I wouldn't really call Sonic Rivals a bad game but I do find it really boring and mediocre. I get what they were going for but the game relies way too much on automation for it's level design with not much to keep you coming back for replays.

Really the only thing that's going to keep you going is the fact the story is mildly entertaining but they present the story in the most basic way possible limiting it's potential. The game's rubber band AI is to be expected but sometimes it can be obnoxious but the game is still pretty easy regardless especially with the bosses.

The game does have a lot of extras which is pretty cool to see but after the 4 playthroughs, my Sonic Rivals fuel is empty and I can't keep going anymore. It didn't help that everyone plays the same outside of their special ability.

The game graphically looks nice for a PSP game and it's got it's charm even if some parts of the game feel cheap. The voice acting is your typical earlier 4kids actors so it's very not good and sadly you're stuck with it as the game lacked a Japanese release. It's also oddly really quiet when they talk which idk is an emulation problem or not. The music is also really boring like good lord I got sick of some of it.

Sonic Rivals has potential but it squanders on it by just not being interesting. It's playable, being neither bad or good but there is practically no reason to play it in today's age. A sequel was made so I'll probably play it someday. Apologies for the short review with this one. The only thing I have left to say is, I hate Sonic's render in this game. It looks atrocious.

Sonic Rivals is a mini sonic game that is on the Playstation portable that mostly takes inspiration from the rush and advanced games focusing on Sonic vs his 4 Big Rivals from the generations of Sonic.
There are a total of 5 Characters in Sonic Rivals, and the point of the game is to... race your rivals lol.

The characters being:
1. Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog)

2. Knuckles (second Sonic Rival, appearing first from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, later becoming Sonic's friend after the events of Sonic 3 & Knuckles)

3. Shadow (third Sonic Rival, appearing first in Sonic Adventure 2 as the opposing force to Team Sonic, Shadow being the ultimate lifeform later teams up with Sonic and sacrifices himself in the final battle of Adventure 2, only to return in Sonic Heroes surviving his fall to earth, later saving Earth once again in his very janky spinoff)

4. Silver (Fourth Sonic Rival, appearing in Sonic 06 as hero from the future who tricked by Mephiles the Dark into killing Sonic to unleashed the entity know as Iblis into destroying the world, known for being very whiny but cool in terms of his story being similar to Future Trunks, and him having Psychokinesis. Also known for the iconic and joked on quote "It's no use.")

5. Metal Sonic (Sonic's First Rival and Active Enemy, Metal Sonic first appeared in Sonic CD, in the destroyed Future of Stardust speedway where he challenges Sonic into racing him in order to save Amy, who Metal captured early on in CD, Sonic destroys Metal only for Eggman to rebuild him and has even been shown to be faster than Sonic. Another big thing is Metal Sonic has the ability to copy cat based on his Neo-Metal Sonic form from Sonic Heroes, which comes back in this game, being able to copy all other 4 characters abilities.)

The story is essentially Sonic discovering a new island called Onyx Island and Eggman captures important things to Sonic, Shadow, Silver, and Knuckles in order to gather data from them. He captures Tails, the Master Emerald, Amy, Rouge... and Eggman? by turning them into cards (yes it's dumb but if you ever watched Power Rangers SPD, the SPD Rangers captured their enemies in Card Prisons, so it's not that big of a deal).
Each of the characters have their own stories except Metal Sonic who can be unlocked after finishing the game. Sonic's story is about rescuing Tails and Amy. Knuckles has to do with getting the Master Emerald back from Eggman. Shadow's Story is about Shadow figuring out what's going on with Eggman, since he recieved a distress message asking shadow for help, Shadow later finds out Eggman is not Eggman, and defeats him in order to save Rouge. Silver's story is what ties everything together where we find out that Silver has never been chasing Eggman, but in fact the true villian of Sonic Rivals is actually... EGGMAN NEGA, who wants to change the future because of the original Eggman's failure, he wants the future to change his family history. Silver Teams up with Shadow and Knuckles to stop Eggman Nega, Silver successfully defeating Nega. Later Nega turns himself accidently into a card, allowing for Silver to capture and imprison the doctor... until Sonic Rivals 2.

The stories intertwine, but have different endings for different characters, with Sonic and Knuckles respectively never meeting Eggman Nega in this game, though Shadow and Silver do. Also the stories mostly have Silver, Knuckles, and Shadow teaming up towards the end of their stories, while Sonic is sort of just there to save his friends, not so much uncover the truth of EGGMAN NEGA. The story is overall good, I think it giving more of a spotlight to the rivals is nice. Though honestly it's a shame SEGA didn't think of a story mode for Metal Sonic... shunned again after Sonic Adventure 1.

The game has a total of 5 stages, each of them focusing on you (whoever you're playing as) racing against a rival and thats about it. You do fight 5 bosses in the game, though one of them you have to fight both the final boss and metal sonic who can't be killed, is more so just an obstacle attempting to stop you from hurting the boss.

The stages are in order:

1. Forest Falls Zone (a jungle zone on Onyx Island)

2. Colosseum Highway Zone (a sunset zone that looks like a 3d version of Marble Garden Zone, which has a lot of Greek/Roman architecture in the background.)

3. Sky Park Zone (sort of fusion of Carnival Night Zone from Sonic 3 and Knuckles, mixed with aspects of Twinkle Park from Sonic Adventure 1)

4. Crystal Mountain Zone (Sort of a reference to Ice Cap Zone from Adventure and Sonic 3 and Knuckles)

5. Death Yard Zone (Sort of looks like a mix of Oil Ocean and Chemical Plant with a more orange pollution hue. It's essentially a giant Pollution factory.)

6. Meteor Base Zone (Final Zone that essentially looks like a mix of Madgear in Space with magman/lava).

There are 5 bosses in Sonic Rivals:

1. Eggman Turtle (Boss of Forest Falls Zone)
2. Eggman Falcon (Boss of Colosseum Highway Zone)
3. Metal Sonic (Second Act Boss of Sky Park Zone, you are challenge by him in a race for all characters)
4.Eggman Lynx (Boss of Crystal Mountain Zone)
5. Eggman Kong (Boss of Death Yard Zone)
6. Egg Destroyer (Final Boss of Sonic Rivals)


The game is essentially a 2 act structure where you race in 2 races then fight a boss in each stage, except for Sky Park Zone.

The game overall is an ok sonic game, but it can be frustrating in terms of some areas of the game being janky and sometimes it feels like it was made to be in order for you opponent/rival to constantly be able to keep up with you.
Rivals 2 is a major improvement over Rivals 1, but this is a good portable sonic game, even if it is short.

Antigamente, tinha um ódio mortal por sonic rivals como todo, por que? Porque enquanto todo mundo estava se divertido jogando sonic rush no DS, o PSP tinha um joguinho de corrida. Criei um grande ranço, ao ponto de nem querer jogar ele, mas com o tempo fui perdendo esse ódio gratuito, dando uma nova chance de mente aberta.

Como um jogo de corrida 2.5D, ele acaba tendo um level design bem capado. Uma linha reta, com obstáculos para desviar, plataformas e um tronco no chão (não sei o nome disso) para te jogar para cima ou dar um impulso para frente. Também possui inimigos, que são bem inúteis, se posicionado fixamente no cenário. Na campanha possui 6 zonas, cada uma possuindo 2 atos e um chefe no final. A melhor zona é a ultima, porque ela não é uma corrida 🎉. As zonas não tem nada de erro grotesco, o erro mesmo fica no seu adversário.

A corrida se baseia em em dois bonecos dando soco um no outro, até aí, ok, em execução, soa como uma corrida x1 no Mario kart, mas o jogador em segundo lugar possui um casco azul. Essa é a visão mais precisa que consigo descrever. A movimentação é bem simples, pulo, ataque físico/especial e spin dash. O que estraga a maioria das corridas são os ataques especiais, eles ficam espalhados pelo cenário, como uma item box, seu funcionamento determinado da posição do boneco, em primeiro armadilhas e em segundo ataques teleguiados, que vão te acertar no final e fazer você perder a partida inteira. O bot sempre irá ficar perto de você, independente da derrota ou vitória, existindo um imã que nunca deixa um muito longe do outro, tornando as corridas dependentes de sorte, pois as armadilhas não atingem o bot na maioria das vezes. No final, resulta em uma experiência frustrante em que nem as habilidades compensam, tem momentos onde não há nada que possamos fazer. Chefes fazem sua presença aqui, e eles são bem meia boca. O robô do eggman faz uma palhaçada e fica parado por um determinado tempo, então você tem que atacar 6 vezes para vencer do bot que também ataca o eggman, tornando uma competição de quem bate mais no chefe. Elas são fracas e bem fáceis, no entanto, espancar o bot enquanto o eggman fica invencível me trás uma enorme satisfação depois de 4 derrotas seguidas nas corridas.

Existe 4 campanhas aqui, sonic, shadow, knuckles e silver, qual é a diferença entre elas? Pouca coisa, as fases são as mesmas, apenas mudando o adversário delas. A mudança fica por parte da história. Eggman tirou fotos dos interesses de cada personagen usando uma câmera especial, capaz de transformar "tudo" fotografado em cartas. Então todos terão seus motivos para ir atrás dele por conta disso. Agora peço pra adivinhar a motivação do knuckles, tu vai gastar 2 neurônios pra isso. O que não gostei muito dela foi da forma como as corridas acontecem, o motivo delas é uma das piores escritas de sonic, só servem pra arranjarem qualquer motivo para correr. Não curto muito a parte do shadow ser um anti-herói, no sonic adventure 2 tinha um motivo para ele estar no lado de eggman, mas aqui se torna apenas estranho. A campanha do sonic e knuckles é bem inútil, mas quando chega a parte do shadow e silver é revelado uma informação que me surpreendeu de tão pouco que esperava do jogo, mudando completamente a visão de antes (o plano do vilão é bem ruim e mesmo com a revelação não muda tanta coisa), mas a parte de jogar com todos os personagens não te dá uma história extra, e sim o metal sonic para usar nos torneios e corridas normais, levando todo meu esforço em vão.

Falando delas, o jogo tem várias recompensas de acordo com a classificação que tu tira das fases, tais recompensas sendo 300 bilhões de cartas contendo artes de sonic, e skins para os personagens. Bonitinhas, porém tenho vontade nenhuma de rejogar ele novamente.

Acho que se eu mantivesse meu preconceito com sonic rivals, não ia mudar nada na minha vida porque esse jogo é o mais mediano possível. Tu não tá perdendo nada não jogando ele, não é um jogo ruim, mas muito broxante de se jogar, contendo nada de muito especial. Espero que o mesmo não se repita com o 2.

Knuckles used a ground stomp that stunned me while I was running up a slope. While stunned, I slid down the slope, hit a speed booster and was sent flying like, a meter away from the goal. Stun ended, two steps later, I win the race. Fun!

This feels like an upscaled Java phone game ported to the PSP. The presentation is SUPER cheap, almost like a knockoff bootleg version of Sonic. Framerate was giving me a headache, too. The game itself isn't worth much either; it's basic, flat ass Sonic platforming but there's a second furry friend trying to beat the shit out of you in the process. Very forgettable.

Okay, here's the thing about this game...

I'm personally of the opinion that people complaining about a 2D Sonic game because "it doesn't have momentum!" or "it doesn't feel like the genesis games!" are, frankly really whiny.

I really love the genesis games, but I don't think every 2D Sonic game needs to play like them, the Sonic Rush games are testament to the ability of being able to make a Really Fun 2D game without needing to play like the genesis games.

This is the opposite of that, this is just fucking boring.

There's no level design, it boils Sonic down to its simplest form of just "Press the right button at the right time.", I frankly don't understand how this made it through development.

Definitely not a game I recommend.

It's one of the most nostalgic 2d PSP racing games for me, because the soundtracks are good, the last act is good and some bosses are creative and also the card system which is a waste of time.
However, the game does have a few bugs, such as if you touch your opponent you have a chance of flying away and also in act 3 it's possible to benefit from freeing a box that would break you out of the race. Some of the level design is ugly and repetitive, and the CPU is so dumb that it needs to be teleported to reach the player.
Sonic star power-up is the most detailed, while the other characters are useless, especially Silver, who is the most annoying character in this game with the worst power-up, which is the same as Knuckles' but a thousand times worse.