If you've ever played Sonic R on the Sega Saturn and wished to explore the stages at your own pace, and without the somewhat unwieldy racing controls, then you're in luck.
That's because the hacker and reverse engineering expert, Bo Bayles, has just released a new patch, Sonic R&R, for the 1997 Traveller's Tales' racingt game, which not only removes the time limit and racing elements from each of the game's 5 levels, but also tweaks the controls for each of the characters, to make exploration easier (h/t: Sega Saturn SHIRO!).
That means you can essentially play the game as more of a straightforward platformer, without having to worry about finishing a race in a specific time or position to bank any items like Chaos Emeralds or Sonic Tokens.
Obviously, as with any mod of this nature, there will arguably be some looking at this and asking, 'What's the point?', and 'Doesn't this defeat the purpose of the entire game?' But it's nice to have the option to enable these changes, and it's a choice that I know I definitely would have liked as a kid, just to be able to poke around a bit more, without having to wrestle with a control scheme that wasn't necessarily designed for slow, precise movement.
In fact, even Bayles himself seems to suggest the patch is not "terribly" necessary (as you can already "explore the courses in the Tag and Balloon modes in the normal version of Sonic R"), and "does turn it into like a 10 minute game if you know where the items".
However, he states that he "liked the idea of being able to get the collectibles and unlock the extra characters without having to rush through the stages" and "changing the controls does make moving around a lot more pleasant."
If you want to give the patch a whirl, you can grab it here. You'll also find a detailed write-up on how Bayles patched the game on his Substack and on the Sega Saturn SHIRO! website, which reveals more about how the game handles the character's movements.