Team Sonic Racing - Upcoming Sonic Racing Game

[Sonicka]

Sorry, but I have to disagree.

Sure, it’s on the screen, but it’s not ‘clear’ if you get my meaning. Considering two of us skipped over story elements already without realising to me just highlights that perhaps the button actions simply needs to be swapped around on this menu.

It’s kinda difficult to explain but it’s not entirely obvious you’ll be continuing the plot even if Dodonpa pops up with a line when pressing square, although this was when I went back through the parts i missed. 

Also on branching paths you are treated to the same cutscene with a different background which is good... I guess? 

[Red Hot Jack]

Ok, so I have a question: I noticed through videos there are some other options for online races, some different type of races outside of the standard team race, can you guys tell me what those types are? And if they are playable in local mode? (like invincibility race, vampire race, but I don't know the others…) plus I'm aware that the missions are only for Adventure mode and you can't play them in single player mode, like the ring challenge etc. and you can't play those as Team Eggman.

[Badnik Mechanic]

So been playing this for around 16 hours now and... Got a few more thoughts.

TSR is a good game. In fact it's potentially a great one... but... the main issue with it is this.

Sega.

The idea of having a team based mechanic actually works, as absurd as it sounds it really is great when it just clicks.

But the main gripe I'm starting to have... is that I keep comparing it to ASRT and that game just comes out on top every time.

Characters, tracks (transformed nature) but mainly the overall presentation.

Like in ASRT every menu feels alive. Even little things like when you complete a GP you get a small podium sequence. In TSR it's all near still imagery.

Some have asked about single player content... thing is... this game is bloody hard at times. If you're going for 100% completion. It takes a very long time to get every star in every stage.

Then to unlock all the mods, decals and horns will also take ages... mainly thanks to the loot box nature of that system.

So you potentially have a very long and challenging game here that is fun...

But is is lacking in virtually every comparison to ASRT.

 

And... I keep having to remind myself that this shouldn't be an issue and is an unfair comparison.

Because ASRT at launch was £39.99.

TSR is £20-£30 depending where you shop. It's almost half the price and that's without factoring in most new games now cost £45 depending where you go.

 

It's a much cheaper game compared to ASRT and even ASR.

Now if it were the same price that ASRT was, I think there would be a much stronger argument for the same number of characters, the same final quality of the menus. To have a game at the same level or better in every area.

 

Basically. ASRT was going for the full higher end blockbuster type Triple A show that was a lot of fun.

TSR is going for a budget experience which is equally as fun...

But I want TSR to be that higher end type experience that ASRT was, but it's not. It's budget.

[caitash]

4 hours ago, Son-icka said:

It should say at the bottom, but I just can’t understand the decision behind it (although I’m sad the same thing happened to you, I’m glad I’m not a fool for not being the only one realising sooner).

Can’t tell if serious or not. Haha. 

In honestly weather you are playing on PS4 or Switch it will say right at the bottom in small text but it is not a great indicator. There isn’t like a sub menu to proceed to skip the story for example once you activate a mission which might have been better.

No, It’s just weird that ‘X’ on PS4 or ‘A’ on Switch is the button they chose for skipping cutscenes to play a mission. Where as ‘Square’ on PS4 or ‘x’ on Switch is the button to press to view things to progress before a mission. It feels like they got it backwards when you consider the normalcy of input commands players are used to in this day and age.

I’ll be honest, I assumed that since I sat through the whole beginning/opening ‘cutscene’ of the story, that the story sections would automatically play just like the opening cutscene automatically played XD And there are SO MANY times you have to press the ‘next!’ button at the end of the race (adding up scores and tokens and such like) that it just becomes a bit of an automatic habit.

I’d assume that because of both those things, a cutscene would play automatically which I can then push a button to skip which is the norm with, I think, every other game I’ve played. But no, not this one, instead I just have a lot of catching up to do haha! On the Switch in particular, if you’re playing in handheld mode, the small text at the bottom becomes absolutely tiny and easy to miss.

 

ETA: After checking the buttons on the large screen tv, you have to press Y on Switch to ‘begin stage - watch story’. Pressing A is ‘begin stage - skip story’

[dbzfan7]

Some story/character thoughts. The least important thing possibly about the game. But I can't get the game til way later or perhaps a sale so it's all I can really focus on.

Spoiler

 

Now that I have viewed the whole story I can give a better thought process on the cast not including all the clips mid racing.

-Sonic I feel is better than normal. I liked his attitude here more with the genuine excitement and thrills, rather than everything is lame and boring. Immediately I can care more about him after years of disliking how he's been handled. Though let's cut out all the joke explaining...it was only once this time...but still ick

-Silver shockingly was kinda fun with his modest behavior and focus. Made playing off Sonic funny as well as he played off of others. Just one moment with Sonic begging him to trash talk was just what it took to make not feel indifferent to Silver.

-Eggman is about where he was at Colors...which is acceptable for a racing game, but still somewhat irksome. We're back to his mooks lowkey mocking him, his incompetency taking full center, etc. I don't want to be really harsh because "Story in racing game who cares" but it's just feels like everyone is basically bullying him. They humor and make sport of him even though they know exactly what he's doing. It's like they bother to play this game with him just to screw with him. Heck every villain is basically considered a loser who can't do anything right. So as an Eggman fan who would love to see him do something interesting to at least show my people are supposed to care about him...he basically impresses like a wet fart.

-Knuckles is a weird one. His lines range from ok to basically sounding more like a dumb jock meathead. He has a weird two voice thing going on depending on the kind of lines the actor is given. Calm lines are usually ok, but more intense ones he sounds like he's channeling Storm into the voice for some reason.

-Shadow is compared to watered down Vegeta which is true...though I kinda get a Chazz Princeton vibe, but without the funny part. The try hard edge lord part they share, though Chazz out of universe clearly runs with it. Not to mention their relationship is basically portrayed as Goku and Vegeta but not interesting. Except the one time Shadow says at one point to Sonic his focus was on Eggman more than Sonic near the end of the game.

 

Everyone else basically fills what has been standard so....rapid fire.

-Amy is still bland as fuck and has no identity. Definition of token girl character. I liked maybe one of her lines with Big...but that's about it.

-Rouge kinda sounds younger and older depending on the lines given...it's really weird. Like going from Modern Rouge to 4kids Rouge...ok maybe not that far.

-Blaze is perfect. Can't really think of anything wrong.

-Orbot and Cubot are back to breaking Eggmans eggs, which I personally am not a fan of. Especially when Eggman made them and it makes me wonder why the hell he made robots who berate him. I preferred them being scared of him.

-Vector is still the same, but glad he sorta got to do something. But it was nice his real team got to pitch in to figure things out.

-Omega is mostly bland, but wasn't given that much time so kinda hard to really judge.

-Big is Big, but I really like the angle of him being right. As well as pointing out things which are legitimately smart. Only dislike was when it sounded like he suggested he knew he was wrong when he was batting for Dodonpa.

-Dodonpa I like. He fills the role well enough, and I enjoy seeing him. Not really that great or bad...basically good enough.

-Tails 3 voices Prower is basically the same as usual. Though the 3 voices really bug the crap out of me. It's either the Kate Higgins substitute voice. Sora from Digimon speaking. Or Charmy Bee speaking which was the VA's previous character. Those 3 basically get shuffled around when it comes to which voice ya get in lines.

 

 

[Sonicka]

Funnily enough Major D I had planned to split my day yesterday between this and Transformed just so I could give myself a comparison in how I felt between the two.

Ultimately I decided against it, because I know if I had I can guarantee almost all of the time would have been with Transformed instead of TSR because that game is... well it’s just better. I’d likely  have come away feeling negativity about the changes made to TSR, which would not have been fair.

The Team mechanic works better than I actually thought it would and makes races more fun than they sometimes should be - it’s almost good enough compensation for what I still consider a huge downgrade on the USP from Transformed though.

I certainly don’t feel shortchanged though, for £25 this is a great experience. But it’s as you say, if more money was thrown at this it could have been even better. And that’s what stings.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Some fun bits of lore interpretation that TSR adds from the in-game dialogue.

Spoiler

Strong hint that Sonic characters eat bacon.

Multiple characters at some point took their drivers test and passed.

Knuckles has visited a doctor.

Knuckles secretly wants to be a bird. He gets very excited when he gets air time.

Silver is from the future. Blaze is from another dimension (re-affirmed)

In the opening CG sequence. It's strongly implied that Eggman murders Team Rose before Vector, Blaze and Silver then murder him.

 

Also something I was wondering in this.

Is Silver's voice actor in this the same person who voices Kirito in Sword Art Online? He sounds so much like him.

[BlueSpeedster]

27 minutes ago, Mayor D said:

Is Silver's voice actor in this the same person who voices Kirito in Sword Art Online? He sounds so much like him.

He is.

[Plasme]

Going to be honest, I agree with the reviewer who said that the current system of default skipping cutscenes gives off the impression that the developers are embarrassed by the story and want to hide it.

[Dr Ryan]

Anyone got the Switch version yet? Wondering if 30fps and slightly longer loading times is the only major difference?

Torn between Xbox for its performance or Switch for its portability... Anyone else in the same boat?

Cheers.

[Meta77]

Im guessing they must really hope the US side carries the sales for the game.. Stateside its only 30 dollars. Japan its still 66. Kind of bites its more a budget title as compared to ASRT. I had a gut feeling thats what it was going to be still looking forward to it though. But I honestly see the game dying after about 7 months unless Sega actually PLANs to support a game outside pso2 with dlc in the future. both ASR and ASRT were fun but lack of real dlc outside RT having a few random characters added well added next to no extra life to the game.

[TheOcelot]

Character Types Spotlight:

 

[The Tenth Doctor]

So I watched a video of the last race and seen something that has been pissing me off with Sonic games for a while, but its here again.

Spoiler

 

Before the race Eggman says with the engine in his Death Egg he's invincible. Thats right. Its another freaking Death Egg robot. The last one in Sonic Forces didn't even look like a Death Egg Robot! This ones a kart! Sega, just let the words "Death Egg Robot" never be used again.

 

[LukA8]

Finished the Team Adventure mode today, it took me two evenings and was quite the challenge jumping right into Hard mode. There's definitely a lot to get out of it by doing the secret challenges and Expert mode just like World tour, though it's sorely missing a post-campaign chapter. And while there's not much to spoil, I have a few thoughts about the story.

Spoiler

I came in expecting a second Free Riders but was quite relieved this wasn't the case. It reminded me more of Colors DS, just fun little, if meaningless interactions, but the cast gets along almost too well here. The characters are portrayed as likable and most of them get a few nice moments, except for poor Omega as usual, Zavok who still acts like a loyal Phantom Ruby copy and Metal Sonic who literally has a 1-second appearance (characters don't even react to him in races). Big's IQ was downgraded to like 5 which will not help his case as a character, and for once even I found him a tad annoying, especially since they were pushing for "the dumb guy was right all along" so much.

Speaking of, I'm not sure how to feel about the Dodon Pa "twist". I know the story was never going to be something notable, but the character actually felt enigmatic at the beginning. Silver begins to worry midway through about something which screamed "Nega" to me but that just goes nowhere. If anything, it made their inclusion over Team Chaotix even less justified since they're the ones who eventually figure it out, all off-screen which never makes for interesting story-telling.

Also on the topic of the Type spotlight, after playing a lot I must say that the Technique characters are probably the weakest of the bunch. They're easy to get into, but they struggle the most in the team gameplay because using their shortcuts will sabotage your Speed/Power characters who won't be able to follow your slipstreams, which is crucial for winning. Somehow their AIs are also the ones failing the most in your CPU team.

[Sandman444a]

4 hours ago, LukA8 said:

Also on the topic of the Type spotlight, after playing a lot I must say that the Technique characters are probably the weakest of the bunch. They're easy to get into, but they struggle the most in the team gameplay because using their shortcuts will sabotage your Speed/Power characters who won't be able to follow your slipstreams, which is crucial for winning. Somehow their AIs are also the ones failing the most in your CPU team.

Yeah, I was almost getting that impression a bit early on. Maybe technique gets a big stronger when it's just the solo races. 

The thing about the exclusive wisps was actually entire new to me and supposed I never actually noticed. Certainly makes the power characters look much stronger in my eyes seeing that they get the Void and Spike wisps.

[Blue Blood]

8 hours ago, The Tenth Doctor said:

So I watched a video of the last race and seen something that has been pissing me off with Sonic games for a while, but its here again.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Before the race Eggman says with the engine in his Death Egg he's invincible. Thats right. Its another freaking Death Egg robot. The last one in Sonic Forces didn't even look like a Death Egg Robot! This ones a kart! Sega, just let the words "Death Egg Robot" never be used again.

 

If I heard it correctly, then he literally calls the "Death Egg Robot car thing" a "Death Egg". Yeah, it's beyond annoying say this point and is just a forced narrative hole/error for no reason.

[Badnik Mechanic]

7 hours ago, Sandman444a said:

Yeah, I was almost getting that impression a bit early on. Maybe technique gets a big stronger when it's just the solo races. 

The thing about the exclusive wisps was actually entire new to me and supposed I never actually noticed. Certainly makes the power characters look much stronger in my eyes seeing that they get the Void and Spike wisps.

You can get void and spike wisps if you're a speed type and technique type to.

However they have to be passed to you and this isn't a rare event by any means.

The only rare wisp that I've seen so far is the drill wisp... which is annoying since there's a hard trophy related to it.

Technique characters are also not that bad, especially in later races, there's a few tracks where they can take some insane shortcuts and cut some crazy corners. Thing with them is not to try and win the race on tracks which have rough terrain, but use them as a supportive type, supply items to other players, or go offensive. Since they can take insane shortcuts, they can make up lost progress quite well.

[Dantemustdie00]

On 5/19/2019 at 5:11 PM, Meta77 said:

Im guessing they must really hope the US side carries the sales for the game.. Stateside its only 30 dollars. Japan its still 66. Kind of bites its more a budget title as compared to ASRT. I had a gut feeling thats what it was going to be still looking forward to it though. But I honestly see the game dying after about 7 months unless Sega actually PLANs to support a game outside pso2 with dlc in the future. both ASR and ASRT were fun but lack of real dlc outside RT having a few random characters added well added next to no extra life to the game.

Yeah this game has a ton of potential, but it's up to SEGA/Sumo ultimately.

Transformed got a LOT of attention from many racing players, but unfortunately we got barely nothing except for Alex Kid and Metal and only one track. the PC version got a bunch more characters like Ryo, but the problem was they were completely random or just crossover crap, the consoles never got them.

 

On 5/19/2019 at 5:11 PM, Meta77 said:

Im guessing they must really hope the US side carries the sales for the game.. Stateside its only 30 dollars. Japan its still 66. Kind of bites its more a budget title as compared to ASRT. I had a gut feeling thats what it was going to be still looking forward to it though. But I honestly see the game dying after about 7 months unless Sega actually PLANs to support a game outside pso2 with dlc in the future. both ASR and ASRT were fun but lack of real dlc outside RT having a few random characters added well added next to no extra life to the game.

Yeah this game has a ton of potential, but it's up to SEGA/Sumo ultimately.

Transformed got a LOT of attention from many racing players, but unfortunately we got barely nothing except for Alex Kid and Metal and only one track. the PC version got a bunch more characters like Ryo, but the problem was they were completely random or just crossover crap, the consoles never got them.

 

[Iko]

I watched some gameplay on youtube and I like the track design of some of the new tracks; Market Street is probably my favorite.

I like how messing up tricks can punish you, so you have to think and not spam.

Though I dislike how each time you are hit/get damage, you stop completely and lose all the rings. I haven't played it yet but that looks frustrating.

Overall it seems a decent game and it's apparently cheap too. (but I haven't played it, I only watched it).

I hope it will get some DLC support, despite they said that they won't. I especially wish they put in the missing recurring characters plus maybe some unexpected one (but it will most likely not happen sadly), but a couple of additional tracks would be cool too.

[Plasme]

Is this game getting delayed on Steam? Why is it still not available for purchase? it comes out tomorrow.

[StellarBlur]

36 minutes ago, Plasme said:

Is this game getting delayed on Steam? Why is it still not available for purchase? it comes out tomorrow.

It's not available for purchase anywhere digitally. It should be up midnight PST if Aaron is to be believe. Let's hope it's actually midnight for each region.

[Multikaris]

About Zavok...

it’s entirely possible Zavok IS a Phantom Ruby clone. Given that he was baked in lava the last time we saw him, and that it was clear he disliked Eggman due to his brainwashing, his portrayal here seems odd, but, what about all the Phantom Ruby Easter eggs! Could it not be such an Easter Egg after all?

[DabigRG]

The number of spoiler tags is starting to make me a little more anxi for tomorrow.

They are appreciated.

[Plasme]

1 hour ago, StellarBlur said:

It's not available for purchase anywhere digitally. It should be up midnight PST if Aaron is to be believe. Let's hope it's actually midnight for each region.

SEGA's marketing and business decisions are extremely bizarre when it comes to Sonic. Don't show any content from the game for ages and also don't allow anyone to pre-order it digitally.

Eh, okay.

[Shadowlax]

1 hour ago, Miragnarok said:

About Zavok...

  Hide contents

it’s entirely possible Zavok IS a Phantom Ruby clone. Given that he was baked in lava the last time we saw him, and that it was clear he disliked Eggman due to his brainwashing, his portrayal here seems odd, but, what about all the Phantom Ruby Easter eggs! Could it not be such an Easter Egg after all?

 

Spoiler

The phantom ruby sound effect is in the files and unused. I get the feeling there were other things that were gonna happen in the story and didn't