• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

RTTP: Sonic R - Can You Feel the Sunshine?

R

RK128

Member
Hello :D!

As some of you guys saw with my Sonic Heroes LTTP thread, I'm revisiting the Sonic series this year for the anniversary and while looking for something to play tonight, got the itch to play this:

Sonic_R.jpg


Its part of the Sonic Gems Collection on the GameCube and I'm surprised with this. I played this a great deal when I was younger but hated it for its wonky controls. Went back to this today and.....its fun :).

Its not a great game, heck, its not even a good game in many respects. The game lacks content with only five tracks and the playable characters aren't that different from one another. But the games saving grace is two things; the visuals and the soundtrack.

Visually, it does look a bit dated. But it has this charm to it that makes everything 'pop' off the screen. Not to mention its vibrant and colorful like the Genesis games, making it have the iconic Sonic look.

Music.....where to begin :'). Its soundtrack is legendary and iconic to the sonic series:
Can You Feel the Sunshine?
Back In Time
Living in the City
Diamond in the Sky
Work It Out
Super Sonic Racing

This stuff is great and screams Sonic. Its cheese, stupid and dumb. But its very catchy, has a great melody, and the lyrics are great XD! Love the entire soundtrack and its great to see this be part of the series in future Racing titles and even in Sonic Generations.

Overall, enjoyable racer that while aged and flawed, was a lot of fun to revisit for a bit :).
 
I had tons of fun with it when it came out on PC and I remember listening to the game CD on my CD player for hours and hours.

Everybody Super Sonic racing!
 
The soundtrack is just the most 90est 90s OST that ever 90sed in the 90s... Yeah, I can't help but enjoy it lol. I don't particularly enjoy the game itself though.
 
Great game and amazing soundtrack.
Check out Metropolis Street racer on the Dreamcast if you are looking for more fun races and more awesome tracks by Richard Jacques featuring TJ Davis.

Ps: a 3d Sonic main entry using Sonic R engine (or Sonic World from Sonic Jam engine) would have been really cool back then.
 
ScientificPizza said:
What is this sonic season of something
Click to expand...

This year is the 25th Anniversary, so me and other Gaffer's are making threads about revisiting games in the series or reflecting on our time with them.

I know I will be making ALOT of threads on the Blue Blur in the coming weeks and months XD!
 
RK128 said:
This year is the 25th Anniversary, so me and other Gaffer's are making threads about revisiting games in the series or reflecting on our time with them.

I know I will be making ALOT of threads on the Blue Blur in the coming weeks and months XD!
Click to expand...

Yeah I edited my post because I realised as soon as I hit post hahha

I like Sonic retrospectives. People always have STRONG opinions about those games
 
ScientificPizza said:
Yeah I edited my post because I realised as soon as I hit post hahha

I like Sonic retrospectives. People always have STRONG opinions about those games
Click to expand...

I'm more lax with my view point on the series, cool with mostly everything but a select titles. Will talk about those another time ;).

What was your favorite song from Sonic R :D?
 
Sonic Racing Transformed having "Back in Time" remixed for the Sky Sanctuary course made me cry.
 
kogasu said:
The soundtrack is just the most 90est 90s OST that ever 90sed in the 90s... Yeah, I can't help but enjoy it lol. I don't particularly enjoy the game itself though.
Click to expand...

Richard Jacques said on an interview that the Eurodance J-dance/pop-esque music style was suggested by people from the Sonic Team itself.

It fits the Sega blue skies feel like a glove.
 
PeakPointMatrix said:
I have still never played this game. I have a PS3/4/WiiU/Wii. Is there any version I can play on any of my consoles?
Click to expand...

If your Wii supports GC disks, you can play it via Gems Collection on GC.

latest


It also came out for the PS2 but only in EU regions. It comes with Sonic CD and Sonic the Fighters (both games I will talk about another time) in addition to a few GG games and for some reason two Vectorman games you can unlock.
 
My younger brothers played a TON of the pc port. I didn't play much of it myself, but I will always love that OST.
 
Oddly I don;t have a Saturn anymore, but yet I still have this game in the box.

I never really cared for it much, and I was not a fan of Richard Jacques soundtrack. I hated the lyrics and would always turn them off. The game was a technical marvel on the Saturn though, with its clever use of transparencies and decent framerates.
 
MrCunningham said:
Oddly I don;t have a Saturn anymore, but yet I still have this game in the box.

I never really cared for it much, and I was not a fan of Richard Jacques soundtrack. The game was a technical marvel on the Saturn though, with its clever use of transparencies and decent framerates.
Click to expand...

The game has that visual charm from that era :). Lots of bright colors and really great water effects.

Love the character models though; blocky but still nice looking. Sega was great doing this on the Saturn/Arcade hardware :D.
 
I lost the PC copy I grew up with and decided to buy another copy on ebay last year because I have fond memories of playing Sonic R and Virtua Fighter PC as a kid. Turns out it isn't as good as I remembered it being, but I'll always love this stupid game anyway.
 
RK128 said:
The game has that visual charm from that era :). Lots of bright colors and really great water effects.

Love the character models though; blocky but still nice looking. Sega was great doing this on the Saturn/Arcade hardware :D.
Click to expand...

The engine wasn't done by Sega, it was developed by Traveller's Tales of all people. Sega contracted Travelers Tales to develop two Sonic games, one was Sonic 3D Blast for the Genesis/ Mega Drive and Sega Saturn, and the other was this one, Sonic R.

Traveller's Tales has always had a lot of talent from a technical standpoint.
 
When the day was done and the race was won, I had to say

My life has only just begun.

I shouldn't be feeling nostalgia for this game but dammit
 
I don't want to say that Sonic R is a bad game. But the controls definitely take some getting used to. It helps if you play it like a driving game. Sonic R lets you steer like a 3D platformer with the analog stick, or you can use an accelerator button like a car, and using the accelerator button makes things a bit easier to get a handle on. At least, it does for me.

Accelerate with B, steer with the stick, and use the triggers for to make tight turns. Easy.

It did need more content, though. Five tracks is pitiful, even for 1998. Comparable games of the era had more than twice that. Even with all of the unlockables, Sonic R still takes less than an hour to finish.

That being said, I'm surprised it hasn't resurfaced on Steam. The PC version can be tough to get running on a modern system, but surely it wouldn't take much for Sega to fix it up and release it on Steam. It deserves that, at least.
 
MrCunningham said:
The engine wasn't done by Sega, it was developed by Traveller's Tales of all people. Sega contracted Travelers Tales to develop two Sonic games, one was Sonic 3D Blast for the Genesis/ Mega Drive and Sega Saturn, and the other was this one, Sonic R.

Traveller's Tales has always had a lot of talent from a technical standpoint.
Click to expand...

I agree with that; they were and still are a great tech studio that does great work on any game they make visually.

Crash Twinsanity's smooth animations and open world was impressive for example.
 
RK128 said:
I agree with that; they were and still are a great tech studio that does great work on any game they make visually.

Crash Twinsanity's smooth animations and open world was impressive for example.
Click to expand...


The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse and Toy Story were technical showcases on the 16bit consoles (Most notably for the Genesis) , even Sonic 3D Blast on the Genesis had a full motion FMV intro which was neat.
 
The controls are so bad when you start out but I eventually learned to control it and have a good time. Definitely not a game I'd recommend to anyone though.
 
I'm really surprised Sega never took another shot at this style of racer. Doesn't it make a lot more sense for Sonic and friends to be racing on foot than in karts?

Also for some reason this has been in my iTunes playlist for years.
 
The game that gave us the Tails Doll.

CAN YOU FEEL THE SUNSHINE?
latest


Back in the day I enjoyed the game for what it was, it looked nice and colourful. The music was cool too.

It hasn't aged that well in my humble opinion.
 
I have a theory that this game is enjoyable for approximately 20 minutes at a time (barring your first time playing, probably, or if you're trying to unlock everything).

20 minutes is enough time to play through every stage once, and then one last time as Super Sonic and troll your friends. After that, you move on to another multiplayer game.

The soundtrack is awesome though. I'm still sad that Super Sonic Racing didn't make it into Smash Wii U.
 
OP, I just replayed Sonic R on my Saturn, using the 3D NiGHTS controllers, so a brief comment here. I remember buying Sonic R in November/December of that year m(96? 97?) so it is nostalgic to me to hook up the Saturn and replay it and other games in early winter.

Every time I play Sonic R, I think the control is beyond horrible. But after a few races, I remember how to do it . Its kind of fun to race all the races, relearn the secret paths, find all the coins and emeralds, then (as stated above) replay the tracks with unlocked characters like Super Sonic. I'm usually done within a few evenings.

Too bad they hadn't doubled the courses, even if they uses the same graphic builds but put in different paths. The music is pure 90's Sonic to me.

I forgot that Sonic R is on GCN SOnic Gems. I'll have to replay it on that version too, I think its the original PC version which is slightly different in feel and visuals than the Saturn.
 
I actually had this game on PC (Windows 98 disk, I believe), and I used to play it all the time. This was after Sonic Adventure came out, since I was definitely already familiar with Amy. Music is great, and while the gameplay is probably (very likely) junk, there was just something I found charming about it. I would play through the game unlocking everything, then delete my save, and start over.

I was really hoping for an updated version at some point, updated to match Sonic Adventure.

By the way, people always talk about Puppet Tails, but the Metal Knuckles design in the game was great. I'm surprised they never ended up using it in another game.
latest
 
Cafeman said:
I think its the original PC version which is slightly different in feel and visuals than the Saturn.
Click to expand...
It is - meaning weather effects (gotta love the Snow one), shifting time of day, and Technicolor Seizure Zone for Radiant Emerald instead of Hey Look The Saturn CAN Do Transparencies Zone.

Personally, I think they're all worthwhile additions, so I'm glad the GameCube/PS2 version has 'em. Also maxes out the draw distance, since the consoles are that much more powerful, letting you see every part of the map from any other part, instead of a mere several feet ahead.
 
I always wondered how it was possible to make such a "clean" looking game. You close to never see texture warping, pop ins are not that obvious, textures look great and sort of high-res... The game looks amazing for a Saturn game.
 
Oh, I remember this. It's been many years since I played it, but I also remember the visuals and the soundtrack very fondly. I suspect I wouldn't care much for it today, though.
 
gotta love how they included the PC version of Sonic R on Gems Collection because it was likely easier to get running on the Cube than the Saturn version would have been
 
This game is a guilty pleasure, absolutely loved it. Still hum the music today. i don't care what anyone says about this game lol a must play on the Saturn!!
Plus graphically, this game was doing things that the Saturn was not meant to be capable of! real time lighting and reflections, transparency etc stunning title for the hardware it was on.
Yeah the controls weren't great and the levels were hard to navigate at first but who cares, sometimes it's best to over look such things, master what you can and just have some and for me this game was a lot of fun.
"Can you feel the sunshine, does it brighten up your day, don't you feel that sometimes, you just need to run away."
 
I remember when I first saw this game on sale as a little kid and even back then I actually stopped my mom from buying it for me because I thought the idea of Sonic actually racing other people stupid.

I still think that way.
 
SliceSabre said:
I remember when I first saw this game on sale as a little kid and even back then I actually stopped my mom from buying it for me because I thought the idea of Sonic actually racing other people stupid.

I still think that way.
Click to expand...

Did you snooze on Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed? It was a fantastic game.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Arizona Sunshine - Reveal Trailer
Trailer 
5
187
unfashionable replied
RTTP: The Order 1886 | PS5 Pro / 60fps / Full Screen 900p
RTTP 
10
174
Shifty1897 replied
RTTP: Warframe - The Best F2P Game?
49
647
Milkshake Man replied
  • Poll
How do you feel about camping in FPS?
2
54
405
CuteFaceJay replied
  • Locked
  • Poll
Did Astrobot rip off Mario Sunshine?
2
94
1K
alabtrosMyster replied
Top Bottom