Sonic Rivals

"With Friends Like These..."

Sonic's tried his hand at racing games before and been met with underwhelming results, but that's what he brings to the table in his debut PSP title, Sonic Rivals. Will it be enough to be able to make you forget about recent tragedies, most notably his first next-gen game? Probably not, but at least this title manages to take a step in the right direction.

Sonic, Knuckles, Shadow, and Silver are your playable characters in this one although there aren't any real distinctions between them other than having one special technique. Their goal is to chase after Eggman, each having their own separate agenda. This leads to some hot-blooded racing action! That's right. It's not enough to get to the goal anymore and stop the bad guy. Now you have to win a race against your rival as well! The concept sounds like it fits right into the Sonic universe, but the execution proves that it might have needed a bit more time to be thought out.

When the gameplay begins, you'll be facing off against one of the other characters in a race to the finish line. Along the way, there will be many branching paths that you can take, but only if you can reach them. As you're running along the track, you'll come across many obstacles. There are the usual springs and some bots in your way, but also thrown into the mix are logs and floating rings. By pressing either the X or O button, you'll send your character flying up or straight across certain sections. You'll have to be quick though as you get less than a second to make your decision. In earlier levels, that's all fine and dandy, but when you get to the latter half of the game, pressing the wrong button will send you falling into a pit which will slow you down by a good five seconds.

Also thrown on the courses are item rings that you can pick up to either play catch up or try and hold onto the lead. Fire shields, frost blocks, electric rings, and tornadoes can halt your opponent in their tracks. There's also a special move that each character can utilize to their advantages as well such as Sonic gaining the ability to go into a hyper dash for a few seconds. Likewise, your opponent can pick these items up and use them against you, usually with excellent accuracy. This can lead to some unnecessary frustration, but I find this part of the game to be fair enough. Anything you can do, he can do.

However, that leads to the double-edged sword that can bring even a good racer down. Catch-up AI. You can be out in front by a good few seconds only for that one item to come in and completely mess you over. Worse, if you're in the lead at times, you'll find yourself stopping to push a barricade down in more than a handful of levels. Characters should be rewarded for having the lead, but more often than not, it becomes a hindrance. I found myself blowing a big lead while on other occasions I'd come back to win a race I thought I should've lost. It's a major issue that needs to be corrected in the next installment for this series to be anything other than a novelty.

Bosses are decent challenges, but with the goal being not to survive but just hit the boss a handful of times faster than your opponent can, the sense of speed is never really there. That's a shame as I found the fights to be fun. If this part of the game would've been more of a platformer, or there would've been consequences for getting hit with zero rings besides staying down an extra second longer, I would've had more fun. As it is, it comes up just short of being good...a trend with this game.

One thing Sonic Rivals has going for it is replay value. The game expects you to take all four characters through their respective, but ultimately similar stories, a challenge mode that wants you to not only win the race but meet certain conditions such as time, rings collected, or even hitting your opponent a certain number of times, and a Cup Circuit mode that puts you in a series of three consecutive races in which you'll have to beat your opponent. Winning these will earn you cards, and there are also unlockable costumes as a result. It's better than nothing anyway. The game also has multiplayer if you're feeling up to wagering some cards online. This all was a nice touch and shows that there was effort put into this game even if it doesn't quite click on all cylinders.

Sonic Rivals is a nice, albeit unspectacular title that you'll find easy to pick up and easy to put down. It's not a must-buy, but I think it deserves a rental at the very least. The racing aspects are all right, but the AI is a bit on the cheap side. With some fine tuning, this series could move on up. As it stands, we have just another Sonic title instead of the one to pull him out of this recent funk. Oh well. It's a step in the right direction.

Gameplay: 5
Graphics: 6
Sound: 4
Entertainment: 6

Overall: 5.25

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/07

Game Release: Sonic Rivals (US, 11/16/06)