Team Sonic Racing - Upcoming Sonic Racing Game

[StellarBlur]

13 minutes ago, LukA8 said:

I don't think anyone outside the fanbase will notice the retro tracks, including reviewers; ASR was quickly forgotten once Transformed rolled around the corner two years later.

That doesn't make it okay though, they grabbed everything Sonic from All-Stars and built half a game around it, and it's showing how limited the budget for this project must be. I'm sure Sumo would include a lot more fanservice if they could, and with the downward spiral the franchise's fallen into after Transformed's release I'm happy we're even getting a spin-off in 2019 that doesn't have the name Mario written next to it, so I want to support this for what it is, which looks enjoyable - even though we should be able to expect better. I'm mainly hoping this finds some success so Sumo Digital can do bigger things again in the future, maybe even bring back S0L and the others for another All-Stars.

This looks so pale in comparison to Transformed because Transformed was fantastic, but that game only got to happen in the first place because of ASR's success. Sega were stupid for declining their offers on making another title for so many years, until Sonic basically became a budget series.

I hope nobody is blaming Sumo for this. This is all on Sega not giving them the proper budget. Heck, it's so obvious that Sumo tried their best to bring variety despite the low budget. I will buy the game as it looks fun and I'm sure to get enjoyment out of it but I'm disappointed for sure.

Your point about anyone outside the fanbase noticing is absolutely correct. The friends to who I showed the game had no clue they were past tracks. At least, I'll get people with who I can play.

[Bobnik]

I'm actually not too miffed on the reused tracks themselves, only because I don't remember 6 out of the 9 tracks (I have played ASRT much more than ASR and it's only because the former actually had online on PC while the latter didn't), but it is annoying that almost half of the track roster is reused layouts.

And yeah, the game looks budget as hell, but the whole series has become budget as hell and I don't think it'll ever recover from that, so eh. At least overall the game looks to be better than the initial reveal and footage in my eyes.

[Bobnik]

2 minutes ago, do a barrel roll said:

No, it really needs to recover from that. I can't stand playing Sonic games with limited content and half of it's content being re-used from previous games.

If Sonic games don't get a better budget soon, then we won't get another truly original and great Sonic game ever again.

I'm not saying it shouldn't recover from that. I just don't expect that to ever happen. So might as well take it for what it is and decide if you wanna stick around or not.

[StellarBlur]

7 minutes ago, Bobnik said:

I'm not saying it shouldn't recover from that. I just don't expect that to ever happen. So might as well take it for what it is and decide if you wanna stick around or not.

It is possible for it to recover. They just need good games to build up the series again. Mania is the start. TSR for all we complain about is a good game and it should help towards that.

I hope that Sega understands that for the next game, cutting the budget will just result in a worse game which will then results in worse reception. It's a never ending cycle and the only way for them to break out is to give a game budget even if it's risky.

[NegaMix]

1 hour ago, Celestia said:

It's wild just how tired and off the voice actors sound, wow. Everything else about the game presentation-wise is great so it's reeeeeally jarring.

Indeed. It honestly makes me wonder if they'd have been better off doing what SASR/Transformed did, and just reuse certain clips from other Sonic games.

[ZinogreVolt]

Any word on whether dual audio will be available for this game or not? I'm mostly fine with the English voices with this game but having the option would be nice in case I want it.

[Plasme]

Half of Mario Kart 8's tracks were recycled. No idea why people are getting so mad about the amount of tracks being remade from a game almost 10 years old.

[Tracker_TD]

14 minutes ago, Plasme said:

Half of Mario Kart 8's tracks were recycled. No idea why people are getting so mad about the amount of tracks being remade from a game almost 10 years old.

I think the difference with MK8 is that a lot of the tracks, if not all of them, go well beyond just a visual touch-up. They're reworked far more to suit the gimmicks of the game and in the case of stuff like the GBA tracks, they might as well be new.

While the graphical overhaul in TSR is nice, the only real adjustments made to the tracks in terms of level design is "they're wider" to suit the Team Gimmick, which going off the responses to this thread, arguably just makes them worse. To be fair, ASRT had this issue with its returning tracks too, but there were only 4 in that game. That, and with there being a general sense of animosity towards the idea of 'reusing stuff' in Sonic lately, I'm not surprised by the sentiment. 

[ZinogreVolt]

13 minutes ago, Plasme said:

Half of Mario Kart 8's tracks were recycled. No idea why people are getting so mad about the amount of tracks being remade from a game almost 10 years old.

It's hard to say since we don't have any direct track comparisons, but if Lost Palace is the baseline then it doesn't seem like there'll be too much changed in terms of track layout or mechanics. Even the most familiar feeling tracks in MK8 had a good bit changed about them, and that's on top of having been completely rebuilt from the ground up.

[Plasme]

For all we know, all the returning stages are built from the ground up. Lost Palace certainly seems so.

[ZinogreVolt]

2 minutes ago, Plasme said:

For all we know, all the returning stages are built from the ground up. Lost Palace certainly seems so.

I wouldn't really be surprised if they were, but that doesn't really mean much when they *feel* the same

[Fire-N-Space]

Really like what there doing with the older tracks and its fun trying to see how much I automatically recognize in them

[JosepHenry]

I dunno man, TSR is looking absolutely delightful to me, and I am very against reclycling stages in Sonic games... I but I will give it a pass cuz even Lost Palace looks freaking gorgeous, and that music is so damn good, I missed this.

 

[Blue Blood]

10 hours ago, Plasme said:

Half of Mario Kart 8's tracks were recycled. No idea why people are getting so mad about the amount of tracks being remade from a game almost 10 years old.

I knew someone would pull up the Mario Kart argument. Mario Kart games from DS onwards have always had 16 new tracks and 16 retro tracks from its entire history. That's a 50:50 split, sure. But TSR doesn't have such a vast history to pull from, it's not revamping anything from 20+ years ago when the games were wildly different, each track already belongs to a zone so there are three variants of each level and there's only a total of 12 new levels. 

The two don't compare.

[StellarBlur]

I updated the track chart (I'm terrible at photo editing).

 

[Sonicka]

5 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

I knew someone would pull up the Mario Kart argument. Mario Kart games from DS onwards have always had 16 new tracks and 16 retro tracks from its entire history. That's a 50:50 split, sure. But TSR doesn't have such a vast history to pull from, it's not revamping anything from 20+ years ago when the games were wildly different, each track already belongs to a zone so there are three variants of each level and there's only a total of 12 new levels. 

The two don't compare.

Mmmm... maybe. 

Certainly it would have been better if the 6 - 9 retooled tracks were spread more equally or updated aesthetically across the 7 zone themes (which they have done to an extent with some of these already)... but we also have to consider that SAASR and ASRT is not completely made up of Sonic specific courses. 

Like you say there is so little to pull from so it’s not really their fault on this side of things. Could they have done less course remakes? Sure. Is it a turn off? No (well, not for me anyway).

So really a Mario Kart comparison is inevitable, TSR has a 70:30 ratio balanced in favour of new courses. So regardless of how many overall courses there are compared to MK’s 50:50 they’ve kinda gone one better here. 

To me the trade offs are pretty fair, the visuals and gameplay updates are brought in line just as much as any MK game has done in their latest titles with their retro tracks too. So It’s fine.

The unfair comparison is Crash Team Racing: NK, and that is literally is a 05:95 ratio of retro course remakes  

 

[Red Hot Jack]

But the tracks for CTRNF are 20 years old, so a remake is fair. These are from 2010... and they are very meh, the difference between new tracks and the ones from ASR shows. I wish they had more tracks for Transformed, those were good and they could have simply used the ground lap for Galactic Parade and Sanctuary Falls too. The tracks from ASR are just so basic.

[Detective Kaito]

Looks like Knuckles' new voice is here to stay, and my god does it sound horrible.

I hope they have an option for Japanese audio.

[Sonicka]

1 hour ago, Jack the Shadow said:

But the tracks for CTRNF are 20 years old, so a remake is fair. These are from 2010... and they are very meh, the difference between new tracks and the ones from ASR shows. I wish they had more tracks for Transformed, those were good and they could have simply used the ground lap for Galactic Parade and Sanctuary Falls too. The tracks from ASR are just so basic.

Which is exactly why I said the two aren’t really comparable on that side of things. The game is literally a re-make and TSR is not.

I do agree with Galactic Parade and Sanctuary Falls though - if they could pull and adapt the ground level tracks I’d be pretty pleased.

For the Casino Zone, for the 3rd track which has yet to be properly revealed (unless they create an original track)... I’m still holding out hope for Galactic Parade to be the remake. I mean, they’ve changed the zone’s overall aesthetic completely into outer space anyway so it would make sense. Not to mention one track has been adapted from Transformed already for the Seaside Hill Zone so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.

[Blue Blood]

1 hour ago, Son-icka said:

Mmmm... maybe. 

Certainly it would have been better if the 6 - 9 retooled tracks were spread more equally or updated aesthetically across the 7 zone themes (which they have done to an extent with some of these already)... but we also have to consider that SAASR and ASRT is not completely made up of Sonic specific courses. 

Like you say there is so little to pull from so it’s not really their fault on this side of things. Could they have done less course remakes? Sure. Is it a turn off? No (well, not for me anyway).

So really a Mario Kart comparison is inevitable, TSR has a 70:30 ratio balanced in favour of new courses. So regardless of how many overall courses there are compared to MK’s 50:50 they’ve kinda gone one better here. 

To me the trade offs are pretty fair, the visuals and gameplay updates are brought in line just as much as any MK game has done in their latest titles with their retro tracks too. So It’s fine.

The unfair comparison is Crash Team Racing: NK, and that is literally is a 05:95 ratio of retro course remakes  

 

There's so little to pull from, so yes it is their fault for remaking so much old game instead of making a full new game. If the budget didn't stretch to name a higher proportion of new levels or if it was always planned to be that way it doesn't matter. TSR is a game of modest size and a lot of its content isn't new. That's a problem when it's supposed to be a brand new game. You can't say that they needed to  remake 9 old courses but had only 12 Sonic choices across ASR and ASRT to choose from and that therefore the problem isn't their fault. 

[ZinogreVolt]

Can't say I'm too bothered by the ASR courses returning since I don't have too much experience with that game to begin with, ASRT courses on the other hand bother me quite a bit since those were built in mind with the transformation mechanic from that game. It feels like I'll be left with a prevailing feeling of "something's missing."

Otherwise, I don't really mind the returning courses that much, if at all. The team mechanic should do a decent job in making players rethink how they'd approach going through the returning courses and they don't make up enough of the game's courses to really bother me. If it were closer to Mario Kart's ratio I'd be decidedly more annoyed with that decision.

[Jango]

I think this game will do just fine at the end of the day. It looks very Sonic Team-ish, that is, super average. I doubt the game will be a glitch fest, it will likely play and look just fine, but it will be nothing special. I'll listen to its soundtrack all call it a day.

[Sonicka]

1 hour ago, Blue Blood said:

There's so little to pull from, so yes it is their fault for remaking so much old game instead of making a full new game. If the budget didn't stretch to name a higher proportion of new levels or if it was always planned to be that way it doesn't matter. TSR is a game of modest size and a lot of its content isn't new. That's a problem when it's supposed to be a brand new game. You can't say that they needed to  remake 9 old courses but had only 12 Sonic choices across ASR and ASRT to choose from and that therefore the problem isn't their fault. 

That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just there IS less to pull from which is why it feels this way. And yes, of course they didn’t need to remake 9 (if that is the final number) of older courses either. 

I’m not going to pretend I know the logistics behind the decision making with this, but what’s obvious is that this is a new game on a lower budget for development. So that could affect a lot of things here. I mean, I pre-ordered this for £24.99 and I haven’t seen anywhere selling this above £34.99 at most.

Based on that I’d wager the returning or reused courses is part of cost cutting measures when managing or directing the creation of new tracks to save development time. That’s not to say effort isn’t put into these updates, but when you have the assets or designs available from previous this is bound to be a time saver.

It’s not an excuse for there not to be completely new content like ASRT managed to pull off mostly last time - but it’s bound to cause an impact. I also don’t know how this was planned - just from the interview just posted on TSS there indicates to have been a lot of ideas thrown around from the get go and it was difficult for them to even drop the all-stars aspect which arguably gives a much greater variety.

And Whilst I won’t lie in that I’m disappointed not to be directly driving around the exact levels from various Zones like I had hoped from the classics - they have taken the smart route of merging these within the courses to reflect the eras to some degree.

So ok, sure, I do wish there was more than 12 original courses, but at a low cost release with everything else it’s got packed in we’re still looking to get a classy game from Sumo nonetheless with a justifying price point.

[DabigRG]

On 4/29/2019 at 4:45 PM, LukA8 said:

Honestly, Sky Road feels like the actual finale/"Rainbow Road" of the game, while Pyramid Base looks super tricky and may be our obligatory "Bowser's Castle" if that makes any sense. I wish they'd deliver an even better last track, but Egg Hangar is like the..all-star.. of the Sumo racers, so it may just end there.

Also the tunnel gimmick is part of Doctor's Mine this time, so that wouldn't have influenced any track decisions. Whale Lagoon may just be more suitable for the team gameplay and have more room for adding Technique/Power roads.

Oh, is Sky Road in the game? Wonder if that means Dragon Dance is as well.

On 4/29/2019 at 9:41 PM, do a barrel roll said:

That portal thing the racers appear out of in the beginning isn't...

Ohhoho, I thought so.

On 4/29/2019 at 10:06 PM, StellarBlur said:

You think it's the phantom ruby ?

Nope.

On 4/29/2019 at 10:14 PM, do a barrel roll said:

Also, if you look at the jewel in the middle of Dodonpa's hat, it has a resemblance to the Phantom Ruby (I would also mention the Mania credits remix, but that could just work as a nod to Mania), so it's probably a safe assumption that they're going to connect the game's story to Mania Plus and shoehorn Classic Sonic in the Modern timeline yet again by revealing that Dodonpa is Classic Eggman.

Lukewarm-ish, barrel.

18 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

I wonder if ASR is old and forgotten about enough that a lot of people won't actually notice the amount of recycled content? Because there can be no other justification for them trying to get away with it. 

 

Until they go online or rent it from Gamestop anyway.

17 hours ago, Celestia said:

It's wild just how tired and off the voice actors sound, wow. Everything else about the game presentation-wise is great so it's reeeeeally jarring.

"AWEsome BOOST! THANKS!"

But yeah, probably due to using pretty frequent voice actors and just having weird, perhaps negligent direction. 

14 hours ago, JosepHenry said:

I dunno man, TSR is looking absolutely delightful to me, and I am very against reclycling stages in Sonic games... I but I will give it a pass cuz even Lost Palace looks freaking gorgeous, and that music is so damn good, I missed this.

 

Yeah, it definitely sounds good-ish. What's up with the guitar piece at the beginning, though?

Oh and they're playing as the Chao.

And what the heck is that narrator?! :l 

[JezMM]

My biggest issue with the re-use of the ASR Heroes trio is that the new zones are all super varied between the three tracks, while the re-used ones aren't. All three tracks for these old zones more or less all look the same, and it'll make them REALLY feel like filler as a result.