Team Sonic Racing - Upcoming Sonic Racing Game

[Red Hot Jack]

Yep, it's unacceptable if there are 6-7 reused tracks, the game really lacks content and is the definition of lazy IMO, like only 14 new tracks? You know what is even more disappointing? That if true, they basically revealed 10 out of 14 (new), leaving out any room for surprises...

The only thing that gives me hope is the Green Hill sign, could mean a new track for the Seaside Hill world maybe?

Back to praising the Crash remaster...

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Well, this went from "They didn't show enough, this promotion sucks" to "they showed too much, this promotion sucks" quick.

I actually hope it's the Forces Casino level for the sake of variety, at least that's a jungle themed Casino,. If it's just the same courses from the first All stars racing that'd be dissapointing. Not to mention I'm going to be really irritated if this game is 40% Sonic Heroes and 40% Generations. Especially Heroes is already wayyy too overrepresented in the All stars series.

Thank goodness Generations and Heroes didn't have levels for the Generic Egypt/ Ice level that every Kart racer is contractually obliged to have, that forces the developers to get out of their Generations/ Heroes bubble for at least some tracks.

[Jango]

They got a bit of Sonic Mania going on with this game too, half of it is reused tracks. See, they are learning from the good games! /s

[Plasme]

You have to think of the target audience somewhat too mind. Most the people playing this will be kids and families, they might never have played the original All Stars Racing games or Generations. Both are getting on almost a decade old.

[Multikaris]

2 hours ago, Jango said:

They got a bit of Sonic Mania going on with this game too, half of it is reused tracks. See, they are learning from the good games! /s

Mania technically had a higher number of recycled tracks than this. At least they weren’t LITERALLY re-used, though. 

[Plasme]

I wish City Escape was in the game instead of Rooftop Run. What do others think?

[DabigRG]

20 minutes ago, Plasme said:

I wish City Escape was in the game instead of Rooftop Run. What do others think?

Mm, I'd say Rooftop Run is more vibrant and detailed than City Escape, thus being more appealing as a racetrack.

[Blue Blood]

1 hour ago, Plasme said:

I wish City Escape was in the game instead of Rooftop Run. What do others think?

I've always liked Rooftop Run a lot, and think what we've seen of it in in this game works really well. City Escape doesn't immediately have as much variety coming to mind for three distinct tracks. There's no reason that they couldn't draw inspiration from other zones like Mission Street and Radical Highway as they were all in the same area in SA2 to get more variety in there, but ultimately I just think Rooftop Run is a better choice all-round.

Problem is that all of these locations were already visited in Generations . As much as I may like Rooftop Run, I really would rather it was something else entirely. Windmill Isle would fit nicely as an alternative daytime city theme that's not a modern metropolis. Or if they did want to go the metropolis route, that opens up many more options. It just bugs me that most of the locations in this game have been seen recently. At least we've got the ice/fire and desert levels that are now original.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

If they picked City escape, they should at least have one track based on the Golden Gate bridge as a nod to the Tails/ Rouge driving stages.
Altough they would have to add a ton of their own input and imagination in there since the racetracks from the original SA2 are super basic in terms of graphics....
But imagine all the fun things you can do with the GUN truck as stage hazard.


Honestly, I think either Forces The City/ Metroplis or Mania's Studiopolis should have been the City Zone. As for SA2, I'd pick Space Colony Arc as the setting. Bio lizard as stage hazard, track going inside and outside the space station. Even some ancient ruins as a bonus theme to use.


Man, you know what a really missed oppurtunity is? Why not make some race tracks based on Blaze the Cat's kingdom? I mean, she's a princess, right? Baffling we never get to see her freaking Kingdom after all this time. Now she actually has relevancy in the story again (...Presumingly?) having some tracks based on her kingdom would help her get some  character buiilding that she desperatly needs.
And it'd be a unique location, so more space for creative decisions.And they can add a few Sonic Rush Adventure elements to still give it a nostalgic touch.
Heck, Rush Adventure being mostly pirate themed, this could have been the designated Beach theme'd zone, saving us from Seaside hill part 5007.

But eh, better not think about missed oppurtunities.

[JezMM]

At the very least I'm seriously hoping they might use Studiopolis as the song for one of the casino stages (presumebly, the new one of the three if we've correctly guessed that one will be a retread).

Was really hoping Studiopolis would be one of the zones here too, I'm pretty afraid that Sonic Team are gonna be weirdly xenophobic about Mania's original ideas because they came from promoted-fans and not them and never reference Mania's original stuff at all.  I guess Studopolis getting due love in Smash Ultimate's soundtrack is a point against that idea, but still.

[Rowl]

2 hours ago, Plasme said:

I wish City Escape was in the game instead of Rooftop Run.

I do not like any of those two choices. Sonic has such a big catalog to pull off from. Why does this series have to reduce itself to a small list of things it can and can not do? Why not go wild and choose something like Kingdom Valley, or Sanahhah Citadelle, or Sweet Mountain? Why always rehash the same setting over and over again?

[Dr. Detective]

I'm growing increasingly interested in seeing what everyone's personal level lists would be. if you were told by someone you needed to make a track list for a Sonic racing game and the limit was 21, what would you put there. How'd you cover the level troupes without going for the more obvious ones. When would you find it appropriate or necessary to actually go for the more obvious ones? When would you feel it okay enough to have three different versions of a similar troupe? Like a generic city, a burning city, and a city as weird as Studiopolis would all probably look, feel, and play very different from one another.

On 3/22/2019 at 2:47 PM, Blue Blood said:

I've always liked Rooftop Run a lot, and think what we've seen of it in in this game works really well. City Escape doesn't immediately have as much variety coming to mind for three distinct tracks. There's no reason that they couldn't draw inspiration from other zones like Mission Street and Radical Highway as they were all in the same area in SA2 to get more variety in there, but ultimately I just think Rooftop Run is a better choice all-round.

Problem is that all of these locations were already visited in Generations . As much as I may like Rooftop Run, I really would rather it was something else entirely. Windmill Isle would fit nicely as an alternative daytime city theme that's not a modern metropolis. Or if they did want to go the metropolis route, that opens up many more options. It just bugs me that most of the locations in this game have been seen recently. At least we've got the ice/fire and desert levels that are now original.

If I had to choose a generic City level, the only reason I would pick City Escape is because of the idea behind having a level gimmick where the Giant G.U.N truck either chases you or plows through the track and disrupts the flow of the race. That sounds like it'd be cool as hell. Rooftop Run as an aesthetic is more interesting than City Escape though. If it were me, and I had more options, I'd probably had gone with Speed Highway though. Mostly because I love the idea of racing through a city at night as well as thinking it'd be a great opportunity to integrate the hub of Station Square in there as well as have a nice sequence where the sun comes up and At Dawn starts to play.

As for levels from Unleashed, the two essentials for me would actually be Dragon Road and Eggmanland. Dragon Road's aesthetic feels like a perfect inclusion considering how different from everything else it would undoubtedly be. And Eggmanland I feel speaks for itself. It's a crying shame that Unleashed and that Egg Dragoon fight in Generations are the only places where Eggmanland has seen any representation. That level looks amazing and I need to race through it.

[Plasme]

I was picking city escape under the assumption we would have to reuse Gens stages. Otherwise, yeah, I'd like to see something new.

[Silvereyes]

The only thing I find weird about Rooftop Run is how it seems to have wound up being the iconic Zone of Unleashed. I dunno about anyone else, but honestly I always thought the standout from Unleashed was the African one. That's just my opinion, but I do find it interesting how RR seems to be the "face" of Unleashed. I mean with Sonic Heroes I can understand Seaside Hill but I don't think I can't understand RR.

[DarkRula]

Rooftop Run became the face of Unleashed because Windmill Isle didn't want the job. And it means they get to use a giant clocktower whenever it appears, so it has that unique thing going for it. [And the clocktower has a face... haha...]

My own list of tracks from when I'd created ideas comes to thirty-two from across the whole history of games. To get that down to twenty-one, I'd still keep the concept of eight zones comprised of two themes each, with the first five zones having an extra track to get it up to the twenty-one.

 

Green Coast Zone - Leaf Forest / Emerald Coast / Windmill Isle

Ancient Sea Zone - Aqua Road / Wild Water Way / Rusty Ruin

Canyon City Zone - Radical Train / Canyon Cruise / Megalo Station

Spooky Sands Zone - Mirage Saloon / Mystic Mansion / Sandopolis

Winter Forest Zone - Botanic Base / Frozen Factory / Iron Jungle

Cybermine Zone - Crystal Cave / Cyber Track

Skybase Zone - Altitude Limit / Quartz Quadrant

Galactic Amusements - Twinkle Park / Tropical Resort

 

There might be a few changes I can make, but that list is taken directly from one already used by me for my own racing ideas. I'd certainly try to rebalance it to allow each area to have three tracks per zone while fitting the twenty-one limit. One zone will have to go to do that, and it'd probably be Skybase Zone.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Too bad Eggman Land never became face of Unleashed, that was an itneresting location and character relevant.


Myeah, if I was in charge for picking tracks, I guess It'd be a lot more focused on story relevant locations and keeping the tracks reletively close to each other on a geographical level. So my unrealistic, Nerdy and weird track choices if I was in charge...


Angel island Zone. Ruins + airship themed, as if it's about Eggman assaulting the Master emerald shrine:
Track 1: A mix between flying battery and Marble Garden from Sonic 3 and Knuckles
Track 2: Sonic adventure's rendition of the emerald shrine plus Egg carrier.
Track 3: Angel island/ Chaos angel mix from the GBA games.

Blaze's kingdom Zone. Mostly original tracks with some Sonic Rush elements. Mix between an India porttown with palace plus beaches/ Jungle.
Track 1: Beach and town port.
Track 2: Town under attack by pirate ship.
Track 3: Town palace.

Station Square Zone. Actually a casino/ themepark themed world.
Track 1: Station Square Casino.
Track 2: Twinkle's bumperkart track, with a space theme.
Track 3: Twinkle Park itself with a haunted castle theme.

Good future Zone: Silver's home turf, to show how the future's doing now. Mostly original with some Sonic 06/ Rivals/Riders touches, but visually resembling Sonic CD good future zones.
Track 1: Onyx Island. From Sonic Rivals, mix the Green Hill ish first level with the carnival zone from that game to make a Green Hill carnival town.
Track 2: Soleanna castle: The kingdom ruins from Sonic 06, now rebuild to a futuristic palace in harmony with nature.
Track 3: Chao stadium. Based on Chao races, but now in a giant futuristic arena.

Studiopolis zone: The Mania inspired 80's neon city zone.
Track 1: Studiopolis city.
Track 2: Studiopolis tv studio.
Track 3: Chemical plant zone.

Abondonned Eggmanland zone: Eggman's hometurf. Eggman land from Unleashed, after losing it's power and laying abondonned in the ocean for years, it's been flooded.
Track 1: Flooded streets. Dark ruins, kinda inspired by the Sonic anime movie.
Track 2: Headquarters.Eggman's central base filled with Eggman worshipping musea and carnival rides. Abondonned and haunted now.
Track 3: Center of the earth. The Vulcanic caverns where Unleashed's climax took place.

Crystal heaven zone: Original finale to Team Sonic Racing. Crystal and ice themed. Some inspiration by Sonic R's final track and Crystal Egg Zone.
Track 1: Radiant Emerald. Hey, with the R in the title, better have at least one Sonic R inspired track.
Track 2: Another track made out of crystals and ice, in daylight resembling Crystal Egg zone from 8 bit Sonic 2, the calm before the storm track.
Track 3: Fallen sky track. The grand finale. The crystal roads in the sky are falling apart as Eggman airships are attackign the tracks. I suppose Eggman's getting desperate to win the race and starts cheating. Nighttime, with the sensation the entire track is falling out of sky. While a lightning storm is going on, because why not.

[Dr. Detective]

Welp, here I go.

CITY CIRCUIT 

1. Speed Highway – A track based more on Station Square than just Speed Highway. It starts at night and as the laps go on, it transitions to daytime where we see the Station Square hub, the Twinkle Park building, the Train station, the hotel, and eventually the ‘At Dawn’ area of the original stage. 
    
2. Casino Night – A Casino area based on Casino Night Zone rather than Casino Park or Bingo Highway this time. It’s still a casino but the aesthetic will likely be slightly different since the colors used between those stages and the structure of them are a tad different. I’d also include elements from Casino Park and Bingo Highway anyway though, rendering the use of Casino Night specifically almost meangingless. 
    
3. Sunset Heights – It's the return of “City” The whole city is on fire. It’s a city on fucking fire and it’s awesome because there’s robots destroying everything while you’re trying to have a friendly (albeit still dangerous) racing competition through a city that’s literally on FIRE! (Also works as a lead in to the Burning Circuit) 

BURNING CIRCUIT  

1. Sandopolis Zone – This is already being represented in TSR but I’m not changing it because it’s a really good pick. Sneaking in some Sand Road and maybe some Mirage Saloon nods would be ideal for me here. 
    
2. Oil Ocean Zone – This one is actually a must have for me since I feel the location is just that interesting. Roads with oil slicks have the potential to be annoying but also can be a lot of fun too. Plus, they can ignite on fire now, thanks to Mania. 
    
3. Lava Reef Zone – I like the purplish background set to the lava. It looks great. I was only going to go for one straight up lava level here and I think this is the best one. 

ANCIENT CIRCUIT 

1. Windy Valley – Again, this one is mostly just an excuse to focus on the Mystic Ruins hub from Sonic Adventure. Aside from the obvious Tornado gimmick, there’s also passing by Tails’ Workshop, the little forest with Big’s Hut, and the Lost World level with all the old, ancient, echidna stuff to rush through. Ride on top of that giant stone snake why don’t ya? That oughta fill up 3 laps, easy. 
    
2. Night Palace – The most interesting looking level in Sonic and the Secret Rings in my opinion and a must have for me. Mostly because of that weird looking room you run into with all the glass tiles everywhere. However, the palace is a night looking area too. Maybe the Seven World Rings are just laying about on the floor and if you race over them, your car gets a mouthful full of power great enough to open the Gates of Hell. 
    
3. Babylon Garden – Since the Echidna stuff is going to be covered by Windy Valley, I felt it was okay to have the floating island level be the one representing Sonic Riders instead. The focus is more on it’s standing as a racing level from a previous game anyway. Plus, the ancient technology and the “EMERGENCY ALERT” lady make it come off as a bit different too. I’d probably get some more of those robot air ships to fly around and blow things apart too. 

GREEN CIRCUIT 

1. Press Garden – No Green Hill Zone! INSTEAD, let’s have a really unique looking area with plants in it that looks and functions differently. Press Garden looks beautiful. Use it. Let’s race through it. ALSO, because there’s snow everywhere, it can double as the obligatory ICE level! It just works.  
    
2. Dragon Road – So it’s a lush green environment but it also has Chun-Nan buildings and an eastern aesthetic to it. It’s simply the easiest and best way to have a stage like this and keep it unique. 
    
3. Frog Forest – I want a level with rain in it. Plus, there’s a difference between a forest and a grassy area with some rolling hills in it. A huge forest with frogs that summon the rain to make new shortcuts GROW out of the ground and send you to other places sounds neat.  

HAUNTED CIRCUIT 

1. Hang Castle – The number one level I wanted in this game was Hang Castle. Obviously, it’s the best. A haunted level theme where the gimmick is that it can be flipped upside down is amazing. Plus, it’s got Mystic Mansion in it. Remember all the extra weird stuff in Mystic Mansion! It’ll be amazing. 
    
2. Pumpkin Hill – A more red looking haunted area but a very functionally different one too. Not only would this be a neat way to incorporate Aquatic Mine and it’s water level mechanic but it’d be a good excuse to remix Humid-P's magnum opus; the rap in which a ghost tried to approach me and got leary.  
    
3. Haunted Ship – This is a level from Sonic Rush Adventure and I just gotta say, it’s a pretty neat idea. Imagine racing through a foggy water themed tracks on planks of busted wood while the sinking, ghost ships around you spat out spooksters at you. It’s brilliant. We need a 3D version of it. 

SPACE CIRCUIT 

1. Final Rush – Or rather Space Colony Ark to be more precise. There’s almost too many Ark levels to draw inspiration from, to the point where you could get away with having two Ark levels on this list. Not just Final Rush, but Final Chase, the gravity stuff with Cosmic Wall, the collapsing rubble with Cosmic Fall, and the sheer geographical chaos that was Crazy Gadget. Not to mention the Artificial Chaos lurking about and the huge room with the Cannon’s Core, shaped like the shrine of the Master Emerald. Good God, why haven’t they made an Ark racing level yet?! 
    
2. Tropical Resort – It’s a pretty unique space level in its own right. A resort in space sounds like a good way to mix in some Emerald Coast elements too. Maybe not the sand but perhaps some water. Some space water. Starlight Carnival can be incorporated within it too, as a section where you fly off the resort and just go into the light show for a bit before crashing through the Asteroid Coaster and landing back onto the Resort. It was between this and the Death Egg and to be honest, the Death Egg is just a bit too generic in comparison. They already did a Death Egg stage in the first All-Stars and I actually confused it with the Ark too.  
    
3. Sweet Mountain – It's actually easy to forget that this level took place in space on a planet literally made of Earth food but that’s what this is and it’s a perfect inclusion for a track list that needs to stand out and look as unique as possible.  

EGGMAN CIRCUIT 

1. Studiopolis Zone – EggTV is on the screen! The Hard Boiled Heavies are on the loose! You’re being chased down by the one that has the police gimmick probably. Either way, it looks great and it’s got a neat, fun Eggman gimmick. A no-brainer for me. 
    
2. Egg Fleet – You've made it through the studio but have found yourself riding through Eggman’s massive air fleet. He’s got guns and cannons trained on you and in order to get to the main ship, you’ve got to DIVE your car off the top of one of them like you do at the start of the stage in Sonic Heroes and land on the one below for an epic race through the inside. There you’ll see a bunch of Egg Carrier call-backs like the Swimming Pool, the control room, and whatever else was on the Sky Deck. When you come out, it’ll be dark and stormy. You’ll make it to the last ship, the Final Fortress for an epic lap finisher.  
    
3. Eggmanland – Some call it the Crimson Carnival, others call it Hell. I call it the best way to finish off the Egg Circuit and the second must-have in a Sonic Racing game. The fleet has reached its base of operations and it’s time to invade the fucker by racing through it so fast, you tear it the hell down! YES!

That’s my list. I tried my best to fit in as many troupes as I could while also sticking to a theme for each circuit. I managed to get in an ice level, a sand level, a lava level, a couple space levels, a water level, a couple haunted levels, a forest, some grasslands, a city, a burning city, a casino, an Eggman fleet, an Eggman base, a level about food... I tried my absolute best to make it as diverse as possible. 

If I were also given a playable character roster to work with, I’d necessitate that it’d need to be at least this size: 

1. Sonic 
2. Tails 
3. Knuckles 
4. Shadow 
5. Rouge 
6. Omega 
7. Amy 
8. Cream & Cheese 
9. Big 
10. Vector 
11. Charmy 
12. Espio 
13. Silver 
14. Blaze 
15. Chao 
16. Eggman 
17. Metal Sonic 
18. Orbot & Cubot 
19. Jet 
20. Wave 
21. Storm 
22. Infinite 
23. Zavok 
24. Chaos 

However, If I could, I'd probably go to 40 by including Chip, Tikal, and Eggman Nega as the last three Sonic characters and then start adding in SEGA All-Stars. Ulala, Beat, AiAi, Amigo, B.D Joe, Nights, Billy Hatcher, Joe Musashi, Vyse, Gilius, Alex Kidd, and to top it off for extra, awesome fan-service, Segata Sanshiro riding a jet-propelled Dreamcast controller. 

That’s my ideal Sonic Racing Game right there. I love it. 

[Your Vest Friend]

Actually, considering the size of the customisation component, how feasible would it be to go up to even 18, let alone the dream sizes? And before anyone points a finger at Mario Kart 8, not only does it have a bigger budget the customisation is not on this level. 

[Salamander]

Your suggestion is that customisation is by way of a trade-off for the slim roster?  Or compensation, of a sort?  I could see that being the case.

[Red Hot Jack]

We already discussed that between a low budget, tons of work with customization, each character having his own vehicle, recording lines, all of this makes it less likely to get more characters. I'm just asking for a decent amount of tracks though. I predict the mobile version will have more support for the longer term because it's easier to work on mobile, obviously, like Speed Battle compared to Forces.

Anyway: about reused content, I should probably not worry, after all the tracks shown and revealed were mostly new, 9 new and 3 old, so the final stage ratio should be 16 new : 5 old, basically, which is okay I guess, and we know there is likely a Green Hill track rather than a third rehashed Seaside Hill track.

[Dr. Detective]

9 hours ago, Your Vest Friend said:

Actually, considering the size of the customisation component, how feasible would it be to go up to even 18, let alone the dream sizes? And before anyone points a finger at Mario Kart 8, not only does it have a bigger budget the customisation is not on this level. 

Sorry but to this day I still don't buy that they absolutely would not have been able to go up to 18. Dream roster aside, I still don't find 15 characters acceptable. 18 would have been the expected amount to make sure all the necessary ones were in the game at the very, very least but as was pointed out multiple times in the thread, 15 is just an astonishingly miniscule number of characters for a racing game like this. I know because I laid the roster sizes for all the Riders and All-Stars Racing games out. As well as Mario Kart.

People have used the "low budget" excuse before but now that this customization component has been revealed, I'm guessing some are going to switch to saying that this is the actual reason. It's fine if you're trying to look for a reason but to be honest I think it's ultimately just them continuing to be stingy with the Sonic characters.

Even the Riders games, which did all have bigger rosters, tended to fill some of the slots with robots and because they were Riders games were also already obligated to have the Babylon Rogues there. You take the obligation to the rogues and the robots out and you're left with a roster that looks like this. If this were a phone game, they'd definitely go the distance but that's expected. Not only do those go haywire with the fanservice, it's also a lot easier to implement.

If there were no historical evidence to suggest that they had a problem with including a certain number of Sonic characters to play as in 3D titles like this, then maybe I'd buy the "it's because its low-budget" or the "customization component took up all the time and money" argument a little bit more but at the moment, I really do think it's just another frustrating thing that they just tend to do for no real reason other than... it's something they do. 

Now, I could be wrong. I'm certainly not saying the game isn't low budget (there's too many reused tracks and assets for it not to be) or that customization didn't take a lot of time or money either. We'll probably never actually know so I can only go with my gut and my observation of their past behavior.

[Wraith]

On 3/22/2019 at 1:11 PM, Plasme said:

I wish City Escape was in the game instead of Rooftop Run. What do others think?

They're different enough that I could say I would have been glad to see both.

[DabigRG]

10 hours ago, FFWF said:

Your suggestion is that customisation is by way of a trade-off for the slim roster?  Or compensation, of a sort?  I could see that being the case.

 

10 hours ago, Your Vest Friend said:

Actually, considering the size of the customisation component, how feasible would it be to go up to even 18, let alone the dream sizes? And before anyone points a finger at Mario Kart 8, not only does it have a bigger budget the customisation is not on this level. 

Honestly, I figured that as soon as the customization trailer came out.

[kalion]

On 3/24/2019 at 10:48 AM, Jack the Shadow said:

We already discussed that between a low budget, tons of work with customization, each character having his own vehicle, recording lines, all of this makes it less likely to get more characters. I'm just asking for a decent amount of tracks though. I predict the mobile version will have more support for the longer term because it's easier to work on mobile, obviously, like Speed Battle compared to Forces.

Anyway: about reused content, I should probably not worry, after all the tracks shown and revealed were mostly new, 9 new and 3 old, so the final stage ratio should be 16 new : 5 old, basically, which is okay I guess, and we know there is likely a Green Hill track rather than a third rehashed Seaside Hill track.

Have you seen the previous SEGA racing games on mobile? 
Maybe there'll be longer support finally due to apple arcade tho'

[Iko]

My updated opinion on what happend with this game (I may be completely wrong, this is just speculation):

For this game I think they aimed at a younger and mostly male audience, more than usual; because of this, they excluded all the characters who can be considered too much cutesy or have an high pitched voice (Cream and Charmy - also considering how important voice acting is in this game). Amy is considered too much as a main character to be excluded, so they still put her in the game, but to compensate, they transformed her team from Team Rose to Team Meme (Big and Omochao). Regardless, they advertised Shadow and Team Dark before Team Rose, and if we exclude the animated short (that anyway mostly focuses on Big the Cat), they probably advertised Team Dark more in general, with Shadow also being in the launch trailer and on the boxart of the game (my point is, they focused on the "cool" factor more than usual, and the focus on "cute" elements has been moved to "funny" elements - mostly Team Rose and the meme factor). Espio is just unlucky: after removing Charmy from team Chaotix, and putting Vector with Blaze and Silver, simply there was no more spacce for him, and he's not popular enough to justify a redesign of the game/team mechanics only to include him.

Customization also probably played its role into the roster being small. More obscure characters such as the Babylon Rogues or Tikal, or even Chaos, and more, are probably excluded because it would have required too much work to include them. Anyway, some of them may still be added through DLCs in the future. Maybe finding a voice actor for them is also a problem.

IMO? They tried to emulate Rocket League's type of customization, with the addition of the ability to change the actual shape of the veichle, but still with a similar feel overall (including how the components are unlocked randomly, apparently).

I think that a simpler game, without all that customization and with a wider range of characters (including fan-service ones), would have been way more appealing for the average Sonic fan; but if we consider the younger generations, people who aren't familiar with all the characters in the game (because they're too young and didn't play their debut games), do you think they would prefer to have more characters (they know nothing about) and less customization, or less characters but the ability to customize the car by changing colors, shape, sounds and stuff?