Team Sonic Racing

Introduction

Team Sonic Racing is a kart racing game with its main draw being all about Teamwork.

The game has no issues running on my current system: Ryzen 5 3600, RTX 3060, 16GB RAM @1080p, 75fps at Max Settings. Runs best in borderless windowed mode - allowing for unlocked frame rates. There are minor graphical hitches in certain scenarios.

Story

To kick things off, Sonic and his friends are challenged to a race by a mysterious Tanuki called Dodon Pa, to see who can be the best of the best in his racing event. Sonic is all down for it, but the rest of the gang are skeptical to various degrees.

Things don’t really go anywhere until near late game, but the outcome is highly underwhelming. It also doesn't help with the fact all the cutscenes are static portraits of the characters, with awkward pauses between dialogue exchanges.

Everyone sounds incredible and the performance of lines definitely made me chuckle in places, except for Rogue and Silver, whose lines seem either too forced or come off as wannabes.

Dodon Pa unfortunately becomes another obscure character that joins the pile of long forgotten characters in the Sonic universe, and it’s really unfortunate how poorly written he was. There isn’t that much going for him, and the lore of his character was only touched upon once near the end of the story.

During the campaign, there are other modes besides racing, such as Traffic Attack, Elimination and Ring Race, all offering different and unique challenges as you work your way through the 10-12 hours worth of playtime it takes to beat the campaign.

Gameplay

You are thrown into a Team of three characters, whom you rely upon to get each other to the finish line before the other teams do - fairly straightforward. If you find yourself left behind, you're expected to rely on the new "slipstream" mechanic. Driving within the slipstream trail builds up momentum and charges up a slingshot maneuver, allowing you to overtake the driver in front. Skimming past other Team players who have been knocked out grants a sudden boost in speed, bringing them back into the action with quicker recovery.

The ultimate meter is filled up via Team Actions, this includes Slingshots, Skimboosting, trading and more.

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There is almost no sense of speed. Motion feels incredibly sluggish with minimal post-processing effects to really sell on believability. The only time it feels like you’re actually going fast is during Ultimate mode.

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Weapons take the form of Wisps, utilising their different characteristics either as assists for yourself or weapons to use against your opponent. What type of wisp you get will largely depend on your position in the race, and some wisps can only be obtained by gifting and receiving offers from your team mates.

The cooldown time for being hit by a weapon feels unnecessarily harsh: you’re immobilized for a considerable amount of time before you can start moving again. Attacking opponents is very unpredictable and not at all satisfying. Explosions generally look weak, and your team can also disable your traps if driven over - why not have them phase through instead? The hitboxes feel off too - activating a wisp with your opponent sliding right up against your vehicle can be enough to hit them.

Characters are divided up by class, either as Speed, Technique, or Power:

The most useful of them seem to be Technique, as they can traverse any terrain without slowing down and have the best acceleration and handling. Speed characters have situational speed boosts after landing, while Power types can open up shortcuts for themselves, and others, with no loss of speed.

There is no regard for the weight of the characters themselves affecting performance. Collecting rings seems to affect your Top Speed. If you get hit or land badly after a jump, you lose all of your rings instantly, thus putting you at a major disadvantage.

The character roster and team compositions are dubious. Some trios are made up of unlikely, if not counterintuitive members. Surely there would've been a better choice for a group of cheerful ladies than a hulk of a crocodile.

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Local Multiplayer can be played in split screen going up to 4 players. Each player has a chance to evaluate their car parts, as well as deciding what character to play as and whose team they wish to be in.

Online multiplayer entails allowing you to join matchmaking events, creating custom lobbies or joining a friend's existing lobby. Matchmaking lets you decide to play Ranked or Casual, or simply pick Quick Play for a random quick match join in. Unfortunately, you will be waiting quite a long time until someone shows up due to low player traffic. You’d be lucky enough to find anyone online these days.

Presentation

Characters talk during races, exchanging dialogue on what your teams are up to and at times have humorous lines. This can be turned off if not desired, as well as disabling Dodon Pa who will casually remind you about performing certain actions every so often.

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Difficulty selection impacts AI proficiency with weapons, but most egregiously makes them more prone to rubberbanding. Upgrades can alleviate this, but it’s really obvious how far they go out of their way to cheat through the event, even at the very end to really rub it in your face how you didn’t save the Ultimate Boost for last. Be prepared to reattempt races on higher difficulties repeatedly, until you can manage your resources enough to out-cheat the opponents.

Standard Mode exists to let you race without being on a Team, but you will not have access to Team actions such as Slipstream. This is possible in both singleplayer and multiplayer.

Mod Pods are pretty much the only viable means of gaining upgrades, which is a glorified loot box mechanic in disguise. Furthermore, it seems you’re given the majority of stuff based on the character you play the most as and half the upgrades are duplicates of the same model, with an extra coat of gold you can’t get rid of. There’s also sometimes a chance you’ll get a random power-up instead, which can be equipped to offer some random perk during the event; rarely are these even worthwhile.

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Cars feel incredibly lackluster in design, with Amy’s ride looking like a bar of soap. A consistent color scheme is the least I can say is alright with these vehicles. You can change the colors and materials of different parts of the vehicles, unless you’re using the golden upgrades which aren’t customisable... Various vinyles can be unlocked to give the car a different sort of pattern from its usual default, and there are also different novelty horns to unlock.