Storm the Albatross: the strength of the Babylon Rogues

In the Babylon Rogues, everyone knows the leader and the mechanic. The third member, the one who takes the hits, pushes, and stutters when embarrassed, remains in the shadows. Yet, Storm the Albatross is the reason the trio stays together: without him, Jet loses his right-hand man and Wave has no one to tease.

Who is Storm the Albatross?

Storm is an anthropomorphic albatross who first appeared in Sonic Riders in 2006, on GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. He didn't exist before this game: the Sonic Team created him from scratch along with Jet and Wave, based on an idea by game designer Takashi Yuda, who wanted to give Sonic a new category of rivals — air pirates.

The three birds form the Babylon Rogues, a clan of thieves who pass down their legacy from generation to generation. Their alignment deserves a nuance: they are thieves, not villains. At the end of Riders, just like Zero Gravity, the trio ends up allied with Team Sonic against a common threat.

His official profile on Sonic Channel lists him at 19 years old, 140 cm, and 80 kg. These figures only make sense within the series' scale — Sonic is 100 cm tall — but they tell the whole story of the trio: Storm is the oldest, tallest, and heaviest, and he weighs nearly two and a half times his own leader (Jet is 14 years old, 100 cm, 33 kg). A savory detail from this official profile: to the question of what he likes, the listed answer is "treasure and Jet." His leader is literally listed among his passions.

The Trio's Brute Strength

Storm is the muscle. Sonic Channel describes him as "the tank of the Babylon thieving clan": he lacks intelligence, gets lost in complicated reasoning, but his power is that of a colossus capable of crushing rock. His listed specialty is also sumo-related — the open-handed slap.

The character is defined by this gap. He is slow on the uptake, forgetful, and easily fooled, he stumbles over simple words and takes absolutely everything literally. When he's excited, embarrassed, or panicked, he starts to stutter and his tough facade suddenly crumbles. He is also chronically clumsy: he bursts into Jet's office, knocks down whatever is hanging on the walls, and trips over his own board.

Yet, he is, by far, the most likable of the three. When he accidentally hurts someone, he apologizes — he apologizes to an Eggman robot after hitting it, and to Amy after chasing her. He calls Jet "Boss" and almost never by his name, a loyalty that sometimes leads him to catastrophic initiatives for which he gets scolded.

The leader of the gang

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The Type-S, His Custom Board

In the Riders trilogy, each character belongs to one of three types, and that changes everything in the race. Speed types like Jet grind on rails. Fly types like Wave fly through rings in the air. Power types like Storm, however, destroy obstacles to create their own shortcuts. Where others go around, Storm goes through.

His personal board is called the Type-S — and the irony of the character is there: Wave designed and maintains it, not him. The mechanic even reworked it from one game to the next, widening its base in Zero Gravity and then maximizing its lift in Free Riders, in both cases explicitly to support his teammate's weight. Storm, for his part, occasionally uses it as a blunt weapon.

His strength extends beyond the race. He punches through a car, creates shockwaves just by clapping his hands, and takes a direct hit from Amy's Piko Piko Hammer, only being slightly stunned. His weakness is noted in his official profile: he is stronger than he is fast, and a fast enough opponent will always outrun him.

His True Rivalry: Knuckles

This is the point that most summaries miss. Each Babylon Rogue has their designated hero opposite, and Storm is not Sonic's rival — that role goes to Jet. Wave, for her part, spends her time teasing Tails. Storm's rival is Knuckles the Echidna.

The choice is logical: Storm is one of the few characters in the series who can rival Knuckles in pure power. Their rivalry is born in Future City, when the Rogues steal a Chaos Emerald to pay their entry fee to the tournament: Knuckles ejects Storm from his own Type-S. The albatross doesn't take it well, finds him at the Egg Factory, demands a rematch in a race… and loses, which eliminates him from the tournament.

His defeat, however, leads to the character's best moment. Sent back on a mission for Eggman, Storm — alone — infiltrates the doctor's base, steals his diary, and escapes a horde of robots. It is this notebook that reveals the truth: the famous Babylon Treasure is not a jewel but the Babylonians' technology, which Eggman covets to dominate the world. The least intelligent member of the trio is the one who uncovers the villain's plan.

His Appearances in the Riders Trilogy

Storm is playable in all three Riders games, and nowhere else as a main character. Sonic Riders (2006) places him in the Babylon campaign, playable just like the heroes' campaign. Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity (2008, on Wii and PS2) brings him back for a story where the Rogues ally with Team Sonic a second time, against the Master Core: ABIS. Sonic Free Riders (2010) makes him playable on Kinect, without a controller.

The highlight of Riders remains its final outcome. After all that effort to raise Babylon Garden, the two teams awaken the guardian of the place, defeat it, open the legendary treasure of the clan… and discover a flying carpet. Except that the joke is real: this carpet is actually the very first Extreme Gear in history. The treasure of the sky thieves was the ancestor of their boards.

Regarding voices, he benefits from rare continuity: Kenji Nomura has voiced him in Japanese since 2006, without any interruption, in all games. In English, he has been voiced by Dan Green, then Travis Willingham starting with Free Riders. In French, Frantz Confiac lends him his voice.

Summary

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is Storm a villain?
  No. He is a thief, which is not the same thing. The Babylon Rogues are neutral rivals: at the end of Sonic Riders and Zero Gravity, they ally with Team Sonic against a common threat.
• Who is Storm's rival?
  Knuckles, not Sonic. Each Rogue has their opposite: Jet faces Sonic, Wave teases Tails, and Storm measures himself against Knuckles — one of the only characters who can rival him in pure strength.
• In which games can you play as Storm?
  In all three Sonic Riders games: Riders (2006), Zero Gravity (2008), and Free Riders (2010). He also appears in more recent racing games in the franchise.
• Who made his board?
  Wave the Swallow, the trio's mechanic. She even widened the base of the Type-S in Zero Gravity, then maximized its lift in Free Riders, to support Storm's weight.
• Is Storm really stupid?
  He is slow on the uptake and gets lost in complicated explanations, that's the basis of the character. But he's the one who infiltrates Eggman's base alone, steals his diary, and uncovers his plan.

🔎 To go further: 🦅 the Babylon Rogues, 💨 Jet the Hawk and 🔧 Wave the Swallow.

🛹 The entire Babylon Rogues gang and their rivals await you in our Sonic figurines.