A very fun game that's too short.
The gameplay is like a generic racer; complete a certain amount of laps and finish first. There are elements that you will be familliar to when you play this game, such as loop-de-loops, rings, jumping and chaos emeralds. Getting chaos emeralds is essential to completing the game and are generally easy to get, but you have to complete the course in 1st place to obtain one. There is a certain type of coin that when you collect them all in the level and finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd, you race a certain unlockable character. If you win, you unlock the character.
The sound is OK. You have that ring sound when you collect a ring and a few array of other sounds. The soundtrack is fantastic, with a nice array of tunes. The soundtrack is mainly vocal, but if you don't like them, there is an option of turning them off. If you don't like the entire sountrack, just remove the CD from the drive. If you want another soundtrack, place a music disc in the CD drive.
The graphics are OK for that time. There are 2 different options for graphics. DriectDraw and Direct3D. DirectDraw has similar graphics to the Saturn version. Direct3D, however, has slightly improved graphics.
Overall, the game is good for a passtime. If you want it badly, get the Gamecube version on Gems Collection.