Team Sonic Racing - Upcoming Sonic Racing Game

[Dr. Detective]

The thought literally just now occurred to me that Zavok's role in Team Sonic Racing could have worked had they switched him out for Infinite like people expected.

[tailsBOOM!]

3 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

The thought literally just now occurred to me that Zavok's role in Team Sonic Racing could have worked had they switched him out for Infinite like people expected.

I think Zavok was chosen this time purely due to his strength.  They needed a power character.  Infinite would be a better speed or technique one, Chaos would be better technique since they'd likely use the 0 form, etc.

[GentlemanX]

Eggman has been regularly used as a Power character in stuff like Sonic Riders before, there's no reason they couldn't have had him be the Power member of the team and had Chaos or Infinite as the technique character.

Zavok is in because Sonic Team wanted him in. Honestly, it makes sense. Like with the Wisps since Sonic Colors, Zavok has been around for soon to be six years now, and in that time continues to pop up in stuff like Mario & Sonic, Sonic Forces, etc. He's part of the tertiary cast at this point - maybe not the rest of the Deadly Six but he certainly is, more so than say the Babylon Rouges or Chaos at any rate. It would have been more neat if Egg Pawns could have been saddled with Eggman and Metal Sonic and we had him, Chaos, and Infinite as a non-story other villain team, but the roster was limited to 15 so here we are.

Also, I like Zavok just fine, so I don't mind him showing up.

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

Not sure if this was bought up earlier but, here's an interesting reference: The Haunted Castle track has these knights that look a lot like the ones from Night of the Werehog.

[Blue Blood]

14 minutes ago, Ellipsis-Ultima said:

Not sure if this was bought up earlier but, here's an interesting reference: The Haunted Castle track has these knights that look a lot like the ones from Night of the Werehog.

I doubt that's a coincidence. The game is full of references like that. It's really nice. Less obscure but still cool - the walls in the underground parts of Sky Road (and maybe Haunted Castle too, I've not looked) have Chaos 0's face along them like gargoyles.

[Sonicka]

Having watched Boundary Breaks recent video there are also MegaDrive era Sonic character sprites hidden somewhere on every track.

[Dr. Detective]

3 hours ago, tailsBOOM! said:

I think Zavok was chosen this time purely due to his strength.  They needed a power character.  Infinite would be a better speed or technique one, Chaos would be better technique since they'd likely use the 0 form, etc.

Zavok was chosen because someone over there really loves Zavok. 

[Red Hot Jack]

They needed a team made up of villains and they needed a power character, they like Zavok so they added him. I expect him to be in the Tokyo Olympics as well.

[DabigRG]

5 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

The thought literally just now occurred to me that Zavok's role in Team Sonic Racing could have worked had they switched him out for Infinite like people expected.

I mean, he'd be done next to Jack as well, but I suppose you're right. 

5 hours ago, GentlemanX said:

Eggman has been regularly used as a Power character in stuff like Sonic Riders before, there's no reason they couldn't have had him be the Power member of the team and had Chaos or Infinite as the technique character.

 

Or Orbot&Cubot like some news thing supposedly claimed was a thing. 

5 hours ago, tailsBOOM! said:

I think Zavok was chosen this time purely due to his strength.  They needed a power character.  Infinite would be a better speed or technique one, Chaos would be better technique since they'd likely use the 0 form, etc.

Excuse me for repeating the obvious, but Zavok in general keeps getting picked in part out of convenience. 

5 hours ago, GentlemanX said:

Zavok is in because Sonic Team wanted him in. Honestly, it makes sense. Like with the Wisps since Sonic Colors, Zavok has been around for soon to be six years now, and in that time continues to pop up in stuff like Mario & Sonic, Sonic Forces, etc. He's part of the tertiary cast at this point - maybe not the rest of the Deadly Six but he certainly is, more so than say the Babylon Rouges or Chaos at any rate. It would have been more neat if Egg Pawns could have been saddled with Eggman and Metal Sonic and we had him, Chaos, and Infinite as a non-story other villain team, but the roster was limited to 15 so here we are.

Also, I like Zavok just fine, so I don't mind him showing up.

True. 

Eh, I definitely don't mind him and the other Zeti continuing to show up, but that also comes with them being there feeling like it matters. 

4 hours ago, Ellipsis-Ultima said:

Not sure if this was bought up earlier but, here's an interesting reference: The Haunted Castle track has these knights that look a lot like the ones from Night of the Werehog.

Now if that ain't a deepcut, I don't know what is. 

[Sonicka]

I personally don’t have any issues with Zavok, much like the Wisps I welcome the deadly six to keep appearing as I enjoyed their silly personalities and inclusion in Lost World. I just wish they’d appear consistently instead of just Zavok - it’s like he’s become a placeholder character to remind us he’s part of the Sonic Canon.

I appreciate they’d be around more had Lost World sales performed to green light a sequel (still gutted about that - and it still arguably deserves a follow-up on Switch). But something is better than nothing. If TSR had a bigger budget I would have expected 2 Teams made up of the Deadly Six members as well (after other mainline sonic characters of course), that would have been sweet.

[LukA8]

Oh dear, Zavok is already dominating the Time Trial leaderboards, why does it not feel like a coincidence that he's the fastest in the game? : P

I mean, other characters were pushed similarly in the past until they had enough fans, but the difference is that they were mostly liked or had at least one starring role when the story was more of a focus. Zavok was the stereotypical evil Bowser, then returned in Forces where his role made absolutely no sense, and now the character's suddenly a loyal minion to the point where you can't be sure the Deadly 6 are still a thing. He does gain fans from those appearances, but the side that dislikes him will only do more with such inconsistent portrayals. He's already a lock for M&S Tokyo at this point.

5 hours ago, Ellipsis-Ultima said:

Not sure if this was bought up earlier but, here's an interesting reference: The Haunted Castle track has these knights that look a lot like the ones from Night of the Werehog.

I'm pretty sure I saw some spooky figure or skeleton show up at the side of the track for a split second as well, though I'm not sure if they were part of that short. It's a really cool reference regardless!

[DabigRG]

28 minutes ago, Son-icka said:

I personally don’t have any issues with Zavok, much like the Wisps I welcome the deadly six to keep appearing as I enjoyed their silly personalities and inclusion in Lost World. I just wish they’d appear consistently instead of just Zavok - it’s like he’s become a placeholder character to remind us he’s part of the Sonic Canon.

I appreciate they’d be around more had Lost World sales performed to green light a sequel (still gutted about that - and it still arguably deserves a follow-up on Switch). But something is better than nothing. If TSR had a bigger budget I would have expected 2 Teams made up of the Deadly Six members as well (after other mainline sonic characters of course), that would have been sweet.

Yeah, the ending did kinda feel a little openended.

14 minutes ago, LukA8 said:

Oh dear, Zavok is already dominating the Time Trial leaderboards, why does it not feel like a coincidence that he's the fastest in the game? : P

 

Oooh my goodness, really? :lol:

 

15 minutes ago, LukA8 said:

I mean, other characters were pushed similarly in the past until they had enough fans, but the difference is that they were mostly liked or had at least one starring role when the story was more of a focus.

Eh, Zavok was essentially the Heavy for Lost World, since the whole "Sucks the World below dry and get stronger from it" thing was his decision around the halfway point. So he's not really that off.

 

17 minutes ago, LukA8 said:

Zavok was the stereotypical evil Bowser

You know, people tend to hover on that thing a lot. Like, I get that last fight was a big "What were they thinking about?," but is that seriously the only impression that can be made?

 

[Roger_van_der_weide]

People could have more impressions from him if any of his more unique elements (Guardian of the lost continent of illusions Hex/  leader of ancient Zeti tribe/ Master manipulator/ only surviving enemy with human inteligence who has a beef with Eggman) got any kind of focus or relevance but even in Sonic Lost world, all his potentially interesting characteristics are thrown in a corner in favor of lame jokes or him just being "bad guy man".

That's what baffles me the most with Zavok (And Shadow the hedgehog for that matter, and Knuckles to an extend)
Always pushed to the foreground as if they're important main characters and the audience favorites (In Zavok's case, the creator's favorite I guess) Yet the script writers have no idea what to do with any of them (And neither do the game designers most of the time)
It's kind of sad seeing them constantly flaunted in the foreground, while being completely empty shells in the games proper.

[DabigRG]

1 minute ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

People could have more impressions from him if any of his more unique elements (Guardian of the lost continent of illusions Hex/  leader of ancient Zeti tribe/ Master manipulator/ only surviving enemy with human inteligence who has a beef with Eggman) got any kind of focus or relevance but even in Sonic Lost world, all his potentially interesting characteristics are thrown in a corner in favor of lame jokes or him just being "bad guy man".

That's what baffles me the most with Zavok (And Shadow the hedgehog for that matter, and Knuckles to an extend)
Always pushed to the foreground as if they're important main characters and the audience favorites (In Zavok's case, the creator's favorite I guess) Yet the script writers have no idea what to do with any of them (And neither do the game designers most of the time)
It's kind of sad seeing their lifeless corpses flaunted in the foreground like they're shiny objects meant to entice us.

Not gonna lie, I couldn't help but think of you guys' video when the story was over.

[LukA8]

1 hour ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

People could have more impressions from him if any of his more unique elements (Guardian of the lost continent of illusions Hex/  leader of ancient Zeti tribe/ Master manipulator/ only surviving enemy with human inteligence who has a beef with Eggman) got any kind of focus or relevance but even in Sonic Lost world, all his potentially interesting characteristics are thrown in a corner in favor of lame jokes or him just being "bad guy man".

Sonic Runners of all things touched upon some more interesting points for him. He manipulated Zazz and used him as a pawn to monitor his fights with Sonic to find his weakness while plotting his revenge with Master Zik, and that story was likely going to continue in the scrapped Zomom boss event (never forget Hunk of Meat companion).Them being based on the Japanese Oni/guardian spirits could actually be really interesting, but then you see how he's being used..Completely brushed aside by the cast in the story and being talked to like he was their old buddy in races, and still no one knows what the hell a Lost Hex is.

[Graystripe2000]

Some UK first week sales info.

 

[DabigRG]

28 minutes ago, LukA8 said:

Sonic Runners of all things touched upon some more interesting points for him. He manipulated Zazz and used him as a pawn to monitor his fights with Sonic to find his weakness while plotting his revenge with Master Zik, and that story was likely going to continue in the scrapped Zomom boss event (never forget Hunk of Meat companion).Them being based on the Japanese Oni/guardian spirits could actually be really interesting, but then you see how he's being used..Completely brushed aside by the cast in the story and being talked to like he was their old buddy in races.

That was sorta in Lost World as well--when Zazz essentially volunteered to go ahead and attack Sonic himself, Zavok gave him a back handed compliment and mused that it'll at least be an opportunity to learn something regardless of the outcome as he left.

 

[StellarBlur]

9 hours ago, Ellipsis-Ultima said:

Not sure if this was bought up earlier but, here's an interesting reference: The Haunted Castle track has these knights that look a lot like the ones from Night of the Werehog.

This reference in particular made me very happy. I love deep cuts like that ! Also, when they first showed Haunted Castle, I predicted/hoped for a Night of the Werehog reference... and we got it !

34 minutes ago, Operationgamer17 said:

Some UK first week sales info.

 

I'm glad the game seems to be doing well. It begs the question of why the online is dead ? If it's not for lack of players then it means they need to fix their infrastructure and fast.

[Dr. Detective]

For the record (despite the fact that I've said this plenty of times so its on the record already) I don't hate Zavok.

Its just incredibly frustrating how someone with a foundation that is a bit interesting when you give it an iota of thought is continuously having all his positive traits ignored for the sake of a lazy appearance done to satisfy a higher up or two. 

Yes, its the exact same thing they do with Knuckles and the interesting stuff about him so it shouldn't be surprising but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

[Red Hot Jack]

Hopefully good sales mean DLC? Just maybe...

It's also worth to note that an only Sonic title may have more appeal than other SEGA niche franchises, after all.

[Meta77]

I guarantee a sonic racing title with ref to games like jet set and space channel and maybe bayonetta probably would have done better. Again why anyone is acting as if the game selling well during a time when noting else is set to come out for some time. Had crash been scheduled within this month then I see it knocking it down some. Game droughts start to pick up during the end of a consoles life cycle. Both the ps4 and one x was about to go out within the next year so I bet many are starting to focus on them. Anyway back to my point, i doubt we will see any dlc. Sonic transformed sold well from what i remember and we got next to noting for it outside metal.

[Graystripe2000]

39 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

I guarantee a sonic racing title with ref to games like jet set and space channel and maybe bayonetta probably would have done better. Again why anyone is acting as if the game selling well during a time when noting else is set to come out for some time. Had crash been scheduled within this month then I see it knocking it down some. Game droughts start to pick up during the end of a consoles life cycle. Both the ps4 and one x was about to go out within the next year so I bet many are starting to focus on them. Anyway back to my point, i doubt we will see any dlc. Sonic transformed sold well from what i remember and we got next to noting for it outside metal.

DLC was made for transformed but it was pretty much PC-only.

[Dr. Detective]

8 hours ago, Meta77 said:

I guarantee a sonic racing title with ref to games like jet set and space channel and maybe bayonetta probably would have done better. Again why anyone is acting as if the game selling well during a time when noting else is set to come out for some time. Had crash been scheduled within this month then I see it knocking it down some. Game droughts start to pick up during the end of a consoles life cycle. Both the ps4 and one x was about to go out within the next year so I bet many are starting to focus on them. Anyway back to my point, i doubt we will see any dlc. Sonic transformed sold well from what i remember and we got next to noting for it outside metal.

I don't know if I'd guarantee it would have done better but I definitely don't think the high sales are because its Sonic-Only either. There are a few factors to take into account here, like you said, such as when it was released, where it was released (Sonic IS the most popular in the UK), and the circumstances behind it's sale. Even if people bought it because of just Sonic, it might have been more enticing because of the presence of MORE Sonic characters and not the absence of the SEGA characters, which makes more sense to me.

Usually when the idea of bringing in more Sonic characters into the All-Stars games was brought up, people would get REALLY defensive about it. Even if you were suggesting they add in just one more character. I get the idea behind why. They don't want Sonic to oversaturate the "SEGA" part of the All-Stars games but I'm not sure if I'm too bothered by that so long as there's a decent amount of SEGA representation present.

I really want them to go back to the SEGA All-Stars moniker after this. As much as I'm loving this game, the unfortunate nature of its lack of content kind of tells me that they didn't fully take advantage of their chance to really go balls deep into the Sonic well and bring forth characters that would never in a million years be playable in a typical Modern Sonic game again. You know, characters like Tikal or Chip or... King Arthur. Like just scrape the bottom of that fucking barrel... okay maybe don't scrape it SO deep that we get to characters like Arthur but at least exotic enough that it feels worth it. 

What would I do? If it were plausible to have a roster that stretched to at least 32, I'd probably test how it'd blow over making 16 of them Sonic characters and the rest SEGA characters. Maybe make it so that the "Sonic and SEGA" title actually implied that it was half and half. 

So long as Beat, Ulala, Amigo, Vyse, Gilius, Opa-Opa, Billy Hatcher, Zombio and Zombiko, Jackey and Akira, and the Bonanza Bros. got in I'd be happy with whoever else showed up. I know that's like 10 racers but... I like all those guys.

Should it fail and people didn't like it, I'd probably just go back to the normal formula where you'd have 7-9 Sonic characters and that was it.

I do think the fact that more of the Sonic cast are present has a little something to do with it though. It's not because the SEGA characters are gone though. I think that's silly. 

[Dantemustdie00]

Yeah don't underestimate Power type characters, it may look like they are slower than Speed type characters cause of their lower speed, but that Boost stat is no freakin joke, shoot their starting boost alone puts them in front of the pack.

As for the whole dead Online thing, I trust it's the buggy Online, it's like this across all; 3 consoles I hear. Now I did had full rooms earlier today, but one the online started getting bugg and booting folks out, it became impossible to even do a single race without some mishap. Sumo needs to get there crap together when i comes to Online.

 

Now I don't hate any of the Deadly Six, tho I would've kinda prefered a team of Zeti as opposed to Zavok being with Eggman, I find it weird he's even aligned himself with Eggman, unless the Doc actually did found another magic shell to control them. In any case the Zeti are sure to be appearing in more games in the future just as the Rogues. 

[Sega DogTagz]

The strong sales arn't a surprise. Its coming from an extremely strong pedigree. Transformed was a really, really good game.

If your talking about why TSR is having such a good showing right out of the gate, I think the conversation starts and ends right there. The previous entry won over a lot of fans and people were willing to double dip back into the franchise, even if this new take is out of left field

 

Now we release TSR Transformed and make millions.