Team Sonic Racing - Upcoming Sonic Racing Game

[Meta77]

1 hour ago, Jango said:

I just listened to the whole soundtrack on YouTube during this afternoon. 

This is easily one of the BEST soundtracks in the whole franchise, hands down. It has such a variety of genres and they all blend so well. It's something Sonic Forces really needed. Teamwork does for the soundtrack too, amazing how these composers can achieve such quality when working together instead of pushing all the work to Tomoya Ohtani (althought still excelent, Sonic Runners' soundtrack is superb).

Tee Lopes and Hyper Potions are excelent additions to the franchise, I hope SEGA keep these guys around, along with all the other new faces. They rock.

I'll put it high up there with my all time favorites like Sonic CD and SA1.

I do like the music but im waiting for the real soundtrack to come out so i can rip it into flac. Id share it if i knew how. But most files online are just mp3s ripped and then uploaded without edititing to youtube. I look forward to what the full tracks sound like.

[Tracker_TD]

Sweet Jesus, this game's matchmaking might just be the worst in any game I've ever played. Out of 10 attempts I got two solid games, one of which ended with an endless post-race screen that I had to force quit out of. The rest have been 3 different varieties of error, including one point where the game couldn't detect an internet connection... when I'm on a stable ethernet link. It's torturous, and annoying because when I do get a game, it's actually quite fun. 

[DabigRG]

So I'm about to do Stage 4-5 and have a few thoughts:

• Spoiler

   

  • I got used to the cutscenes. Kinda wish there was a bit more pizzazz and/or shortcuts, though. 
  • The character interactions are pretty good, with some fun lines here and there. There is a degree of flanderization in places, though.
  • Love the Survival and EggPawn missions.
  • The Ring Missions can go screw themselves.
  • Team Dark and recently Metal kinda come out of nowhere. Hope that isn't the case with the Red Guy.
  • Team Vector is sorta forgotten about right now.
  • Does Big have a mustache?

   

   

 

[DabigRG]

Okay, on the Team Vector thing, I realized the cutscene didn't play and so replayed the mission with them. Is that cutscene supposed to play or can the cutscenes changed depending on which characters you pick?

 

[Sega DogTagz]

Playing through adventure modes and having a lot of fun with this. The difficulty jump from Hard to Expert is downright punishing and it takes a few tries to not get swept off the podium. It doesn't seem to be rubber-band kind of difficulty tho, just comm working better as a team. I think that changes when I learn the tracks a bit better and unlock a few mods for my mains.

 

The skimboost is a godsend. It incentivizes racing together and takes the sting out of getting blitzed by items. Perfect compliment to the Team Mechanics.

 

The first negative I've seen would be the Tech class AI. They lay slipstreams down through impassible terrain, and then fellow AI partners will follow it to oblivion. If your going to not program them to lay clean racing lines, you have to at least give teammates enough intelligence to know no to follow the leader off the cliff.

[DabigRG]

Turning off for the night after the last racer showed himself. Here's some last inputs:

Spoiler

• I kinda like the touch of Big liking Dodon Pa for whatever reason.
• Holey smoaks, they brought back the fact that Cubot actually likes Eggman. And they edged on going there with it.
• The implication of Silver developing precognition is interesting. In fact, he sees to be gradually becoming a central focus of the story.
• "I'm a princess. People lie to me everyday."
• Zavok is finally here. While I like the idea of his appearance from a plot perspective, I don't really care for how he's implemented thus far.  Especially with that magazine entry in mind.

 

[SBR2]

5 hours ago, Tracker_TD said:

 

You know what I think the best part was? The story itself! I genuinely enjoyed the writing, and after a short adjusting period I found the new voices worked alright. Still not a fan of Zavok but I've warmed up to Papenbrook as Silver and Lindbeck as Blaze is perfect. The writing is genuinely funny, and this is the kind of thing I like to see. The jokes land far more than they have done in any of the Pontac/Graff games, and to me it's proof that lightheartedness isn't the issue people perceive with Sonic writing.

 

Any idea who wrote the script? I haven't played the game just watched the Cutscenes but the dialogue and characterization is great.

[DabigRG]

Going back to answer some posts I skipped over.

On 5/17/2019 at 10:06 PM, StaticMania said:

His voice's deep.

It doesn't sound natural enough.

That's roughly the problem, yes.

On 5/17/2019 at 11:21 PM, StaticMania said:

What if...Sonic Team decides...to use these characters?

One at a time, tag team with Sonic...solo story focused.

New villain, Eggman, the D6, Metal Sonic, Witch, Bird folk.

Try?

Yeah, that'd be nice.

How could it be set up though?

On 5/17/2019 at 2:53 PM, tailsBOOM! said:

So here are 2 story spoilers revealed during the GameXplain livestream:

  Hide contents

1) Dodon Pa eventually works with Eggman, BUT...

(This is a bigger one, so I'll double spoiler it):

  Hide contents

2) He might not be evil, as Big says the wisps willingly work with him, to which Amy comes to the realization that he might be a good person since the Wisps only work with people with a good heart.  So that'd kill the Nega and Classic Eggman arguments straightaway.

 

So, there's that.

I'm going to assume that IGN will low-ball Crash since they literally deducted points from Metroid Prime Trilogy for being a collection of old games, but the others we'll have to see.

Huh. That does make some sense.

Spoiler

Unless Blue and Orange Morality is at play.

On 5/17/2019 at 4:15 PM, SBR2 said:

I've not seen a lot. Mostly people blaming Marzgurl alone for starting a "Harassment campaign" despite years of claims that Vic is a creep to the staff at cons and regularly hugs on girls without consent.

He's a prick and honestly less important not even that good a voice actor anyway. 

Marzgurl? From ThatGuywiththeGlasses?

On 5/17/2019 at 5:36 PM, Plasme said:

To be fair, most fans don't exactly like the wisps either. They got slammed in Lost World  

That's because they didn't have a real place there and/or controlled awkwardly witht the gyroscope at launch.

On 5/19/2019 at 9:03 AM, Plasme said:

Going to be honest, I agree with the reviewer who said that the current system of default skipping cutscenes gives off the impression that the developers are embarrassed by the story and want to hide it.

I haven't finished yet, but honestly I'd think it'd be the presentation.

On 5/20/2019 at 11:03 PM, Shadowlax said:

Well Bowser did he became dry bowser

Coolest bowser form

Did he become him or did he uncover the alternate dimension where he exists?

That's a funny way to spell Giga Bowser, btw.

17 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Crash TR vs Sonic TSR, almost identical name, same year. Crazy world. At least we're not competing with Mario for once.

So I have a stupid question: Sonic has a complicated history, waring fan factions and gameplay that requires care and balance. With that said: did ANYONE asked for in-level banter? Dear Chaos, Sonic Heroes was 16 years ago and it was terrible idea back then. Time Eater, Lost World, Forces, now this.

Sega needs to hire a detective, cause they can't get a clue.

As for story of the game

  Reveal hidden contents

....I say that rarely buy, maybe this game would be better with no story at all. Let's be honest, it couldn't really work. How do you make a racing story with "Still-image" budget? Any attempt for action/drama is dead, only option is this stress-free interaction game.

But nothing is happening (and yet game has 1h of story, more than some main tittles!), so characters don't have anything to talk about. Rouge isn't stealing stuff, Silver isn't saving the future, no one is racing for stakes, so they just talk about superficial stuff and then repeat same conversation over and over. Even Shadow/Sonic rivalry, so underline in trailers, is barely here.

Characters are mostly fine, it's nice that Vector is detective and not an idiot and Eggman has... one or two funny jokes. Some lame, but at least not cringe-worthy. With that said
- Shadow and Knuckles would work if not for their voice actors.
- Zavok is terribly OOC. Game puts so much effort at addressing lore (Silver/Blaze origins, dark and hero chao, etc) but they ignored the biggest plot hole. At least they could make it un-easy alliance with Eggman and Zavok barely holding from attacking each other. That would add some chemistry.
- And then there is super-bland Amy and one-note "race cool, yeah" Sonic. I'm starting to think Sega removed Amy's crush, so Sonic could emote even less.

And finally we have Dodon Pa and he's... just kinda stupid. Game hammers into our head he's like putting innocent in danger, has high ego and resembles Eggman in mannerism... only to reveal he's a okay dude and IDK we should forget everything we established at first. And he can travel through time and through dimensions and he's king and alien and Tony Stark... who wrote that? High person and 5 year old?

At least I can say it's better than Free Riders, because Team Dark and Rose aren't abusing their team members (even if Riders 3 had less repetitive cut-scenenes). With that said, my favorite "still images" Sonic story was in Rivals 2. Plot was stupid, but they went with it. Characters were split into teams, so we had friend interactions, conflict and unique pairings. It wasn't great by any means, but I liked watching Rouge mess with everyone, Silver rambling like crazy about collecting chao or Shadow/Metal little friendship.

At the end of the day, story isn't that 'bad', you jut wonder why it's even here

Lost World had in-level banter?

12 hours ago, CaptainRobo said:

Live Action Trailer for the Game. Better than the movie? Lol.:

Also, Arby’s posted this.:

 

Oh yeah, that did pop up on my homepage. I was like wtf.

9 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Does anyone have any tips for Ring Challenge 2 on Planet Wisp (it’s in chapter 2 of story), it’s driving me fucking crazy trying to do it.

Drift as much as you fuckin can.

9 hours ago, JezMM said:

Nah, it's one campaign. You're free to use any character you like for any stage too, regardless of whether the cut-scene beforehand implies that a particular character is racing.

Yeah, I noticed that. Fun how that works out.

Or doesn't, in some cases.

8 hours ago, Mayor D said:

Regarding the ring missions... always drift into the rings. It doubles the bonus time you get from them.

The drifting missions are quite hard, for the planet wisp stage. Take the centre route it's easier.

Oh so its not just me this is happening too then?

This game seems to love drifting.

It's like Sonic Unleashed or Riders 1 except not exciting.

8 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

So the 3DS version is canon? In that one, they simply retreated.

I suppose...?  Eh, a mishmash of different aspects makes a more satisfying collective, honestly.  

Plus, the first four disappear in a puff of smoke and almost all of them just complain about losing anyway. Just workaround Zor & Zavok possibly getting dunked and you're good.

 

I have no clue what was going through their heads with that final Zavok fight, honestly.

6 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I swear the use of the X button for story skip is downright idiotic. It's actually getting frustrating with how many times I've accidentally skipped story.

Yeah, it probably should've been the other way around.

At the very least, you can always replay them and then quit the match.

[DabigRG]

Oh, one last things: The Voice Acting thus far:

• Tails, Amy, Eggman, and Orbot are perfect.
• Blaze is still indistinguishable.
• Vector sounds a tad off, but is more or less on point.
• Sonic was a little first take-ish at times, but he's fine otherwise.
• Cubot doesn't sound quite right.
• Omochao sounded like Cream through weakass filter at first, but otherwise tries to be Laura Bailey.
• Silver is okay. A slightly more dweebish Adrien.
• Shadow is whatever. Slightly less strained compared to Boom.
• Dodon Pa is a bit weird. I can sorta hear what he going for, but it can come & go a little. Of course he's a brand new character, so a little uneasiness is passable.
• There've only been two or three lines from Zavok thus far. One was spot on, the others were doped Endeavor.
• Knuckles has one line in the intro and that's all I needed. He can vaguely pass at times, but it was pretty obvious.    

[Dr. Detective]

So, I got the game. It feels weird that I feel like I'm coming into a conversation about the game late when the game literally released today. About the story so far.

Spoiler

It's a bit of a shame because I really feel like I wouldn't mind this story so much if it weren't for one thing. The fact that literally every cutscene, they keep repeating over and over again about how much they don't trust Dodon Pa and how obvious a villain he is. It's not even like they're doing it in a tongue and cheek way either. It's like the characters keep forgetting that they're suspicious of him so they need to keep reminding us. I get it when it comes to things like Vector asking if Amy trusts him when he first shows up but come on. Whether it's to set us up for a swerve or to ensure us that they know it's obvious just like we would, it's too much. 

It kind of sucks because the dialogue on its own really isn't all that bad. It's nothing to write home about but it's certainly nothing the elicits anger from me. I remember when everyone was freaking out over "Whose your daddy, Shadow?" Lines like that are definitely not the norm here. Plus, the voice chatter isn't all that intrusive either. The options settings make it almost a non-issue for those who care about it. I like hearing them talk though. Hearing "Big, how could you?" when Tails gets hit is kind of cute. 

Although, when it comes to characters, Big is probably the weakest here. I'm not exactly cringing at what he's saying but something about him and his lines feel off. Although he did have one good line about "talking to Froggy when Froggy isn't here". It was proper creepy.

Also, is Blaze like a species-ist or something? She sees that Dodon Pa is a tanuki and immediately wants to bail because they're known for being tricksters. Did she not see Zootopia?

I do like that Sonic is the only one not interested in who Dodon Pa is or what his angle is. Everytime he speaks he talks about how much fun he's having and how much focus they should have on the race at any given moment. That's good. I'm not saying there should be no focus on figuring out what this dude's deal is but you guys could stand to lighten up and have some fun while you're on the track. Talk a bit more about the race. In fairness, there are times where they talk a bit more about each other though. 

This game actually does what I keep asking every game to do when it comes to acknowledging the characters and their expected relationships with the other cast members (and the world) by actually talking about some of the things that they, normally, wouldn't bother expositing about.  For example, every time Silver and Blaze show up, I always ask for them just to mention the why and how. Blaze mentions that the invite came across her dimension and Silver, hilariously, mentions getting the invite from 200 years into the future. It's not high art but it's better than the nothing from before. The fact that this game bothered to explain it and the Forces game proper didn't (read the comic on our Twitter folks) is even more astonishing to me. I appreciated this.

However, the big surprise talk for me came from Vector. It was clear that Tails and Vector (the detective and the brainiac) were plotting something together behind the scenes but when Knuckles interjected and straight up asked where Espio and Charmy were (outright stating them by name, which fucking SHOCKED me) Vector stammers a bit and says that he's "freelancing" which lead me to believe that "Holy shit... there actually is a reason?"

Then later, Vector tries to act all happy about them winning and Blaze calls him out on having a different reason to be here aside from winning. Then Vector's like "What? No, I'm totally here for the money..." Blaze says she gets lied to daily because she's a princess (which is funny) and Vector gets all serious detective on her. I love how Vector's portrayals have him as a serious detective with a charming personality these days. It's like the opposite of his Free Riders portrayal where he wouldn't shut up about the money.

Come to find out that Espio and Charmy are off investigating! WHAT?! They not only acknowledged they weren't there but then gave... A REASON???!!!!

It's been so long since character absences and character appearances came with reasons. I'm surprised.

Then the next scene with Sonic and Tails was pretty good too. Sonic approaches Tails and says that Knuckles told him that he was being sneaky. Tails admits that he's working on something and Sonic immediately is like "Say no more. You'll tell me when I need to know." That's great! Be more like Sonic kids! Sonic is great in this game.

Actually, Sonic and Tails have a pretty good dynamic here in general. It's nice.

Some of the character conversations are pretty good too. Sonic and Silver have a legitimately funny exchange that made me genuinely laugh.

"I'm so gonna own you Silver."

"Okay."

"No! You're supposed to say "In your dream Sonic."

"In your dreams Sonic."

"Too late. The moment's passed."

I gotta say though, I'm really liking Silver the Anime Protagonist Hedgehog's new voice. It's kind of amazing how fast it grew on me. All it took was listening to it for a bit and suddenly it's my favorite Silver voice. It didn't take long to get used to at all. Also, Roger sounds great as Sonic here. He's so slick. All the veteran actors are super comfortable in these roles now.

Silver is such a dork. It's great. He's so socially inept. I used to not care about him but I love him now. 

I also kind of like that it was suggested by Sonic that it's a bit of a toss up whenever Shadow decides he wants to do something for Eggman or do something to stop him. Maybe that's just me feeling nostalgic for the time where Shadow kind of had respect for Eggman and didn't mind conversing with him despite not being a villain himself though.

I will say that this game did absolutely nothing to justify Omochao's presence here. The novelty of having an All-Chao racer kind of wore off when I realized that I tend to avoid picking them but the opening cutscene just saw Omochao thrust himself along with Amy and Big as though he was their third wheel all along. Immediately, it felt like something Cream would do. It was so jarring. 

I'm at the part where Zavok has shown up. No mention of the events on Lost World yet Sonic mentions beating him before. I guess all the references and acknowledgement of what happened before and who these characters are alluded Zavok. At least so far. I haven't beaten it just yet. I'm at Chapter 6.

So far though, this story isn't really a story. It's just a series of conversations, which, even for a game with only text boxes, I feel could have done a bit more on that front. Still, there are some good conversations in there. Not all of them are though. This leaves you with a game with mostly alright dialogue and not much of an adventure. Still, I'm appreciating a lot of what it's doing. Some of it is bare minimum stuff but Forces and some of the games before this couldn't even do that.

That's my thoughts so far. Shockingly, I wasn't able to beat the story mode in a day like I did with Forces. So my thoughts on the conclusion will probably come tomorrow.

[Badnik Mechanic]

So those legendary mods...

I unlocked all the Sonic mods and... well...

They have no stat differences to the normal mods.

They're not worse or better. They're exactly the same but you can't use paint jobs or graphics on them... so...?

 

[Plasme]

What does the defence stat mean?

[Conando]

I’m just assuming it’s how little collisions and items affect you, considering it’s a main stat for power racers.

[Eurisko]

1 hour ago, Mayor D said:

So those legendary mods...

I unlocked all the Sonic mods and... well...

They have no stat differences to the normal mods.

They're not worse or better. They're exactly the same but you can't use paint jobs or graphics on them... so...?

 

Glad someone has mentioned this , I unlocked one last night and it brought a stat down which I though was odd. I assumed maybe because it was mixed with mods of a different nature but clearly your find says otherwise. This has to be a mistake on Sumo's partelse what's the point in them? other than being gold.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

I unlocked Sonic's Legendary mod in it's entirity after 2 hours of playing and only being in chapter 2.
So makes sense they don't make them that powerful if you can get it super quickly if you happen to be lucky with the unlock system.

Enjoying the game a lot so far, but I keep having this subtle feeling my controller is broken or something, sometimes the characters stop responding for no reason or are a pain to steer. Never quite sure if it's the controler or the game being unstable. Either I'm never bothering with the power characters anymore, definitly. What a pain to play as them.

[Dreadknux]

I can see why they did kept the stats the same. It gives you a choice of whether you want to run in a gold car or not. Purely cosmetic. I know that I chose to use some gold versions of mods (wheels for example) while opting for the regular version of others, so that I can take advantage of the colour schemes and vinyls you can unlock (the Desert Mirage palette with a metal finish on Sonic's car is dope af).

I think I'd actually be annoyed if they changed the stats of the gold versions, means I'd be forced to roll around in a car that looks like a Goldfinger victim.

[Plasme]

I'm wondering what the defence stat specifically means because Power characters seem to get affected by items like everyone else. Do I have to mod them to get their defence stats through the roof?

Because otherwise the Power types are complete garbage. They are slow, handle horribly and always come last. No one online even plays as them. Not great considering the game has such a tiny roster.

[Dantemustdie00]

Daredevil

I HATE Daredevil challenges!

 

Ugh, but hey, I'm enjoying this game a lot more than Mario Kart 8 at least, good item selection too, CPU is also challenging too, but boy, I forgotten how much these games make my fingers hurt.

[Blue Blood]

26 minutes ago, Plasme said:

I'm wondering what the defence stat specifically means because Power characters seem to get affected by items like everyone else. Do I have to mod them to get their defence stats through the roof?

Because otherwise the Power types are complete garbage. They are slow, handle horribly and always come last. No one online even plays as them. Not great considering the game has such a tiny roster.

Defence indicates how much speed is lost upon getting hit. Power characters don't spin out (or spin out less) when getting hit by certain obstacles and attacks.

It's the only aspect the the three character types that feels tacked on. Rather than giving a buff to the class (like technique characters and rough terrain), power characters instead just get a lesser nerf than everyone else. In ASRT, getting hit by a single attack wouldn't ever bring you to a complete stop. Instead, you had to be hit by 2 to 3 attacks in one go, which took skill. It's a shame that the option of firing all items at once it's gone in this game.

[Jango]

41 minutes ago, Plasme said:

I'm wondering what the defence stat specifically means because Power characters seem to get affected by items like everyone else. Do I have to mod them to get their defence stats through the roof?

Because otherwise the Power types are complete garbage. They are slow, handle horribly and always come last. No one online even plays as them. Not great considering the game has such a tiny roster.

I guess then you can't get Knuckles in Sonic's car (or any other speed type car), for example? That's lame for the people whom favorite characters happens to be Knuckles, Big, Omega or.... Zavok heh One of the things TSR had going on was customization, but apparently CTR already beat it ;/

[Blue Blood]

Are power characters really that bad? I've been using them a lot, simply because of character preference (I'd be using Rouge too, but her voice is hard to listen to).

I'm not finding Much of an issue with them In fact, I like that I can collect runs by destroying obstacles and clear shortcuts for my team to use. Power shortcuts can be made accessible to everyone by a power character leading the pack, whereas Technique characters risk hurting their teammates through shortcuts. But that does come at the cost of several tracks not including many obstacles. Power types could do with a buff, like the ability to pick up triple Wisps without needing to transfer items. That would add significantly to their offensive and defensive tactics.

Also fuck the Quake Wisp. It's way too difficult to avoid most of the time, unlike the Swarm in ASRT. You end up hitting three or four stone pillars, each one stopping even power characters dead in their tracks. Too often there's absolutely no hope getting by unscathed.

[LukA8]

Why are people saying the Power characters are bad? I'm having a lot of success using them. I do notice not many are using them online but I figured that's because they're not used to their handling yet, but it's 80% Speed types so far anyway because they seem like the obvious choice.

It's a bit early for that but I'd even argue they're the best class. Whenever they break something you're awarded rings increasing your top speed, as Blue Blood says you can clear the power shortcuts for your team mates to follow your slipstream before they respawn, and their boost power is actually insane. I modded Vector to get near-max speed and boost stats (with non-existent acceleration/handling as a consequence) and he shoots to the front of the pack from the starting boost alone. They also have the most exclusive Wisps, including Void.

If anything I stand by my claim that the Technique racers are the least useful for team races because using their shortcuts messes up your team mates trying to slingshot off you, unless you're partnered with two other Technique types. Plus their exclusive Wisp is the Bloop..er, Magenta Rhythm, the worst one in there. Handling and Acceleration is something that's mostly important for new players in my eyes, but regardless their stats are a bit higher in average than the others, so I think all three are nicely balanced.

 

[Badnik Mechanic]

Jesus H Christ!

Has anyone tried Time Trial mode yet!

I tried Ocean View and it took me about 2 hours to beat the platinum ghost! If you thought the time trials in ASRT were hard! These ones don't fuck around!

[Meta77]

4 hours ago, Dreadknux said:

I can see why they did kept the stats the same. It gives you a choice of whether you want to run in a gold car or not. Purely cosmetic. I know that I chose to use some gold versions of mods (wheels for example) while opting for the regular version of others, so that I can take advantage of the colour schemes and vinyls you can unlock (the Desert Mirage palette with a metal finish on Sonic's car is dope af).

I think I'd actually be annoyed if they changed the stats of the gold versions, means I'd be forced to roll around in a car that looks like a Goldfinger victim.

The fact Dread is posting maked me think it's someone else lol

But the music's great but still the cars are a little loose in tightness. I honestly think mk8 and transformed spoiled me

[LukA8]

(Fanboy talk) I really like how they portrayed Vector in this, he's not around for much chatter but he uses his well-known money obsession to hide him snooping around - though he also definitely participated for the small chance there is a prize. Shadow, Rouge and especially Omega could have gotten a bit more to do for all the Big cutscenes there are, but otherwise everyone got some nice moments.

And I know I complained about Big's portrayal, but I just noticed Zavok's started referring to himself in the third person in some lines ("Zavok is mighty")...so I immediately apologize to Big.

Keeping Dodon Pa around is also a good decision, there's some things that don't add up about him and he has an interesting character motivation, won't go into details right now for spoilers. Between Cubot complaining that he's not playable and the Chaotix mentions, I think they're already looking into the future of the Sumo racers, and I'm interested if it could lead to another great game like Transformed. Depends a lot on how this will perform sales-wise, of course, but I think from critics they have reasons to be happy considering how limited the game had to be.