Team Sonic Racing - Upcoming Sonic Racing Game

[Edward850]

Just now, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Even though I don't completely buy that this was a necessary decision, I also don't believe that would have been the "cheaper" option. If they used the Heroes teams and expanded that out, it would have cost more money. Not even I was denying that. Whether or not I believe that they were in dire straights enough to not go ahead and add in 3 more characters to even this out doesn't change the fact that doing so would have cost more regardless. 

How so? You still have a cast of 15 characters, you still need to model/texture/animate all of them, while only being able to reuse base character models (not even the vehicles). So you're still doing the same amount of work in that front. Only now you have a marketing team who have to reintroduce everything instead of just going "it's heroes but cars".

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Edward850 said:

How so? You still have a cast of 15 characters, you still need to model/texture/animate all of them, while only being able to reuse base character models (not even the vehicles). So you're still doing the same amount of work in that front. Only now you have a marketing team who have to reintroduce everything instead of just going "it's heroes but cars".

I suppose there is some merit to the idea. It's actually easy to forget that the Heroes teams all added up to 12 characters. 

That leaves you with 3 extra slots which would undoubtedly go to Silver, Blaze, and Eggman. That would leave Metal Sonic out which isn't something they're going to do though.

Someone less popular was going to be swapped regardless. They're not going at this on the basis of what makes sense based on character relations. They don't care about that. This is a popularity contest. 

I agree with the sentiment that this isn't the preferred way of handling it but... the reality is something else so I guess I'm gonna have to get over it. 

[LukA8]

Sadly, I do think Charmy is the one holding the Chaotix back in terms of spin-offs. Some years ago, I remember it was the thing to hate on his hyperactive post-Heroes incarnation to the point where he would consistently top most-hated character lists along the likes of Big, Elise and Chris. He's been toned down over the years, Sega's been doing more with him lately, and people also seem more open to the character from what I've seen, but he's still held back by this stigma. He barely had any lines (though a few scrapped ones) in Forces, wasn't included in Rio 2016 when we had the likes of Eggman Nega, and is mostly featured in mobile games without voice acting. It's even affecting popular ninja Espio, because it makes more sense to either have all three or only poster boy Vector.

I still think they'd be relevant/popular enough to warrant making it in as a trio, but from All-Stars veteran Big blocking Silver and Blaze from joining Amy, making the teams "surprising", this game being probably rushed with its limited roster (the first leaker mentioned it was pushed back to winter) or just keeping some characters for a sequel that might not happen, it just worked against the Chaotix's favour. The detectives had a busy last year and people are vocal about their exclusion similar to Cream, so I don't think this will be indicative of the future.

 

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, LukA8 said:

Sadly, I do think Charmy is the one holding the Chaotix back in terms of spin-offs. Some years ago, I remember it was the thing to hate on his hyperactive post-Heroes incarnation to the point where he would consistently top most-hated character lists along the likes of Big, Elise and Chris. He's been toned down over the years, Sega's been doing more with him lately, and people also seem more open to the character from what I've seen, but he's still held back by this stigma. He barely had any lines (though a few scrapped ones) in Forces, wasn't included in Rio 2016 when we had the likes of Eggman Nega, and is mostly featured in mobile games without voice acting. It's even affecting popular ninja Espio, because it makes more sense to either have all three or only poster boy Vector.

I still think they'd be relevant/popular enough to warrant making it in as a trio, but from Racing veteran Big blocking Silver and Blaze from joining Amy, making the teams "surprising", this game being probably rushed with its limited roster (the first leaker mentioned it was pushed back to winter) or just keeping some characters for a sequel that might not happen, it just worked against the Chaotix's favour. The detectives had a busy last year and people are vocal about their exclusion similar to Cream, so I don't think this will be indicative of the future.

 

That's all true. It's great that there's some healthy optimism still left for you as well but I think this is actually the final swan song for expecting the Modern Chaotix to get any real play. The Olympic Games had to work with characters from both the Sonic and Mario series so I could at least see why they were gone. However, if they aren't going to appear in something like this when its purely centered on having just Sonic characters in the cast then there's really, well and truly, no longer any hope or reason to speculate that they'll be playable again in the future.

So, I've chosen to completely give up and not expect or anticipate it again. If another one of these gets announced, I won't expect them to be there. It's been way too long. This is a pattern that has only repeated to the point where I guessed something as silly as Silver, Blaze, and Vector and ended up being right about it. It was something I said because I was being pessimistic. 

Big managed to crawl out of his hole of being niche by relying on being a meme machine but I don't see the same happening for Vector's companions. Espio has slightly more hope since he at least got to be playable in one event during the Rio 2016 Olympics but... that's all they allowed.  

[Marco9966]

As a fan of the 1998-2008 period, I'm very mixed. I'm glad Silver and Blaze and Big made it.

But Chaotix were really important in that era too.

[Pengi]

38 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Yeah, they don't care about the speed, power, flight dynamic as much as people seem to think they do.

Team Sonic Racing doesn't have Flight type characters. If it did, Cream and Charmy would probably be in.

It's no coincidence that all four revealed Power characters are the established strong guys of the series.

[GentlemanX]

Just to float the idea - Cream, Espio, and Charmy could be added as DLC if Sega and Sumo should choose so. I personally would prefer some odd ducks like Zavok, Jet, Infinite, or Chaos, but adding Espio, Cream, or Charmy would make sense as they're more recognizable. It's at least something to tweet or message the relevant parties about if you feel strongly about it.

[Plasme]

I feel bad for Charmy, he was cool in Chaotix. He was ridiculously overpowered, and while he was broken as all hell, he was fun to use to some extent. I remember reading a preview for Sonic Heroes in a PS2 magazine, and they said that Charmy was the only good thing from Chaotix. They were excited to play as him in Heroes, it's funny how much Heroes butchered him.

[Your Vest Friend]

Having the characters as individual DLC things isn't out of the question I guess, especially since custom teams are possible outside of story mode (and you wouldn't have the DLC characters in the story mode any way). 

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, GentlemanX said:

Just to float the idea - Cream, Espio, and Charmy could be added as DLC if Sega and Sumo should choose so. I personally would prefer some odd ducks like Zavok, Jet, Infinite, or Chaos, but adding Espio, Cream, or Charmy would make sense as they're more recognizable. It's at least something to tweet or message the relevant parties about if you feel strongly about it.

That's not happening. If they were going to include Espio and Charmy the time to do it would have been when they announced Team Chaotix. Cream was always more up in the air but this is just a little too specific of an exclusion. If the money issue really is as big of a problem as some people seem to believe and they can't include 3 more characters to the base game, I don't see DLC happening either. 

Tweeting and messaging won't work either because, unlike paying 2.99 for Super Sonic,  I don't think the backlash would be big enough to pay attention to. That's why they chose Silver and Blaze. They're popular so, most likely, more people already have their favorite characters in the game than not. So long as that's true, the reaction is most likely going to be "YES! I love Silver and Blaze" or "It sucks that the Chaotix couldn't get in but I love Silver and Blaze so I'm okay with it."

It's a smart tactic. Not one I'm fond of since I end up in the minority so often but again it's the reality so it's best I get over it. It just hit me especially hard this time since this seemed like the perfect one-time opportunity where it could finally go my way, you know? 

[GentlemanX]

I'm not talking about planned DLC like Episode Shadow and Metal Sonic in Transformed, I'm talking about DLC that may be considered if the game is successful and they order more content to keep the gravy train running. It has nothing to do with how much money is being put in the game now but in how much money could be added to the game later. In that scenario, Sega's priority would be on adding highly requested content.

[StaticMania]

25 minutes ago, Plasme said:

...it's funny how much Heroes butchered him.

Butchered = Gave a Voice

It can only be the case with fan response to characters...

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, GentlemanX said:

I'm not talking about planned DLC like Episode Shadow and Metal Sonic in Transformed, I'm talking about DLC that may be considered if the game is successful and they order more content to keep the gravy train running. It has nothing to do with how much money is being put in the game now but in how much money could be added to the game later. In that scenario, Sega's priority would be on adding highly requested content.

That's not happening either. My reasoning for this is a lot less business oriented than the last post. I just think that this is the roster and we're not getting anything else. They're not popular enough to pay attention to and the outcry for them won't be anywhere near big enough to warrant it.

They might add in a Sanic skin for Sonic's car though. 

[Iko]

All of a sudden, I'm not interested in this game anymore.

these versions of "Team Rose" and "Team ""Chaotix""" just suck, and it's enough for me to just skip the game.

(they're more like Team Meme and Team Let's Fit Them Into The Remaining Slots Even if It Doesn't Make Sense)

Because let's be honest, in a kart game spin-off, the biggest selling point is the fanservice, especially when the gameplay itself has nothing original to offer. When fanservice is missing, I can just play any other kart racer instead... maybe the original S&SASR.

At Least Silver's car is cool I think, it's the only credit I can give them for this disaster of roster.

[Skull Leader]

8 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

I would have called it Team Chaotic.

As in, chaotically thrown together.
Myeah, figured with only 15 characters, one team would have been random fan favorites crammed together.
Good to see Vector shares Amy and Sonic's narcasism of naming the team after his own.

......
Next time there's teams, I want Sonic, Amy and Vector to be in one team.
If only so we can watch them battle each other to the death over which name will be the team moniker.

Vector could had named them New Team Chaotix, but he just didn't have the heart to do that, not when he still remembers his two non-mammal buddies that were left out... so, after Vector shed a lonely tear, he did the next best thing: name it after himself.

Guess Vector's personality and ego outranks Blaze's royal status. XD (Though not Amy's if we go by Free Riders, lol)

[Dr. Detective]

Wait a minute, hold the phone. I just caught that the original tweet called it Team Vector.

What the fuck?

I mean... I guess that's at least acknowledging that it's not Team Chaotix but, did Vector just snatch these two out of time and space and force them to join his team because Espio and Charmy said no or something? How's this gonna work?

Team Vector. Holy shit...

[Shadowlax]

8 hours ago, GentlemanX said:

On a game level, the fact this basically confirms we aren't getting the rest of the secondary cast is disappointing and the roster remains my biggest problem with the game, as it was with Transformed.

On a narrative level though, this sounds really interesting. These three have almost never interacted in the games (or other media for that matter) which could lead to some truly unique moments that defines character relationships previously only speculated at. The story mode really saves this team. Probably.

Yeah, my guess is the last team is Eggman, Egg Pawn, and Metal Sonic. If we get dlc who knows, but I don't expect anyone else in the base game now.

You didn't like the roster in transformed, may I ask why?

[MegasonicZX]

56 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

You didn't like the roster in transformed, may I ask why?

Probably has something to do with a majority of the unique cast members from the first game getting shafted for clones of characters that were already there with relatively few new additions. While we did get cool choices like Nights and the Sega Ages character, we lost a lot more to get them. It doesn't really help that the vehicle choices sort of took a hit too but that was always going to happen with how complex the transform gimmick is.

[SatAMhog]

PRAISE BE TO THE HEAVENS THAT BLAZE THE CAT IS FINALLY BACK!   I missed you in Forces.  Anyway, I have a theory for why Charmy Bee and Espio are missing...Charmy got lost and Espio had to go looking for him leaving Vector to quickly grab the nearest two people for his AWESOME Team Vector.  Silver and Blaze being pretty chill, they go along with it(Blaze shrugging her shoulders the whole way).

[Flame Lance]

A sigh of relief for Blaze. I'm glad she made it in the game. Yes! I'm definitely not happy with the overall character roster, but Blaze being in it at least means some basic level of contentment with the game for me. I'm really quite ticked about the absence of Cream now, however.  I was hoping her not being on Team Rose meant that maybe by some sliver of hope that she'd be on a team with Silver and Blaze, but nope, because no noodle-armed character other than Knuckles can be the power player or something. Why not just put Cream with all of the Chao on Team Rose? It makes no sense... Alas, I don't think I'll ever get my Blaze-Cream interactions again.  

And I am not going to complain about Blaze's team too much because at least she's there, but putting her and Silver with Vector of all characters is so random and strange. Instead of just offering a fully fleshed out Team Chaotix as well as Team Rose, they throw Silver and Blaze with whatever meathead is left, and again it's Vector, so no Espio and Charmy because SEGA clearly only cares to offer the bare minimum of who's popular, and that means Silver and Blaze over them. Sometimes I wish they'd just create a new "third wheel" character that they can slap in with Blaze and Silver as the power guy to avoid these awkward shoehorn match-ups, but then that'd probably mean no Chaotix at all. Honestly, they could've offered better teams than this, but that would entail MORE teams, and cheap SEGA can't/won't cough it up.

[Sega DogTagz]

I'm sure we will get some handwave excuse about this team up in the story mode, so I'm not gonna gripe about that.

 

I will say that I find it amusing that Vector somehow gets to headline a team with not one, but two characters more prominent than he is. How does that happen? Team Rose and Amy in particular has struggled with this for years. Amy can't lead a squad with characters more prominent than she is. Then they go and do this lol.

 

Whatev's sucks to lose Espio (and I already knew Charmy was going to be a casualty) but really happy Silver and Blaze are in the mix. Two of the more popular characters have to be in this.

[Dr. Detective]

Alright. I think now that I've cooled off I can say with a bit more coherence that I do still believe the reason this happened isn't because of money. The roster is like this because it's expected. They had a pool of the most popular characters and sectioned them into groups, not "teams", and put that out there. There was no actual chance that Espio or Charmy were going to be here because this is just how it always is. It didn't matter how much money they had. 

Now I do want to stress that as far as the reasoning goes, this is still just a belief. There could very well be a chance that this game is super low-budget and they could only include 15 characters without suffering a loss. As silly as that still sounds to me, I'll concede it's a possibility. However, I've actually reached a point where my knee-jerk reaction is to not give them the benefit of the doubt.

After Forces and especially after this, I just can't see myself thinking in terms of something like that. Perhaps if the Sonic series was more well known for making understandable decisions I'd be more open to going that route but they don't, so I'm not. Instead, the one negative prediction I had for the game ended up being the only one I got right.

The fact that there are people actually breathing a sigh of relief for Blaze and Silver tells me they had more faith in the chances of the full Chaotix appearing than I did. However, even if they did appear, I have stated that I was certain Silver and Blaze were going to be in the game regardless, whether or not they took up the remaining slots for Team Eggman or were DLC. The same was never going to be true for Espio and Charmy, which is why I wanted it so bad and why I got so hot and bothered when the only chance for it happening didn't come to pass. So I apologize for the initial reaction if anyone was bothered by it.

On the bright side, predicting rosters is going to be extremely easy going forward for me. I'll look like a fortune teller.

[Edward850]

52 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Alright. I think now that I've cooled off I can say with a bit more coherence that I do still believe the reason this happened isn't because of money. The roster is like this because it's expected. They had a pool of the most popular characters and sectioned them into groups, not "teams", and put that out there. There was no actual chance that Espio or Charmy were going to be here because this is just how it always is. It didn't matter how much money they had. 

Now I do want to stress that as far as the reasoning goes, this is still just a belief. There could very well be a chance that this game is super low-budget and they could only include 15 characters without suffering a loss. As silly as that still sounds to me, I'll concede it's a possibility. However, I've actually reached a point where my knee-jerk reaction is to not give them the benefit of the doubt.

I see the problem more as this:

What is this game supposed to be? In something like Mario Kart, they make a point on throwing in as much of the cast as they can and then some. It's a party game after all. So with Mario Kart 8 they ended up with upwards of 30 characters, great, the point of the game is firmly established.
With the All Stars games you had the same thing, it was about getting as many SEGA properties as they could in one game, with Transformed hitting around 30, with some redundancy granted, but MK does the same and the point is still obvious. Even snuck in some characters from another studio altogether (Team Fortress 2, if that had to be explained). Great.

So here I am utterly baffled as to what's going on here; The point here isn't like the All Stars games, it's about Sonic, not SEGA, so only the Sonic cast is present. Fine, that's workable. But I'm brickwalled with the whole 15 characters thing. This game as proposed would mean the first thing asked would be about is the cast because that would be the main point of a mascot racer, to show off the cast, but they aren't doing that here with just 15 characters and the "safer" ones at that. There's no other draw to this game other than it being a weird exercise in "let's make a kart racer but different" with the rather fundamental mistake of having untested mechanics as the only selling point.

If you are selling a game based on the brand, you need to have your brand front and center, and if you are selling a game based on a "fresh new gameplay concept" you need to have some kind of approachable backbone to it or something to fall back on it turns out not to work out quite as you anticipated. This game does not appear to have either at the moment, and it has me horribly concerned.

Granted I suspect they'd need the larger cast anyway. Something about this sort of game having a small budget (if that really is the problem here and not just plain unnecessary cutting of corners) strikes me as a hindrance for the title regardless of the context, especially with nothing to hold its userbase together like crossplatform multiplayer. The variety is really what sells these sorts of games in the long run, it'd be like making a licensed car racing game with only Fords and Holdens.

I'm probably rambling at this point. A kart racer is something I'd love to develop for if the opportunity ever came up, so this whole game just seems to be striking a nerve I guess.

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Edward850 said:

I see the problem more as this:

What is this game supposed to be? In something like Mario Kart, they make a point on throwing in as much of the cast as they can and then some. It's a party game after all. So with Mario Kart 8 they ended up with upwards of 30 characters, great, the point of the game is firmly established.
With the All Stars games you had the same thing, it was about getting as many SEGA properties as they could in one game, with Transformed hitting around 30, with some redundancy granted, but MK does the same and the point is still obvious. Even snuck in some characters from another studio altogether (Team Fortress 2, if that had to be explained). Great.

So here I am utterly baffled as to what's going on here; The point here isn't like the All Stars games, it's about Sonic, not SEGA, so only the Sonic cast is present. Fine, that's workable. But I'm brickwalled with the whole 15 characters thing. This game as proposed would mean the first thing asked would be about is the cast because that would be the main point of a mascot racer, to show off the cast, but they aren't doing that here with just 15 characters and the "safer" ones at that. There's no other draw to this game other than it being a weird exercise in "let's make a kart racer but different" with the rather fundamental mistake of having untested mechanics as the only selling point.

If you are selling a game based on the brand, you need to have your brand front and center, and if you are selling a game based on a "fresh new gameplay concept" you need to have some kind of approachable backbone to it or something to fall back on it turns out not to work out quite as you anticipated. This game does not appear to have either at the moment, and it has me horribly concerned.

Granted I suspect they'd need the larger cast anyway. Something about this sort of game having a small budget (if that really is the problem here and not just plain unnecessary cutting of corners) strikes me as a hindrance for the title regardless of the context, especially with nothing to hold its userbase together like crossplatform multiplayer. The variety is really what sells these sorts of games in the long run, it'd be like making a licensed car racing game with only Fords and Holdens.

Sure. I don't exactly know for certain what the thought process is behind what the game's identity is supposed to be but I can speculate and I feel as though I have it down now.

Don't expect what may or may not go well together, just expect what they think will sell. So long as you do that, you won't be too surprised. You also won't be disappointed.

[GentlemanX]

5 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

You didn't like the roster in transformed, may I ask why?

 

4 hours ago, MegasonicZX said:

Probably has something to do with a majority of the unique cast members from the first game getting shafted for clones of characters that were already there with relatively few new additions. While we did get cool choices like Nights and the Sega Ages character, we lost a lot more to get them. It doesn't really help that the vehicle choices sort of took a hit too but that was always going to happen with how complex the transform gimmick is.

Basically this. See, while I'm all for obscurer characters like Jet or say Nega in something like Team Sonic Racing, I don't really expect or want them in Sonic & All-Stars Racing. Leaving beside the obvious fact that Sonic gets all of the most popular characters in because it's the most popular brand and Sega's mascot, I really had no interest in say Pudding or MeeMee or Gum. Ulala, Aiai, and Beat? No prob. But characters that only serve to give another rep to a series rather than a different ip, in a game where multiple ips is the whole idea, didn't appeal to me. And yes, they're cheaper to program for and had models on hand from Tennis, but it still felt like wasted slots even if that was the only way to add more characters. Losing other whole franchise reps like from Virtua Fighter, House of the Dead, and Billy Hatcher made that even worse. Then so many slots went to non-Sega characters like Wreck-It Ralph, Team Fortress 2, the Yogscast, and Danica Patrick. All that and 4 Sega characters were exclusive to the PC version. The only ones I cared about were Ryo's arcade cabinet, Vyse, Gilius, Joe, and AGES. Even NiGHTS I found visually unattractive given the car form. It felt like such a huge downgrade from the 2010 game. And I didn't have a problem with the transformation gimmick and thought the courses looked cool. But the roster soured me so much I never got the game. Maybe I will at some point, I've seen how much people love it, but it cratered all the excitement I had for it.