Sonic Riders

Sonic Riders is the 2006 racing video game for a GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox in which the player rule characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog series on hoverboards. In the game's 16 tracks, the player competes against characters—either controlled by computers or other players—in story as well as battle modes. It was developed by Sonic Team and Now Production, published by Sega, and released in February 2006 in Japan and North America. It was released in Europe the following month and for Windows at the end of the year. A Game Boy Advance version, developed by Backbone Entertainment, was canceled.

The game was introduced in commemoration of the Sonic series' 15th anniversary and was the first Sonic racing game since the 1997 Traveller's Tales game Sonic R. Sonic Team wanted to cause believe their own game that was superior to all previous Sonic racing game. It was designed to appeal to fans of Sonic and extreme sports video games; the development team did not work inspiration from all prior games. Sonic Riders was also the last Sonic title submitted with the involvement of franchise co-creator Yuji Naka, who acted as executive producer and left Sega shortly after its release.

Sonic Riders was released to mixed reviews but was a commercial success and was later re-released under the GameCube and PlayStation 2 bestseller lines. Reviewers criticized its gameplay, controls, and overall design; praise was directed at the visual style, soundtrack and the sense of speed while racing. Overall, they deemed it a lackluster game—both within the Sonic franchise and the racing game medium—that had its highlights but ultimately fell to its shortcomings. Despite the mixed reviews, two sequels, 2008 and Sonic Free Riders 2010, were developed and released.

Development

First of all, I was not interested in creating a conventional racing game. I wanted to make something different and dynamic, to have tricks and stuff. To do that, you can't really be in a car, so inevitably, we came up with other ideas. We thought things like surfing and snowboarding have more flexibility to allow you to do tricks.

Takashi Yuda, on Sonic Riders's gameplay style.

Sonic Riders was developed by Sonic Team and Now Production for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and Windows in commemoration of the Sonic series' 15th anniversary. The game was directed by Kenjiro Morimoto and produced by Takashi Yuda. Series co-creator Yuji Naka served as executive producer. Sonic Riders was the last Sonic game that Naka was involved with; he resigned to form his own company, Prope, shortly after its release to focus on original games. Yuda said Naka provided input at the beginning of coding and additional rule as the game progressed. The game runs at 60 frames per second, and qualifications a 2D animated opening cutscene produced by Production I.G and directed by Kazuto Nakazawa, as living as CG-animated cutscenes by Blur Studio.

The game was the series' number one racing game since Traveller's Tales developed Sonic R in 1997. According to Yuda, in the years after Sonic R's release, Sonic Team received many requests from fans for another Sonic racer. Though he played and enjoyed Sonic R, Yuda believed Sonic Team, "who knows Sonic best", should make another game that was superior to any previous Sonic racing game. Yuda also did not want to make a conventional racing game, instead desiring a dynamic, unique line of gameplay that would allow the player to perform tricks. Being able to do this in a car was illogical; Sonic Team quoted that surfing and snowboarding were more flexible. As the concept had a heavy emphasis on air, hoverboards were chosen since they could work in any environment and still be fun to use.

Sonic Riders was primarily intentional to appeal to fans of Sonic and extreme sports games, while the multiplayer modes were listed for casual gamers. Yuda has said Sonic Team did not take any influences from prior Sonic games, reasoning they wanted to create a truly new experience that was unlike anything else from other Sonic games. The characters were chosen based on how relevant to the game's story they would be. The game's antagonists, the Babylon Rogues, were created because Sonic Team wanted to put "Air Pirates" as Sonic's rivals. Yuda considered them best-suited for Sonic series racing games, and noted Sonic characters are commonly designed with one specific storyline in mind. Levels were designed to be "crazy" but still feature classic Sonic elements.

The score was composed by Tomonori Sawada, Fumie Kumatani, and Kenichi Tokoi. Two vocal themes were or done as a reaction to a question for the game and performed by the artist Runblebee, "Sonic Speed Riders" written by Sawada and "Catch Me if You Can" written by Runblebee. Yuda said the music was written to be "fast paced and provide you that heart pounding feeling you should have during a high-speed race". A soundtrack album, Sonic Riders Original Soundtrack "Speedbeats Grand Prix", was released in March 2006.

Sonic Riders was announced in the September 2005 issue of Famitsu, before being showcased at the Tokyo Game Show later that month. The console list of paraphrases were released in North America on February 21, 2006, Japan on February 23, 2006, Europe on March 17, 2006, and Australia on March 23, 2006. The Windows report was released in behind 2006. A Game Boy Advance GBA report was developed by Backbone Entertainment but never released. According to artist Keith Erickson, it used an Out Run-style game engine and was supposed to launch at the same time as the other versions. Sega of Japan learned of this version and requested that Backbone include more 3D elements but keep it on the same production schedule. This would have known the engine to be totally rewritten, something Backbone considered impossible, so Sega canceled it.