Sonic Riders

Sonic Riders
Developer: Sonic Team Publisher: Sega Platforms: PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Windows Released in JP: February 23, 2006 Released in US: February 26, 2006 (GCN/Xbox/PS2), November 17, 2006 (Windows) Released in EU: March 3, 2006 (GCN/Xbox/PS2), November 24, 2006 (Windows) Released in AU: March 23, 2006 (GCN/Xbox/PS2) Released in KR: March 30, 2006 (GCN/Xbox/PS2) This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused sounds. This game has revisional differences.

In Sonic Riders, you play as Sonic and his friends (or the newcomer Babylon Rogues) as they ride (obviously) air-based hoverboards, skates, and bikes in a race to win the World Grand Prix.

Chao's Lower Body

The Chao that runs the shop has its lower body modeled but this can't be seen normally due to the fixed camera.

(Source: Ferrox)

Platform Differences

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Is there any more changes?

Sonic Riders was first developed on the GameCube, then ported to PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The Windows version is actually a port of the Xbox version; and, as with other Windows ports of Sonic games, it's a pretty poor port. Some of these bugs are only in the Windows version, while other bugs originate from the Xbox version. Here are some bugs present in the Xbox & Windows versions:

Choppy CG Cutscenes

Many copies of the Xbox version have problems displaying the CG cutscenes where they play but appear very choppy. The cause of the glitch is unknown and varies on how you play the Xbox version, as some systems, as well as the Xbox 360, play the CG cutscenes just fine.

Characters' Immobile Pupils

In the Windows version, every character in the non-CG cutscenes that has eyes has their eye pupils fixed to a forward-looking position and not moving around. This is not seen in any other version of the game.

PlayStation 2	Windows

Misplaced Mouths

In the last non-CG cutscene in the Babylon Story Mode, some characters (mostly Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles) appear to have their mouth misplaced on their face. This bug is also present in the GameCube and Xbox versions.

PlayStation 2	Windows

No Music Volume Decrement

There's no decrease to the volume of the background music in the PC version. This bug occurs in places such as:

• Pausing the game: The music is supposed to turn down on the pause menu. However, this doesn't happen in the PC version.
• Skipping the credits: The music played during the credits (High Flying Groove for Heroes' story, Catch Me If You Can for Babylon's story) is supposed to fade out when skipping the credits. In the PC version, music plays until it's suddenly cut off.
• Playing SEGA CARNIVAL/SEGA ILLUSION Jingles: In the tracks SEGA CARNIVAL and SEGA ILLUSION, when entering a game's area, a jingle plays that's based on the main theme of that game. The BGM should turn down for the jingle to play, and then turn up again. In the PC version, the jingles play as the BGM volume is still up.

Missing In-Game Lines

In the gameplay, characters have lines for landing a trick correctly, as well as incorrectly, attacking others, being attacking by others, etc. In the Windows version, almost every character has lost lines for at least one of the above in the English voice bank; however, the Japanese voice bank has no missing in-game lines.

To do: Upload some video footage of these bugs.

Unused Text

Present in the PS2 version's executable are a couple of strings related to the libraries used for this game.

At 0x34BE90:

SEGA NN Library for PlayStation2
nn Ver 1.18.43 Build:Oct  7 2005 16:13:05
1.18.43
%s Version %s
(C) SEGA Corporation Creative Center Graphics Sect.

At 0x34d041:

PX Ver.1.46.04 Build:Jul 15 2005 19:12:36

At 0x3518D1:

PX Plus Ver.0.87.02 Build:Aug 22 2005 15:30:24

Built in Screenshot Functionality (PC)

If you create a folder called "ScreenShot" in the PC version of Sonic Riders and press the F11 key, the game will save a screenshot to the folder.

Note: Out of the box this feature doesn't work on modern OS, because the developers set the DISCL_EXCLUSIVE flag in the call to DirectInput's SetCooperativeLevel function. This causes the game to swallow keyboard input messages, blocking hotkeys, including their own.

You can patch this behaviour out by modifying 0x513764 (push 05) in the DRM-free version version of the game with e.g. push 01.