Sonic Riders [Player's Choice]

Sonic Riders is based around characters racing each other using devices known as "Extreme Gear", anti-gravity-equipped vehicles consisting of hover boards, hover skates, and hover bikes.[1] Players compete to finish three laps around a racetrack before their opponents and complete the race in first place. Each race features up to eight characters competing. A key component of gameplay is the air tank, displayed in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Air serves as the fuel for Extreme Gear, and is depleted gradually as the race goes on. Characters can also perform a Boost, which will give them a sudden burst of speed at the cost of a significant amount of air. If a player boosts into an opponent, their character will attack and stun the opponent for a brief period. Air is also more quickly spent using techniques like cornering, which allows the player to round sharp turns with ease, and building tension before a jump, which involves using the air to propel the player higher off of ramps. If a player runs out of air, their character will start running on foot; this prevents them from boosting, attacking, cornering easily or using charged jumps. Players can refill their air by performing tricks when jumping off ramps or off opponents' slipstream, with higher-rated tricks sequences restoring more air. Players can also collect rings scattered across the track; collecting a certain number of rings will cause their character to level up for the remainder of the race, increasing the strength of their attacks and extending their maximum air capacity.

Sonic Riders features 16 playable characters, including guest characters from Nights into Dreams, Space Channel 5, and Super Monkey Ball. Each individual character has different statistics, altering their performance slightly in races, though some characters are restricted from using certain types of Extreme Gear. Characters are divided into one of three classes, each with different abilities: Speed characters can grind on rails, Power characters can break certain objects, and Fly characters can fly through boost rings. Each race track features multiple shortcuts that can only be accessed by characters of a specific class. Players can spend the rings they acquire at the in-game shop to purchase new Extreme Gear, each of which possesses unique statistics and properties. The game includes eight unique areas, each with two track variants, for a total of 16 tracks. Only five tracks are accessible from the start; the remainder are unlocked through progression in the game's story mode and by winning Gold in both the World Grand Prix tournaments, in which players race through five consecutive tracks and attempt to get the highest overall score.

The game's Story Mode is divided into two campaigns, whose events intersect with one another: The "Heroes" story, focusing on Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles; and the "Babylon" story, focusing on the Babylon Rogues, consisting of new characters Jet the Hawk, Wave the Swallow, and Storm the Albatross. In each campaign, players take part in consecutive races with predetermined characters, and must take first place in each race to continue the story. Completing the Heroes campaign unlocks the Babylon campaign, which includes an epilogue in which the two stories converge. The game also features a Mission Mode with 100 missions to complete, each of which tasks the players with completing a specific objective within a time limit, such as collecting objects on the track or destroying a certain number of obstacles. Completing each mission awards players a bronze, silver, or gold medal based on their performance; by completing missions, players can unlock new characters and special Extreme Gear. Up to four players can also compete in the game's single race and battle modes.