Its hard to believe that its been 20 years since Sonic Riders appeared on consoles like PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube. Sonic Riders was considered to be one of Sega’s most innovative Sonic spin-off titles ever. Sonic Riders felt like a cross between Mario Kart and SSX in terms of gameplay and featured futuristic stages and aesthetics that reflected the 2000’s culture. Sonic Riders was one of the few decent titles after Sonic Adventure 2 that people have fond memories about because it ended up being way better than it had any business being. Sonic Riders was about the blue hedgehog and his gang participating in a worldwide grand-prix with the winner getting a ultra rare Chaos Emerald. Along with the inclusion of characters like Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy Rose Sega included new characters named Jet, Storm and Wave also known as the Babylon Rouges.

In Sonic Riders the Babylon Rouges served primarily as the antagonists prior to the end of the game with Eggman being the main villain. If anything the Babylon Rouges were mainly anti-heroes who competed with Sonic and his gang in world-prix while Eggman manipulated events behind the scenes causing tension between both groups. Sonic Riders had both a Hero and a Babylon story where players got to play as characters from each group in order to complete missions for storyline progression. Sonic Riders had roughly around 16 playable stages were players and CPU opponents had to complete a series of laps with air boards. In Sonic Riders players could grind on rails while collecting rings and entering air pits to perform tricks in order to recharge the extreme gear meter. In Sonic Riders players could also recharge their extreme gear at pit stops in the middle of racing which which was also pretty cool to. Not only were the race tracks exciting but the soundtrack for Sonic Heroes was surprisingly good. Sonic Riders also provided Dr. Eggman as a playable character along with the likes of Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat who were unlockable characters. The cutscenes and voice over acting in Sonic Riders were both impressive and humorous. There are many people who believed that Sonic Riders was a worthy spiritual successor to Sonic R from ’97.

Also, Sonic Riders felt like a more exciting game than Mario Kart Wii from 2008 which many believe was highly overrated despite its massive commercial success. Sonic Riders managed to reach at least 1.4 million copies in sales following its release in 2006. While Sonic Riders got a direct sequel in 2008 the Zero Gravity game mainly got a negative reception due to altered gameplay mechanics and the series eventually faded away. The original Sonic Riders game is one that deserves more from the gaming community than it gets because of how epic it was during the mid-2000’s. The intro for Sonic Riders looked like something related to Rocket Power could have been a television series. If anything Sega not making television series for Sonic Riders was missed opportunity on their part. Despite, Sonic Riders being two decades the game still has a cult following to this day with many Sega fans hoping for a reboot sometime in the future.