What Made Sonic Riders The PERFECT Spin Off

The Sonic Retrospective has finally returned with my review of Sonic Riders! The Sixth generation spin off focusing on hover board racing. This game has a pretty mixed reputation, however I have always thought it was really fun to play, and today, we shall explore why!
00:00 Sonic Riders
01:49 The Story
04:11 The Presentation
07:57 The Mechanics
12:06 Accessibility
15:00 Content

[littleguystar]

The Cons: They don't tell you how the game works

The Pros: The game is fucking amazing

[Moromom]

Riders ' humor is what I prefer if the series wants to be funny sometimes. It exaggerates the characters traits just enough that it doesn't get annoying or make them a continued butt of a joke.

[FormalFilmsProductions]

I actually like Jason Griffith’s performance as Jet. I think it suits the character really well

[aBDKstan]

I only wish there were more tracks. But it’s nice to see someone defend this game for once. It’s actually really fun

[QuillsOnWheels]

I think in my childhood head, I had this headcannon that the Riders games were set in the future when technology has finally caught up to Sonic and he can't outrun things on feet anymore, hence the need for hoverboards and why everything looked so futuristic or even why the Chaos Emerald's looked slightly different in the game. I do find the Babylon Rogues to be really fun rivals to team Sonic and would love to see them outside of the racing games, although that probably would never happen. We do get a taste of them in the IDW comics though which was nice.

[Zrekaens]

I’ve waited for this. They could remaster this game with updated graphics, an online mode, character and extreme gear creation and I’m all over it. No Zero gravity please

[pyrofur_nx]

I don't like how overtime, the Riders models just became the main series models with extra accessories instead of being exaggerated—just look at Sonic in Riders compared to Free Riders.

[imakegachaclubvideos]

Riders was actually one of the first Sonic games I've ever played as a kid.

[kyasarintsu]

I love the cringeworthy cutscenes. It's the best part of this era of the series for me, really. Jet's voice actor is literally perfect and it's a hill I will gladly die on.

[hugoflores]

This game has an unique appeal, i used to play it a lot with my brother and he doesn't even like Sonic games that much, but for the longest time i didn't get very into it since i could never grind on rails, until by pure accident i found out that you need to press jump again to ride them, since that moment i tried to start a new playthrough and i just %100 the game last week

Now i can really appreciate the fun story, cool music, way past cool gameplay, the missions and the SEGA Love, seriously, these cameos are great

[DesignDoc]

I only played it a few months ago but the first riders is pretty solid. Only 2 major issues, the game isn’t good at teaching it’s mechanics and the track variety is lacking. Here they take the act structure for these areas but quite a few of the “2nd acts” are just slightly modified versions of the first track or are otherwise too redundant in look and feel. I love the act structure in the platformers but I think it suffers a lot when applied to a racing game. TSR and Sonic All-Stars Racing had the same problem.

[HarbingerYT]

Apparently the reason they used Bristow's lines instead of Pollock was because Bristow sadly passed away before Riders released.
They added them as a tribute.

[odd-eyesvon]

Sonic Riders DX Dev here! Thanks for the mention! I've been waiting for your take on this series.

[Rediscool]

It is such a shame that Free Riders practically killed the Sonic Riders series. I’m still hoping for a potential Sonic Riders 4 to this day………

[starmaster]

I have a love-hate relationship with the original Riders, but most of that hate just comes down to me sucking at the game, so I do still enjoy it a lot. I LOVE Zero Gravity though (which may or may not have to do with the fact that it was my first Sonic game), but I'll comment on it more once that video's up!

[finnbai]

The Riders Art is truly amazing and looks quite similar to the Sonic Battle style, which I also love too.

[Thenedoftime]

"You have to press X a second time to attach to rails" I have put more hours into this game than I care to admit and now I know why it was always such a crapshoot to attach to them. Yeah this game really doesn't teach its mechanics. Great video as always, dude, it's nice to see a good review for a game I've always considered a guilty pleasure.

[mategido]

Man I was never a fan of racing games, but something about sonic with a flying skateboard really clicked with me when I was a kid, loved this game

[HeavyRaiden]

The most underrated Sonic spinoff ever, i had so much fun with this game as a kid on the ps2, i even did 100%, not only i did all the missions with gold rank but i also got every single board, character and everything in the game.

To me, Riders is one of the best and most unique mascot racers ever (just to name it someway) the other favorite one being CTR, which i have to say, Nitro Fueled is even better. I think like CTRNF, Riders deserves some love and a remake, with new characters (Sonic has a lot of characters, they could get up to 100 if they wanted to) and a lot of skins (again, there's a lot of different iterations of the characters, or they can just create new skins for them like CTRNF) and of course, adding a lot of new tracks, maybe inspired in Sonic stages and online. Man, i would buy that game in a second, i miss Riders.

[edgelord]

Sonic riders is such an underrated game.
I really love aesthetic of these games being flashy and cool and just oozing everything that made sonic cool.

I also like the character dynamics with team sonic and the Babylon rouge's.