@@radiantstarlight0428 It would’ve been great if the tutorial wasn’t stuck behind the Options menu. Ironically, that was the only thing Free Riders did right…
I really hope Sega can manage to reboot the Riders series. It was such a breath of fresh air for the Sonic series. It's just too bad they dropped the ball big time with Free Riders.. Also, "SONIC RID3RS" as a potential 3rd installment title lol
It is less of a "can they manage to do it" vs. a "do they want to do it?" It seems that Sega has taken a liking to putting sonic in a car because it is more profitable to try to be Mario Kart, vs. selling a brand based around air skateboarding.
I love the intro of riders it oozes with style, and looks like a sonic anime. I hope another riders game is made. A title I thought of is sonic rIIIders with the i being replaced with the Roman numeral for 3.
If a new Sonic Riders game was to come out it’d be the 4th one. Sonic Free Riders for the Xbox Kinect was the third game. A fun pun for the name could be Sonic Riders: Forever. (Forever as in four, like how the free in free riders is 3.)
It's interesting that Jet's prototype design was a weasel. Since Jet is partially based on a Tengu, with the leaf fan being a prominent example, I would believe that the weasel inspiration may have came from the Kamaitachi. I wonder if the rest of the Babylon Rogues would have been initially based on weasels.
...You may be on to something. Kamaitachi are said to operate as a trio as well. One incapacitates the victim, one opens wounds, and the other heals the victim. Also, there's a lot of Japanese mythology hidden in plain sight in the Sonic series. Tails is a damn Kitsune, and no one really pays much attention. Hell, Marine from Sonic Rush Adventure is said to be a raccoon, but her colors are closer to that of a tanuki than an actual raccoon. Her characterization even matches up with the tricky, undefinable nature of tanuki from Japanese folklore.
@@TornaitSuperBird Hmm, in that case, Jet, the trickster, incapacitates the victim and their Extreme Gear with his Tornado Step, Storm, the brute, opens wounds (in this case, breaks the Extreme Gear), and Wave, the mechanic, heals wounds (in this case, fixes the Extreme Gear).
@@TornaitSuperBird For the fact that they operate as a trio is only in a certain region of Japan, most of the time it is alone. But the trio aspect holds up. And the high speed of the Kamaitachi does explain the first design choice for Jet.
The first two Riders games are so nostalgic to me. This video has really made me appreciate these games even more knowing how much work was put into the concept art, characterizations, and environments of the game.
The Babylon Rogues are so cool! I love how Jet is characterized as being competitive like Sonic, but is much meaner about it, though not as aggressive as Shadow. And I don’t necessarily have a problem with the character design where their shoes accommodate their bird-feet, though I can definitely understand the hands. It reminds me of the hands of the Angry Birds movie characters. But since the Babylon Rogues are also flightless, it made more sense to give them gloved hands, as is one if the normal conventions for Sonic character design. I suppose they could have put their wings on their backs like with Rouge, but that could have been creepier. I’m surprised you didn’t talk about their voices. I think Jason Griffith does a great job differentiating Jet from his Sonic voice. Despite how cartoonishly grating Jet’s voice sounds, I cannot help but find it funny when he’s being tenacious and trying to get others to take him seriously. I really hope they appear in the main series some day, but they’re so heavily tied to the hoverboard mechanic that it’d be hard to put them in any other setting. Although I did see a cool S3&K mod that replaces Sonic with Jet. I’ll definitely check out the Riders discord communities and play the games when I get a chance. The music of Sonic Riders is also really cool too. Especially the intro song and Ungravity. Despite being a kid of the 2000s (I was born in 99’), I was never into the whole skateboarding and other extreme sports super-fad back then. I was always worried I’d fall and get hurt. I think I had one tech-deck, but I only used it for one toy of Sid from Ice Age. I was a weird kid back then. LOL. I guess while I’m off the topic of Sonic, I find it funny you mentioned Lilo and Stitch twice. I’ve only seen the original movie and tiny bits of their TV show, but not enough to know what was going on. Just from mentioning how you used to go on the websites for TV channels like Nickelodeon, I got hit with a huge wave of nostalgia. Reminds me of when I used to go on the Animal Planet website and play games for shows like Tanked, Finding Bigfoot, and this one game called Elephant Odyssey. Though I did watch full episodes of Lost Tapes on that site which scarred me for life. Again, I was a weird kid. Wait what was this long comment about? LOL for rambling. Great vid.
I really liked the early character designs and I wish they made it into the final game, sonic especially looked really cool kitted out in snowboarding-ish gear,
The Sonic Riders series is amazing! It needs to be brought back! I keep having ideas for what a fourth Sonic Riders game could be. This spinoff series needs to be revived.
Thank you for the ExGL shoutout! Glad we could be included as part of the game's history and development! You really are the next Cybershell in the making!
Np!!! You guys and SRTE truly are keeping the legacy of the games alive and it’s absolutely amazing to see. Whenever I can promote the riders modding community I’m happy to do so. I appreciate the kind words too, Merry Christmas!
This video was a massive project that we were happy to assist in. The reseach and execution on coverage of it was absolutely stellar. Thanks for having us Eldarin!
I want Sonic Riders to return. I'm waiting for Sonic Riders: One Gravity and Sonic Captive Riders Jokes aside, it's a series that I'm HOPING to return because of its unique ideas and gameplay style
If I had to guess, I would say that Riders was most likely a victim of the direction Sega took the series starting in 2010. Not only would Riders feel sort of out of place with that new direction, but the series was never popular with critics or even fans of the time, and since this major change to the status quo was made in an attempt to do better after how poorly '06 went, and part of their initiative to make the series better was to throw out anything that wasn't well-received by critics or fans at the time, I can see Sonic Team looking at the reception of the Riders games and deciding that it wasn't worth continuing, and all of this is taking into account just the first two games. Right at the start of the Meta era came Free Riders, a game so bad, that I firmly believe it alone would've singlehandedly sunken the whole Riders ship regardless of previous reception; after all, the last thing Sonic Team wanted was another '06. I don't agree with that, but it's just how they were at the time.
The mid to late 2000s were low key the best times for Sonic’s characterization, the different and dope ideas, the music, the art direction, and the stories. It really seems like people just don’t realize that because all they see is 06, shadow and the Werehog. For me personally I already consider it the best but for others I think this era of Sonic should really be dissected and looked at a little more for the ideas that were presented and the cool things that went overlooked. God I love being a Sonic fan (sometimes😅)
Eldarin! I am such a huge fan of Sonic Riders. It’s such a unique, fun, and cool game! As you can tell, I love Jet the Hawk. I even voice him in the SonicSong182 videos. I miss the Babylon Rogues so much. Hearing all this wonderful information, the excitement, and the unique happenings with this game. I hope SEGA can get the hint and will give more life into this series! SRTE is amazing too! I wish I could comment more, but this is yet another fantastic video from you! You’re honestly one of the best Sonictubers out there and I loved this video so much! Now to listen to Catch Me If You Can for the next week!
I like Sonic Riders, particularly speaking my favorite is Zero Gravity, but I think this design idea is really cool, the boards are stylish (especially Zero Gravity) and the Jet prototypes look pretty cool, especially the first one with the bandana and glasses
This is still the my favorite racing series in the entire franchise years later. It just suits the Sonic universe so much better than simple racing cars.
Extreme job eldarin,and you too nick,i absolutely love this game, I sucked at it at first cuz of its learning curve and me jumping straight in,thinking I could understand it immediately,but I found some guides and now I'm a pro,hope the 06 vid is coming along well,and hope you have a merry Christmas,and a happy new year!
I played the crap out of this game in my childhood, playing with awful russian subtitles. But i freakin' love it to this day! Thank you for this content, i was just amazed of the early artwork and renders you found!
Joined the both of the discords over quarantine after finding my old ps2 and playing the original, absolutely love the Sonic Riders community! Thanks for this vid!
What a video, that was well worth the way. I fell in love with Jet's character after watching your long Sonic Riders stream where you played through the story mode and showed off some mods, he really is excellent. A more childish reflection of Sonic's basic concepts with a sick bird design. I never realized how much his and Sonic's designs paralleled one another, but it really makes sense that he was designed that way and shows the genius of his character that he was, and thanks to all of that I like him as a rival to Sonic even more than Shadow. One interesting thing about the Jet concepts is that there's the Fox one, and also the one that looks a bit like Knuckles. Probably just coincidence, but it's funny he paralleled all of Team Sonic (minus Amy, but she's a member in spirit this time around dammit and hopefully also relevant in Frontiers) at some point, perhaps he wasn't meant to be the leader originally, or perhaps he was still the leader but still was meant to parallel a non-Sonic character then. As much as I love Jet I think at least during the Babylon Rogue's story section Wave really steals the show for being focused and sneaky, cheating Jet to victory without him even knowing and providing a much better source of usefulness-conflict that Lost World also tried with Tails' character, so I wonder if the leader of the group was originally meant to be a rival to Tails rather than Sonic. Sonic already had a rival while Tails didn't, after all, not to mention the two long strands of hair coming out of the Fox-Jet's design could be a nod to Tails' two tails, and if we're working with tech like the hoverboards, a mechanic leader would make sense. I think the final designs/dynamics of the Babylon Rogues probably work best but Tails getting center stage even more and having his rival be the leader of the bad guys would be neat, assuming that's at all what might've been the idea at first. Also, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! In my timezone I'm a bit late to say that, but still. I got a copy of Sonic Rush for Christmas, I'm excited to give it a shot. I would've done that today/yesterday but I got caught up talking to a friend and watching some Christmas videos like this one, which I'm absolutely glad to have done, this really was a great deep dive. I can also vouch for Nick's videos, I watched his Sonic Colors video a bit ago and it was a solid one, I'll look into more of his videos tomorrow if I'm not busy with Sonic Rush.
i first played sonic riders when i was about 6 or 7 with my older siblings. my mindset was that sonic x was just a cartoon i was watching on 4kids and they made a whole game based on it. years later, i find out there's an entire franchise based off of sonic. i was truly amazed by how much sonic games and music i found. if it wasn't for riders, i dunno where i'd be
It's great to see some more indepth video about the development of this game. So many cool details, even talking about some promo stuff. Thats awesome. There is one thing I wanted to mention about the JP website though, I thought it would be interesting. The japanese website is actually still running just like most of the japanese websites promoting Sonic games (unlike the english ones). It's still up to this day even after Flash died. The videos didn't work on that site, the video player just wouldn't wanna load them, but the wallpapers and the papercraft downloads worked. It is great to see it being preserved in a...more viewable state, thanks SRTE.
Riders was always one of my favorite design aesthetic from the franchise. Good job linking on the sources, too. Are you gonna cover the music in a seperate video?
Great stuff, I remember getting Sonic Riders day 1 but I couldn't play it cuz I had school, but my mom needed me out of school for something so I got to play it all day. Still one of my favorite gaming memories
My fandom goes down to creating a game just like Sonic Riders. They're a huge inspiration to me. I would love to learn how they coded some of this stuff.
Merry Christmas everyone!!! I hope you and your families all have a wonderful holiday and New Year!🎄🎅🏻 It has come to my attention that the person I called "this guy" was Polygon Jim...who was a very highly regarded hacker in the Sonic community. I was not aware of his passing let alone who he was as that was before my time with the series. I sincerely apologize, it was an honest mistake and I didn't mean to make light of his passing or anything related to him, I simply thought he was just a random troll in the sonicretro comments for the thread. Make sure to check out & support both SRTE 1.4 & Extreme Gear Labs (Riders DX)!! SRTE Discord: discord.gg/GPgZdKq SRTE Website: sonicriders.org Extreme Gear Labs Discord: discord.gg/6xwfaZc Extreme Gear Labs Website: exgearlabs.com
This a very good and awesome and epic video I love Sonic Riders! It was one of the first Sonic games I played! I already knew all about the Sonic Extreme situation (don't remember if I ever actually saw footage of it before or not), but everything else was completely new to me! It was very nice to gain all of that amount of insight into development, which is very rare outside of that specific era of games.
The world hobby fair footage shows a banner for advance 2 which has an artwork of Tails I can't find anywhere. It looks like it's an edited version of his Games Collection artwork.
This spinoff in particular needs to make a major redemption and comeback in the 30th anniversary. No more team Sonic racing or Sonic all stars transformed.
YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSS!!! IM SO HAPPY YOU DID A VIDEO ON THE MAKING OF THIS GAME!!! 😊😊😊 So glad you did this because this is one of my most all time favorite sonic series! 😊❤ Merry Christmas! 😄
Now I don't have much to say here like the last ones but I do think this gave me a new view and light to Jet's character, who I never really had any real thoughts on before then.
