It’s honestly just better Rivals 1. The presentation, gameplay, music, pretty much everything has been upgraded which is commendable. There’s more of an incentive to collect rings during races, the tracks are more stimulating layout wise and in combination of the ring thing I mentioned earlier, there’s more gameplay variety with multiple different modes, there’s now voice acting during cutscenes, again it’s all pretty commendable. This one is actually pretty alright. I'm debating whether it actually deserves 3.5/5 stars but I think the extra effort is worth a couple of brownie points all around
pretty much everything I said about the first game still applies here except this one has a little bit more production value. Vocal themes are here, theres voice acting in the cutscenes, the character count has been doubled, and the levels are different. Despite all the new characters, they still all play exactly the same which is kinda lame. If you liked sonic rivals 1, this is definitely more of that. If you didn't, this won't convince you.