Esse jogo merece o hate que ele tem, mas eu me diverti com ele.
Os controles são ruins mas da pra se acostumar.
Tem pouquissimo conteúdo.
MAS TIRANDO ISSO, todo o resto ele faz bem, trilha sonora boa, visuais lindíssimos, pistas simples mas bem feitas.
Se ele não falhasse nas partes mais importantes seria um jogo bom.

Sonic R é como um aluno que estudou um bocado mas tirou 6, uma pena que pra passar de ano ele precisava de um 7.

PS: Quase fui atrás do 100% pq é facil e apesar de tudo o jogo é curto e eu me diverti com ele (talvez eu ainda faça 100%)

It's a shame this game isn't better. A cool 3D Sonic racing game that unfortunately doesn't play very well. Controls are extremely slippery, and I can't actually play it properly.

I really wish this was better. The visuals are cool for its time, the soundtrack is a certified banger and has one of the most well known Sonic songs of the entire franchise, and you see that there was an attempt, it wasn't heartless. But alas, it's not fun, and there's nothing I can do about it but rate it properly.

SCORE: 5/10

first of all: this IS the superior version of the game. sonic r was made FOR the saturn and i adore it in all its graphical crust and cascading render distances. seriously, the way they handle the low render distance in this game is gorgeous and amplifies the look of tracks like radiant emerald. i'm getting aside of myself though

sonic r is a misunderstood gem. i was thinking about this a lot in my free time the other day- i've been on a sega saturn binge lately and i played sega rally championship back to back with this game. intentional or not, sonic r and src are definitely similar games, yet sonic r has a 2.8 and sega rally has a 3.7.

"well, sonic r has slippery handling and inconsistent physics!" yeah, so does sega rally. stop playing sonic r like a kart racer

"well, sonic r barely has any content!"
sega rally has 4 stages, yet nobody complains. i guess cuz its an arcadey racer and you're supposed to master high scores? i'd definitely argue that's what sonic r goes for as well.

"the music is bad!"
nobody says this about either game i made it up

so the biggest complaints about sonic r come down to misconceptions. i think this is also why people complain about the "difficulty spike" for 100%-ing the game! the game demands mastery of the few stages it has for the same reason any arcade racer would. it provides a solid testing grounds for your fastest pathways, and the shitpost-tier ai in the standard races makes it less of a pain in the ass to get back to the challenge again. i don't know what design decisions were legit decisions here, but it all flows together quite nicely. though, obviously, the greatest part about this game are the track layouts and the MUSIC. i cannot say anything about sonic r's soundtrack that hasn't already been said. just listen to "work it out". it is the most bright, bubbly energetic music that fails to ever get old when you're practicing routes through those stages. and those stages do have hella routes- they're essentially 3d sonic levels that loop. it's super fun to use each character's power to "exploit" things. the speedrunning scene for sonic r is probably insane. maybe that physics engine was good all along? the artstyle is damn perfect too, featuring signature sega sunny skies as well as sparkley space voids and shiny metallic sheens. exploring is fun and satiates my need for a 3d platformer on the sega saturn, cuz this is way more interesting as a genre hybrid.

yeah sonic r is basically perfect. best racing game i've ever played

I really had to prepare myself to play this game. I accepted all the positive and negative and took the time to understand it. The truth is that in no more than half an hour of gameplay it is possible to understand the controls and be able to play it normally. The game looks pretty good, it is very colorful, it has quite interesting ideas and although the music is extremely cringy, by now I have learned to love it. I was able to beat it and everything, but the truth is that its not a very enjoyable game, it has so little content and its such a mess that it really ends up being a somewhat depressing experience.

I love Tails Doll.

Can you see?
The sun is shinin' on me.
It makes me feel so free,
so alive!
It makes me want to survive!
And the sky,
it makes me feel so high,
The bad times pass me by
'cause today
is gonna be a brighter day!
Can you feel the sunshine?
Does it brighten up your day?
Don't you feel that sometimes
You just need to run away?
Reach out for the sunshine
Forget about the rain
Just think about the good times
And they will come back again
Feel the sunshine...
Without you,
there's nothing for me to do
Can you feel the sunshine, too?
It's comin' through,
it makes me feel brand new
When you're here,
I wish you were always near
'cause everything's so clear
And today
is gonna be a brighter day
Can you feel the sunshine?
Does it brighten up your day? (Brighten up your day...)
Don't you feel that sometimes
You just need to run away?
Reach out for the sunshine
Forget about the rain
Just think about the good times
And they will come back again
When the sun goes down
I feel like I am waiting
For another day
When the clouds go away
Can you feel it?
Ooh-hoo...
Can you feel it?
Oh...
Can you feel it?
Oh...
Can you feel it?
Can you feel the sunshine?
Does it brighten up your day? (Brighten up your day...)
Don't you feel that sometimes
We just need to run away?
Reach out for the sunshine
Forget about the rain
Just think about the good times
And they will come back again
[piano, percussion bridge]
Can you feel the sunshine?
Does it brighten up your day? (Brighten up your day...)
Don't you feel that sometimes
You just need to run away? (You just need to run away...)
Reach out for the sunshine
Forget about the rain
Just think about the good times
And they will come back again
Can you feel the sunshine? (Can you feel it?)
Does it brighten up your day? (Brighten up your day...)
Don't you feel that sometimes
We just need to run away? (Need to run away...)
Reach out for the sunshine (Reach out...)
Forget about the rain
Just think about the good times
And they will come back again
Whoa-oh-oh-oh...
Brighten up your day...
You just need to run away...
Reach out, you gotta reach out...
Come back again...
You gotta reach out...

Anyway, the game is OK once you learn how to play it, but being developed in 9 months really messed the team.

Tragedy today at Radical City after Sonic the Hedgehog took a turn too wide too quickly, breaking through the catch fence and injuring more than two dozen spectators. Experts are calling it the deadliest crash in Sonic R history.

I was such a huge fan of Sonic the Hedgehog back in the day that I had a copy of Sonic CD and Sonic R for the PC despite not having a computer to play them on. About the only time I could play either was when I stayed with family that did have a PC, which more often than not was my mom, who I stayed with for a few weeks each Summah. So, imagine my Sonic-loving ass holding onto this copy of Sonic R like it's some precious thing, a Sonic game I've never played before, getting on a plane for four hours and flying out to Montana in breathless anticipation, and then, finally, I put the disc in...

Oh, it's bad. Real bad. Can you feel the sunshine? Absolutely, brother. I'm gonna go lay down on the front lawn and stare at the sun for a while as penance for my foolishness.

The idea of a Sonic racing game where all the characters are on foot makes total sense and it's wild to me that it's considered more novel at this point than throwing them all in cars. At the same time, it's a shame that I can drive a car better than I can drive Sonic, so I can kind of understand why they haven't revisited this concept. Everyone's handling is awful and the dedicated drift is ineffectual, just keeping your racer aligned on the track and not bouncing between barriers or careening into water is a challenge in itself. Every racer feels like an out-of-control animal, and if you're persistent enough you might be able to get them to do what you want, but you cannot embody them.

Everything else Sonic R is wrapped in I'm pretty cool with. I think collecting tokens and chaos emeralds is a smart way to help the player learn the ins and outs of each track, and Metal Knuckles and the Tails Doll are some peak mid-1990s Sonic characters. The soundtrack, composed by Richard Jacques with vocals by Jane "TJ" Davis, is not something I was initially hot on back when I first played the game, but which I have warmed up to over the years. I still don't think any of these tracks are quite as strong as anything else Jacques has composed for the Sonic series (like Sonic Boom), and some of his best work lies elsewhere, like in Jet Grind Radio, but Sonic R's Eurobeat inspired soundtrack has an appeal all its own. I used to think people liked it ironically, but that's just a half-step towards liking it for real, and I've already crossed that threshold. It's too bad the official CD now sells for nearly $300, although if you have a totally official Sega Saturn disc, you can put it in your PC and just rip all the tracks, including some that didn't make it on the soundtrack.

I don't think Sonic R is good, but it's also not so frustrating that I ever felt I needed to bail on it, and after falling into a sort of Stockholmish trance from sheer over-exposure, I kinda had a little fun. Just a little, though. Not enough that I would recommend this over like, Daytona USA. That'd just be crazy.

ADDENDUM: I'm reading that the handling is improved in the PC version of the game, which is what Sonic Gems Collection uses. When I play Sonic the Fighters this week, I'll make sure to do a few courses and touch on this in my Gems review.