![]() ![]() You're limited to Single Event and Circuit Mode races, meaning you can effectively play out any of the levels from the main story or embark on a series of races, but at least racing can be the focus here. Things brighten a little when you factor in the game's Ad-Hoc multiplayer - if only because it affords more opportunity to race against another person. ![]() Even the addition of a Free Play section that lets you root around in the race levels in search of those cute little Chaos barely teased my normally over-eager collect-a-thon impulses. It's clear that the racing was supposed to be the focus here, but to even enjoy a pure racing mode, you'll have to slog through the storyline first to unlock a special Cup Circuit Mode. It's the races, then, that are forced to prop everything else up, and had there been more of them, it probably would have worked with just a minor bit of annoyance. Jostling for rings against a quick-dashing foe is a solid idea, but some of the stages, like the Casino Night-like Neon Palace Zone duel is so unorthodox (the fight takes place in a giant pinball machine) that the battle is nothing more than a race to see who can collect and use a pair of special attacks first. It's a theme that carries over into almost all the modes, where one little thing can often mean the difference between something that could have been fun or challenging and instead just spills over into sheer frustration. I dig that there was an attempt at using pseudo-3D environments and some old-school flavor to the fights (which still more or less revolve around jumping and attacking the bosses a set number of times until they blow up), but asking you to not only figure out the particular quirks needed to off the boss and compete with another character doing the same thing isn't creative, it's just annoying. Part of the problem is that the fights with the other characters (which see you using the normal race special attacks and dash-hits to knock all the rings out of the other guy, then deliver a finishing blow) and the competitive boss battles are more frustrating than fun - particularly the boss battles. Rather than spreading out a good thing, though, the boss battles and knockout challenges drag the whole experience down. The races are so good that if they were the only thing burned onto the UMD, SR2 might actually have been an instant recommendation, but rather than concentrating on building wildly imaginative courses and trusting that the game's smattering of characters, power-ups and special attacks, developer Backbone Vancouver tried instead to inject a little more variety into things. It's all pretty simple stuff, but thanks to some solid track designs it works quite well. Aside from the myriad pathways, grind rails, bounce plates and so on, the only other element of strategy comes in crossing a boost zone, where you can get a kick either straight up or forward by pressing X or O, respectively. These never seemed to help when I was trailing the other player, but they were damned effective when used while in the lead. Also scattered throughout the levels are a handful of weapon pickups that are mainly offensive (stuff like fireballs and the ability to freeze a player). The only character that doesn't have their own powers is Metal Sonic, who pulls a Mokujin and just copies the ability of the character he's racing. Once it's powered up, you can get a speed boost, completely mangle another player's controls, turn invisible, fly, send out a shockwave and so on. Each of the racers has their own special ability, unlocked by collecting rings. The races are fairly straightforward, hold-right-to-win affairs, but a few wrinkles are introduced to keep things competitive. In fact, the tracks in Sonic Rivals 2 are damn near some of the speediest, coolest uses of 2.5D I've seen in a long, long time, often incorporating classic elements like corkscrews and jump pads to make for blindingly quick sprints through a handful of environments that pay homage to previous games. Sonic Rivals 2, thankfully, almost completely repairs the basic racing concept and, even better, manages to improve upon it with multiple paths and plenty of catches so that one missed jump doesn't suddenly mean precious seconds shaved off the race time. It's something that the first game hinted at, but botched in execution once you factored in cheap deaths and pointless pitfalls that slowed the races to a crawl where memorization by trial-and-error was the norm. It's Sonic (and, much as I hate it, friends) hauling ass through a bunch of tracks at ridiculous speeds. That's exactly why the concept of Sonic Rivals is so sound. ![]()
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