Sonic R-echarged

Sonic R-echarged would be the distant sequel to the original Sonic racing game Sonic R, and it would be for the most modern consoles, such as the PS3, 360, Wii U, Wii, and 3DS. This way, it would best be able to keep up with some of the gems that have been coming from Sonic team, like Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations.

As some of you may know, I launched a challenge for my birthday that was to do remakes and/or sequels to horrible games that could have been good, but met with bad fortune in design. As most if not all of you probably agree, Sonic R was maybe the worst game for the Sega Saturn and among the worst in the series of games.

This is a total shame, because with the kind of fast-paced action that is the Sonic series, a racing game is something that could easily be done and even well done. The trick...is design.

It should be noted that while a Sonic racing game has been made in the form of Sonic Riders, and that concept ended up becoming a trilogy of games, although they haven't had a reputation for being all that popular. The difference with this title is that it will be on foot as opposed to on boards, thereby going with the natural theme of the series.

Story
The game starts when Eggman has once again been defeated by Sonic's incredible powers of speed, and as his latest project lay in ruins, he finds himself in a state of agony, wishing he could just match Sonic's speed and take his greatest advantage away from him. That way, he could possibly triumph over his greatest enemy.

Then, Eggman realizes...he's an evil genius! He rallies together all of his resources and designs for himself a very stylish pair of sneaker-like, complex looking shoes; but not only are they stylish, they're also functional. For you see, Eggman has designed them based around what he has observed Sonic's top speed to be. Using these sneakers, he could potentially beat Sonic at his own game - the game of speed.

Confident in his chances, Eggman sends all of Sonic's friends similar sneakers and challenges anyone who is willing to a series of races. These races are specially designed to take its participants through famous places in Sonic's history. In fact, Eggman has even designed portals in the middle of the courses that take the racers to courses in similar places.

However, he also features as tracks a series of intense and dangerous tracks, half of them being the ones from the previous game and the other half being new challenges meant to test those racing on them.

Gameplay
The style of gameplay would be somewhat similar to that of the original Sonic R, but the format would be changed and certain things will play different roles. The racing style will be much like that of modern Sonic levels in Sonic Generations or the day levels of Sonic Unleashed. This time around, however, it will be a cross between those formats and the running style of Sonic R. The positioning will still be top down, but slightly closer to the character, and the pacing will be much faster, contrary to the slow waddling from the original game.

In addition, the Chaos Emeralds will no longer simply be collectibles, but will serve a definite purpose; if a character can collect them all (if a character collects one, it will regenerate for one who hasn't), he/she will go into a super Chaos Control mode where you can go two and a half times as fast for 12-15 seconds, depending on the character. Besides that, Chaos Emeralds will be hidden along the tracks, instead of having to be collected by going off in a random direction.

The gameplay in R-echarged will be noticeably action-packed and semi-hardcore, but not so complex that it takes a high caliber of gamer to play it. The primary different between this game or any other modern Sonic game is that there will be different maneuvers. For example, tight corners can be turned by drifting, or if you slide while drifting, you can go into a small, slow-motion Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity event that allows you to instantly change direction and get a momentary speed boost after pressing a combination of buttons.

Boosting will be a key action in this game, and the Boost Meter will be increased by picking up rings or by grabbing a Boost Tank, which will be an exclusive item for this game. Losing rings by running into a trap of occasional enemy will only slow you down, but this is a risk because if someone bumps into you while traveling a great deal faster than you, you'll be knocked down and therefore be set back even further. If you get hurt with no rings left, then you will be brought back to a certain spot on the course, much like in Mario Kart.

Characters

 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Tails the Fox (Miles Prower)
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Shadow the Hedgehog
 * Amy Rose the Hedgehog
 * Doctor Eggman
 * Silver the Hedgehog
 * Cream the Rabbit (and Cheese the Chao)
 * Mii (on Wii, Wii U, and 3DS) or Avatar (on the Xbox 360)
 * Rouge the Bat
 * E-123 Omega
 * Blaze the Cat
 * Espio the Chameleon
 * Vector the Crocodile
 * Charmy Bee

Special Characters
Special characters are unlocked through meeting of special conditions, such as completing a certain course within a particular time frame, beating a certain number of ghosts, or collecting a certain amount of Chaos Emeralds or points over many races. Essentially, they're just lesser-known or powerful characters as a group. There is also a condensed version of the roster that would exclude the Special Characters. This might apply to the Wii version of the game, and would almost certainly apply to the 3DS version. It may be that some of the Special Characters might stay in the game despite the simpler consoles, as there have been a good amount of characters in, for example, Mario Kart 7.
 * Metal Sonic
 * Mighty the Armadillo
 * Big the Cat
 * Tikal the Echidna
 * EggRobo
 * Emerl
 * Marine the Raccoon
 * Jet the Hawk
 * Wave the Swallow
 * Storm the Albatross

Tracks
Overall, the game should feature about 20 tracks, though the number may change later. The way I have it planned out is that the 5 tracks from the original game will be brought back in a modified state, and they will be paired up with 5 new completely original racing courses, somewhat like the Nitro Courses from Mario Kart games. This number of original courses may increase to 10 later, but 5 is the original plan.

The other 10 tracks will be ones from previous games; now, the reason some of the more famous courses from the older games aren't featured is because the original Sonic R tracks are based off of some of the better known ones, so the revised versions (the Recharged tracks) of those originals will be quite similar to those zones, and may even combine similar ones. This will also apply to to the Retro tracks; if two stages are overwhelmingly similar or can believably be combined into one, they will be united into a single track.

Retro Tracks

 * City Escape (Sonic Adventure 2)
 * Radical Highway / Speed Highway (Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Adventure)
 * Spagonia Rooftop Run (Sonic Unleashed)
 * Casinopolis / Casino Night Zone (Sonic Adventure, Sonic 2)
 * Red Mountain / Windy Valley (Sonic Adventure)
 * Emerald Coast (Sonic Adventure)
 * Sky Sanctuary Zone (Sonic &amp; Knuckles)
 * Eggman's Interstellar Amusement Park (Sonic Colors)
 * Babylon Garden (Sonic Riders)
 * Megalo Station (Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity)

Recharged Tracks

 * Resort Island (crossed with Green Hill / Emerald / Seaside Hill)
 * Radical City (crossed with Star Light Zone)
 * Regal Ruin (crossed with Labyrinth Zone)
 * Reactive Factory (crossed with Scrap Brain Zone)
 * Radiant Emerald
 * Revolutionary Battle - This race would take place in the middle of a chaotic battle in space, and the fighting has a noticeable impact on the track itself.  For example, explosions would cause damage when you're on a certain part of a track at a certain moment, and flying debris can have a similar effect, but it will most likely destroy portions of the track as you go through the laps.
 * Raging Sea - This would be the primary water level of the game, and would take place at sea during a raging storm.  Part of the level would allow you to travel over water as long as you're able to boost and go fast enough not to sink.  If you go in at standard speed, you have to clear the water portion by going underwater, which is more likely to slow you down.
 * Rampant Flight - This would be a change of pace from running the entire trask, because most of the level would involve riding on flying carpets (which you can also boost with) that you mount after running up a mountain at the beginning of every lap.
 * Ruthless Jungle (crossed with Angel Island Zone) - This level would be very much inspired by Angel Island Zone from Sonic 3 and Knuckles, and the theme music for it would even be an available song for the race.  However, the jungle will be slightly more intense, realistic, and atmospheric.  It won't be deadly serious, but it will keep you slightly on edge.
 * Ruptured Volcano - This race will be the deadliest of all, and it will take place in a massive, Mustafar-like volcano.  The inside of the volcano will get slightly more unstable as the race gets closer to the end, and it will involve some platforming finesse in certain places, that is unless you find the couple of sweet shortcuts along the way, where some secrets would be located.

Official Soundtrack
Like most other VG soundtracks, this houses all the music and songs from the respective games. For example, Sky Sanctuary Zone would have that same characteristic soundtrack that is the Sky Sanctuary theme.

However, this version, much like Sonic Generations, would have unlockable music that can be applied to any stage. These songs would be:
 * Tropical Resort (Sonic Colors)
 * Sweet Mountain (Sonic Colors)
 * Aquarium Park (Sonic Colors)
 * Asteroid Coaster (Sonic Colors)
 * Angel Island Zone (Sonic the Hedgehog 3)
 * What I'm Made of... (Sonic Heroes)
 * I Am...All of Me (Shadow the Hedgehog)
 * His World (Sonic '06, all three mixes)
 * Solaris Phase 2 (Sonic '06)
 * Crisis City (Sonic '06)
 * Kingdom Valley (Sonic '06)
 * Wave Ocean (Sonic '06)
 * Stardust Speedway Bad Future JP (Sonic CD)
 * Stardust Speedway Bad Future US (Sonic CD)
 * Endless Possibilities (Sonic Unleashed, Lyrical or Instrumental)
 * Savannah Citadel (Sonic Unleashed)
 * Open Your Heart (Sonic Adventure, all three mixes)
 * Live and Learn (Sonic Adventure 2)
 * Metal Harbor (Sonic Adventure 2)
 * Green Forest (Sonic Adventure 2)
 * Un-Gravitify (Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity)
 * Gigan Rocks (Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity)
 * Free (Sonic Free Riders)
 * Metropolis Speedway (Sonic Free Riders)
 * Let the Speed Mend It (Sonic and the Secret Rings)
 * Knight of the Wind (Sonic and the Black Knight)

Sonic R-echarged: Whitney Houston Tribute
This additional soundtrack edits all the songs (mostly the ones from Sonic R) to a more soulful version "In memory of Whitney Houston, the inspiration."