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[neptunes]

...and it sucks!

Does anyone here think otherwise?

 

[TekunoRobby]

I don't know if you've played it on PC or Saturn but the Saturn version controls a bit better thanks to the controller (also you can get it to work!).

Yeaaaaaah I haven't touched this one is a long while and if I remember correctly I wouldn't want to anyways.

 

[FrenchMovieTheme]

this game was pure garbage, possibly the worst racing game i ever played. everything from the track design to the actual graphics were 2nd rate and inferior to anything on psone. the worst part is the sense of speed wasn't even there! how can you have lack of speed in a sonic game?*





























* p.s. i never even played this game. see how easy it is to come up with bogus bullshit

 

[ManaByte]

Worst. Soundtrack. Ever.

 

[sprsk]

you all should burn

especially manabyte.

 

[belgurdo]

CAN YOU FEEL THE SUNSHINE?

 

[sprsk]

CAN YOU FEEL THE SUNSHINE?

Does it brighten up your day?

 

[Ranger X]

OMGWTF you played this and you survived?
Too late, you're corrupted now. Ban this guy.

 

[imastalker co.]

i bought this gamefor Saturn a few years back, sealed, brand new. $1. worth dollar i ever spent on a videogame related product.

 

[FightyF]

At the time I thought it was decent. Could have used some work...

 

[I Work For UbiSoft]

I guess I will be the only one who actually enjoyed it....

 

[iced lightning]

I really liked the soundtrack even though it was definitely the cheese.

 

[Koshiro]

Hey HEY I thought it was great at the time, and visually it still holds up (remarkable for a Saturn title). Traveller's Tales pulled off some uber tech tricks with this game, and the engine was begging to become some sort of 3D platformer. It was a racing game with platformer elements in it basically, though it's not as much fun to play nowadays as it was back then.

Edit: Oh and if you were playing the PC version then you truely suck, you need, NEED the analogue saturn pad to make this play right.

 

[StoOgE]

I liked the game at first.. but it had problems...

all the charachters slid around like they were cars not people.. I expected it to control more like Sonic Adventure wound up controlling.. it felt wierd powersliding on foot.

Luckily I got this game after the system died when you could go pick up new games for under 5 bucks.. got alot of awesome games that way.

 

[xexex]

Sonic R = pure crap

dunno why anyone would want a sequel to it.

 

[Koshiro]

Sonic R = pure crap

dunno why anyone would want a sequel to it.

I don't recall anyone saying anything about a sequel.

 

[Barnimal]

livin in the CI~TY!!!

 

[fbcamp]

Never played the game, but I love the soundtrack. I was thinking about picking up a saturn just to see if the game was as good as the soundtrack. (I'm not being sarcastic)

 

[etiolate]

Worst. Soundtrack. Ever.

Was this the sonic with the Pop vocals? Like a cheap Whitney Houston? I remember playing a demo of some Saturn Sonic game and hating the music.

 

[Vargas]

Was this the sonic with the Pop vocals? Like a cheap Whitney Houston? I remember playing a demo of some Saturn Sonic game and hating the music.

Yes it was.

 

[goodcow]

... I bought it on release for $54.99 at Toys R Us.

Anyway, *I* loved it. Including the music. And the graphics are still stunning for a 32-bit system.

 

[mightynine]

I played this in a Toys R Us for about two seconds when I just couldn't handle the control, or lack thereof.

 

[kitchenmotors]

... I bought it on release for $54.99 at Toys R Us.

Anyway, *I* loved it. Including the music. And the graphics are still stunning for a 32-bit system.

Just admit it, you only loved it because you paid full price for that steaming turd.

I'm a big Sega Saturn fan and even I don't like Sonic R.

 

[goodcow]

Just admit it, you only loved it because you paid full price for that steaming turd.

I'm a big Sega Saturn fan and even I don't like Sonic R.

IT WAS FUN, YOU BASTARD.

 

[Sho Nuff]

EVERYBODY SUPA SONIC RACING
GOTTA GET YOUR FEET BACK ON THE GROUND
WHEN YOU'RE SUPA SONIC RACING
THERE'S NO TIME TO LOOK AROUND

 

[Alex Anderson]

I thought it stank. The controls were just pure crap. "Super Sonic Racing" is a great song, though.

 

[Vormund]

Worst. Soundtrack. Ever.

Best. Soundtrack. Ever.

I actually played it a hell of a lot. I got it on Sat and PC.

 

[mrkapawutzis]

Best. Soundtrack. Ever.

I actually played it a hell of a lot. I got it on Sat and PC.

Thank god for redbook audio.

 

[Saturnman]

It could have been polished more, but what it really needed was more race tracks.

P.S. I like the sountrack.

 

[Rlan]

I loved the game, although I am a big Sonic fan

From my understanding the tech that Travelers Tales used was pretty top notch, it was one of the few games on the Saturn that used fade-in instead of pop-up, and they definitely got the graphical style right.

Plus it had Metal Knuckles! And Tails Doll, clearly the most evil of all Eggman Robots!

As for the soundtrack, I enjoyed it. To be honest, a lot of the Saturn Soundtracks at the time were very tinny and very samey [We're talking Virtua Fighter, Sonic the Fighters, DOA, basically any AM2 fighter], Richard Jaques was a bit of fresh air.

You could turn the vocals off anyway

 

[Cafeman]

It was pretty neat for a few days, I thought back then. Some of the technical, um, "prowess" that Traveller's Tales showed off on Saturn included:

- Cool fade-in to prevent ugly pop-up. (too bad it couldn't have been set back a few more game 'yards').
- When you went around loops, the level would spin in 3D from your character's point of view.
- Very colorful.
- Awesome automatic-controlled Track Zippers. It ate away your collected rings (pretty good game play mechanism IMHO) and would catch you up with Uber-knuckles in a heartbeat. It was pretty awesome back then.

Unfortunately, the game wasn't very fun to play and I beat it within a few days. After I found all the coins and emeralds and beat the 5 tracks, and popped the hidden balloons (which weren't randomized! boo!), I was done. Level design was pretty good, lot's of hidden nooks and even elevation and water which affected the race.

Sonic R turned out to be more disappointing than fun for me back then; and today, I won't even play it other than for a quick 20 minutes of nostalgia every year or two. The characters were surprisingly void of animations, which was the thing that bothered me the most. Compare the Saturn rendition of Sonic 3D Blast, the 3D bonus half-pipe stages which were coded by SOJ (not TT as Sonic R was). Sonic 3D blast's half-pipe REALLY nailed the essence of how a polygonal Sonic should run and act. After playing that, Sonic R's controls and animation seemed even clunkier.

In hindsight, the game would've been more awesome if they'd have done a few fixes. First, improve the control. Second, double the number of stages. Third, completely change the soundtrack. (even turning of the vocals, it isn't hard edged enough).

(_)3

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

Actually, I can still have fun with it...trying to find all those chaos emeralds again, and unlocking the secret characters. If you can get used to the controls, it's a good way to keep yourself busy for two hours. The area where this game really suffers is the lack of tracks.

 

[segasonic]

EVERYBODY SUPA SONIC RACING
GOTTA GET YOUR FEET BACK ON THE GROUND
WHEN YOU'RE SUPA SONIC RACING
THERE'S NO TIME TO LOOK AROUND

Richard Jacques fuckin' rocks!

One of the best game soundtracks ever

 

[PG2G]

I loved Sonic R and the soundtrack

 

[aoi tsuki]

i found my old Sonic R review that i reviewed on Dimension Sega back in the day.

Graphics -- 8

Wow! The translucency effect looks really cool. Buildings slowly fade in from the distance, and pop-up is virtually eliminated. The two-player game is pretty bad though. The translucency effect goes haywire, and ramps and other objects still remain partially translucent when you're only a few yards in front of them. Still, the resolution is also high and the colors are bright. There is no slowdown, just a little draw-in, but it rarely affects gameplay.

Sound and Music -- 7.5

Most of the sounds in the game are direct cuts from old Sonic games. I didn't really have a problem with this; I liked the old Sonic sounds.

The music, which also received poor reviews with many game magazines, comes in two flavors: vocal and instrumental. The vocal tracks, in my opinion, sound great. Granted they do sound pretty fruity, but I like fruity music!! It's mostly dance/techno stuff, kind of like La Bouche, perkier than Everything But The Girl, but in any case it can stand on its own. And for those who didn't like the vocals, there are instrumental versions of the songs (which also play in the replays), that equal, if not beat, the quality of their vocal counterparts.

Gameplay -- 6.5

The first problem you'll have is controlling your characters. The analog controller helps a lot, giving you the ability to control your character's movements much more accurately. Still, the game takes a while to master. I guess it makes more sense when you realize that you're controlling actual characters, and not characters in karts (except for Amy). Looking at it like that, you can appreciate the characteristics that each character has.

Each character also possesses a special skill. Sonic can double jump, Tails can fly, and Knuckles can float. You can also spin dash (which I never found useful). Holding up speeds you up, and the L and R buttons function as shoulder brakes (like in WipeOut).

Then you've got your basic power-ups: rings (in 5, 10, and 20 count varieties), shields (bubble and lightning), and super shoes.

You start out with four levels (the standard Green Hill clone, a city track, a ruins sort of track, and a factory track), and the fifth takes place in an emerald. The levels are laid out more like a Sonic platform game than a Sonic racer. There's a definite path to follow, but in order to get secrets or to cut your time, you'll need to make your own shortcuts. I thought this was pretty cool, because it means that the fastest character isn't necessarily the winner of the race. Within each course, there are Sonic coins, which you'll need to collect (then place in the top three) in order to get the secret characters. The accelorator shoots you ahead a lightning speeds at the expense of a few of your rings.

In two-player mode, you and a friend can either race for the best time or to see who can get five balloons first. The balloon race is very flawed though. For some reason, the balloons are always in the same place, so it becomes moreso a game of memorization than of skill and luck.

There's also a tag mode (one-player only), where you have to tag the other four racers in the least amount of time. Sounds good, but for some reason, whenever you pass a character, they turn around in the opposte direction, and in that second that they evaded you, you'll see them practically half a mile down the track.

These things sound like a lot of fun, but that fun wore thin very quickly. First off, there wasn't really enough Sonic-esque things to do. What happened to the smashers from the Scrap Brain Zone (Sonic 1)? The corkscrews and teleporters of Sonic 2? The game really lacked that Sonic feel to me. The game just feels like the Sonic name was slapped on it. This could've been almost any other game, given a few changes.

Replay -- 6

The one-player mode got old pretty quickly, and it wasn't until I started getting the secret characters that I really found interest in the game again. Even after that, playing the same courses really got tired fast.

The two-player modes would've been better if they had just be more balanced. Since the visibility is limited, it really becomes a race of who knows the track better. I would've liked a teleporter power-up, like in Sonic 2, switching player positions, and making the game more interesting. In fact, the whole two-player game in Sonic 2 was better; and more balanced. Winning didn't mean getting to the goal first, you got points for the most items opened, rings (amount you had when you crossed the goal), total rings collected, and overall score. That's the kind of balance I expected, or at least something better than what it has. (Random balloon locations could've been a start.)

Overall -- 7

A good game, but not great. I wasn't expecting this to be our 32-bit Sonic savior, just something more than it was. If you have to have every Sonic game, then buy it, otherwise just rent it.

i wish i hadn't sold my copy, because it really was a pretty fun game, just a bit flawed and limited.

 

[FightyF]

Great breakdown Cafeman! I agree with those points you made.

I liked how there was some element of powersliding (even on foot). I wish Sonic Adventure controlled like it, but was tweaked a bit more.

I started making a UT 2003 MOD called Sonic R: The Fast and Furryous. Anyways I had a 3rd person view working, and a similar control scheme. I hacked in physics where you'd go faster when running downhill, and slow as you go up hill. It was done with the default UT 2003 character, so you see him running really fast through these large landscapes. It was pretty fun just to run around and stuff.

I kinda wish I was able to finish it as a complete MOD. From there I could have started a one player Sonic game that would Sonic Team's recent 3D ones to shame.

 

[Warm Machine]

Cafe hit it on the head. It was certainly one of the prettiest, worst playing games of all time.

 

[Otaking]

I enjoyed the game. Especially the music. I'd put the CD in my CD player in my car and listen to the music going down the road. It was great. I had tons of fun with this game. Only American Saturn title I own.

 

[Teddman]

It's not good. It plays very poorly, the characters control too loose, and the track design sucks.

I wasn't a big fan of Traveller's Tales' Sonic games.

 

[Suerte]

I loved it, but then again I was a Sonic whore when I was younger. Some kind of Sonic racing game with an online mode (done right) would be great I think... Also the Sonic R soundtrack rawked you fools.

 

[Link316]

From my understanding the tech that Travelers Tales used was pretty top notch, it was one of the few games on the Saturn that used fade-in instead of pop-up, and they definitely got the graphical style right.

Travelers Tales' an underrated developer, their work on SNES Toy Story is very impressive

 

[BenT]

Their work on dozens of other things is mediocre.

For example, Haven. (The first part of a planned trilogy! )

 

[FortNinety]

Eh, I loved it. Yeah it had poor controls and track designs, but after Sonic 3D Blast, anything was good in comparison.

Also, the music? ROCKS.

 

[jarrod]

Mickey Mania was great looking for the time too.

Also, didn't Sonic Team have a hand in the 3D engine used in Sonic R? I thought it was derived from the NiGHTS engine actually, and used in Sonic Jam (Sonic World) and Sonic 3D Blast Saturn (bonus levels) as well?

 

[Mr_Furious]

Sonic R (similarly to majority of the polygon games of the 32-bit era) is best left in memory. It's your fault for deciding to play it now

 

[Cimarron]

It was a fun game I liked it. A fun Sonic Racer with tons of cheesy music. Whats not to like. Half you guys damn well know if the vocals were j-pop gibberish that you would jizzing all over the soundtrack! A next gen update with a little more care taking into the quality would be nice.

 

[casmaksen]

http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/198698.asp?q=sonic r

i'd a gree with their average. i'd say 7 out of 10 was about right. The music was decent (had the female vocalist from D'ream i think), the handling took getting used to but the exploration and short cuts were cool but defo needed more tracks.