Sonic Riders 2 - Botanical Kingdom

Botanical Kingdom
Knuckles the Echidna
Red Rock (Board/Bike)

After the introductory Megalo Station, Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity plops you straight into Botanical Kingdom. It's unusual to find a difficulty spike this early into a game, but it's there in this game. The learning curve is high, steep, and jagged in this game...though it's not quite as uneven as NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams. Take a look at the map compared to Megalo Station if you have any doubts. It's longer, twistier, and more maze-like than before.

Botanical Kingdom is set in a futuristic greenhouse. (The futuristic motif is very strong in this game, stronger than in the original Sonic Riders.) Much of the racetrack is made up of giant vines and branches that fill the greenhouse, and nearby is a colony of gigantic bees. I guess it's actually more of a research facility than any other sort of greenhouse, since everything here seems to be kept pristine and the man-made paths resemble walkways featuring straightaways and right angles.

Now that I've covered Speed and Flight, in comes Knuckles, the guardian of the Master Emerald who's largely a no-show these days, to represent Power. Just like in the original Sonic Riders, Power characters have the ability to automatically mow down obstacles without slowing down whereas the others will get stopped for a second and must reaccelerate. In addition, Power characters gain Gravity Points for punching them out of the way. This puts Power characters at an adventage in routes filled with roadblocks--and it means the Power type is the most beginner-friendly, since those obstacles playing as other characters become sources for points. On the other hand, Power shortcuts tend to be more difficult to find and fewer in number than the other types' shortcuts.

I've put Knuckles on the Red Rock, his default Gear. It begins as a Board with no shortcut capabilities and can later upgrade into a Bike (motorcycle) via Gear Change by spending 50 Rings. In doing so, the Red Rock gains Power characteristics. The scheme is as follows:
20 Rings: Max Speed UP
50 Rings: Bike
70 Rings: GP Gauge UP

One thing to note is that the Gear Changes need not be in that order. When I got the 100 Ring Monitor, the Gear Change switched immediately to GP Gauge UP, skipping Bike. You need to be wary of this if you're playing, though it didn't concern me because there weren't any Power opportunities until much later.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• sonic
• riders
• zero
• gravity
• knuckles
• the
• echidna
• red
• rock
• botanical
• kingdom
• extreme
• gear
• racing

[sunnisunshinee]

When you do gravity control I don't hear them just silent

[Overhazard]

@sunnisunshinee There's no sound at all?

[chester2829]

me encanta



[Xoxostickwitu]

like when you beat the game it look like you have to do a nother level like level 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/89 all of that stuff!!

[RingoHero]

Awesome level and the music is great two :D This also fits for Knuckles I like this level I prefer Snowy Kingdom more though but both are great and fun I love the shortcuts here two were you ride on the vine and then - Gravity dives let's be honest you gotta loe doing that move :D so awesome and so is this game Excellent and unique.

[vinson555]

This game needed online ability, with no lag.

[BRoboto1]

Knuckles the echidna is not a no-show.

He's an awesome character.

[james46112]

@Overhazard

You got a point there. Would be nice if other people actually uploaded the stuff on here. For some reason it is hard to find good vids on here with the shortcuts.

[Overhazard]

@james46112 Yeah. if I make these, someone's going to ask for Speed shortcuts, then someome will ask for Flight shortcuts. I've been there for other games.

[james46112]

@Overhazard

Not asking for every single shortcut in the game. Just the attack ones. Not including the bumpers since those are pretty easy to run into to see anyways.