Team Sonic Racing - Upcoming Sonic Racing Game

[Soniman]

Yeah I actually straight up hated the generic nothing items they used in transformed

 it's even worse because that game uses other Sega franchises and so there's even larger a pool of things you could pull from to come up with unique items 

[Blue Blood]

58 minutes ago, JezMM said:

The only thing I will say in TSR's defense is while the item gameplay is a bit hit-or-miss, GOD I appreciate the Wisp usage over the first two games' generic items when I see them side-by-side. I know the fandom as a whole is still struggling with swallowing the "Wisps are here to stay" pill, but the fact is they're a major part of the Sonic franchise now and they are so much more appealing to look at, what with the little guys peering around quizzically, putting on a sassy expression or looking downright traumatised by everything going on around them as you wait to use them, as oppose to... Baseball Glove.

My biggest issue with the Wisps is that they were introduced as a plot point in a canon game, and then that concept was trashed. What they add to the gameplay is neither here nor there, because they can be put to better use.

But yeah, I really have to agree with you in this. The Wisps are all pretty self-explanatory if you have knowledge of the Sonic series and/or kart racers, plus the game explains them. They're the perfect choice for items, and the uniformity of them I especially like. The items in ASRT were functionally great, but Christ why was a bunch of wasps or a non-descript blowfish an item in a SEGA crossover? One of the ASR games replaced one of the generic items with a Puyo, but only in the Japanese release.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I think it was even worse in Transformed, since at least the original ASR all had unique all star moves for everyone, as opposed to Transformed, where you simply go into helicopter mode for a bit.

[Dr. Detective]

I don't even remember the items in Transformed. The All-Stars moves were all useless too. Less effective than even the items to me. 

If anything, some of Transformed's shortcomings give a good reason to switch between the first and second game. Transformed's stages are magnificent and provides an incredible sense of adventure with it's tracks but if you want something punchier and more thrilling in terms of action the first game is where it's at. Complete with the best hype man ever.

As for the wisps, I can't really say I prefer them over the first game's items just yet. I still feel like I haven't completely gotten to a point where I can look at one and immediately recall what it can do. I can understand why it would be confusing for someone who isn't a Sonic fan. They function fine though. The laser continues to be the best thing ever. 

If and when they make another one I do hope to see the return of those awesome All-Star moves though. I'm on the fence about the wisps but ultimately I wouldn't be sad to see them go. I guess I am still in the camp of wishing they'd go back to older items. Especially in the main games. 

[Blue Blood]

The All Star moves of the original ASR were fun, but massively unbalanced. Even ASRT limited the All Star moves to five varieties unique moves, with each player just one. There's a reason that the Team Ultimates are all the same.

[Dr. Detective]

Were they unbalanced? I guess I didn't notice or didn't care because they were infinitly more fun to use. 

I'm aware of the reason the team ultimates are all the same of course. As I said before they're more effective than the ones in Transformed despite not being as fun or as interesting as the ones from the first game.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

While I agree that Sonic relevant powerups are better then the generic items from Sonic and all stars racing, I still wish they went with monitor powerups instead of wisps.
For the simple reason it's hard to immediatly comprehend what you have.
Sonic shoe= speed immediatly communicates, while having to memorize over 12 alien beings and their corresponding effects is a a lot more nebolous and I really don't have time in a highspeed hectic race to figure it all out.
I almost never use items in this game as a result, just throwing all that junk to my teammates to unlock the team boost quicker.
I wish they at least minimized the amount of Wisps to only 4 or 5 to keep it more clean.


That said, I do get a sense of pride to try and shoot mother Wisp with the Bomb Wisp.
There's something majestic about Sonic and friends leaving Planet Wisp with Eggman's deadly construction intact, Dodonpa disrespecting their majestic land further by turning it into a racetrack.
Then capturing the Wisps, locking them into capsules and throwing them into traffic. Sonic and friends turning the Wisp-roadkill into weapons and then using those weapons against their own mother.
So many levels of dark sadistic humor it becomes an artform.

[Sonicka]

Damn. I just realised why there was a sudden difficultly spike in some of these races in adventure mode.

I ended up modding ALL the other characters as I collected the rewards from the pod regardless of my main team of choice. Big Mistake.

For some reason I thought that would only stick per character/team when using them for the adventure mode and nullify the other adjustments on the characters unless they were used by myself or other players. Nope.

[Dr. Detective]

37 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

While I agree that Sonic relevant powerups are better then the generic items from Sonic and all stars racing, I still wish they went with monitor powerups instead of wisps.
For the simple reason it's hard to immediatly comprehend what you have.
Sonic shoe= speed immediatly communicates, while having to memorize over 12 alien beings and their corresponding effects is a a lot more nebolous and I really don't have time in a highspeed hectic race to figure it all out.

Thats kind of where I'm at. I'm less concerned with whether they're Sonic centeric and more concerned with how immediate I can make the correlation between what it is and what it does. I literally just found out today that those stone pillars that keep showing up at the end of my races are the work of a wisp. I found that out by skimming through the TSR comic that came out, explaining all the wisps and what they do.

37 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

That said, I do get a sense of pride to try and shoot mother Wisp with the Bomb Wisp.
There's something majestic about Sonic and friends leaving Planet Wisp with Eggman's deadly construction intact, Dodonpa disrespecting their majestic land further by turning it into a racetrack.
Then capturing the Wisps, locking them into capsules and throwing them into traffic. Sonic and friends turning the Wisp-roadkill into weapons and then using those weapons against their own mother.
So many levels of dark sadistic humor it becomes an artform.

I have to imagine its like a Pokemon situation where they don't mind... but imagining it as something more sadistic is entertaining.

They can't speak so its not like there's gonna be a verbal dispute with the natives over ownership of the land. 

 

[JezMM]

I won't lie, the first time I suffered at the hands of Quake Wisp, I was kinda confused and thought it was a predetermined stage hazard, but it was pretty quick to figure out.

 

I really don't think learning what each one does is that much of a struggle though. The loading screens explain them regularly and it only takes using each one and/or being hit by each one a few times to get the jist. I think with Quake and Lightning, it'd be nice if they showed up on screen for a moment to taunt the player before activating their effect, making it clear what is causing the effect to someone who is regularly in 1st on single player and hasn't had a chance to use them.

Also, they probably should've used Dodon Pa's hint dialogue to explain Wisps as you collect them (assuming no-one else is talking). I mean he sure as hell took up screen space reminding me that I can pass items to teammates all the way to the end of the game so might as well put a variety of hints up there.

[EmmBee]

Might just be me, but I find myself confusing the Rocket and the Burst Wisps pretty often. Usually because I'm focused more on the race and judge what I have from the corner of my eye. Wish they were just a little bit different looking between the two of them.

[Multikaris]

4 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

While I agree that Sonic relevant powerups are better then the generic items from Sonic and all stars racing, I still wish they went with monitor powerups instead of wisps.
For the simple reason it's hard to immediatly comprehend what you have.
Sonic shoe= speed immediatly communicates, while having to memorize over 12 alien beings and their corresponding effects is a a lot more nebolous and I really don't have time in a highspeed hectic race to figure it all out.
I almost never use items in this game as a result, just throwing all that junk to my teammates to unlock the team boost quicker.
I wish they at least minimized the amount of Wisps to only 4 or 5 to keep it more clean.


That said, I do get a sense of pride to try and shoot mother Wisp with the Bomb Wisp.
There's something majestic about Sonic and friends leaving Planet Wisp with Eggman's deadly construction intact, Dodonpa disrespecting their majestic land further by turning it into a racetrack.
Then capturing the Wisps, locking them into capsules and throwing them into traffic. Sonic and friends turning the Wisp-roadkill into weapons and then using those weapons against their own mother.
So many levels of dark sadistic humor it becomes an artform.

I think that they should have mixed things up and used monitor power ups, Wisps, Adventure series upgrades, SHTH weapons, etc. 

Same goes for crowds. 

To make things even more twisted, a new kind of corrupted Wisp, the Jade Ghost, was introduced in this game. Mother Wisp cannot catch a break, and it is perhaps our fault for hating the Wisps for their overuse. 

 

By the way, who wrote this game?

[StellarBlur]

Whoever the writers are, I'd be surprised if it was Pontaff. Most characters are too well written for that.

[Sega DogTagz]

4 hours ago, JezMM said:

I think with Quake and Lightning, it'd be nice if they showed up on screen for a moment to taunt the player before activating their effect, making it clear what is causing the effect to someone who is regularly in 1st on single player and hasn't had a chance to use them.

The Jade Ghost does that, and its great. That little bugger laughs and takes your shit. (I wonder if you can spam your item in that split second and make him leave empty handed?)

But I know exactly why Quake and Lightning don't do it and its because they want to duck any mental connection to Mario's Blue Turtle Shell. Having that fist place targeting wisp hover over your head before dropping the boom would only draw connections they would rather avoid.

I've already seen people chalk up the Quake to the B.T.S. which is stupid because the Ivory Wisp is essentially that on steroids. I've seen that sucker wipe out positions 1-5 before. Its ridiculous. There isn't enough of a defense against it either.

[DabigRG]

Has the final race given anyone else any trouble?

2 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

By the way, who wrote this game?

I'm curious to know that as well. The credits supposedly never mentions it, though.

1 hour ago, StellarBlur said:

Whoever the writers are, I'd be surprised if it was Pontaff. Most characters are too well written for that.

Mm...you never know.

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Started out hard mode, after finishing normal 100%.

Uh, no. This actually kind of blows. Feels like rubber-banding is way up, and the enemy AI is fifty times smarter than your ally AI.

[JezMM]

4 hours ago, EmmBee said:

Might just be me, but I find myself confusing the Rocket and the Burst Wisps pretty often. Usually because I'm focused more on the race and judge what I have from the corner of my eye. Wish they were just a little bit different looking between the two of them.

This I definitely agree with, forgot about that in my post. A burst of flame when it appears behind your car might have helped (but not too much so you don't think you're actually using it).

[Sega DogTagz]

1 hour ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Uh, no. This actually kind of blows. Feels like rubber-banding is way up, and the enemy AI is fifty times smarter than your ally AI.

The AI is significantly more team oriented in the hard mode. Not only do they earn multiple Ult's per race, but they are much smarter about where and when they use them. Meanwhile, your AI partners remain the same ho-hum basic buddies they always were. I don't think its rubber-banding per say (I'm not getting pounded by items at the end or races, nor do I see slower foes outpacing me when they shouldn't be able too) but your AI partners are much more of a liability.

I think the harder difficulties were clearly designed to be tackled by Human teams in local sessions.

I've won every race in hard mode and am going to go back and try some expert runs next. Horrified about what that's going to be like. Not sure it will even be possible solo without lots of restarts and a ton of luck.

 

Pro-Tip

You can get away with ignoring this on normal difficulty,  but anything above that demands that you babysit your AI teammates. Constantly demanding items and passing them back and forth like a team of humans would. On their own teammates may offer up their items some 10% of the time, but they will share what they have 95% of the time if you are a quick draw on the ask. Its the only way to rapidly build up Ult's while at the front of the pack.

[DabigRG]

Something that came to mind last night: What happened to those Daredevil Egg Pawns from the intro and that magazine?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

10 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

The AI is significantly more team oriented in the hard mode. Not only do they earn multiple Ult's per race, but they are much smarter about where and when they use them. Meanwhile, your AI partners remain the same ho-hum basic buddies they always were. I don't think its rubber-banding per say (I'm not getting pounded by items at the end or races, nor do I see slower foes outpacing me when they shouldn't be able too) but your AI partners are much more of a liability.

I think the harder difficulties were clearly designed to be tackled by Human teams in local sessions.

I've won every race in hard mode and am going to go back and try some expert runs next. Horrified about what that's going to be like. Not sure it will even be possible solo without lots of restarts and a ton of luck.

 

Pro-Tip

You can get away with ignoring this on normal difficulty,  but anything above that demands that you babysit your AI teammates. Constantly demanding items and passing them back and forth like a team of humans would. On their own teammates may offer up their items some 10% of the time, but they will share what they have 95% of the time if you are a quick draw on the ask. Its the only way to rapidly build up Ult's while at the front of the pack.

There’s definitely rubber banding at work, every opponent seems to have a way higher top speed than usual, and can recover quicker. Case in point, I just had a race where I spun Blaze out using an eagle, overtook her only for her to literally have recovered, back to top speed, and overtaking me again in the span of a second. 

[Sega DogTagz]

57 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

There’s definitely rubber banding at work, every opponent seems to have a way higher top speed than usual, and can recover quicker. Case in point, I just had a race where I spun Blaze out using an eagle, overtook her only for her to literally have recovered, back to top speed, and overtaking me again in the span of a second. 

If this was Mario kart then you would have a point. But it's not and Skimboost is a thing and when done correctly can accelerate a person who is spun out ahead of the guy offering a helping hand. I know you've taken a hit along the way only to immediately recover because your partner whom was lagging directly behind you boosts you back to glory. 

Comm races is packs so recovery time is dang near a mute point. Unless your are really lucky, there is going to be a teamate close by who can get them up to speed right away. Even driving in a draft puts you back up to top speed in barely a second. 

I've never seen com AI tank a blow and then accelerate back to top speed without help and continue to outpace me like I have in some other games.

[JezMM]

I'm definitely getting the hang of the side missions now and I'm not having too much trouble getting Silvers on them, though Platinums on the starpost/ring collection missions still seem VERY far away from possibility. Meanwhile the Egg Pawn destruction ones don't seem to ask so much of you. It really does seem to come down to how difficult it is to work within (and keep adding to) the time limit more than anything else on these.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

46 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

If this was Mario kart then you would have a point. But it's not and Skimboost is a thing and when done correctly can accelerate a person who is spun out ahead of the guy offering a helping hand. I know you've taken a hit along the way only to immediately recover because your partner whom was lagging directly behind you boosts you back to glory. 

Comm races is packs so recovery time is dang near a mute point. Unless your are really lucky, there is going to be a teamate close by who can get them up to speed right away. Even driving in a draft puts you back up to top speed in barely a second. 

I've never seen com AI tank a blow and then accelerate back to top speed without help and continue to outpace me like I have in some other games.

Except I’m nearly sure they have a boost effect around them when they get a skim boost, and they didn’t have one.

10 minutes ago, JezMM said:

I'm definitely getting the hang of the side missions now and I'm not having too much trouble getting Silvers on them, though Platinums on the starpost/ring collection missions still seem VERY far away from possibility. Meanwhile the Egg Pawn destruction ones don't seem to ask so much of you. It really does seem to come down to how difficult it is to work within (and keep adding to) the time limit more than anything else on these.

It takes awhile but you get a rhythm for it, for the star posts, don’t do long drifts unless the poles are actually close together and on a corner you’d normally drift around, what you wanna aim to do is drive normally and get close to the red gate on the pole, do a small drift to get the points and drift bonus, and then drive normally again.

For ring collection, always drift when collecting the rings, even the small bunches of eight rings, as they’ll give you a second or two of your time back. What you’re trying to mainly do is stall out time until you get to the huge ring trails again, which will fill your time back up properly.

[shdowhunt60]

3 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

There’s definitely rubber banding at work, every opponent seems to have a way higher top speed than usual, and can recover quicker. Case in point, I just had a race where I spun Blaze out using an eagle, overtook her only for her to literally have recovered, back to top speed, and overtaking me again in the span of a second. 

Speed type characters recover quicker from getting knocked out quicker, you know that right?

Like, TSR is probably the first cart racing game (or racing game period) I've played in years, and I'm managing fine on hard. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

2 minutes ago, shdowhunt60 said:

Speed type characters recover quicker from getting knocked out quicker, you know that right?

Like, TSR is probably the first cart racing game (or racing game period) I've played in years, and I'm managing fine on hard. 

Considering I 100%’d the normal game with Sonic, yes.

And yet any time I get spun out, it still takes me seconds to recover and get back to speed. It’s also nothing to do with kart build as my kart has decent enough defence on it to ensure I’m not waiting minutes on end to go again.