This game is a good arcade style game but the difficulty will drive you nuts!!!!
Gameplay: If you played any of the sonic games, then you will probaly know what to expect from this game. This game is exactly what sonic is all about - speed. In this game, you can play as four different characters which are Sonic, Knuckles, shadow and a new comer silver. You can play throught 5 worlds with 3 levels in each world and at the end of a world you need to fight a boss. The story is like any other Sonic games but this one is with a little twist. Your nemesis Eggman, has turned everyone you know into cards (stupid idea for storyline) and your job is of course to stop him. Each of the characters you can play has his own special power but on the way of a level, you can pick more powers to use like ice cube, and a power that changes the way the enemie goes which gives you a huge advantage. This game isn't really an adventure game, it is a racing game which is really fun and really challenging. In the level, you have all these obsitcales which will bother you like robots and sharp objects. You also have a time when you press X and you just and a time you press O and gives you a boost. One thing that bothered me about this game was the difficulty which can get really frustrating. In world 3 level 1 I tried 20 times to finish the level but I couldn't because that Knuckles always punches me. Besides the storymode, you have wireless mode which can be used for 2 reasons. One is for trading cards (which you collect throughout the storymode and the other way is to play Ad-hoc up to four players which is cool. The camera angles are probaly the best in any PSP game because the camera angles are really good, watching all the loops that Sonic does and they really keep the frame rate without any freezing. The controlls are really good and responsive and the loading times are good. One thing I didn't get in the game is the trading cards which you collect and they don't give you anything which that sucks but there are some cool boss battles and for the first time in any Sonic game, you can customize your own character which is really cool.
Graphics: The graphics in this game is really well done. The characters' models look really nice, the environments are really big and full of obsticles and objects which is cool and the boss battles are really cool and challenging. The frame rate of the game is really good and really follows all the loops that the characters are doing and the menus look really nice.
Sound: The sound in this game is really well done. The sound tracks of the game really boosts up the action of Sonic and the music is really nice and doesn't hurt the ears at all. The only problem I had with the sound part is that on the story mode, there are no voiceovers, just these cards with dialogs.
Value: You can play this game for hours and hours trying to finish the game. The storymode is really long (with the levels and with the difficulty) and collecting cards (which are useless) and battling your friends will keep you busy for a really long time. When playing the game, I had 2 problems. First is that the boss fights are way too short and way too easy and the second thing is that there is no WIFI multiplayer mode which that sucks because it could have been really cool to battle against four people online.
Reviewer's tilt: Overall, Sonic Rivals ends up to be a cool Sonic game with some cool content and some cool gameplay. The camera angles in this game are probaly the best in any PSP game and battling against friends Ad-hoc can be really fun. Although does positive things, the game suffers from WIFI multiplayer lack, difficulty problems and the card collecting which could have been cooler if the cards will give you something. If you a Sonic fan go buy this game and for does who aren't and for even who are, prepare for a really hard game.