Remember folks: We're showing the Sega Saturn release of the game. The PC release was different. All ports of the game since have used the PC release to port from.
Everyone upset that you didn't give Sonic R a fair shake is just commenting without watching to the end of the video where you talk about it being in Sonic Gems.
Balan was actually worse,because is every button, to be fair to the Sega Saturn only 3 of the six buttons does the same, I think they were trying yo mimic the Gensis/Mega Drive where the 3 button do the same on a Sonic game.
Yeah, you do know that Balan and Sonic R pretty much ripped the button mapping off from friggin' BUBSY, right?!...I mean, WHO TRIES TO COPY BUBSY?! Especially since Bubsy was trying to be both Mario and Sonic and failing horribly, even including falling damage in a 2D Platformer!
@@NashTheBlade so Bubsy copied Mario and sonic and Sonic technically copied Mario and then copied Bubsy and Mario Kart? This is like a paradox of coming full circle.
Traveller's Tales actually did a great job with what they were given. They did a lot of graphical stuff thought to be impossible on the Saturn. The gameplay of the game sucked though, because TT was not given enough time to actually make it a decent game, and Sega rushed it out.
@@rerez as was everything else prior to & after the Saturn. SEGA, as far as I’m concerned, should’ve known that Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo were already beating them to the punch; the straw that breaks the camel’s back is that they’ve made incredibly terrible design choices & were trying way too hard to take control over Nintendo. So essentially, much like Sonic, they were getting pretty cocky. The only good thing Sonic R is good for, is that Curse of the Tails Doll creepypasta.
@@1Thunderfire Definitely...and they never seem to learn from that, and keep doing it, and keep ending up shocked when things like Sonic 06 turn out to be crap.
This game is super nostalgic for me. Me and my siblings would play it together on the Sonic Gems Collection. No, we didn’t race. We would play hide and seek by covering one half of the TV with a DDR mat and the other person had to run around the level looking for them.
Funnily enough I did a similar thing but it was with Kirby Air Ride in City Trial; having all the machines available in the free roaming mode for that meant basically everything was an option. Now the DDR mat pat I don't think was a thing... then again I had one from DDR Mario Mix but that was so long ago I wouldn't remember.
@@Goodbadie that should be an actual multiplayer mode. 1v1 or teams. One side has guns (nothing with splash damage and no killstreaks - you're required to directly spot someone in order to kill them), the other just sees how long they can survive by staying hidden or evading. Then they switch. Longest lives = winners!
The trick to completely breaking this game is...go backwards. As soon as a race starts, turn around and go the wrong way. Complete one lap in the wrong direction, collecting every Ring you can. Since you're doing the lap backwards, you'll reach most of the Rings before any other racers do. This not only makes you insanely fast, but also denies the other racers of most speed boosts. Once you have most of the Rings, grab the Emerald, then start heading the correct direction. Due to you having hoarded all of the Rings, you'll be fast enough to undo the difference in lap distance and still grab the 1st place.
You do know that the rings respawn, right? I don’t think this strat would work most of the time. Sure, maybe if you’re only after the racing aspect, but if you go after every collectible the computer is going to kick your ass, especially in reactive factory
This is a terrible strategy that would only work for the very first race and only if you are playing as Sonic. Every other character is simply too slow for this to even be feasible. The AI is not stupid enough to just let you win races.
@@rerez Don't bother. To be honest, I'm getting really sick of people complaining about Sonic games in general, especially Sonic 06. Also, get better at Sonic R. Like, holy crap. That gameplay was painful to watch.
@@jakescartoons6045 Say what you will, it's okay to have an opinion, but I for one would watch the heck out of that. I hope they actually do it. I got my friend a new copy of Sonic '06 on PS3 for Christmas a few years back as a kind of gag gift. 😄 Good times were had.
@@Commenter560 I can't trust the words from Rerez though, and this video is proof of that. It's nothing but complaining, and they didn't bring up a single positive point for "Sonic R". I've played the game myself on both the Saturn and Gamecube, and it really isn't as bad as they're making it out to be. Mediocre? Sure, but not terrible. Also, the idea of bashing "Sonic 06" has been beaten to the ground repeatedly. What will Rerez say that hasn't been said before?
@@jakescartoons6045 I gotcha. It's possible that they purposely make their videos this way, with an unspoken shtick of eggageration. I have Sonic R on GameCube myself. May have to give it more of a chance based on what you think. As for Sonic '06, for me it wouldn't even necessarily be that they have anything new to add, though that would be great. The reason this channel stands out so much to me is because of the high-quality presentation, along with the attention to detail regarding the actual content in the videos. They have what I could call "the Rerez style" that really makes them stand out. I can tell these guys are truly passionate about gaming.
And Big Rigs too. That game feels like the devs were trying to find mistakes in games, just for the sake of doing absolutely everything as wrong as possible.
@@SoggyHotDoggy Plus, creepypasta references aside, the Tails Doll was apparently the best character in the game because of being able to float, and Boozerman's mother-son headcanon for Marine and him is fucking adorable, IMO.
I really love how you don't have to run through the loops, you can just pass near them. In fact, passing by them really shortens the tracks. I love this game. Everything goes in it. It's a race to the death.
Hey, the game lets you play the way you want it to, and it even lets the AI also play how it wants, props to them letting me drive up to a pillar and do some weird ramp glitch to send me into space.
@@catscanhavelittleasalami You know, funniest thing is, I just saw the Rerez Balan video being recommended on my homepage. I'm watching it this very second and I just saw a notification that I got a comment on this post. Crazy how coincidental that is.
The Sega Saturn in general should be taught as an example of how not to launch an console. Between their jumping the gun on the release date and angrying consumers and retails alike to Sega of Japan and Sega of America not being on the same page. It's an miracle it lasted 2 years. Also being hard to develop didn't help
I'd say looking at Sega's history through the 90's is how to absolutely mess up a great running start before utterly wiping out over and over. Too many consoles/add-ons, bad leadership, some confused marketing, and terrible cross Pacific working relationship between the two company branches.
Honestly, I feel like this game would've worked pretty well with Kirby Air Ride design. Intensely focused on speed and using a dash in order to drift/turn, no clue if that would've been possible on the Saturn though.
@@nyahnyahson523 Yeah. Also i realy would wish for a new Kirby air ride for the switch. Especially the city trial modus was just amazing! Just make it with more maps and online modus :D
My though exactly; as the game mechanics were explained, I kept thinking "This sounds good, this is clever". In fact it's probably that mix of mechanics that brought the game down, with developers having to cope with several different gameplay mechanics that probably couldn't have worked together fine. Hell, the ballon thing bugged me to no end. If you told me "Let's make a Sonic racing game mode where you have to collect items to win" my first though would me "CHAOS EMERALDS" And yes, the Chaos Emeralds are in the game. Except, not where it belongs. This game would probably had benefited from having a "classic race mode", a "collectathon mode" (where having more rings and/or finding secrat paths give you bonus so you could end 2nd or 3rd and yet still win) and the "balloon/Chaos Emerald collect" game. Of course, if would have benefited form having better race design, more balanced characters, and better handling overall... But even with good, tight control, as it is, the game would be only somewhat better.
In regards to the Chaos Emeralds in Regal Ruins, the pyramids lose their collision the moment their respective doors are unlocked. So you technically don't have to return on the next lap or stand there and wait to collect; you can just run straight through them and grab the emeralds.
@TornaderX To be fair, this is the average person's experience with this game. Normal (healthy) people aren't as willing to sit through a bunch of junk as we are.
@@Schnort I’d consider my time with the game casual. I just happen to play it again after years and found out about the pyramid thing by accident because I ran into one. Figured other people did the same due to the game’s insistence about getting first place with the emeralds because I sure as hell didn’t remember a thing about Sonic R before playing it again.
It was also great fun as a 10 year old inviting a friend to play it with you, letting them go with Super Sonic and still beating them when playing as Amy or Eggman.
Absolutely loved this game as a kid. I can be more critical of it now that I'm older, but as a kid this game was pure fun. That's gotta count for something, dammit!
I get where you guys are coming from, but I guarantee you that more fun would've been had with that time and energy devoted to Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing. And to a considerably lesser extent, Twisted Metal 2 and Gran Turismo.
@@nthgth I don't know, Mario Kart was mostly drift to win assuming items didn't screw you over, which just makes it more frustrating than fun to me. Never played Diddy Kong, but the little I have seen of it makes it seem more interesting. Mostly in that there's flying. Twisted Metal was fun, I'll give you that, but in a distinctly different way, but the single player could absolutely be a frustrating endeavour at times. Lastly, Gran Turismo was a meh to me. At the time I really didn't like sim racers, even now I'm not especially fond of them. Sim racers like Forza Horizon that get away from the standard race tracks are a major personal preference, and even then I can get bored fairly quickly. Around that time, what I'd say was the most enjoyable racer for me (and my friends too luckily) was San Francisco Rush 2049. Criminally underrated, functional open maps with a plethora of secrets and alternate routes. It has a battle mode similar to Twisted Metal, though there's no bots unfortunately. A stunt mode, as the cars have wings to glide and provide a modicum of air control. Also has a love it or hate it soundtrack. Yes Sonic R is flawed and strictly speaking the games you suggested were technically better, but Sonic R does have an unique charm in it's flaws. While the complexity of the tracks is a bit much, I love that you can go your own way in the races, plus the characters actually play distinctly differently unlike most racers.
@@ShaimingLong Very fair comments. I wouldn't altogether agree about Mario Kart - it seems to me, mostly item use and maneuvering are the keys to winning (steering, I don't really drift) - but I *100% agree* about Rush 2049. I thought about mentioning it in my original comment, but decided against it since it's pretty obscure. I grew up with older SF Rush and Rush 2 which are more rudimentary, but nonetheless my cousin and I got countless hours of fun out of those too.
As Jon Burton states, Sonic R was meant to be a completely different Formula 1 game. Sega demanded it to be harshly turned into a Sonic racing game after the Sonic Xtreme demise.
According to director Jon Burton, who was one of the responsible people for this garbage, there is a reason why the controls suck: It was initially developed as an Formula 1 game (there's even a McLaren MP4-11 in the hidden files), but Sega suddenly appeared and asked them to retool it into a Sonic racing game with platforming elements.
i have to ask for a detailed rundown of why ppl say the controls suck because i've played each version of this game, and i've never struggled with the controls (^ ▽ ^;)
@@nthgth Yeah sure, If someone actively wants to punish himself with terrible controls. I played (and completed) both of them recently, they aged badly compared for say F Zero X which still owesome nowadays. oh, and "unnecessary" isn't exatcly what I call a game from which nintendo baesd some of the mechanics in their later installments. Don't get me wrong, I adore Double Dash, MK DS, MK 7 and 8 and played them a lot of times and other nintendo games in general, but I'm a little tired of people calling CTR inferior or even unnecessary with no actual reason. Peace out
I was a SEGA fanboy who didn't have a Saturn because my parents refused to buy me one. After a few years I played Sonic Gems Collections and finally tried Sonic R, and I couldn't believe how bad it was. My surprise now knowing it was actually a better version than the original.
It's a sonic on foot racing game. It should be a no brainer. But they fucked it up so badly it's barely been attempted since and they mostly just force him into cars now... at least Sonic Rivals 1 was decent and 2 was actually pretty awesome. Then again at the time this game was basically filler so the Saturn would get a Sonic game at all because Sonic Xtreme's development went so horribly wrong so maybe it just couldn't get the polish it needed.
Oh come on guys. The game isn't bad. I refuse to believe that. I've played games that are absolute trash, and "Sonic R" doesn't cut it. And no, I'm not saying it's my favorite game of all time (honestly, "Daytona USA" takes that spot), but the negative reactions towards "Sonic R" is way too overblown.
@@bigjohnsbreakfastlog5819 I mean, near the cancellation, the developers were overworking to the point of inhumane, and it ended up in some actually getting ill (Chris Senn, the main programmer for example got a pneumonia).
Can’t lie, this game is a guilty pleasure of mine. I enjoy playing through it from time to time, even if it does take only 45 minutes to complete. I’d like to see Sonic make another attempt at on-foot racing.
This game is pretty poop, I can see that. That said, it’s hated on way too much. Someone in the comments compared it to Superman 64 which is just absurd. Superman 64 is one of the most notorious games ever, and while Sonic R isn’t good by any means, it really can’t be that bad when it only takes 45 minutes to finish. If this was on the scale of say Forza Horizon then yeah, it’d blow. But it’s not, it’s just kind of “whatever.”
11:59 You actually don’t need to wait for the pyramid to open. When you open the door, the collision on the pyramid turns off meaning you can waltz right through the pyramid walls and nab that emerald.
I am not at all in the Gran Turismo fandom and I know very little about the games. Yet I've already played it a bit at my uncle's house, AND THIS TOTALLY SPEAKS TO ME.
With the right version, Sonic R is absolutely a fun little diversion today. That doesn't change the fact that upon release it was yet another bad decision that helped bring down an entire console. On a system with no mainline Sonic game, no one was asking for this. Historical context matters.
*The head developer of this game has a RUclips channel called GameHut, he seems very proud of the translucent R icon in the main Menu, explaining how he managed that amazing effect.*
As weird as it seems, the hardware in the Saturn indeed can't do transparency without serious trickery; that is probably why he is so proud of something that appears to be so trivial.
He has several other videos about Sonic R, showing that the people complaining about Traveler's Tales programming abilities are barking up the wrong tree. This game would have needed a lot more design, tuning and QA time, but that just wasn't happening - much like Big Rigs, this game was shipped once it reached the "well it's no longer crashing after being on for 20 minutes" kind of stage in development. Jon is an extremely competent programmer - given enough time to devote to actually making the game feel good this could have been right up there with Mario Kart. The fault is with SEGA on this one.
@@peterjohnson9438 yep, he says in one of those videos that Sega told them they had a year more than they ended up having - and it was a rush at the original pace. Jon says that basically once Sega realised the Saturn needed a big release, it went from "give us the sonic version of something like Mario Kart" to "give us something we can release now, as long as it doesn't crash"
@@medes5597 that still happens: investor and publisher pressure causes bad releases. When good developers release bad games, the problem can usually be found at the top: project management decides they can get a bigger game done faster if only they make the devs have more meetings and submit reports, or the publisher starts pushing aggressive marketing way before the game is even in beta phase, investors start demanding a game be released right now because they're tired of waiting for results (usually happens if a project is going into overtime for some reason).. Good developers with a good prototype can make a good game 90% of the time, but nobody will like the results if their hands are metaphorically tied behind their back or someone forces the game onto market before it's finished. To this day I don't get why the concept of "unfinished game is bad, bad game doesn't sell" is so hard for a businessperson to understand.
When Sega cancelled Sonic X-Treme, they were in need a game so they came to Travellers Tales, who previously created Sonic 3D Blast and asked them to make another Sonic game. They were working on an F1 title, so why not turn it into a Sonic racing game? There's a lot of videos on Sonic R and 3D Blast as well as plenty other TT games on Jon Burton's channels GameHut and Coding Secrets.
Your subscriber count must be so embarrassingly low that you deciding to hide it from the public. Glad I decided to block your channel from ever coming up in my subscription or recommendation feed
I remember being a young kid and playing this on the demo station in Best Buy. It was so cool to see Sonic in 3D that I put up with the running controls….oh man the abuse started so long ago…
Somehow even if its bad i have a soft spot for Sonic R, i dunno maybe its the weird 90's charm, the overly exaggerated cheesey soundtrack, the fact you have Cyber Knuckles and Tails Doll and Eggman playable, and the fact that even if its bad at both being a platformer and a kart racer but still being those things while they could just simply said "slap sonic into a car and get it done with it already" which they already did before this game with Sonic Drift but they instead went with "What if is a Sonic Kart Racer but Sonic runs on foot?" it makes it stand out even with all its flaws. Its like Sonic The Fighters/Championship yes is a virtua fighter sonic clone, yes its ridiculous and doesnt do anything different to stand out, but the fact that a Virtua Fighter like Sonic fighting game exists is on its own unique and i will always have a soft spot for that. Yes was a total failure, yes it had to pass like more than 20 years until we got a proper "Kart racer" game with Sonic that wasnt a total bust, yes Cyber Knuckles and Tails Doll are MIA since this game being playable, but still you gotta commend that from all the clone racers out there this one had charm and was at least kinda unique on its own, even being a total failure at the things it wanted to do, the fact that exists and didnt just said "scrap all of this, its not working stick to traditional kart racing" is an achivement on its own. Also we do have now the equivalent to Mario Kart 64 with Sonic Robo Blast Kart, while its insanely popular and doesnt have the right to be that good, and i sincerely recommend anybody downloading it and playing it with friends (trust me you will thank me later) i still think they could had added a on foot mode that still sticks to what SRBKart does but now combines the insanely good 3D platforming of SRB2 having the real Sonic R we should had have back in the day. Jon did some videos about Sonic R and how this game wasnt even a Sonic game to begin with, it was an F1 game that they couldn't make and then sega told them to turn it into a Sonic racer game, he still likes this game even with all its flaws and even helped with some stuff for the recent fan made HD "remake" fans did that adds Widescreen and even fixes the FOV and draw distance, even has better texture resolution and native support for modern OS's.
We all have that game we like even though we know it’s bad. For me, it’s Shadow the Hedgehog. I loved that game as a kid, and even though nowadays I can truly see how *awful* it is, I will always have a soft spot from nostalgia for that game. XD
🎶"Super Sonic Racing"🎶 I don't care what everybody said but the soundtrack that song alone is catchy as hell. but yeah, the rest of the game is just bad!
I actually love Sonic R. Played it this year for the first time in Sonic Gems Collection. It’s a unique on-foot racing game with exploration to it. I really love the banger music and play it outside the game. Even with all the problems I can still have a fun time with R. Beaten and unlocked everything in the game. With no good balancing, this isn’t a fair game. Good thing I decide to play it by myself. Can’t imagine making anyone play this game they might not tolerate how it is.
The gems collection uses the improved pc port. Which is a lot more tolerable than the original saturn release. One of the travellers tales devs has a RUclips channel about coding and even he says the original saturn release was deeply messed up. And the thing is, the pc port is just rebalanced a bit and given a month or so of fixes from the devs and it's not bad. Imagine how good Sonic R could have been had they actually given them the extra year Sega had originally told travellers tales they had. It could have genuinely been an all time great, and really helped point the direction for 3D sonic. It was such a missed opportunity.
Very easily games like Sonic And The Secret Rings took the hell of a less amount of work, distributed by a team of many, with no innovative programming techniques and no actual pushing of the limitations of the console they were made in. The way I see it, Sonic R is quite a good game comparing to many of the modern era Sonic games. This is like if you try to compare Pacman with Cyperpunk, Pacman is still better. I also personally don't think the game is really that bad. It looks pretty good for the time it was made on.
The controls are slightly better and the graphics are improved massively. I played both the Saturn version and the Sonic Gems version: with the first, I couldn't win a single race even on easy, with the other I unlocked Eggman in the span of under an hour on medium.
And The SS Version Looked Great, More So With It's Lighting Too. That's Other Thing Going for it imo. (Thanks Blaze The Hedgehog for showing it out in your Sonic R Video, Just In Case He's Watching ths video.)
Toy Story Racer wasn't just decent, it was amazing. The amount that you could do in the game with battle modes with the Ai, race maps in reverse, race your opponents and the last racer will drop out on every lap (which was intense cause it would be down to you and your opponent).
Travelers Tales is the weirdest mixed bag of a developer. They pulled off some amazing technical feats in the 16 and 32 bit eras, but the games themselves were often not great.
Not always a great programmer is demanded to code a great game. This game was made in a rush, and TT didn't decide the concept of the game (also for obvious reasons).
When you understand the amount of time, work and planning those games took, even if disliking the gameplay, you learn to enjoy this is part of the work of one of the most successful programmers of the Genesis and Saturn eras, and understand that a really bad game is very different from this. Very easily games like Sonic And The Secret Rings took the hell of a less amount of work, distributed by a team of many, with no innovative programming techniques and no actual pushing of the limitations of the console they were made in. The way I see it, Sonic R is quite a good game comparing to many of the modern era Sonic games. This is like if you try to compare Pacman with Cyperpunk. Pacman is still better. Think about this.
A great example of a flawed game with a lot of potential is Super Monkey Ball Adventure. Just like Sonic R, the idea and execution is amazing on paper.
It’s pretty crazy seeing such a critical review of this game after watching the lead developer, Jon Burton, talk about how he made the fade-in effect for the short draw distance. Don’t get me wrong, the criticism seems well deserved; it’s just such a different perspective going from the developer’s achievements to the players’ annoyance.
What's even worse is that this isn't the first Sonic racing game. There were a couple on the Game Gear called Sonic Drift and Sonic Drift 2 released in 1994 and 1995 respectively.
Fun fact about Diddy Kong racing since you mentioned it, the OST came on a CD that couldn’t actually be played because it was shaped like Diddy Kong’s head instead of being a circle
I remember that from the Nintendo Power catalog lol. I figured the disc could be played because of the audio track being within a circular domain on the weird shaped CD, but never tried it myself
There’s no words for how much I love this series. It proves that you can still make fun of shitty games, and it can still be funny. The writing, the editing, use of humor are all great. In a more thoughtful, more mature presentation. This is what AVGN could have evolved into.
This game had one hell of a history. It started off a formula 1 racing game and was cobbled together at Sega's request into a Sonic Game by TT after Sonic Xtreme basically crashed and burned.
I always enjoy your take on Just Bad review on games such this both on the thumbnail and your funny edits. I’ll love to see your take on Drake and the 99 dragons and also Tomb Raider and the angel of darkness.
My grandparents bought me a bundle that came with Sonic CD and Sonic R for the PC. I remember Sonic R being great and going out of my way to unlock absolutely everything. I think this is the first review I watched that not only acknowledged the existence of the PC port, but also explain the differences between the Saturn and PC versions. I thank you for the entertaining video.
@@zeldagameryt4018 agreed to me ctr and Diddy Kong racing are the best racing games I've played. They should remake Diddy Kong racing too many Mario karts these days, I grew tired of them.
@@Nobutehuhh oh i had one of these when i was a child (also a vhs and one of those old phones that stay on the desk) but i never knew they were named crt
@@yourfatboy5359 Yeah most people just call them fat TVs lol, which is fitting. I gotta pick up a Sony one before collectors jack the prices up even higher.
I loved sonic R as a kid, it was the PC port. I know it's terrible and at the time I think I knew it wasn't great, but the music was great and it was satisfying to get super Sonic. Many good memories with my sibling
Same, man. Theres a part of me that's kinda curious to try it out again as I actually have a lot of nastaulgia for it. But then theres another part that knows I'd just ruin said nastaulgia.
I remember getting all the emeralds then got mad at my little bro for accidentally overwriting my file. In his defense, the game makes it REALLY easy to overwrite your data with a blank slate (the game starts BEFORE you access a file select. Wtf?)
Really don’t agree with this. The footage in places was purposely made to make the game look worse, running straight into a wall and then turning left when the rest of the characters went right just to try and emphasise the controls? 🤔 What racing game has anyone played for the first time and not bumped into something anyways lol. It takes a little time to understand and get used to the controls and learn the stages…really loved it as a kid, I used to be able to do a run collecting all 5 coins and the emerald and still coming 1st in the same race. They made this game to be more explored than more or a fast racer…I understand Sonic has that speed reputation, but I enjoyed it for being something different and unique, and not a simple Mario Kart rehash like most of the kart racers are. Hilariously, that point about the Radiant Emerald track being seethru, and getting slated for copying off of Mario Karts Rainbow Road, imagine if SEGA did completely rip off Mario Kart like you guys seemed to had wanted, you’d have still slated them for no originalilty probably lol. Kind of like Sonic Drift and All Stars Racing / Team Sonic Racing had stick for in the past. Can’t win I guess 🤷♂️. I love Sonic R, it’s fun to play, has top tier music, and holds great childhood memories. Bullyish back and forth about how bad it is…whilst I know is the majority of the thing for this channel, just hurts a little when it’s about a game you love, so apologies if its easy to trigger us fans and we sound defensive…we have to be when it’s about a loved one! 😋
While I agree with a lot of things you said, I think you should've pointed out the power difference between the Saturn and the N64. Of *course* the draw distance is going to be higher for the N64 games, it was a generation ahead in terms of processing capability. While I don't really like to play it, I think it is a very impressive game for the Saturn. The maps are clunky and overdesigned to show off that yes, the Saturn *can* do 3D games. But having 5 3D models, in a complex 3D environment, all acting independently of one another? That's insane for the Saturn! I realize that just saying "the hardware was bad" doesn't excuse most of the game's problems, but it's also important to realize what context the game was released in.
Gotta talk about Life of Black Tiger, Aleckine's Gun, Bubsy 3d, Contra Rogue Corps, Batman Forever (Genesis or SNES), Fantasia, MK Mythologies Sub Zero, and Mega Man X7.
ANOTHER FACT: Sonic R was in fact the very last time that sonic & pals were seen in their old classic forms. As every big sonic title since sonic adventure: the game that released the year after, saw characters in a new design (except sonic mania, as its tailored to the series history)
This seems like an idea that should be revisited and done correctly today. Forgo the platforming part, focus on the racing itself, focus on a more liner track design, there are plenty of past levels of sonic games over the generations to base tracks on, fans would love to see tracks based on a level of two from sonic adventures 1 or 2 mixed with a retro level like chemical plant from metal sonic. Take the idea of diddy Kong racing allowing you to have multiple types of vehicles. Speedy characters like sonic and shadow could obviously run or use a car (shadow would use a motorcycle) while characters like tails could run or use his airplane from the video games. Make the game cross platform on all 3 consoles. In this day and age this concept can be done well
As someone who has played Sonic R enough to memorize it's layouts and get every collectible in every level in one straight shot, it's all completely true. No denying how cool the soundtrack and Metal Knuckles are tho.
Sonic r: map 1 action to 3 buttons Balan Wonderworld: You can do that? Money ghost: seriously, why do these developers keep making these terrible f*cking games?! One answer: corporate greed
Literally the greatest soundtrack a video game has ever had. Fight me. :) ...it's a rough game, but I legit loved it when it came out. Once you get a hang of the controls, it IS playable & fun. I finished it and unlocked everything. I wouldn't have done that with a game that truly sucked.
I'll be damned though, the PC version with the sonic R improvement mod for physics and control tweaks as well as other quality of life improvements honestly makes it a really fun game, I finished the whole thing and had a blas
16:58 I believe holding the L button when attempting to pick the same character enables mirror matches. If you have a non-functional L button, you can't mirror match unless you pick your character before your opponent does and holds L.
Well, Mariokart 64 is in the same realm; First played it on my Wii and, oh boy those controls made me gag, Toad's Turnpike was making me depressed by how many cars I hit.
Remember folks: We're showing the Sega Saturn release of the game. The PC release was different. All ports of the game since have used the PC release to port from.
What version is better?
@@EggoBoi Any release that isn't Saturn. But they still have a lot of flaws.
That is just sad
@@rerez reasons why sonic R was bad
1 the Saturn
2 uh wait what was it? Ah yeah the Saturn
Everyone upset that you didn't give Sonic R a fair shake is just commenting without watching to the end of the video where you talk about it being in Sonic Gems.
Shane: "3 buttons all mapped to the jump button?"
Balan Wonderworld: "You can do that?"
this deserves top comment
Balan was actually worse,because is every button, to be fair to the Sega Saturn only 3 of the six buttons does the same, I think they were trying yo mimic the Gensis/Mega Drive where the 3 button do the same on a Sonic game.
Yeah, you do know that Balan and Sonic R pretty much ripped the button mapping off from friggin' BUBSY, right?!...I mean, WHO TRIES TO COPY BUBSY?! Especially since Bubsy was trying to be both Mario and Sonic and failing horribly, even including falling damage in a 2D Platformer!
@@NashTheBlade so Bubsy copied Mario and sonic and Sonic technically copied Mario and then copied Bubsy and Mario Kart? This is like a paradox of coming full circle.
If he was shocked at that, then he doesn't want to know how many jump buttons are used for the 6 button Genesis controller..
Traveller's Tales actually did a great job with what they were given. They did a lot of graphical stuff thought to be impossible on the Saturn. The gameplay of the game sucked though, because TT was not given enough time to actually make it a decent game, and Sega rushed it out.
Totally 100% agree. This is Sega's fault pure and simple.
@@rerez No excuse for the shitty controls.
@@rerez as was everything else prior to & after the Saturn. SEGA, as far as I’m concerned, should’ve known that Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo were already beating them to the punch; the straw that breaks the camel’s back is that they’ve made incredibly terrible design choices & were trying way too hard to take control over Nintendo. So essentially, much like Sonic, they were getting pretty cocky. The only good thing Sonic R is good for, is that Curse of the Tails Doll creepypasta.
Rushing things out seems to be the number one reason for poor Sega games.
@@1Thunderfire Definitely...and they never seem to learn from that, and keep doing it, and keep ending up shocked when things like Sonic 06 turn out to be crap.
This game is super nostalgic for me. Me and my siblings would play it together on the Sonic Gems Collection. No, we didn’t race. We would play hide and seek by covering one half of the TV with a DDR mat and the other person had to run around the level looking for them.
I used to do this as well with my brother but it was black ops 2 😂
Funnily enough I did a similar thing but it was with Kirby Air Ride in City Trial; having all the machines available in the free roaming mode for that meant basically everything was an option.
Now the DDR mat pat I don't think was a thing... then again I had one from DDR Mario Mix but that was so long ago I wouldn't remember.
That's freakin awesome, I've never heard of that but my sister and I would've loved that as kids
@@Goodbadie that should be an actual multiplayer mode. 1v1 or teams. One side has guns (nothing with splash damage and no killstreaks - you're required to directly spot someone in order to kill them), the other just sees how long they can survive by staying hidden or evading. Then they switch. Longest lives = winners!
@@nthgth yeah that's a good idea for a game mode.
The trick to completely breaking this game is...go backwards.
As soon as a race starts, turn around and go the wrong way. Complete one lap in the wrong direction, collecting every Ring you can. Since you're doing the lap backwards, you'll reach most of the Rings before any other racers do. This not only makes you insanely fast, but also denies the other racers of most speed boosts.
Once you have most of the Rings, grab the Emerald, then start heading the correct direction. Due to you having hoarded all of the Rings, you'll be fast enough to undo the difference in lap distance and still grab the 1st place.
now that's a pro strat!
You do know that the rings respawn, right? I don’t think this strat would work most of the time. Sure, maybe if you’re only after the racing aspect, but if you go after every collectible the computer is going to kick your ass, especially in reactive factory
See...now THIS is a fun fact!!!
i think I should try that next time I hook up my Saturn. sorta reminds my big riggs. except Sonic R isn't as broken as that
This is a terrible strategy that would only work for the very first race and only if you are playing as Sonic. Every other character is simply too slow for this to even be feasible. The AI is not stupid enough to just let you win races.
Developer Jon Burton probably has some stories of this game's development on his youtube channels, Gamehut/Coding Secrets.
Jon has a great channel!
@@rerez can u review a bad mario game now it's only fair
@@CheosgamerX-vg6xd Hotel Mario?? 🤔🤔
@@graphicsgod now that's what I'm talking about
@@CheosgamerX-vg6xd Mario Missing?
Anybody else want the "Just Bad" video of Sonic '06 to be like almost an hour long or something?
Okay! Sounds like fun. :)
@@rerez Don't bother. To be honest, I'm getting really sick of people complaining about Sonic games in general, especially Sonic 06.
Also, get better at Sonic R. Like, holy crap. That gameplay was painful to watch.
@@jakescartoons6045 Say what you will, it's okay to have an opinion, but I for one would watch the heck out of that. I hope they actually do it.
I got my friend a new copy of Sonic '06 on PS3 for Christmas a few years back as a kind of gag gift. 😄 Good times were had.
@@Commenter560 I can't trust the words from Rerez though, and this video is proof of that. It's nothing but complaining, and they didn't bring up a single positive point for "Sonic R". I've played the game myself on both the Saturn and Gamecube, and it really isn't as bad as they're making it out to be. Mediocre? Sure, but not terrible.
Also, the idea of bashing "Sonic 06" has been beaten to the ground repeatedly. What will Rerez say that hasn't been said before?
@@jakescartoons6045 I gotcha. It's possible that they purposely make their videos this way, with an unspoken shtick of eggageration. I have Sonic R on GameCube myself. May have to give it more of a chance based on what you think.
As for Sonic '06, for me it wouldn't even necessarily be that they have anything new to add, though that would be great. The reason this channel stands out so much to me is because of the high-quality presentation, along with the attention to detail regarding the actual content in the videos. They have what I could call "the Rerez style" that really makes them stand out. I can tell these guys are truly passionate about gaming.
"You can walk vertically up the wall"
Huh, so that's where Dimps got their inspiration for Sonic 4's physics...
Or Sonic 06 with its occasional “anti-gravity” glitch when going through loops
And Big Rigs too. That game feels like the devs were trying to find mistakes in games, just for the sake of doing absolutely everything as wrong as possible.
These games did gravity defying gameplay before Mario Galaxy did it correctly
"Hey, it's spider man!"
@@zeldagameryt4018 aswell as sonic adventure one's spindash
The music was good, that I unironically listen to it from time to time.
same.
Can you feel the sunshine, does it brighten up your dayyyyy?
@@koolaid33 finding remixes of that song is always a treat
@@koolaid33 DONT YOU FEEL THAT SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED TO RUN AWAY?
I’m pretty sure you can’t be in a bad mood when that song plays
@@SoggyHotDoggy Plus, creepypasta references aside, the Tails Doll was apparently the best character in the game because of being able to float, and Boozerman's mother-son headcanon for Marine and him is fucking adorable, IMO.
It’s obviously crazy how the AI players actually know they don’t need to do the loop to loop and pass the finish line
Same thing on reactive factory, if you take a sharp right on the big jump you can skip the whole loop after it, and the AI sometimes does it too
The game had some banger soundtracks, you can't argue with that
a bad Sonic game with a good soundtrack? gee, that sounds awfully familiar...
There a lot more great songs with a bad sonic game.
@@nathanblevins5483 i was mostly talking about Sonic 06, but, yeah
@@dunkanbulk14 ppl don’t talk about 06 soundtrack enough. Ofc bc the game is shitty but it still stands
Yep. While Sega fucks up with the games we can’t deny they always do good with the music.
I really love how you don't have to run through the loops, you can just pass near them. In fact, passing by them really shortens the tracks.
I love this game. Everything goes in it. It's a race to the death.
Hey, the game lets you play the way you want it to, and it even lets the AI also play how it wants, props to them letting me drive up to a pillar and do some weird ramp glitch to send me into space.
“Three buttons all make you jump” A prelude to the magic of Banald Wonderworld.
3 buttons normally make you jump in Sonic. At least on the Genesis.
Makes too much sense. Same developers.
banald wonderworld
@@catscanhavelittleasalami You know, funniest thing is, I just saw the Rerez Balan video being recommended on my homepage. I'm watching it this very second and I just saw a notification that I got a comment on this post. Crazy how coincidental that is.
Baldi's Wonderworld
I like how the game tells you to "Reverse" when it thinks you're going the wrong way, but there is no reverse function. Very Sega of you...
Oh wait...
What's the joke?
It was a F1 racing game... so... it's not so strange at all, they left it on purpose xD
Checkout the RUclips channel GameHut. It's from sonicR head developer, he explains that this game was based on a formula one racing game.
"Sega did what Nintendon't"
@@arandomworm8713Make bad games and poor business decisions?
The Sega Saturn in general should be taught as an example of how not to launch an console. Between their jumping the gun on the release date and angrying consumers and retails alike to Sega of Japan and Sega of America not being on the same page. It's an miracle it lasted 2 years. Also being hard to develop didn't help
Angering*
It lived on way longer in Japan and still has the odd new game being released.
I'd say looking at Sega's history through the 90's is how to absolutely mess up a great running start before utterly wiping out over and over. Too many consoles/add-ons, bad leadership, some confused marketing, and terrible cross Pacific working relationship between the two company branches.
What country is that flag?
@@Z64sports For Alex Stallwitz? That's the pansexual pride flag.
@@LeoMidori thats a weird country
I really love that "WHAT'S GOING ON UP THERE?" clip, that Saturn ad was so bad it's sooooo good lmao.
There’s one good thing though: “Can you feel the sunshine…” 🎶
Does it brighten up your day?
It does.... it does indeed brighten my day lol
Don’t you feel that sometimes you just need to run away...
Reach out for the sunshine... Forget about the rain
Living in the city and that diamond song for
Me
There’s honestly some pretty good concepts in this game. Too bad they’re all executed horribly.
Honestly, I feel like this game would've worked pretty well with Kirby Air Ride design. Intensely focused on speed and using a dash in order to drift/turn, no clue if that would've been possible on the Saturn though.
@@nyahnyahson523 Yeah. Also i realy would wish for a new Kirby air ride for the switch.
Especially the city trial modus was just amazing! Just make it with more maps and online modus :D
My though exactly; as the game mechanics were explained, I kept thinking "This sounds good, this is clever".
In fact it's probably that mix of mechanics that brought the game down, with developers having to cope with several different gameplay mechanics that probably couldn't have worked together fine.
Hell, the ballon thing bugged me to no end. If you told me "Let's make a Sonic racing game mode where you have to collect items to win" my first though would me "CHAOS EMERALDS" And yes, the Chaos Emeralds are in the game.
Except, not where it belongs.
This game would probably had benefited from having a "classic race mode", a "collectathon mode" (where having more rings and/or finding secrat paths give you bonus so you could end 2nd or 3rd and yet still win) and the "balloon/Chaos Emerald collect" game.
Of course, if would have benefited form having better race design, more balanced characters, and better handling overall... But even with good, tight control, as it is, the game would be only somewhat better.
In regards to the Chaos Emeralds in Regal Ruins, the pyramids lose their collision the moment their respective doors are unlocked. So you technically don't have to return on the next lap or stand there and wait to collect; you can just run straight through them and grab the emeralds.
Don't stress to much, they didn't understand the game and will never care to
@TornaderX To be fair, this is the average person's experience with this game. Normal (healthy) people aren't as willing to sit through a bunch of junk as we are.
@@Schnort I’d consider my time with the game casual. I just happen to play it again after years and found out about the pyramid thing by accident because I ran into one. Figured other people did the same due to the game’s insistence about getting first place with the emeralds because I sure as hell didn’t remember a thing about Sonic R before playing it again.
@@Schnort well... that's pretty true 😅
I'm proud of you guys for not making a "OOOOO SPOOPY TAILS DOLL CREEPYPASTA!" joke.
a Tails Doll joke would be better than some of the jokes in this video.
I wish they made it instead of using the screaming guy 3 times
Or the unfunny water burbling
Wait, Tails Doll is still a thing? Everyone just cares about Sonic.exe now.
@@Kimarnic I don’t understand why people feel the need to scream until their lungs fill with blood for things to be funny.
@@Kimarnic "WhAt Is GoInG oN uP tHeEeEeErE!!!!"
Sega: Hey kid, wanna make a Sonic game?
Kid: What's Sonic?
Sega: You have two months to complete it.
To be fair, for those of us that unlocked all secret characters and super sonic at 10 years old have reached elite gamer status.
It was also great fun as a 10 year old inviting a friend to play it with you, letting them go with Super Sonic and still beating them when playing as Amy or Eggman.
Absolutely loved this game as a kid. I can be more critical of it now that I'm older, but as a kid this game was pure fun. That's gotta count for something, dammit!
I get where you guys are coming from, but I guarantee you that more fun would've been had with that time and energy devoted to Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing. And to a considerably lesser extent, Twisted Metal 2 and Gran Turismo.
@@nthgth I don't know, Mario Kart was mostly drift to win assuming items didn't screw you over, which just makes it more frustrating than fun to me.
Never played Diddy Kong, but the little I have seen of it makes it seem more interesting. Mostly in that there's flying.
Twisted Metal was fun, I'll give you that, but in a distinctly different way, but the single player could absolutely be a frustrating endeavour at times.
Lastly, Gran Turismo was a meh to me. At the time I really didn't like sim racers, even now I'm not especially fond of them. Sim racers like Forza Horizon that get away from the standard race tracks are a major personal preference, and even then I can get bored fairly quickly.
Around that time, what I'd say was the most enjoyable racer for me (and my friends too luckily) was San Francisco Rush 2049. Criminally underrated, functional open maps with a plethora of secrets and alternate routes. It has a battle mode similar to Twisted Metal, though there's no bots unfortunately. A stunt mode, as the cars have wings to glide and provide a modicum of air control. Also has a love it or hate it soundtrack.
Yes Sonic R is flawed and strictly speaking the games you suggested were technically better, but Sonic R does have an unique charm in it's flaws. While the complexity of the tracks is a bit much, I love that you can go your own way in the races, plus the characters actually play distinctly differently unlike most racers.
@@ShaimingLong Very fair comments. I wouldn't altogether agree about Mario Kart - it seems to me, mostly item use and maneuvering are the keys to winning (steering, I don't really drift) - but I *100% agree* about Rush 2049. I thought about mentioning it in my original comment, but decided against it since it's pretty obscure.
I grew up with older SF Rush and Rush 2 which are more rudimentary, but nonetheless my cousin and I got countless hours of fun out of those too.
As Jon Burton states, Sonic R was meant to be a completely different Formula 1 game. Sega demanded it to be harshly turned into a Sonic racing game after the Sonic Xtreme demise.
I feel like if they were given more time this would be an amazing game, it’s definitely the most “Sonic” out of all the Sonic racing games
I agree, with Team Sonic Racing or Sonic Drift 1&2 coming in second
Sonic riders: AIGHT KEEP PRETENDING I DON'T EXIST!
What? This game is amazing.
@@GUNUFofficialthat game is fun but i gotta be honest i feel like the game is controlling me
According to director Jon Burton, who was one of the responsible people for this garbage, there is a reason why the controls suck:
It was initially developed as an Formula 1 game (there's even a McLaren MP4-11 in the hidden files), but Sega suddenly appeared and asked them to retool it into a Sonic racing game with platforming elements.
If that’s the case, good fucken lord I bet it would still be bad as an F1 game.
i have to ask for a detailed rundown of why ppl say the controls suck because i've played each version of this game, and i've never struggled with the controls (^ ▽ ^;)
@@brawler5760 I wouldn't, it's kinda obvious that it was configured to fit into Sonic in an early stage
The music is 🔥 though
Fact.
🎶 Livin' in the city
You know you got to survive
You got to keep the dream alive
Where everything is free, can't you see? 🎶
@@Mr.Maguro banger
Actually, the only thing i know this game for, is the Tails Doll creppypasta
Big facts
That little segment at 14:40 comparing Sonic R to Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing was pretty satisfying
Diddy will always be #1 in our hearts
ngl mario kart 64 is really shitty
yeah, but then we all know CTR beat the s*** out of both games making them dated as hell
@@TornaderXCTR is good but unnecessary in a world with DKR and MK64.
Unless all you have is a PlayStation.
@@nthgth Yeah sure, If someone actively wants to punish himself with terrible controls.
I played (and completed) both of them recently, they aged badly compared for say F Zero X which still owesome nowadays.
oh, and "unnecessary" isn't exatcly what I call a game from which nintendo baesd some of the mechanics in their later installments.
Don't get me wrong, I adore Double Dash, MK DS, MK 7 and 8 and played them a lot of times and other nintendo games in general, but I'm a little tired of people calling CTR inferior or even unnecessary with no actual reason.
Peace out
I was a SEGA fanboy who didn't have a Saturn because my parents refused to buy me one. After a few years I played Sonic Gems Collections and finally tried Sonic R, and I couldn't believe how bad it was. My surprise now knowing it was actually a better version than the original.
My copy of Gem's collection crashed when I tried to run Sonic R. So I guess I got lucky.
Strange, since control on PC version of Sonic R is just fine.
It's a sonic on foot racing game. It should be a no brainer. But they fucked it up so badly it's barely been attempted since and they mostly just force him into cars now... at least Sonic Rivals 1 was decent and 2 was actually pretty awesome.
Then again at the time this game was basically filler so the Saturn would get a Sonic game at all because Sonic Xtreme's development went so horribly wrong so maybe it just couldn't get the polish it needed.
Oh come on guys. The game isn't bad. I refuse to believe that. I've played games that are absolute trash, and "Sonic R" doesn't cut it.
And no, I'm not saying it's my favorite game of all time (honestly, "Daytona USA" takes that spot), but the negative reactions towards "Sonic R" is way too overblown.
These guys are bad at playing it... each character had different speed, turning and abilities.
I'd like to remind you that Traveller's Tales made that game, not Sega itself
Sonic Team was just helping them with Sega properties
And way more help than they gave to Sega of America with Sonic X-Treme, which is unsurprising.
@@bigjohnsbreakfastlog5819
I mean, near the cancellation, the developers were overworking to the point of inhumane, and it ended up in some actually getting ill (Chris Senn, the main programmer for example got a pneumonia).
Didn't TT help with Crash Bandicoot: WOC?
Question who likes Diddy Kong Racing compared to this game
@@stormbunevitch4933 Crash TWOC is just as ugly as Sonic R .
They should have a series titled it's just good, in which they cover legends, and hidden gems
"3 buttons do the same thing"
Balan: Hold my beer.
Sonic's been doing that since child birth, if you played Sonic 1 with a 6 button controller you'd know the horrors of, THE SIX BUTTONS THAT ONLY JUMP.
@@koolaid33 The top 3 buttons don’t do anything.
@@koolaid33 Well here's the thing: SONIC 1 REALLY USED THR JUMPS SINCE IT WAS A PLATFORMER THAT WORKS.
Bubsy:
Bruh, what am I? A roach?
@@Tom-jw7ii
number 2 will surprise you
Can’t lie, this game is a guilty pleasure of mine. I enjoy playing through it from time to time, even if it does take only 45 minutes to complete. I’d like to see Sonic make another attempt at on-foot racing.
And that’s totally fine 🙂
This and all the hydlide games are my guilty pleasures.
I don't feel guilty about loving it at all. It was a staple of my childhood and I still have fun.
This game is pretty poop, I can see that. That said, it’s hated on way too much. Someone in the comments compared it to Superman 64 which is just absurd. Superman 64 is one of the most notorious games ever, and while Sonic R isn’t good by any means, it really can’t be that bad when it only takes 45 minutes to finish. If this was on the scale of say Forza Horizon then yeah, it’d blow. But it’s not, it’s just kind of “whatever.”
I know that would make total sense right,
11:59
You actually don’t need to wait for the pyramid to open. When you open the door, the collision on the pyramid turns off meaning you can waltz right through the pyramid walls and nab that emerald.
I grabbed the desert Chaos Emerald by randomly going through the secret door while trying to understand where I was supposed to go.
"Having an overpowered character that can easily beat all the other racers completely breaks the game!" _Gran Turismo 2 Escudo memories intensify_ .
*Ford GT40 in Rome intensifies*
This statement is also true for Funky Kong in Mario Kart Wii.
Akuma from streetfighter,
I am not at all in the Gran Turismo fandom and I know very little about the games.
Yet I've already played it a bit at my uncle's house, AND THIS TOTALLY SPEAKS TO ME.
Meta knight, just meta knight.
With the right version, Sonic R is absolutely a fun little diversion today. That doesn't change the fact that upon release it was yet another bad decision that helped bring down an entire console. On a system with no mainline Sonic game, no one was asking for this. Historical context matters.
The Saturn was dead long before Sonic R was released. Bernie Stolar's "The Saturn is not our future" at the year's E3 was the final straw.
Well, it WOULD'VE had one, if Yuji Naka allowed the use of the engine that he made for NiGHTS.
*The head developer of this game has a RUclips channel called GameHut, he seems very proud of the translucent R icon in the main Menu, explaining how he managed that amazing effect.*
As weird as it seems, the hardware in the Saturn indeed can't do transparency without serious trickery; that is probably why he is so proud of something that appears to be so trivial.
I don't blame him, I love it!
He has several other videos about Sonic R, showing that the people complaining about Traveler's Tales programming abilities are barking up the wrong tree. This game would have needed a lot more design, tuning and QA time, but that just wasn't happening - much like Big Rigs, this game was shipped once it reached the "well it's no longer crashing after being on for 20 minutes" kind of stage in development.
Jon is an extremely competent programmer - given enough time to devote to actually making the game feel good this could have been right up there with Mario Kart. The fault is with SEGA on this one.
@@peterjohnson9438 yep, he says in one of those videos that Sega told them they had a year more than they ended up having - and it was a rush at the original pace. Jon says that basically once Sega realised the Saturn needed a big release, it went from "give us the sonic version of something like Mario Kart" to "give us something we can release now, as long as it doesn't crash"
@@medes5597 that still happens: investor and publisher pressure causes bad releases.
When good developers release bad games, the problem can usually be found at the top: project management decides they can get a bigger game done faster if only they make the devs have more meetings and submit reports, or the publisher starts pushing aggressive marketing way before the game is even in beta phase, investors start demanding a game be released right now because they're tired of waiting for results (usually happens if a project is going into overtime for some reason)..
Good developers with a good prototype can make a good game 90% of the time, but nobody will like the results if their hands are metaphorically tied behind their back or someone forces the game onto market before it's finished.
To this day I don't get why the concept of "unfinished game is bad, bad game doesn't sell" is so hard for a businessperson to understand.
If I were to take a guess, I'd say that this is the result of the canned Sonic game that was going to be 3D with a sphere for levels.
Sonic extreme
When Sega cancelled Sonic X-Treme, they were in need a game so they came to Travellers Tales, who previously created Sonic 3D Blast and asked them to make another Sonic game. They were working on an F1 title, so why not turn it into a Sonic racing game? There's a lot of videos on Sonic R and 3D Blast as well as plenty other TT games on Jon Burton's channels GameHut and Coding Secrets.
BUTTTTTTTTTT PROTO that's just a theory.
Your subscriber count must be so embarrassingly low that you deciding to hide it from the public. Glad I decided to block your channel from ever coming up in my subscription or recommendation feed
@@i_used_adblock_to_watch_this dude literally who cares if he doesn't have tons of subs?
“The thing about playing at Stevie Kenarban's house is, he has every one of my favorite video games… from when I was four.”
The game was bad but songs were good.
@@Fizzyguy201Sonicguy6 no i meeted the tails dog from that
@@Fjdjfjsz92938 tails what now?
@@Rifky809 I think they mean tails doll.
and it didnt brighten up there day but they did run away from this game
I remember being a young kid and playing this on the demo station in Best Buy. It was so cool to see Sonic in 3D that I put up with the running controls….oh man the abuse started so long ago…
Somehow even if its bad i have a soft spot for Sonic R, i dunno maybe its the weird 90's charm, the overly exaggerated cheesey soundtrack, the fact you have Cyber Knuckles and Tails Doll and Eggman playable, and the fact that even if its bad at both being a platformer and a kart racer but still being those things while they could just simply said "slap sonic into a car and get it done with it already" which they already did before this game with Sonic Drift but they instead went with "What if is a Sonic Kart Racer but Sonic runs on foot?" it makes it stand out even with all its flaws.
Its like Sonic The Fighters/Championship yes is a virtua fighter sonic clone, yes its ridiculous and doesnt do anything different to stand out, but the fact that a Virtua Fighter like Sonic fighting game exists is on its own unique and i will always have a soft spot for that.
Yes was a total failure, yes it had to pass like more than 20 years until we got a proper "Kart racer" game with Sonic that wasnt a total bust, yes Cyber Knuckles and Tails Doll are MIA since this game being playable, but still you gotta commend that from all the clone racers out there this one had charm and was at least kinda unique on its own, even being a total failure at the things it wanted to do, the fact that exists and didnt just said "scrap all of this, its not working stick to traditional kart racing" is an achivement on its own.
Also we do have now the equivalent to Mario Kart 64 with Sonic Robo Blast Kart, while its insanely popular and doesnt have the right to be that good, and i sincerely recommend anybody downloading it and playing it with friends (trust me you will thank me later) i still think they could had added a on foot mode that still sticks to what SRBKart does but now combines the insanely good 3D platforming of SRB2 having the real Sonic R we should had have back in the day.
Jon did some videos about Sonic R and how this game wasnt even a Sonic game to begin with, it was an F1 game that they couldn't make and then sega told them to turn it into a Sonic racer game, he still likes this game even with all its flaws and even helped with some stuff for the recent fan made HD "remake" fans did that adds Widescreen and even fixes the FOV and draw distance, even has better texture resolution and native support for modern OS's.
Cyber knuckles????
Cyber freaking Knuckles?????
We all have that game we like even though we know it’s bad. For me, it’s Shadow the Hedgehog. I loved that game as a kid, and even though nowadays I can truly see how *awful* it is, I will always have a soft spot from nostalgia for that game. XD
🎶"Super Sonic Racing"🎶 I don't care what everybody said but the soundtrack that song alone is catchy as hell. but yeah, the rest of the game is just bad!
Who sang the songs in the soundtrack for Sonic R
Everybody super sonic racing
I like the soundtrack of Sonic R. I listen to it occasionally. It's a good standalone, imo. It doesn't suit a Sonic game, though.
@@zeldagameryt4018 T.J. Davis, if I’m not mistaken.
loved the game, and i had the faulty Windows disc WITHOUT the music!! :(
I actually love Sonic R. Played it this year for the first time in Sonic Gems Collection. It’s a unique on-foot racing game with exploration to it. I really love the banger music and play it outside the game. Even with all the problems I can still have a fun time with R. Beaten and unlocked everything in the game. With no good balancing, this isn’t a fair game. Good thing I decide to play it by myself. Can’t imagine making anyone play this game they might not tolerate how it is.
The gems collection uses the improved pc port. Which is a lot more tolerable than the original saturn release. One of the travellers tales devs has a RUclips channel about coding and even he says the original saturn release was deeply messed up.
And the thing is, the pc port is just rebalanced a bit and given a month or so of fixes from the devs and it's not bad. Imagine how good Sonic R could have been had they actually given them the extra year Sega had originally told travellers tales they had. It could have genuinely been an all time great, and really helped point the direction for 3D sonic. It was such a missed opportunity.
Very easily games like Sonic And The Secret Rings took the hell of a less amount of work, distributed by a team of many, with no innovative programming techniques and no actual pushing of the limitations of the console they were made in. The way I see it, Sonic R is quite a good game comparing to many of the modern era Sonic games. This is like if you try to compare Pacman with Cyperpunk, Pacman is still better. I also personally don't think the game is really that bad. It looks pretty good for the time it was made on.
The controls are slightly better and the graphics are improved massively. I played both the Saturn version and the Sonic Gems version: with the first, I couldn't win a single race even on easy, with the other I unlocked Eggman in the span of under an hour on medium.
At least it has *one* thing going for it: that soundtrack *SLAPS!*
And The SS Version Looked Great, More So With It's Lighting Too. That's Other Thing Going for it imo. (Thanks Blaze The Hedgehog for showing it out in your Sonic R Video, Just In Case He's Watching ths video.)
Also, the creepypasta fandom's love-hate relationship with the Tails Doll - who's incidentally the best character in the game.
@@alexthejapanfan7905 SS?
@@Guywithabadenglish Super Sonic, I guess.
@@Guywithabadenglish Sega Saturn.
The developers also made two decent kart racing games for the PS1 (Toy Story Racer and Muppet Racemania)
Then later they made games like Crash Twinsanity and the lego games
Presumably they took just a bit more direction from MK64 those times
Toy Story Racer wasn't just decent, it was amazing. The amount that you could do in the game with battle modes with the Ai, race maps in reverse, race your opponents and the last racer will drop out on every lap (which was intense cause it would be down to you and your opponent).
AWESOME
@@zeldagameryt4018 hell yeah
Travelers Tales is the weirdest mixed bag of a developer. They pulled off some amazing technical feats in the 16 and 32 bit eras, but the games themselves were often not great.
Not always a great programmer is demanded to code a great game. This game was made in a rush, and TT didn't decide the concept of the game (also for obvious reasons).
When you understand the amount of time, work and planning those games took, even if disliking the gameplay, you learn to enjoy this is part of the work of one of the most successful programmers of the Genesis and Saturn eras, and understand that a really bad game is very different from this.
Very easily games like Sonic And The Secret Rings took the hell of a less amount of work, distributed by a team of many, with no innovative programming techniques and no actual pushing of the limitations of the console they were made in. The way I see it, Sonic R is quite a good game comparing to many of the modern era Sonic games. This is like if you try to compare Pacman with Cyperpunk. Pacman is still better. Think about this.
A great example of a flawed game with a lot of potential is Super Monkey Ball Adventure. Just like Sonic R, the idea and execution is amazing on paper.
@@timg2727 Travelers Tales can either make a game that's amazing or awful
It’s pretty crazy seeing such a critical review of this game after watching the lead developer, Jon Burton, talk about how he made the fade-in effect for the short draw distance. Don’t get me wrong, the criticism seems well deserved; it’s just such a different perspective going from the developer’s achievements to the players’ annoyance.
I don't think the "criticism" is deserved at all.
@@jakescartoons6045 *opinions*
Rerez, please review Sonic '06? I heard that game was the worst Sonic game ever...way worse than Sonic R. I dare you to review it.
Okay.
@@rerez Now that's customer service!
@@rerez Maybe review Sonic and the Secret Rings, too. The controls in that game is limited that limits Sonic in a linear path.
@@rerez if you’ll do secret rings, then you should also play Sonic and the Black Knight
@@rerez The absolute madmen.
What's even worse is that this isn't the first Sonic racing game. There were a couple on the Game Gear called Sonic Drift and Sonic Drift 2 released in 1994 and 1995 respectively.
And Sonic R looks like a masterpiece compared to the first Sonic Drift
Sonic R : it's just bad!!!
Sonic 06 : allow me to introduce myself !!!
Money ghost: Stop buying these terrible f*cking games!
At least 06 is fun if you don't mind the glitches or story
@@fnsmstudios5269 I'd imagine that he would look like a sumo wrestler.
Well, Radiant Emerald has the Chaos Emeralds colors shining trough the map and it's set at night, so it makes sense to ask about rainbows
Rainbows doesn’t automatically equal rainbow road even if the level is kinda similar
I know, that's my point
@@MiltonGagliardi yeah, I was agreeing with you
@@BigRed3000 Sorry, I didn't get it :v
@@MiltonGagliardi it’s ok :)
Fun fact about Diddy Kong racing since you mentioned it, the OST came on a CD that couldn’t actually be played because it was shaped like Diddy Kong’s head instead of being a circle
I remember that from the Nintendo Power catalog lol. I figured the disc could be played because of the audio track being within a circular domain on the weird shaped CD, but never tried it myself
It's fun watching the sonic fans defend the bad games. They won't even defend sonic boom rise of lyric.
Rise of Lyric was more damaging to the series than 06
dawg i can defend R all i want to but rise of lyric?! don't make laugh
It honestly kind of is.
Especially since they’re the same people who say Forces is a disgrace to the sonic series
The music is the only best thing. But it's because I love dumb music like that.
2015 me would defend sonic boom. I don't know why, but back then I thought the game was decent.
This was my first sonic game, and for years, I thought they were all like this. I actually remember being creeped out by the game
Tails doll's lifeless motion might be why.
There’s no words for how much I love this series. It proves that you can still make fun of shitty games, and it can still be funny. The writing, the editing, use of humor are all great.
In a more thoughtful, more mature presentation. This is what AVGN could have evolved into.
This game had one hell of a history. It started off a formula 1 racing game and was cobbled together at Sega's request into a Sonic Game by TT after Sonic Xtreme basically crashed and burned.
yeah, so no wonder why it was bad, it's not easy to go from an f1 game to racing platformer
I always enjoy your take on Just Bad review on games such this both on the thumbnail and your funny edits. I’ll love to see your take on Drake and the 99 dragons and also Tomb Raider and the angel of darkness.
My grandparents bought me a bundle that came with Sonic CD and Sonic R for the PC. I remember Sonic R being great and going out of my way to unlock absolutely everything. I think this is the first review I watched that not only acknowledged the existence of the PC port, but also explain the differences between the Saturn and PC versions. I thank you for the entertaining video.
diddy kong racing is one of the best racers i ever played
Crash team racing is great too you should try that, the controls is awesome.
Maybe Nintendo could remake Diddy Kong Racing like what Beenox did for CTR
@@zeldagameryt4018 agreed to me ctr and Diddy Kong racing are the best racing games I've played. They should remake Diddy Kong racing too many Mario karts these days, I grew tired of them.
I mean maybe diddy kong racing even inspire Ctr, from what i know, one of the Beta Maps was a replica of crescent Island
@@Acacius1992 now that I think about it how would they make it without the Rare license to the characters
We were all expecting a Sonic game in this series .
just not the one we were expecting
The one I really want them to cover is both the Sonic Boom titles, that and Sonic 06. Secret Rings and Black Knight should also be covered.
@@koolaid33 Secret Rings and Black Knight arent even bad.
@@paldinox1 Black Knight is ok, Secret Rings is half mediocre and the last half has tedious levels
I’m still waiting for mega man x7
Aww, I liked the previous thumbnail
I honestly like how this game looks, especially on a CRT.
A what?
@@zeldagameryt4018 those old box shaped TVs, this comment makes me feel incredibly old lol.
@@Nobutehuhh oh i had one of these when i was a child (also a vhs and one of those old phones that stay on the desk) but i never knew they were named crt
@@yourfatboy5359 Yeah most people just call them fat TVs lol, which is fitting. I gotta pick up a Sony one before collectors jack the prices up even higher.
@@Nobutehuhh i used to call them simply old tvs lol, wish you luck on the tv you are trying to buy
"The levels are as bland and lifeless as boiled celery."
*cajun food has joined the chat*
Still better than Race With Ryan's tracks.
17:54 when he said "balloon"
*I felt that*
You are supposed to feel the sunshine, not destroy it!
It's over Sonic. I have the curved ground, and you cannot turn
As someone who's been watching the channel since 2014, this descent into madness was a lot slower than you'd think.
Remember early on when people complained that the Just Bad Games series wasn't very good? That was dumb.
"Three buttons all make you jump"
Welcome to _Segaaaa_
“Sony was releasing hit after hi-“
I 100% agree that Air Combat was a huge hit.
Yes, a fellow Ace Combat fan!
"Bingo! Yahoo!"
both ace and R have great soundtracks
Is that where Ace Combat got its start? 04 is a tremendously fond memory. One of my favorite PS2 games, up there with GTA and Gran Turismo 4
I loved sonic R as a kid, it was the PC port. I know it's terrible and at the time I think I knew it wasn't great, but the music was great and it was satisfying to get super Sonic. Many good memories with my sibling
This game is actually a guilty pleasure for me and i love the track design. Also the soundtrack is amazing.
"🎵 everybody's super sonic racing 🎵 " sometimes just slides into my mind unbidden. Catchy as all hell
@@Romanticoutlawyou can get the mp3 of the music somehow yes legally I payed for it. It even comes with instrumental versions of the songs.
Oh boy, now that you mentioned Traveller’s Tale Games, is Rascal going to pop up in this series somewhere?
I was thinking either Rascal or Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, or is Crash: TWoC even bad
@@zeldagameryt4018 Wrath of Cortex is a very mixed bag, I'd say.
No lie, this game was part of my childhood growing up as a PC gamer.
Luckily the PC version of the game faired better then the Saturn version. It still has it's problems, but overall it's the better version of the game.
me too ✋😪
Same, man. Theres a part of me that's kinda curious to try it out again as I actually have a lot of nastaulgia for it. But then theres another part that knows I'd just ruin said nastaulgia.
I remember getting all the emeralds then got mad at my little bro for accidentally overwriting my file. In his defense, the game makes it REALLY easy to overwrite your data with a blank slate (the game starts BEFORE you access a file select. Wtf?)
Same here, it was lots of fun to play.
The TOTAL LACK OF RESPECT for Professor Hasenbein in this video is UNREAL.
That bunny is a National Icon!
Having *Tails Doll* in this game definitely reminds me of an urban legend.
You mean the Tails Doll creppypasta?
This game is where the urban legend originated from
Really don’t agree with this. The footage in places was purposely made to make the game look worse, running straight into a wall and then turning left when the rest of the characters went right just to try and emphasise the controls? 🤔 What racing game has anyone played for the first time and not bumped into something anyways lol. It takes a little time to understand and get used to the controls and learn the stages…really loved it as a kid, I used to be able to do a run collecting all 5 coins and the emerald and still coming 1st in the same race. They made this game to be more explored than more or a fast racer…I understand Sonic has that speed reputation, but I enjoyed it for being something different and unique, and not a simple Mario Kart rehash like most of the kart racers are. Hilariously, that point about the Radiant Emerald track being seethru, and getting slated for copying off of Mario Karts Rainbow Road, imagine if SEGA did completely rip off Mario Kart like you guys seemed to had wanted, you’d have still slated them for no originalilty probably lol. Kind of like Sonic Drift and All Stars Racing / Team Sonic Racing had stick for in the past. Can’t win I guess 🤷♂️. I love Sonic R, it’s fun to play, has top tier music, and holds great childhood memories. Bullyish back and forth about how bad it is…whilst I know is the majority of the thing for this channel, just hurts a little when it’s about a game you love, so apologies if its easy to trigger us fans and we sound defensive…we have to be when it’s about a loved one! 😋
It's all nitpicks rather than criticism. Sonic R isn't that bad of a game on its own
While I agree with a lot of things you said, I think you should've pointed out the power difference between the Saturn and the N64. Of *course* the draw distance is going to be higher for the N64 games, it was a generation ahead in terms of processing capability.
While I don't really like to play it, I think it is a very impressive game for the Saturn. The maps are clunky and overdesigned to show off that yes, the Saturn *can* do 3D games. But having 5 3D models, in a complex 3D environment, all acting independently of one another? That's insane for the Saturn!
I realize that just saying "the hardware was bad" doesn't excuse most of the game's problems, but it's also important to realize what context the game was released in.
I love it when he says “WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!?!”
What's that from, do you know?
@@ZC-Infinity a sega saturn ad
We put all our money into the music and not the game!!
Gotta talk about Life of Black Tiger, Aleckine's Gun, Bubsy 3d, Contra Rogue Corps, Batman Forever (Genesis or SNES), Fantasia, MK Mythologies Sub Zero, and Mega Man X7.
megaman x7 isn't as bad as everyone says it is in my opinion.
One positive thing about Sonic R was the soundtracks, they're all so good!
"The nintendo 64 sold more than the Sega Saturn! But thats something anyone can say about themselves."
-Scott The Woz, 2020
I actually love this game. I own it on saturn, ps2 and gamecube.
I even wrote a letter to travelers tales to ask if they'd remake it.
Travellers Tales when they get the console: *Inhuman PTSD riddled screams*
How are the Mario Kart 64 characters NOT 3D models? I cannot tell that they look any different
Look at the edges.
ANOTHER FACT:
Sonic R was in fact the very last time that sonic & pals were seen in their old classic forms. As every big sonic title since sonic adventure: the game that released the year after, saw characters in a new design (except sonic mania, as its tailored to the series history)
Say what you want about this game. You can never deny that all sonic games, regardless of quality, have a kickass soundtrack.
I think they spend more time working on the soundtracks than on the games themselves
Yes. All of them.
Boom and forces were a bit meh to me
Sega songs in general. DAYTOOOOOOOOOOONAAAAAAAAA LET'S GO AWAY!!
Sonic Chronicles.
This seems like an idea that should be revisited and done correctly today. Forgo the platforming part, focus on the racing itself, focus on a more liner track design, there are plenty of past levels of sonic games over the generations to base tracks on, fans would love to see tracks based on a level of two from sonic adventures 1 or 2 mixed with a retro level like chemical plant from metal sonic.
Take the idea of diddy Kong racing allowing you to have multiple types of vehicles. Speedy characters like sonic and shadow could obviously run or use a car (shadow would use a motorcycle) while characters like tails could run or use his airplane from the video games. Make the game cross platform on all 3 consoles. In this day and age this concept can be done well
This game is one of my most played games in my childhood, I loved it so much
As someone who has played Sonic R enough to memorize it's layouts and get every collectible in every level in one straight shot, it's all completely true. No denying how cool the soundtrack and Metal Knuckles are tho.
Bad games can be fun too
Bad can actually be instead good and terribly underrated.
Sonic R It's a real gem and I'm more likely to replay this over Diddy King Racing
@@TornaderXDon't delude yourself, lmao. I love this game. It is still undeniably poorly made.
I wonder what happened to the original thumbnail
TELL ME
@Chica6614 true, maybe they change it because RUclips think with a thumbnail like that the video will contain mutilation, cause, you know, RUclips...
The only things people remember about sonic r:
1: Cool soundtrack
2: Awful gameplay
3: Creepy Doll
Sonic r: map 1 action to 3 buttons
Balan Wonderworld: You can do that?
Money ghost: seriously, why do these developers keep making these terrible f*cking games?!
One answer: corporate greed
I don't know how you guys edit so good!
Literally the greatest soundtrack a video game has ever had. Fight me. :) ...it's a rough game, but I legit loved it when it came out. Once you get a hang of the controls, it IS playable & fun. I finished it and unlocked everything. I wouldn't have done that with a game that truly sucked.
I'll be damned though, the PC version with the sonic R improvement mod for physics and control tweaks as well as other quality of life improvements honestly makes it a really fun game, I finished the whole thing and had a blas
So for you, this was the real Sonic 3-D blast.
.. I'll see myself out.
"WHAT IS GOING ON OUT THERE"!!!
- sega saturn guy at 1:32
But sega did come out with a way better racing game years latter Sonic and sega all-star racing.
I was a bit surprised seeing the Diddy Kong racer, looks like the Transformed game borrowed a lot from that one.
Sumo Digital*?
7:14 Even though this can happen in some Mario Kart tracks? It’s really not that big of a deal
With the foreshadowing image of Sonic '06 during this video.. Does that mean we will see a Just Bad of that game in the future?
Me personally it’s a guilty pleasure not the Saturn version though
16:58 I believe holding the L button when attempting to pick the same character enables mirror matches. If you have a non-functional L button, you can't mirror match unless you pick your character before your opponent does and holds L.
Sonic R: MY JUMP IS SLIPPERY
Left Alive: MY JUMP IS WEIRD
Batman and Robin: I CAN GLIDE BETTER
Balan wonderworld: Wait we're getting jumping options?
A racing game with bad controls is like a gun with a faulty trigger, technically useless unless you're lucky.
Well, Mariokart 64 is in the same realm; First played it on my Wii and, oh boy those controls made me gag, Toad's Turnpike was making me depressed by how many cars I hit.
@@koolaid33 Tbh i never had any problems with it (probaly cause i played on a n64)
But toads turnpike? Yeah this track was my nightmare