Game #1173: Sonic Rivals 2

  I was tired of enjoying Sonic's games anyways.

 Well, I recently discovered that I actually enjoy 3D Sonic, but since that feels so alien to me, it's time to finally play a Sonic game I didn't like very much, Sonic Rivals 2. This is a 2.5D pseudo racing VS game thingie...? It's an interesting concept, but....

 Here's the deal, the main Story, which is how you unlock events, is divided into 4 groups of 2 rivals each. Sonic/Shadow, Knuckles/Rouge, Silver/Espio and Tails/Metal Sonic. You can pick either character, but the story is basically the same. You still need to play with both characters to unlock each character's Cup, which is how you unlock some costumes. But, if I'm to be honest... you only need to play the game once, because every campaign is pretty much identical. Who you battle might defer, the fully-voiced dialogue before each stage might be different... but the events, the order and the bosses are identical. I played the game with Silver, my favorite character by looks alone, and then started another campaign with Knuckles... and it was the same thing. I didn't care anymore. If not Story Mode, you can play Multiplayer, Single Event, Cup(A set of 3 events) and Free, that lets you play the Race-style levels without an opponent.

 There are multiple types of events: 1 on 1 Racing, Bosses, Collect the Chao and 1 on 1 battles being the most prominent. Collect the Chao and 1 on 1 battles have the same issue, that this game just doesn't work very well as a versus game. You'll just mash the jump button trying to land the homing attack on the opponent before they land it on you. In 1 on 1 you'll then try to do it again before they collect rings, and in Chao collection you'll try to get back your chao and then run towards your base with theirs'. It's very floaty, very wonky and not much fun. Bosses are hit or miss, some are decent-ish, while others are a massive pain in the rear, as you try to land six hits before the opponent does. There's this very annoying boss in which you must drop a bomb on them to hurt them, but you'll have the CPU rival either trying to hit you so that you can't drop the bomb while the boss walks below, or you'll try to homing-attack the bomb only to get hurt because of reasons. Then there's the Bing boss, in which you try to hit the boxes to get a BINGO, but the CPU enemy will be waiting for the BING to steal your hit. Not much fun.

 Racing events are better, not that that is saying something. These stages feel like GBA Sonic stages, with multiple routes, except that you are racing another character. You can collect rings to use your special abilities, but some are much better than others. You can also collect special items to use with triangle button, but the hitboxes to collect these seem rather... off. Sometimes I couldn't believe the game didn't give me the pick up. The level design themselves are actually rather good, but playing them as a race against another character... well, isn't a very fun gimmick. That said, if the entire game was made up of these races without the other filler events, it would've been a more fun game.

 I don't think Sonic Rivals concept was necessarily a bad idea, but I don't think they pulled it off very well. And I think that's my main issue. The filler events that aren't racing aren't much fun, and the bosses range from horrible to passable, but the main racing stages are actually quite decent. I think that if we had had more of those, it would've been a better games. Pick ups should've been made easier to pick up, and abilities should've been made more useful, particularly considering you need to collect rings to use them. But alas, this is the game we got, not the game it could've been. I appreciate having a playable Silver the Hedgehog, however.

 5.0