[Sega Saturn] Sonic R ~ All 5 tracks + Credits
1Ah boy. I feel like talking about Sonic R is extremely difficult. I've been around the internet long enough to see public opinion about this game drastically shift twice: this used to be seen as just a strange and janky game with an unfitting (but catchy) soundtrack that people just used to make Tails Doll memes. Then, when the Jontron video came out (come on, I know you all saw it), the game was kicked into the internet's consciouness straight out of relative obscurity to become everyone's punching bag for the next couple of years. Now, everyone had a very well formed opinion about how horrible this game they certainly played is and they're definitely not just quoting that video verbatim. Another thing you notice after being on the internet for so long is that it does seem people never hesitate to hop onto a Sonic hatewagon.
Finally, nearly an entire decade after that review, the director of Sonic R at Traveler's Tales opened a Youtube Channel, GameHut (and later Coding Secrets), where among other things, he talks openly about the history of development and programming techniques of the game. It's an excellent channel in general and it does seem to have given many a newfound appreciation for the game. I guess it also doesn't hurt that Jontron has long privated the Sonic R video, with reuploads of it being nowhere near as popular.
This is where we stand today. I know this is technically completely unrelated, but since there is so little to talk about the game itself, I frankly thought the history behind how this game is perceived is honestly just as intriguing as anything that is in the game....
So what's in this game? Not much at all. This is an on foot racing game with tank controls, where you choose between one of four characters (with six unlockable) and race on five different tracks. "On foot racing game" on paper sounds like a very interesting and underexplored concept in videogames, especially when one of Sonic R's most defining features is that the tracks are completely open ended with several interconnecting routes to complete a lap. Exploration is very highly encouraged, as it can mean finding big shortcuts or loot that'll unlock secret characters or give you the Chaos Emeralds. Combined with every single character having drastically different abilities and handling allowing them to interact with the maps in their own unique ways, I do not believe anybody would fault this game conceptually when it's put this way.
The problem is not in concept but in execution. I have no idea why nobody has ever described Sonic R as having tank controls before, because this is exactly what they are: I can kind of liken it to the original Tomb Raider, if you sped that game up 10 times at least. Momentum is very heavy once you start moving forward and turning is extremely slow (even using the L and R buttons to "drift"). Also, from a standstill, you need to "aim" yourself at the direction you want to go before running, since you can't turn on a dime and the only direction you can actually move is forward (and ironically walking a straight line is incredibly difficult). This game does control a noticeably better on an analog stick (either through a 3D Pad or any of the several re-releases of this game on newer consoles), but it's not inaccurate to say this single-handedly kills the game for a lot of people.
If that doesn't, then the content will, for there is barely any. 5 tracks, really? Would it have killed them to add some more? I get that these "tracks" are structured far more like Mario 64 levels when you think about it rather than actual racing circuits, but that game had over three times the levels and it was on a cartridge! You get the main racing mode and a couple of extra modes that just repurpose the gameplay for something else, but there's a very real lack of things to do in this game. Maybe you can kind of excuse this for arcade ports, but this was built from the ground up for the Saturn.
Performance wise, eh. The draw distance isn't the best, but it does technically have a really impressive use of transparency in its LOD models that looks really neat. This is enough of a slow paced game where the draw distance doesn't really get in the way much, but it'd be nice if it was longer. The graphics are nice for the system and the aesthetics are fitting for a Sonic game, it's more so the levels themselves that are visually messy in some spots, making the game look worse than it actually is. The frame rate is REALLY wobbly. It is uncommon for it to dip uncomfortably low, but it also rarely settles on exactly 30FPS either. Developers getting frame rate wrong seems to be a running theme in a lot of Saturn games, actually...
This is seriously one of the weirdest AAA titles ever released. Combine this with the absolute earworm of a soundtrack and the novelty factor of it is off the charts. I highly recommend it for this reason alone. If you give it some time, you can even have some genuine fun with it.
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