Sonic Heroes Racing | Team Sonic Racing (PC/PS4/Switch/XbOne, 2019) Review

 NOTE: This review is part of a retrospective of the Sonic franchise. Feel free to read the other Sonic reviews I’ve done here - https://expithecat.blogspot.com/search/label/sonic%20retrospective

Well, I am now up to the latest Sonic game as of this post.

Background and History

Development of Team Sonic Racing can be traced back prior to the completion of Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces in 2017. Sumo Digital, the creator of both of the All-Stars Racing games, once again were tasked to take the helm for a new Sonic racing game - however the majority of the staff were new to Sumo Digital and older members (who I’m assuming either resigned from Sumo Digital at some point or just didn’t come over to the project) were contacted for reference.

The game would be aimed at a more casual audience compared to the more ‘action-oriented’ All Stars games, and whereas those games included a wide cast of Sega characters rather than just Sonic, this game would only utilize the Sonic IP, and the characters and designs that went with it. However, elements of All-Stars Racing Transformed would still be built upon, and the engine from said game would be modified and built off of for this title. 

That said, in an effort to stand out from other kart racers, Sumo Digital, with suggestions from Takashi Iizuka, chose to make a more team-oriented kart racer, with team-based multiplayer games like Splatoon and Overwatch being cited as an influence. Sonic Heroes would also be used as a reference in order to provide a standard to balance the team-based gameplay concept as to not hamper the overall fluidity of the gameplay. 

With the game being focused solely on Sonic IP rather than a mix of various Sega properties, this of course allowed the developers to expand the roster of Sonic characters within the game, albeit with mixed results - character choices would be a debatable subject among the team. Some difficulties also arose with choosing a variety of tracks to suit the atmosphere.

Nonetheless, Team Sonic Racing was teased at SXSW in March 2018, albeit a couple months prior the existence of a new Sonic racing game was rumored with a Sumo Digital memo being leaked to the public. A couple months later, the game’s title was leaked on a Walmart listing, with Sega later confirming the title, announcing the game for all current-gen consoles and PC. A new trailer came out at E3.

The game was originally intended for a late 2018 launch, but was pushed back to May 2019 in order to allow Sumo Digital more development time. The game released to a… decent reception, but not exactly a great one. In general most critics and fans considered it a solid kart racer, but a step down from the All-Stars Racing titles and inferior to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, as well as Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled which released a month later.

Personal Experiences

I remember watching the Sonic livestream at SXSW in March 2018 where this game was teased. I was wondering what it would be - initially I was sort of just expecting a new All-Stars Racing game or… well, with the ‘R’ being highlighted in the title, maybe a sequel to Sonic R…? But, that wasn’t the case, due to Aaron Webber stating that Team Sonic Racing would be a new game and not a sequel to any previous Sonic racing games.

I had… mild interest in this release. I didn’t really follow the release of it nearly as much as Mania or Forces, and most of my feelings towards the game pre-launch can be summed as “hey, a new Sonic racing game, that’s pretty neat.” I was still interested in playing it, but being a spin-off, it didn’t really bring out the excitement that a new mainline Sonic game would.

The game actually released the week I graduated high school, and while I did have money for the game I didn’t initially buy it since I was expecting graduation gifts that Saturday after it was released. I was sort of right to do so, since my aunt actually ended up gifting me a Nintendo Switch (thanks auntie) and I decided to make this one of the first two games I bought for the system - the other being Super Mario Odyssey.

And I can definitely say I had fun with the game - it felt like Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed in terms of its fast-paced gameplay and that was good enough for me, but I also did enjoy the idea of team-based gameplay which helped it stand out a bit more.

That said, I kind of stopped caring about the game pretty quickly. I did enjoy what I played of this game, but a month afterwards came Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, which I ended up buying day one and, well, just had a better time with - having more content in general on top of the event system and more ‘alive’ online matchmaking it had in comparison. I didn’t end up even playing through Team Sonic Racing’s ‘Team Adventure’ mode until about a couple years later.

But at the same time I also did have interest in picking the game up once again. After CTR:NF released, I was a bit soured on the microtransaction system which completely opposed what Activision was saying prior to its release, and after a while I had intended to give Team Sonic Racing another shot. Which took a bit longer than I expected, but I did eventually beat the game’s Team Adventure mode and would say I had a good time with it overall.

In July of last year, I would end up buying the PC version of the game on steam with it being on sale for only $3.59, which I used for this playthrough. I still haven’t gone back to the game very much, but… well, you’ll see how I feel about it here.

Story

The game’s story is told through its “Team Adventure” mode. Sonic’s friends are invited to an ‘Ultimate Test of Racing Skill’ by a mysterious tanuki named Dodon Pa, who they are suspicious (lol amogus reference!!!) of due to his Eggman-like appearance and demeanor, but they take the offer anyway with more characters intervening in the plot as the chapters continue. Eventually they find out that he’s just testing a new form of energy for his automobile company but Eggman kidnaps Dodon Pa and tries to harness the energy for his own plans.

I gotta be honest, I sort of feel like this plot is what people who use the term ‘meta era’ believe that all the 2010’s Sonic game plots are. It kind of just goes nowhere for the most part with most of the characters just commenting on how sus Dodon Pa is being with mixed attempts at comedy sprinkled in until the end of the game. I guess to be fair I shouldn’t really expect much from a spin-off racing title, but there’s also the point where characters make remarks in the gameplay - which is something I like in concept but there’s a few cringy lines. Big the Cat is constantly just making comments about fishing or Froggy, on top of Tails saying… ‘Who’s Your Daddy, Shadow?’ I’m going to Roblox the person who thought of that line and added it to the game.

But that’s one thing. There’s also the story presentation where the game is basically just told through stills of the characters and text boxes with their voice actors speaking over. Again, I know I shouldn’t really expect too much from a story in a spin-off racing game, but on the same token, Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled which came out only a month later managed to have completely animated cutscenes for the intro, ending and bosses… as did the original version of Crash Team Racing released in 1999 - which wasn’t quite as sophisticated obviously, but still existed long before Team Sonic Racing released. I mean, the least they could do is what they did with the Sonic Boom 3DS games with having some animated cutscenes for the intro, ending or important events with text boxes with some of the minor details but… they didn’t do that.

Also I noticed coming straight from Sonic Forces that some of the characters have new voice actors - particularly Knuckles, Blaze, Silver, E123, and Zavok. And I gotta say… I don’t know whether it’s just me getting too used to the previous voice cast but I’m a little… mixed. Blaze and Zavok are fine, E123 didn’t really talk enough for me to make a real judgment on, but Knuckles and Silver’s voices I wasn’t too big on. Knuckles sounds really dopey here and Silver… I don’t know what it is, but I kind of just feel his previous voice actor, at least in the case of Forces, had a good degree of seriousness in his tone and in comparison his voice actor in Team Sonic Racing just sounds… goofy. Part of it might just be the script, and with Frontiers coming out maybe there is a chance (at least for Knuckles) for their respective voice actors to be more fleshed out, but I am a little mixed on their voice actors here.

Regardless, point is that the story is about what you would expect from a spin-off racing game - very simple with little going on and pretty much going nowhere, and the fact that I spent this much time talking about a nothing plot really makes me wonder what I’m doing with my life.

Presentation

Visually this game looks pretty good - about what I would expect from a current-gen (at least when this game came out) follow-up to Transformed. Character models look really polished, and I really dig the lighting and reflection on the cars and objects in each environment, which is only made further by the customization aspect in this game. The stages themselves I think look really good too - not only with the lighting, backgrounds and designs on the tracks, but also how it incorporates elements from previous mainline Sonic titles and in some cases… combining them. For example, Boo’s House being a part of the Sandopolis stage themes, but also incorporating an interior Pyramid Cave design with SA2-style ghosts popping in and out and King Boom Boo sort of stalking the player throughout the track. 

The tracks that return from the previous All-Stars games look even better here with the lighting and reflections, especially in the case of the first ASR tracks that reappear - the Casino Park tracks in particular really pop with the colorful lights contrasting with the night sky, really helps give it that ‘Las Vegas casino’ look. Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed looked really good as it is, and in a lot of ways, Team Sonic Racing manages to be a step above that.

The game’s soundtrack is composed by Jun Senoue, this being his first time composing a Sonic game since Sonic Generations. The soundtrack isn’t my favorite - I don’t really have much of a desire to go back to and listen to it as much as other Sonic soundtracks, but I think it’s still good overall. A lot of my favorites from this soundtrack tended to be the remixes - particularly Market Street (Rooftop Run) and Boo’s House (Sandopolis Zone) - which in general, this soundtrack tends to mix remixes with original tracks in a similar vein to Sonic Generations and Sonic Mania. It’s not my personal favorite soundtrack but it’s pretty good, especially in the context of the game itself.

Gameplay

Being developed by Sumo Digital, Team Sonic Racing plays akin to the All-Stars Racing games, especially Transformed. While the game doesn’t carry over the Transformation system, control-wise it does feel more similar to Transformed in terms of handling and mechanics. The midair stunt system, drifting and boost stacking mechanics in particular largely feel carried over from Transformed, and there are slight adjustments - boosting isn’t quite as powerful and turning does feel a tad tighter - but Team Sonic Racing controls most similarly to Transformed. 

Which, I mean, is a good thing - I thought Transformed’s controls generally worked really well, feeling smooth and doing a better job incentivizing mastery of the mechanics compared to the first All-Stars Racing game, and well, there’s no reason to fix what isn’t broken. 

This All-Stars Racing gameplay, however, is combined with a major new part of the gameplay, that being the ‘team’ mechanic. While Team Sonic Racing does offer a mode that allows it to be played more in line with the previous All-Stars Racing games (and more traditional kart racers in general), its focus is definitely on this mechanic especially in the game’s ‘Team Adventure’ mode which serves as its campaign.

On this front, Team Sonic Racing isn’t exactly a game you simply win just by getting first place. You have to cooperate with your team through a variety of actions - slingshotting, skimboosting, item transferring, and rival takedowns. Slingshotting is done by following the highest ranked member of your team for some time to build up a speed boost, with skimboosting done by driving close to another teammate. Item transferring is self-explanatory, and rival takedowns are basically just hitting opponents with items.

The system itself works surprisingly well in this game. Admittedly it’d probably be even better with friends, and, well, I don’t have any friends to play this game with, but at the same time, it still works well in singleplayer with AI. There are definitely some issues that may arise - particularly when it comes to coordination since, well, you can’t really communicate with the AI, but even then when playing in the Team Adventure mode, I still had a surprisingly fun time not only trying to get to first place, but also trying to help my AI get up the ranks by offering items, helping them with skimboosts and slingshots, or even doing slingshots off of them myself.

The game really encourages you too to keep yourself around your team. Not too long ago I reviewed Overwatch, which I really liked for how it handled teamplay - designing it in a way that incentives communicating with your team and bouncing your abilities off of them with each characters’ unique moveset. That sort of thing is also present here in Team Sonic Racing, and it works pretty well in the context of a kart racer - not only do you want your team to be high ranked so you can get the highest amount of points each race, but also you want to keep your team around you so that you can more easily perform actions such as slingshotting and skimboosting to boost them to higher ranks and/or keep them in said ranks. 

The result is that Team Sonic Racing really comes off as a unique take on the kart racing genre. As you can probably tell from what I said about Overwatch, I do really like team-based games of that sort, and it’s cool to see that kind of gameplay be implemented into the genre of kart racing. 

I do remember some games like Mario Kart DS allowing the player to play in team races within the VS mode, but due to how it was implemented, felt like more of an afterthought and additional option rather than just a major game feature. You were still more or less playing a traditional kart racer at an individual level, just with your points being pooled with the rest of your team - you didn’t exactly have much you could do to ‘benefit’ your team outside of throwing items at opponents.

Which is where Team Sonic Racing really differs. The team play is more integrated with the actual gameplay with mechanics - such as, again, slingshotting, skimboosting and item transferring - incentivizing the player to work with the rest of their team. Not only this, but you also want to build up to a ‘team ultimate’ as fast as possible, which gives you a long boost of speed and invincibility by performing these team actions, which can definitely improve your performance in the race and change the tides. It’s another mechanic I definitely enjoy here.

I do have a slight nitpick with the system though, which is that I wish the game allowed you to choose what characters your teammates are. Which I’m assuming is the case in multiplayer mode if the game allows each player to choose a character, but I do wish that in singleplayer mode at least the game allowed you to choose which characters your AI were and who you were racing with. I’m sure part of it is that the game wants you to have a character of each type on each team - a Speed type, a Power type, and a Technique type - but the least they could do if that’s the case is to allow the player to choose one character of each type, one of which being the one you play as an the others being the AI. Granted it’s not a huge deal though.

On that note - since this is a Sonic kart racer, you do have a larger variety of Sonic characters to choose from, divided into three types. The ‘speed’ type characters have the highest top speed and handling, with the ability to dispel a Radial Burst when performing a high-level drift boost, but at the expense of the worst defense and acceleration. The ‘power’ type, on the other hand, has the best defense and acceleration and can break through obstacles, at the expense of the lowest top speed and handling. 

These character types are similar to that of Sonic Heroes, but instead of having a ‘flight’ type in this game, the third character type takes the form of ‘Technique’, which have moderate handling, moderate-high acceleration and steering, but are the most unique in terms of abilities, being able to attract rings and can also drive on ‘rough’ terrain (which takes the form of grass, mud, lava, and so on depending on the track).

I do like this approach, and it definitely incentivizes some replayability and experimenting with the character types as each of them can take on different types of shortcuts and have their own abilities and wisps they can use. Sort of like how the Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Mania utilized their playable characters. Just, y’know, implemented in a kart racer.

And for the roster itself - while I did praise the goofy variety that All-Stars Transformed especially had - this game being focused solely on the Sonic IP itself of course allows it to bring a higher variety of Sonic characters rather than just the most popular/recognizable ones. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Eggman, Shadow and Metal Sonic carry over from the previous two games, as does Big the Cat who I forgot was playable in the first ASR game, but you also have characters like Blaze, Silver, Rouge, and Vector, which really adds to there being variety here as a Sonic kart racer - more ‘fan favorite’ characters, so to speak.

Unfortunately I do have to say that certain aspects of the roster are a bit… questionable. I do like the greater variety of Sonic characters available, but I feel like some of the choices they made are not so great. Vector is teamed up with Blaze and Silver rather than Espio and Charmy - which is even poked fun of a few times within the story. I guess to be fair there really isn’t any third character that really relates extensively to Blaze and Silver, although it does end up feeling like one case of the character roster being a bit short-sighted. I mean, I dunno, it could've definitely been an opportunity to have Marine the Raccoon from Sonic Rush Adventure reappear, expanding the cast to include her in addition to having Espio and Charmy with Vector.

But, okay, that’s still somewhat understandable… but then they used a ‘Chao’ team with Amy and Big instead of Cream the Rabbit. I did wonder if there was some issue with using Cream in modern Sonic games since she didn’t appear in Sonic Forces either, but at the same time she was present in the two most recent Mario & Sonic games in addition to Sonic Forces: Speed Battle released in 2017. I guess it did allow for Omochao to have some more character rather than just being tutorial bait, but… man, come on.

And out of all the characters they could’ve chosen to be playable in this game, we have… Zavok. I feel like most of the Sonic fanbase looks at Zavok as being a horribly generic villain, and yet he’s also made several reappearances in Sonic games including this one, the recent Mario & Sonic games, and of course… Sonic Forces. I don’t know if there’s some cult of people who were dying to play as Zavok in a Sonic kart racing, and if so… I mean, I’m not complaining about having the option available, but I really feel like there were other characters that could’ve been a part of this roster that are generally more popular among the fanbase.

But at the end of the day, as I said, I still like having the greater variety of Sonic characters available which weren’t around in the other All-Stars racing games, but the more questionable choices do end up highlighting how limited this character roster is in this game. There’s 15 playable characters here divided into teams of three each - a step down from both All-Stars games with 20 being available in the first ASR (in addition to Banjo-Kazooie and Xbox 360 Avatars being playable in the 360 version and Miis being playable on the Wii version, and 1-2 being available as downloadable content on 360 and PS3 depending on if you count Ryo’s forklift separately), and less than Transformed’s 24 characters with another 7 as DLC on the PC version.

I do somewhat understand - being a solely Sonic kart racer you don’t have the other Sega or third party characters to choose from on top of having to keep characters in teams of three, but even then I definitely felt like there’s potential for other characters that could’ve been added to the roster. Why is ‘Chao Team’ a playable character, but not Cream? Why is Vector not with Charmy or Espio? Why is Zavok?

But I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised since the game… kind of has a major content issue in general. There’s 21 tracks in this game - which in all fairness isn’t too much of an issue since that’s about the same as Transformed had (although one could also make the argument that this game is 7 years newer) - but at the same time, only a little over half of those tracks are original. Those 9 remaining tracks are just ripped from the previous two All-Stars games with slight modifications, and supposedly made shorter to make the karts seem faster. Compare this to Transformed, which also had a mix of new and returning tracks, but at the same time only 4 of those tracks were carried over from the first All-Stars Racing game with the remaining 16 being original (with an additional track being made available with the DLC) - only a fifth of the game compared to almost half of Team Sonic Racing.

Thing is I do really like the new/original tracks in this game - most of them offer a good amount of splitting paths and are especially made replayable with the different character types and abilities. And I don’t think there’s much necessarily wrong with the returning tracks themselves (albeit I have voiced some criticism towards ASR’s more basic feeling track design), but the fact that so many of the tracks are just carried over from the previous games with modifications sort of casts a feeling that this game suffers from a lack of originality and might imply the development team was rushed to some extent or another. 

Team Sonic Racing really felt like a prime candidate for DLC, especially with both of the previous games, especially Transformed, offering it. But… they didn’t do that, and with the amount of tracks being about the same as Transformed, with much of them being reused, it sort of gives me the impression that the developers went for the bare minimum of how much content would be accepted in this game, and didn’t go further than that.

Compare this to Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled - a game that came out just a month later as a kart racer spinoff of a franchise that had less notoriety than Sonic and was dormant for almost a decade. This game, in comparison, had 31 ‘main’ race tracks from the start - which, sure, being a remake, were all just reused from CTR and Crash Nitro Kart, but still offered 10 more main race tracks than Team Sonic Racing, with a PS4 exclusive track and dedicated Battle Arena tracks.

Not only that, but the game continued to be supported with new monthly ‘Grand Prix’ events until March 2020, adding new tracks and characters on top of what was already in the game. Sure, this game had issues of its own, particularly due to the microtransactions combined with a grindy progression system which I mentioned gave me some distaste towards the game, but it still offered more than what Team Sonic Racing had from the getgo. In the end, CTR: Nitro Fueled was commonly named as the ‘Best Racing Game’ of 2019, including the Game Awards, whereas Team Sonic Racing… kind of fell into obscurity outside of the Sonic fanbase. 

Currently, the game has significantly less players on Steam than on Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed - a kart racer based off the same franchise that came out 7 years prior - and never even reached a fifth of that game’s peak. Sure, I’m basing this entirely off the Steam numbers, and the Switch playerbase for this game is likely higher than the Wii U’s playerbase for Transformed, but considering the game didn’t have quite as high of a reception as Transformed did, it does give me the impression that this game was not only overshadowed by CTR: Nitro-Fueled, but that it fell off quicker and harder than Transformed did 7 years prior.

Which, in a way, is a shame, since Team Sonic Racing has a really good foundation. The original tracks are really well-made, and the team mechanic makes the game really unique… but it doesn’t exactly have enough new content to build much upon that foundation.

I feel like I especially noticed the lack of content when playing in the game’s Team Adventure mode. Which I do feel could be a result of the Team Adventure mode honestly feeling longer than it needed to be, but regardless I did notice towards the second half of it that I spent most of the races on ‘mirrored’ versions of tracks that I had played at least once if not multiple times before. The campaign does offer extra modes, similar to Transformed, that do spice things up a bit - for example the ‘Daredevil’ mode where you race past sign posts or my favorite, the Eggpawn Assault where you try to destroy as many Eggpawns as possible to rack up points - but even then, these just felt like extra objectives to do on the same tracks I had been racing on.

Ultimately, towards the end of the Team Adventure mode, I couldn’t help but feel… burned out, moreso than I did playing the ‘World Tour’ mode for my review of Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed. With the lack of content and repetitive missions, it just made the campaign feel like it went longer than it needed to be, especially with how simple and filler-heavy the story is.

I should also mention that the game also offers customization elements. I mentioned in my Forces review that Sonic Team had started to become more open to customization in recent titles, with this being one of them. Unfortunately you don’t have an Avatar you can customize in this game, but you can customize your car as you unlock more parts for it - which you do by collecting ‘credits’ the more you play the game, then spending 10 on them to get a random part. 

I don’t like this randomized aspect of it and I feel like it leads to grinding in order to unlock the parts in this game, but I do like how you have options available for every character. You can change your paint job, your horn, vinyls, as well as choose from various parts that change your stats - giving a bit more depth in this game’s replayability. There are some elements of this feature that I do wish had more depth to them - in particular you can’t choose individual colors and instead have to choose between a bunch of color schemes - but at the same time you also do have a lot of options to choose from so I can’t really complain too much.

Plus, I should mention that since this game also uses the Wisps as its items to keep itself more within the ‘Sonic’ style, which is a touch I like, but they play… about the same as you would expect from other kart racers. Truth be told I actually didn’t take much advantage of the items in this game compared to All-Stars Racing Transformed or even really felt like they were as prevalent here. Ultimately I don’t have too much to comment on how items play in this game, but them being Wisps does help fit the vibe of a Sonic kart racer at least.

Conclusion

I do consider Team Sonic Racing to be an overall solid, good kart racer. The team mechanic is interesting, the controls are good, the original tracks are very well-designed and its visuals look great, and I would even go as far as to say I enjoy it a lot more than the first All-Stars Racing game, for at the very least having more of its own identity.

That said, it’s also a step down from the Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed. While this game does have a good foundation, it doesn’t really offer enough major content in terms of tracks or even characters to really build much upon that foundation, and just kind of falls short in comparison to its predecessor. It’s still a good kart racer, but not a *great* one, so to speak, and I’m not too surprised that it was overshadowed by Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled a month later.

I’d say the game’s at least worth a shot though due to it’s unique concept and its original tracks… but I would advise against paying $40 for the game, which it still is on Steam, or $30 which it is on Switch and Xbox One/Series (and you can’t get the game by itself on PS4/5 digitally and only have the option for the two-pack with Banana Blitz HD for $50). I’d still recommend Transformed over it regardless, but if you already have that game and can find TSR on sale for about $15-$20 max (maybe it’ll drop to $3.59 again on Steam at some point), I’d say look into it. Just don’t expect anything amazing.

And with that… I’m done. Caught up with the Sonic retrospective series. I plan to write a conclusion to this in the next few days (before Frontiers releases) so look forward to that I guess.