel, entitled Sonic Free Riders, was released on November 4, 2010 for the Xbox 360's hands-free Kinect peripheral.

Story
One night, Storm the Albatross and Wave the Swallow approach Jet the Hawk. Eggman has arrived on their ship, and has a proposal. He is holding a large race, in which he expects Sonic to compete. If Jet beats Sonic, he will unlock the secret of Babylon Garden. Referring to Sonic, Jet replies that "In the air, with me and my Extreme Gear, he's just a joke!" At midnight in Future City, Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower and Knuckles the Echidna are searching for a lost Chaos Emerald. As Tails finally detects it on his radar, glass shatters in the background and from the city bank fall the legendary band of thieves known as the Babylon Rogues. The thieves were riding on Extreme Gear, which are floating air boards that can reach extremely fast speeds. Tails then exclaims that the signal was coming from them. Sonic attempts to pursue them, but is outmatched on this new technology. The three mysterious characters fly away with the Chaos Emerald in tow.

The next day, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles see a familiar face on the monitors. Doctor Eggman announces that he has created a race called the EX World Grand Prix, a competition to see who is the best on Extreme Gear. When Eggman announces that the prize is all seven of the Chaos Emeralds, and that the current racers are the same thieves that Sonic and his company met up with yesterday, the three then enroll themselves in the tournament. As the Grand Prix goes on, rivals are made. Jet thinks that he is superior, saying he is faster than Sonic. Tails gets mad at Wave when she insults his Extreme Gear and nicknames him "shorty." Knuckles and Storm get into a fight, smashing one of Eggman's robots in the process.

At the end of the tournament, Jet cheats to beat Sonic in the final race. Using the Chaos Emeralds to empower an ancient key, he reveals Babylon Garden, the ancient ruins of his ancestors' settlement. Eggman quickly reveals his intent to steal the Babylonian treasure and flies off with the Rogues, Sonic, and his friends in pursuit. Although Sonic is able to stop Eggman and settle his score with Jet, the adventure continues when the Babylon Rogues unleash a ancient spirit from Babylon, the Babylon Guardian. Once the Guardian is defeated, the true treasure of Babylon is revealed, surprising everyone, especially Eggman. The Babylon Rouges and Sonic's group part ways, but not before Jet vows to return and face Sonic again.

Gameplay
The game is played in its entirety using hover boards, which function largely like skateboards. Players must race seven other competitors on a total of 16 tracks, 9 of which must be unlocked through progress in the story mode, and two of which must be unlocked by winning Gold in each World Grand Prix (5 tracks per Grand Prix). Each individual character has different statistics, altering their performance slightly in races.

A key component of the game is the air tank, displayed in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Air serves as the fuel for Extreme Gear, and is depleted gradually as the race goes on. and by certain maneuvers. These include cornering, allowing the player to round sharp turns with ease, and building tension before a jump, which involves using the air to propel the player higher off of ramps. If a player runs out of air, their character will start running, putting them at several disadvantages; they can't boost, attack, corner easily or use charged jumps. After going off ramps, players can perform various tricks, which refill the air gauge according to their rating.

In the Story Mode, players take part in consecutive races, one after the other, based on the storyline, in order to defeat the Babylon Rogues and win the Grand Prix.

Playable Characters
Characters in Sonic Riders are divided into three varying types: Speed Type, Power Type, and Flight Type with the exception of Super Sonic, who is the only character that is Speed, Flight, and Power. The game introduces three new characters: Jet the Hawk, Wave the Swallow, and Storm the Albatross. The three are all members of an organization of thieves known as the Babylon Rogues, led by Doctor Eggman during the tournament until a certain point in the game. Depending on the character type and/or gear, the player can grind, knock obstacles or fly through dash rings. The classifications each of the respective characters fall under is listed below:

Speed Type
Speed Type characters have the highest top speed stats, but low acceleration. They can grind on rails placed around some parts of tracks by pressing the "jump" button twice (once to jump over the rail, second to grind on it), and gain Air while doing so.
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Amy Rose
 * Jet the Hawk
 * Shadow the Hedgehog
 * E-10000R
 * Ulala

Power Type
Power Type character have the best off road durability and can break through certain obstacles on tracks, gaining Air for each obstacle destroyed. Their speed and acceleration stats are only average.
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Storm the Albatross
 * Doctor Eggman
 * E-10000G
 * Aiai

Flight Type
Flight Type characters have the highest acceleration stats and good top speed stats. Their durability and cornering differs between character to character however, making them somewhat ambiguous in terms of these stats. They can fly through "Air Rings" which allow them to fly through midair and gain Air while doing so, often accessing shortcuts and sometimes item boxes.
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Wave the Swallow
 * Cream the Rabbit
 * Rouge the Bat
 * NiGHTS

Extreme Gear
Sonic Riders is the first game to introduce the Extreme Gears, high-tech hoverboard vehicles powered by air that the characters ride on, and which are the central component in the gameplay. Every playable character has their own unique default Extreme Gear, which only they can use, but additional Extreme Gears can be obtained in the game by either buying them in the shop for Rings, or fulfilling certain requirements, such as completing one or more missions with a given Rank. They all come in different sizes, appearances and colors.

The Extreme Gears in Sonic Riders come in three different types, each with their own attributes and basic appearances:
 * Board: Resembles regular boards. The Board types are the more balanced class of Extreme Gear, having average statistics and an average rate of fuel-consumption.
 * Bike: Resembles motorbikes. The Bike types are a more powerful class of Extreme Gear, but are less maneuverable and less fuel efficient. They can first be unlocked by completing the Babylon Story Mode before they can be bought, much less used.
 * Skate: Resembles roller skates. The Skate types are a less powerful class of Extreme Gear, but are more agile and more fuel-efficient. They can first be unlocked by completing the Heroes Story Mode before they can be bought, much less used.

List of Extreme Gear
There are a total of 54 different Extreme Gears that can aquired in Sonic Riders. The following Extreme Gears are listed as they appear in the Gear Gallery. Extreme Gear nr. 1-38 are Board types, nr. 39-48 are Bike types, and nr. 49-54 are Skate types.

Courses


There are a total of nineteen courses in the game, thirteen of which appear in the game's Story Modes, one additional course, two nostalgia stages, and three stages in the Survival Battle Mode. The Sega Carnival and Sega Illusion stages, both of which are unlockable courses, 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.

Tracks (in order)
Unlockable tracks:
 * Digital Dimension - Nights
 * Sega Carnival - E-10000G
 * Sega Illusion - E-10000R

Survival courses:
 * Dual Towers
 * Snow Valley
 * Space Theater

Sound
The music is done by Tomonori Sawada, Kenichi Tokoi, and Fumie Kumatani. Sawada directed the sound and recorded the sound effects. Tokoi and Kumatani did the music for the game. Most of the game's music involves techno and synthesizers. The music is, unlike earlier Sonic games, not rock, but has a more electronic, futuristic-type of feel.

Reception
Sonic Riders had mixed reactions from reviewers:
 * Nintendo Power: 8.0 out of 10
 * GameSpot: 6.6 out of 10
 * Gamesmaster Magazine UK 65%
 * IGN: 6.2 out of 10
 * Games Radar: 5 out of 10
 * X-Play: 3 out of 5(appreciated the game's multiplayer mode)

Game Rankings currently gives Sonic Riders 59.2% for the PlayStation 2, 62% for the Gamecube, 58.6% for the Xbox, and 52% for the PC.

Archie comics adaptation
Issues #163 and #164 of the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic series include a loose adaptation of Sonic Riders, even using the same art style used in the game's title sequence. In #171, Knuckles can be seen holding an Extreme Gear. Bean and Bark are also seen riding Extreme Gear in issue #173. In issue 234 Bunnie and Antoine are using Extreme Gear also. And in the Treasure Team Tango arc, the Babylon Rogues make an appearence; of course, riding Extreme Gears.

Trivia

 * Unlike other contemporary multi-platform games in the series, the console differences in all three releases are largely negligible. Once again, the GameCube release only has one voiced language available (Japanese in the Japanese release, English elsewhere) and performs the most consistently. The Xbox version contains dual languages dependent on system settings, but is actually prone to run the most inconsistently. The PlayStation 2 version contains freely selectable languages (though no Japanese voice option in the PAL release) and performs almost as well as the GameCube edition - the only somewhat noticeable change is the lack of anti-aliasing and that the game might occasionally have slowdown in the few instances of cluttered action. The PC version is an upscaled port of the Xbox version with selectable voiced languages, but audio has been downsampled and it only support two players. They also didn't bother adding an exit game option, forcing players to play in windowed mode or use the Windows application kill shortcut Alt+F4.
 * During development, Nintendo Power had announced AiAi playable for the game, which was denied by many people. Nintendo Power also claimed that Mario would be a Gamecube exclusice character, which was later proven false.
 * All Target Xbox and PlayStation 2 copies came with a free Sonic X DVD.
 * This is the only Sonic Riders series game to have the Chaos Emeralds involved in its storyline.
 * SEGA guest stars Aiai, Ulala, and Nights are all playable.
 * This is the second game where Rouge is not wearing clothes with a heart design, as well as the second time Rouge is not seen with lipstick.
 * This is the first Sonic game since Sonic CD to have an anime-style opening cutscene.
 * This is the second game where Eggman organizes a Grand Prix for a racing game. His first was World Grand Prix in Sonic R.
 * Shadow and Eggman are the only characters that do not have gear exclusive to themselves, as their gear, Darkness and E-Rider, can be ridden by any character in the game.
 * This the second game where Eggman is seen pointing a gun(s) at someone.
 * In one of the Babylon story cutscenes, when Jet opens a door with his control box,the control box disappears but is then in is his hands again later.
 * In this game, everyone's shoe design is different from what they usually wear.
 * During gameplay, Eggman's voice is actually recycled clips from Deem Bristow. In the story cutscenes however, his voice is still Mike Pollock.
 * In the CG cutscenes, Tails and Knuckles are seen without their respective glasses.
 * This is the only Sonic Riders game where tricks are named.
 * In the last cutscene, Amy's gloves are different.
 * This was the last Sonic game for the Xbox and GameCube. It was also the last Sonic game to be released for the PlayStation 2 in Japan.
 * In one of the Babylon story cutscenes, Wave is shown detaching the red jewel from her necklace, which is a small computer, to look at Eggman's diary entry bought by Storm. However, if one looks carefully in one of the scenes while Jet is reading what Eggman says, the red jewel is reattached to her necklace again yet she's still showing the digital file.
 * Normally, the tip of Knuckles' tail would be pointing downwards, but it points upwards in this game during gameplay and the non-CG cutscenes. Strangely, his tail is not crooked at all and is rather straight in the CG cutscenes (this was also the case in the CG cutscenes of Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity).
 * "High Flying Groove" is Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles' first instrumental theme song.
 * Ulala gets 3D artwork, but NiGHTS and AiAi don't. However, her artwork is recycled from Sega Superstars.
 * 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 is the second Sonic game where Amy chases Sonic with her Piko Piko Hammer at the end of the game (exclusively in the Heroes' story). The first one is Sonic Rush.
 * Tails' radar for the Chaos Emeralds looks similar in appearance (and serves a similar purpose) to the Dragon Radar from DragonBall, which is believed to share many similarities to Sonic.
 * Whenever Sonic, Shadow, or any other male character performs a complex trick, Omochao exclaims: "And she sticks the landing!" and vice versa for female characters.
 * This is the only game in the Sonic Riders trilogy that doesn't have a robot as the final boss.
 * In the opening cutscene of the Heroes story (before the Babylon Rogues show up) the SEGA Carnival music is played in the background.
 * In the opening cinematic of the game, while the members of Team Sonic and the Babylon Rogues are passing through a wall of graffiti paintings, if one looks very closely, it features the painting taken from the cover art of Limp Bizkit's second studio album, Significant Other.
 * The instruction manual has an advert for Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), but states that it would be released on Xbox 360 and PC, instead of Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
 * Sonic's Extreme Gear reappears again in Sonic Dash when it is selected in the shop.

Videos
thumb|left|300px|Sonic Riders commercial thumb|right|300px|Sonic Riders Trailer