Dan Geeks Out: Video Game Review #159: Sonic R

Sonic R

Sega Saturn

Nostalgia Factor:

I was super excited when Sonic R came out back in 1997. I wasn’t a huge fan of the racing genre, but at the same time I was a big fan of the Mario Kart games. I fully expected Sonic R to be just as good as the Mario Kart series. Being the loyal Sega supporter that I was, I went right out and bought myself a copy of the game.

My first impression of the game was not a good one. The graphics looked really sloppy and messy. There was a ton of background draw-in. There were only a small handful of tracks to race on. The music was flat out strange. And the controls…. my god, the controls. I could barely keep Sonic going in a straight line, much less to the finish line of the race course.

Did I have a serious case of buyer’s remorse after the first time I played this game? You bet.

The more I played Sonic R, the more it began to grow on me. I started to dig the music. Teenage Dan didn’t have a whole lot of other options to play on the Sega Saturn, so he spent many a night staying up into the wee hours of the morning playing this game over and over again. The controls were still a complete mess, but I was able to master them just enough to collect all of the hidden items in the game and unlock all the extra racers (not that I really used anyone outside of Sonic or Super Sonic). The game didn’t offer a whole lot of content or reasons to come back to it, but by the time I was done with it, I was satisfied. It was a short experience, but for the most part I got what I wanted to out of it. I had fun.

It has been years and years since the last time I’ve actually sat down and played this game again. I got it in either late 1997 or early 1998. Let's be generous and assume I played it into 1999. That would mean it has been at least 19 years since my last playthrough. I’ve been a little intimidated to come back and play the game again, because I know the controls are so terrible. Did I really have that much to worry about? Read on and find out.

Story:

As far as I know, there is no story here. You pick your Sonic character and you race against other Sonic characters. That’s it.

There are hidden Chaos Emeralds located in the game’s stages that you can collect, so it wouldn’t shock me if there is some kind of “Dr. Robotnik trying to steal the Emeralds” plot in there somewhere. I never bothered to read the instruction manual, so if there is a story, it is news to me.

Gameplay:

Grand Prix mode is the meat and potatoes of this game. There are other modes to pick from, like Time Attack, but I never bothered with them. Sonic R also offers a two player split-screen mode, but again, I never really bothered with that either.

When you start Grand Prix mode, you get to pick from four characters you’d like to race as. I’d go into great detail about how each racer differs from the others, but I always just picked Sonic every time. He is Sega’s flagship character, so of course he is going to be the fastest and most well-rounded of the bunch.

After picking a character, you are then presented with a whopping….. four tracks to pick from? Four? Really? Hmm. Anyway, assuming you play them in order, they are: a Green Hill Zone-like course, a Casino Nights-like course, an ancient ruins inspired course, and an industrial-style course. If you finish in first place on all of these courses, you unlock a fifth course that seems like it is inspired by Mario Kart’s Rainbow Road, except instead of the course being made of rainbows, it is made of glittering jewels. Beat that course, and the ending credits start to roll. Game over. Seriously, you can beat this game in about 15 or 20 minutes.

If you are just playing to beat the game, you are missing out. Each stage contains a surprising amount of hidden items. The first course contains a Chaos Emerald. The rest of the courses each have two Chaos Emeralds. They are pretty easy to collect. This is the first Sonic game where I never actually had an issue collecting all the Emeralds. Once you collect all the Emeralds, you unlock Super Sonic. Super Sonic almost breaks the game entirely. He is absurdly fast, and much easier to control than the other characters. You can almost finish each course with your eyes closed when you’re in control of Super Sonic.

Each track also contains five Sonic tokens. You have to collect each token while still finishing in first place. If you can do this successfully, you then square off against a secret character in a one-on-one showdown. Beat the secret character, and you unlock them to play as. Most of these secret characters are useless, however. I only unlock them because I am a completionist. That’s it for single player. Once you’ve collected all the Chaos Emeralds and unlocked all the characters, you are pretty much done.

Now we’re going to talk about the controls. Make no mistake about it, the characters in this game do not handle very well. You hold the up button to make your character run forward, left and right to control your direction, and down to slow down. You can also jump. That’s it. Pretty basic, huh? The problem is that your character moves a bit too fast, and there are a ton of sharp turns in the game. You are constantly going to find yourself barreling around and crashing into things. Constantly. You are the proverbial bull in the china shop. Even if you slow down and are extremely cautions, your character movements are still wild and jerky and unpredictable. Why is it so hard to control your characters? You can’t go backwards or put your character in reverse, so if you get stuck against a wall or in a corner, good luck to you!

One thing that will help you out is the ability to use the controller’s shoulder buttons to lean into your turns. It is still hard to control your character, but this does help. In fact, you are going to find yourself in a world of trouble if you don’t utilize those shoulder buttons. Mastering them is an absolute must if you want to beat this game.

I have to give the game credit for its level design. Sure, all the courses seem to be inspired by pre-existing Sonic the Hedgehog stage tropes, but you can’t deny that they are a ton of fun to explore. The wonky control scheme is a hindrance to exploring these stages, but that is a different subject altogether. The stages are large, expansive, and contain a large number of hidden shortcuts and secrets. Half the fun in this game is taking the time to explore each stage in detail (while not caring if you finish the race in last place or not) so that you can come back on your next attempt and collect everything in time. It helps to get all the Chaos Emeralds first, and then come back after you’ve unlocked Super Sonic to collect all the hidden tokens, some of which are hidden well off of the beaten path.

Graphics:

There are things to like and things to dislike about the game’s graphics. By today’s standards, it probably looks like a mess. Some of the characters are pixelated and flicker at the joints. Textures are a little sloppy, especially when you get in close to them. The game’s background draw is painful on the eyes.

That said, the game is very bright and colorful. The character models look nice. There are a lot of cool lighting and water effects to be seen. Despite its flaws, the game’s visuals just ooze classic Sonic charm. They built a really nice and detailed cartoon world for you to race on. I can only sit here and dream when I think about how cool a fully realized Sonic 3D platformer would have been on the Sega Saturn. Even if they didn’t fix any of the graphical flaws of Sonic R, it still would have been an amazing sight to see.

While we’re on the topic of graphics, I have to bring up how there is a remastered version of the game available on the Sonic Gems Collection for the Gamecube. When I played Sonic R, I played it on the Saturn for my initial playthrough. I finished first on all the courses, but my shoulder buttons on the controller weren’t working properly, making it tough to collect all the hidden items. I then switched over to the Gems Collection so I could properly finish the game and collect everything. Both versions of the game are pretty much identical, but the graphics on the Gems Collection are a lot more polished. Everything looks pretty darn good. All the rough edges from the Saturn version have been smoothed out. This version even adds some cool weather effects randomly to each course. If you want to give Sonic R a chance, I’d say to pick the Gems Collection version as it is a lot prettier than the original.

This unlockable character is the thing of nightmares

Sound:

Sonic R’s soundtrack is either love it or hate it. When I first got the game, I thought that the music was terrible. I was expecting something along the lines of the Sonic 3 or Sonic & Knuckles soundtrack. What did I get instead? Some unknown artist singing goofy songs about feeling the sunshine and living in the city. Every stage has its own song that goes with it, each one slightly sillier than the last. I imagine that the game’s soundtrack made a lot of people go WTF when they first played this game. Over time, it grows on you though. Now, I consider Sonic R’s soundtrack to be one of the all-time best video game soundtracks. Yeah, it is corny as hell, but it just seems appropriate to the game somehow. Sonic R wouldn’t be the same without its soundtrack. It is one of the most charming things about it.

The game’s sound effects are exactly what you’d expect from a Sonic game. The sounds you make when you jump and collect rings are all lifted right from the old classics. Can’t complain about that!

Combine the game’s music and its classic sound effects and you have a winning combination as far as audio goes.

Overall:

If you have the time and the patience necessary to master the game’s wooden controls, you should have a fun time with Sonic R. The game is short, though, and there is not a whole lot of content to be found here. You can finish the game and see everything there is to see in single player in about a day or two. Unless you are a serious collector, I would say that you shouldn’t spend more than five bucks on this game.

I am sure that multiplayer adds some replay value when you are battling it out with your friends. I have never had a whole lot of friends, so multiplayer was always a useless feature to me. I tried playing this with an ex-girlfriend once, but I was a jaded Sonic R veteran and it was her first time playing the game. She couldn’t get used to the controls and would end up running into walls and getting stuck. She got completely massacred by me in our head to head matchups. To be fair, the background draw in is especially bad on split screen. Also, it is very hard to see obstacles and turns and where to go when things are shrunk down like that. It was a bad experience and even I didn’t have a fun time when we were playing. This game’s multiplayer definitely has nothing on Mario Kart.

If you are looking for a quick, fun Sonic game that you have never played before, check out Sonic R! I almost look at it more as a platformer where you race against the clock to collect items than I do an actual racing game. No, the game is not flawless by any stretch of the imagination, and the multiplayer is completely useless, but it is still a lot of fun. Sonic R is an acquired taste though, from its control scheme all the way down to its very interesting soundtrack. I can say with absolute certainty that this is one of the most unique games I have ever played. I can also say with certainty that this game is NOT for everyone.

Final Score: