The WORST Sonic Game Is Good Now? | Sonic Free Riders No Kinect Patch Review 

I am mostly impressed that this patch exists in the first place since reportedly kinect games are extremely difficult to emulate. The guy who did this had to be really dedicated.

This really tells you how dedicated Sonic fans can be with some mods, and fan games or animations out there, ChaosX taking up the challenge of fixing 06, and some madman deciding to fix Free Riders of all things

You know we’ve had so many remakes of games that were already really good… we need more remakes of bad games

Losing the Kinect really improves the playability of this game. The power of fans to greatly improve these Sonic games, especially such a difficult to emulate game as this is unreal. I'll definitely have to check this out.

There’s something to be said about creativity in the hands of passionate individuals who see a different perspective on works of art. Free Riders being the nail in the coffin for the series by the hands of corporate scrutiny, while fans took it to revitalize their vision of what could’ve been. It’s really no secret this IP would’ve been dead in the ground if it weren’t for the fans keeping the imaginary potential alive. But it makes all more infuriating that Sega corporate doesn’t see the same vision as the fans do or used to wield. To that end, a question: Would you take Sonic being his most fun from unofficial support in favor of continued rushed releases from corporate? Or would you trade that in favor of the company finally getting their heads check to produce actual good official games worthy of $60?

The "Sonic Riders" trilogy is the video game equivalent of the original "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" film trilogy. The first instalment is very good and has rightfully been better appreciated as time went on. The second instalment tried to address the concerns and criticisms but ultimately fell short. The third instalment is unapologetically awful and should be avoided at all costs.

I do wish Sega would give this series another go. The series today could be its own Mario Kart with tons of new characters, boards and online multiplayer with cross play. But I’m looking forward to Superstars

It utterly frustrates me on how incompetent SEGA was back in 2010 when making this sequel. This spinoff series had potential to be the most unique and versatile way of racing. 13 entire years go by and we've yet to get another Riders title. Instead, we get a traditional kart racer.. & worst of all, we don't even get to see the Babylon Rogues make a return besides the IDW comics and merchandise. The fact that fans have to recreate or build the game from the ground up for it to be a step above the original or even better is pretty embarrassing. People like ChaosX and Rei-san deserve their flowers simply because of the dedication and effort to recreate sonic games and what they SHOULD be.

I know the game was supposed to be played only with kinect, but what did they think of when they did not include at least controller support when they released the game. They would've sold way more copies then. At least now we can play it like we wished we could play it.

The sonic fanbase is very interesting isn't it? They've almost destroyed the sonic franchise multiple times but they’ve also saved it multiple times as well

I REALLY REALLY hope that Riders, Zero Grav, and Free (without motion controls of course) get put on modern consoles 😭

first project o6 now this? i love the sonic modding community

Sonic Free Riders is one of the few games that I actually love that everyone hates and it all came down to a taste of liking the Kinect controls or not. I was one of those that loved it even without the patch. Now I'm glad anyone can pick the game up for themselves.

The Modder said.. “Fine.. I’ll do it myself..”😈

Fangames like Triple Trouble: 16-Bit and Fallen Star or madman projects like Free Riders: No Kinect and Project 06... Stuff like this tells me that despite the Sonic franchise and its reputation oftentimes feeling like a disheartening, shattered mirror, in the darkness, there truly is a mote of golden light... A flame that refuses to go out. Just another example of Sonic having the true power of a phoenix. As the lyrics in One Way Dream go: "You and me, we're built on trust; That's why we can always get up! Even if they laugh, we'll never bite the dust!"

Sonic Fans are seriously wizards, it almost seems like they can do anything with stuff that Sega has abandoned and make them reach their peak potential, me personally I still wish for a 2D Sonic with Chaotix gimmick of a Ring Tether I still find fun, unique and interesting, or just remake the original Chaotix for people to experience and rescue it from its 32X Purgatory.

Sonic DisKinected Riders will hopefully grab Sega's attention enough to make an official version, or maybe even a new Riders game.

Almost at 200k J, lets go! Congrats! Gotta love fan projects, so much talented people in this amazing community

6:23 THERE I AM GARY THERE I AM

I didn't know about Shadow Reloaded. I played the crap out of that game when I was a kid so now I'm excited to try that with a better version.

Sonic Free Riders is definitely a A tier cant lie but the 2 problems were that were no drifting and doing tricks using buttons but you know what I mean.

Nice video. Honestly from my experience on Kinect, this game is really nowhere the worst one of them all. You really just gotta play it right since it really works for me lol. It’s great how we have it on PC and console now, it’s really peak fiction 👌

I have so much nostalgia for this game! The moment I saw the notification I clicked, I want this game with no kinect controls so damn much!

This was another banger video, and I would love to see you go more in depth on Sonic Riders DX and Regravitified!

I like the little detail of how all the female riders for their weight class don't tell us besides cream cuz she's a cinnamon roll. ahhh Free riders is a game of all time. I'm glad that we can all look at this game as something worth a dang now instead of Kinect hell.

Now we need someone to Fix Sonic Boom and we are officially the best fangame community out there

I am really impressed! Both to the fact that this patch even exists in the first place, considering to my knowledge that Xbox Kinect games are VERY difficult to emulate. The guy who made this possible had to be not only a very skilled programmer, but also really dedicated to Sonic the Hedgehog and/or racing games!

Question J, are you going to Re-Review Sonic Frontiers once the Update 3 DLC roadmap comes out later this year?

Fan projects, games, & mods like this are something that leaves me smiling (as well as baffled towards the amount of detractors & critics who say the bad games need to die off so that we can move on to something better)

Sonic Mods are the best!!!!

Extremely hot take.... although the controls were really dumb, Im struggling to understand how so many ppl struggled with the controls so much. It worked completely fine for me back when I had the game. Maybe you guys didn't have the Kinect positioned properly, or you just made silly movements that weren't needed. As a kid, I had a lot of fun with free riders although I always finished a session sweating like a pig

It went from F-tier to C-tier thanks to this patch. That is good to know that the title is actually enjoyable / playable now.

Its really impressive they got it working with a controller, but its still extremely unlikely I will ever touch this game.

It seems like the worst Dark Age Sonic games(06,Free Riders)can be reworked into something worthwhile and even beautiful.

J's, do you plan on revisiting or re-reviewing sonic frontiers when the 3rd update comes?

The funniest thing about free riders is the fact that it's the only riders game with rail balancing

The kinects days were wild, imagine if they were as creative about games today as they were 15 years ago

I hope you re review frontiers when update 3 drops

Man... Recent modding projects really make me want to upgrade from an i3 laptop. (Granted it can still play a lot of games just fine.)

I dont really think its good still The game is just missing too much from the previous 2 games that made them great. Nothing to do with the patch, the game itself didn't have the mechanics cuz it had to be toned down for the motion controls

Still waiting for that "Learning to Love Sonic Frontiers" like you did with Sly 4.

3:07 I'm someone who actually enjoyed playing Sonic Forces, but I still have to admit there was so much missed potential there. I mean to show Shadow, Chaos, Metal Sonic, and Zavok in an early cutscene and the only bosses you face are Zavok and Metal Sonic is so disappointing so to see that fans would at least make a legit Shadow and Chaos boss battle would be really significant.

still criminal that such a bad game has such a AMAZING theme song

SEGA should just hire fans to port/remaster their old games and give them *ALL* the freedom they have as long as they don't step out of line. Maybe then certain games can be looked back upon more fondly rather than negatively.

Never tried Sonic Free Riders, but damn I really hate that sonic riders was killed. LOVED Sonic Riders, and still liked zero gravity, but damn I just wish that they would keep going with the riders series. I think that I might have preferred that over the team racing game (although racing transformed was fun too)

Well the ai were designed to race people using the worst controls, having the advantage of a controller just baffles the ai.

Nah sonic rider zero gravity is miles better than the first game

It's playable now.

Speaking of sonic fan games I just got done playing sonic adventure made on dreams. Mixing the boost formula with the adventure formula should be done officially. Now I’m eagerly awaiting updates on there official Discord!

free riders was my second sonic game after generations and to be frank I liked it and enjoyed it.

I personally think Zero Gravity is the best Riders game, if not THE best Sonic game ever made.

Gotta love the sonic fanmods 2:53 shadow the hedgehog reload might play that later

Sega fan does what Sonic Team don't

Picking between, i cant do Free Riders if its cutscene PNG's. Free Riders watering the Riders style to just water feels barren. Pleased how theres some content salvaged by the mod kudos the team

I think the one thing i wish the og riders had was map mods more than anything. The gameplay rverything is there its just you get abit bored of the maps eventually. I wanted more. Dont get me wrong i loved the dx mod but its just the one thing i felt missing. Btw when I say map mods, what I mean is different and new stages not just existing ones redesigned with different visuals like evening races or whatever

The blame for how these games have been terribly handled since Sonic Heroes can be put on the Sega-Samy integration. Ever since Samy bought a major stake in the company and combined the two, there was less of a need for the games to do well as opposed to the pachinko side of the company in Japan. Recently it seems like Samy has decided to put more resources into the games because they realized that the Sonic franchise can actually make them money if they give Sega the time and resources for the games to come out in good quality. Took them too damn long to realize though, and we lost a great side series because of it.

Very interesting analysis overal. And it all comes down to the fact that Sonic Riders 1 holds up so well to the Riders franchise. As a kid, I always thought it was so much more intense and exciting to hold down the jump button before a ramp, and letting go of it JUST before the edge...and performing your own tricks, landing it all correctly. it was an adrenaline rush! Compared to Zero Gravity, just tapping a single button, it all goes automatic. I thought it was really lame, and I still think it is. (Plus, on the Wii the controls seemed to be super broken...I was glad I was able to use a cube controller) I did want to pick up Free Riders when it was released, but I didn't have money for a Kinect...but later I saw how broken and static the game seemed. But you say the gameplay felt a bit better than Zero Gravity? that's just really interesting. Then I might give it a try one day.... Thank you for this in depth video!

There’s a sequel to fallen star being made there’s a trailer it’s called sonic and the moon facility

Fan patches are at their best when they polish something that has something at it's core worth preserving. In the case of 06 for example, the level design and character work.

Someone do a tutorial on how to get this game on PC because I’d like to play free riders without the xbox

At this point I think that sonic boom getting a fan remake isn't far off, and it would be really funny if anything

The original Sonic riders has a mod community that is constantly balancing the game, and it's even online.

5:00 There should be a Pinned comment showing the timecode of that screenshot of the Installation instructions. Why isn't there? Could it happen with this comment? I don't know, but there should be a Pinned comment from someone, anyone showing the timecode of where the instructions are.

you can all say all you want about the Sonic fanbase, but the modding and fan-game communities are its saving graces.

Now if only Adrenalin Misfits had this.

I'll still die on the hill that Zero Gravity is the most fun to play out of all of them. But this project is a miracle by simple existing, I'll give it that.

God, I just *LOVE* the Frutiger Aero aesthetic of the main menu.

I've always loved Sonic Riders way more than I'll ever like the Sonic Racing series, it just fits the series and imo, the hoverboards are so much cooler than the car are

YESSSSS FINALLY A PATCH THAT YOU VAN PLAY IT WITH CONTROLLER

Riders would've been actually fun and fully redeemable without Kinect? Who would've said? Much kudos to the fans fighting their hardest against the tide to engooden this franchise. It's certainly not an easy feat.

It's both sad and admiring seeing Sonic fans fixing these games while the big corporation of a game studio with all their resources, couldn't even bother to do anything. No wonder Sega embraces the meme culture to the max, so that no one notices how a fuxking clown they actually are .

The conclusion at the end is extremely important.

You know the first time i watched your free riders video I wondered if the games only real flaw was the kinect controls the very next day the patch came out

*WE'RE FALLING FREE WITH THIS ONE!!!* 🗣️🗣️🗣️

Sonic free riders is a game that definitely could have been great, but they had chosen how players would play poorly. It’s good to see at last that you can play with a controller. I may even think about playing myself.

The worst part of this game was putting it on the Kinect. This game would’ve worked so well if they just put it on the Wii balance board. Like seriously, it WOULD’VE ACTUALLY WORKED. The Kinect was a novelty that didn’t work well enough especially for fast-paced games like this one. Xbox tried to make hands-free car racing when it makes a lot more sense to hold a Wii steering wheel or a gamepad to steer than holding your hands out in front of your TV camera like a doofus. I never used the balance board so maybe it too isn’t meant for fast-paced racing games but I definitely think it still would’ve worked better.

The Sonic modding community truly is incredible

I can respect your opinion, The Original Sonic Riders had more love and new remakes. Sonic Riders Zero Gravity, game was too simple. Lastly Sonic Free Riders, sure it wasn’t the best Sonic racing game but thanks to Rei-san Sonic free riders has become little fun and anyone can enjoy the game without awful Kinect controllers.

Zero gravity is still the best one in my opinion regardless of what they change in free riders if it’s a mod it’s still the worst game to me personally cause I can’t do mods unless I have someone to help me which is unlikely I just don’t like free riders lousy story cutscenes the characters are dull you’d rather skip them just for the gameplay aspect I love the story in previous games because of the lore I don’t find that much in this game it’s kinda boring Also Why is Vector on Amy’s team & not Big I don’t get that logic !

I hope whoever was in charge of handling sonic in the 2010's gets actual mental help.

When we getting zeta project?

Didn’t Microsoft pay Sega to make it Kinect exclusive?

You're up next, Rise of Lyric.

This wasn't the worse sonic game, the worst sonic game is sonic frontier, it's not even a sonic game, just sonic skinned

Honestly, from hearing from another reviewer and how it works amazingly if the lighting is JUST RIGHT (which is NOT good, but something to keep in mind as it *does* mean it was playtested, but SEGA forgot a very important variable)... I can see why the Kinect was not good period. It's a mediocre game brought down even further by the worst device for motion controls. This honestly would have been better as a Wii Game, especially since it fails to tell you everything (then again, par for the course for the riders series). But at least I can see that this game at least *tried*. Which is more than I can say about some games (Sonic Genesis GBA...)

This ain't the worst sonic game. Have you seen Frontiers?

as someone who played free riders as a kid, i never thought it was that bad. i did get back problems a few decades before i was meant to though, anyone know whats up with that?

I just want a remaster or remake of the first riders game.

I think that we more sonic riders game if we had the option to use an actual controller for sonic free riders

i remember trying the demo for this out and it being one of the most upsetting things i ever played bc i loved the first 2 riders games and I had been actually anticipating the game bc i liked some of the actually decent working Kinect stuff when i was younger like Adventures, sports, sesame Street, and Star wars

If only Sega could release a Sonic Riders Trilogy Collection with all three games remastered & tweaked to be even better, but I won't hold my breath anytime soon.

Look if they wanted Sonic Free Riders for the Kinect thats fine, BUT they should have let you have the option to turn it off and use a controller instead from the start this was a very VERY poor choice on the part of SAGA. 😑😑

This is the worst WELL KNOWN Sonic game. Sonic Jam(Gamecom) is the ACTUAL WORST Sonic Game

Besides just wishing this game was playable with a controller I wish this game was also on PS3 too instead of just making it only an Xbox 360 game.

Oh god free riders for me the controls would not work for me like i actually could not play the game and it wasnt a problem with the kenect as i played a game that also required the kenect and it worked just fine on there but free riders oh god i was getting so angry at the game that my brain mentaly blocked the entire free riders seires from my mind until i watched the snapcube fan dub

should definitly change the title to "worst 3d sonic game", cause free riders is better than doctor robotniks mean bean machine, or sonic eraser lol.

forget all this kart nonsense bring back the boards sega and i promise you i will buy another sonic game since mania. It can still be a sonic and sega thing if you have to just give us boards again! sonic and sega racing transformed and sega all stars tennis genuinely are better than mario tennis and most mario karts maybe not 8 deluxe but that came out way after anyway so it should be better

What do sonic games ansd Bethesda games have in common? The fans love them so much that they are willing to finish making the games for the devs and publishers.

Sonic fans are maybe one of the most determined people in the gaming landscape. They're really admirable.

Does anybody know where I can download the Sonic p-06 game?