Why Did I Love Sonic R?

Examining Sonic R's weird yet enjoyable feedback loop that was buried underneath an incredibly rough exterior, as well as taking a trip down memory lane.

If you liked this video and want to see more, give it a like and consider subscribing for future updates from yours truly!

#SonicR #Sonic #LiamTriforce

[Curtis.....]

The sign bump at 18:13 just got me dangerously close to wanting to go back and learn this game cause that was hype as shit

[EthanCGamer]

Sonic R's music makes me feel happy when I listen to it, that's why I like it. Haven't seen a game OST like it since.

[gunslinger]

This video makes me happy cause I have the exact same opinion as you. Everyone always bashes sonic r and sonic the fighters but I grew up with them playing sonic gems, and they have a special place in my heart.

[Styxin]

I’m going to be honest I was terrified of sonic R because of the whole tails doll creepy pasta (I was one of those kids who thought everything creepy was real and out to get me)

[Harrinsain]

When Liam said "When Sonic was going through his growing pains in the 2000s" my first thought was literal growing pains in Sonic's legs. Like, what would he do? Would he soldier on and keep running or would he slow down for a while until that shit stops?

[chaosemralds]

Hearing you talk about about this game was like putting me back in my childhood, Sonic R was a simple game I loved playing as a kid not really knowing the concept of controls being weird and I loved the game for pretty much the same reasons as you. Sometimes when I'm bored, I'll go back to the gems collection just to have a bit of fun with the games and music.
I still love listening to music from the gems collection games, menu's and remixes on YT or on my phone.
Awesome vid man

[makotoyuki]

Ahh memories of playing the pc port, good ‘ol dumb fun

So glad to see another person actually like Sonic R

[JessieGender]

I loved this game as a kid. My grandparents had a really old computer and the only game I could get to run on it was Sonic R, so I would replay the game over and over again anytime I went to visit them. Now I can literally 100% the whole game in about 30 minutes. And I still listen to soundtrack to this day.

[SonicMatrix]

Sonic R was another game everyone pretended to hate back in the day
Now that we're all over that the truth is finally revealed

[NezumiVA]

Honestly this was a really special little video. I too didn't really understand the idea of a _bad game_ when I was a small child, and I played Sonic R on PC all the time. Nowadays, I can definitely see how flawed and poorly put together it is, but part of me also understands the exact kind of fondness you describe here. It's good to see more people sharing their experiences of this kind with the Sonic franchise, instead of taking the easy clickbait approach of yet another "Sonic was great in the 90's but then 3D happened" review. Good stuff.

[elimulvihill]

I'm not sure if this was intentional on your part (and if it was kudos), but I like how you talked about how Can You Feel the Sunshine, Living in the City, and Work It Out all resonate with adult life, and immediately followed up by the appeal of returning to simpler times and recapturing all those feelings...which pretty perfectly describes Back In Time.

[SweaterSwagg]

I love Sonic R's soundtrack, it's so incredibly nostalgic for me. I have it on my phone and it's easily in my top 5 OSTs for this franchise.

[TheRealDustinNunn]

Sonic Team and Traveler's Tales need to get to work on a Sonic R 2.

[qwertyqeys]

Traveler's Tales made some grade A jank back in the 90s. Their PS1 game for a bug's life is a game I still come back to now and then because traveler's tales just had a talent for getting their ideas across even through multiple layers of jank.

[Kniffel]

Although you've made an amazing video in general, I'm so saddened to hear that in the year 2020 people still think it's okay to bash programmers (or any game staff for that matter) shipping a working videogame.
As you said yourself this was made in a time where people were just figuring out, how to deal with the 3rd dimension in games and that was especially made worse by the Saturn being notoriously hard to program for. Only 6 programmers worked on the game and the main programming for the Terrian System was done by a single person, which makes this on the contrary quite impressive, I think.

In addition to that I'm pretty sure that crunch was a thing, even back then and especially with the _Sega_ from back then, who cared more about quantity than quality. And it'd be a double-edged sword to criticize crunch in the modern day but bashing people who suffered from it in yesteryear.

Lastly I want to point out that Jon Burton, founder and Lead Programmer of Traveler's Tales back then, found its source code and released a "DX Patch" for Sonic 3D Blast which you may want to check out, improving on controls and many other things *_and_* revealed some of the beta music Jun Senoue composed for the game (which appeared in later games as remixes):

The TL;DR is: When criticizing a game or any other piece of art, be fair to the people who did it and ask yourself whether you'd be able to do it (better) yourself.
I'm still stoked for your future videos! Have a nice day! =)

[Fighter_Builder]

I love this game too, though I always had a lot of trouble putting into words exactly why. Your experience was really similar to mine, and I honestly couldn't have described what I enjoy about this game any better myself.

[tailsdoll]

I have hardly heard anybody talk about Sonic R in this way, in a positive light, usually everyone bashes it

[thomasswift]

I agree with most of your comments but.... Have you seen any other Saturn games? Travellers Tales performed a miracle by even getting this to run - the programming is beyond state of the art for the time! Sega's designs (though great) were just unrealistic for what the console (that Sega provided) could realistically manage.

[propositoretro]

What a great surprise land here, GOAT review about this gem! Simply my favorite Sega game on the system... Cheers from Brazil 🎉

[octoisgay]

I think it’s a decent racing game that gets too much hate.