Team Sonic Racing - GamesCom Impressions

[Meta77]

33 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 

I hope he doesn't read the boards...

Best casual. well there goes my hopes of this surpassing transformed. Least I know the difficulty is seems to suggest  transformed bronze tier at best.

[NezumiVA]

Hey hey, difficulty isn't everything. It's a kart-racer, it doesn't have to be difficult to be fun.

[Dr. Detective]

Yeah. Part of the reason I found the first All-Stars superior was kind of how inviting it was in comparison to Transformed. Was not a fan of the way missions and unlocking stuff was handled in that game. 

[Meta77]

Difficulty is one thing that has always made kart racers fun. Even back to mario kart. Unless someone is literally a casual I can not think of one time anywhere from local to tourneys of anyone playing under the higher difficultys. Be it sonic or 150 cc in mario kart. It be like everyone playing 50cc with that new boundary assist they put in mario kart switch. If that is your thing more power to you for real. But for me if its that toned down than im going to wait for a sale at least under 20.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Ah,  there's the infamous "casual" buzzword. Think you're  maybe overdoing it again @Meta77?

If anything,  properly termed casual goes for "accessible" rather than piss easy.

[NezumiVA]

Casual is such an outdated term at this point for me. Just make your game accessible to people, and add varying degrees of challenge. If it's a difficult game, it's a difficult game - and that's fine, but implying games should be inaccessible to casual players because their skill level would inherently water down the experience is just kind of...odd. And gatekeepy. At least in my opinion.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

1 hour ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 

I hope he doesn't read the boards...

You mean just these ones? This does seem to be the only one raising a storm for whatever reason, to the present extent. 

[Meta77]

12 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Megumin Academy said:

Ah,  there's the infamous "casual" buzzword. Think you're  maybe overdoing it a bit again @Meta77?

Probably. When I hear Casual its that word that means its easy for beginners and then when you go online people who are good never come under 3rd place unless they try. Honestly its the reason I come back and  forth to Mario Kart with that "easy mode".  Its like the new pokemon lets go games which basically hold your hand to become "accessible" its like games can not have a challenge. had kids grown up on games of the 90s im afraid we would have hit another game crash from people unable to beat them.

 

What i need is a dark souls themed sonic game lol

[NezumiVA]

I really don't see the issue with accessibility. Sure games when I was growing up were harder, but a lot of games back then were also needlessly obtuse. Simon's Quest, anyone?

[Meta77]

You can look at it from a I guess getting older/no challenge outside other hardcore players/ the arcade days. All of which i grew up in / still do (to a extent with competitive games) There is noting wrong with making a game easy so more kids or people with no skills whatsoever to get into. Where it becomes annoying at least for me is when you try to go online. I am not in undergrad no high school so outside a few people i know at cons i have no local players. When  i go online i like to try and find a good competition. But when games get TO easy it become boring. When your always at the top of the leaderboards why care? Why even practice to try and be good like say in Mario Kart 64. Now if i still lived at home or around my old college friends in a dorm local play would be fun. But I do not have that so I enjoy a challenge. Plus the fact stands. why downgrade from what transformed was or even moreso from all stars. Both pretty tough in their own rights.

[Dr. Detective]

I loved the first All-Stars Racer the way it was in terms of difficulty. I don't remember it being that hard or annoying. I recall that being the case with Transformed though. I did as much of those "Be impossibly good at drifting" missions as I could stomach until I unlocked AGES. Then I didn't touch the mission mode again.

I don't even necessarily agree that by "casual" they mean easy. Transformed might still qualify as "casual" to them depending on how they look at it. I can see that. It's a racing game that you play with your buddies right? Smash Bros. has this super intense competitive thing going for it but I could see that being taken as a casual game too. I consider it a party game more than a fighter honestly. 

[MegasonicZX]

1 hour ago, NezumiVA said:

Hey hey, difficulty isn't everything. It's a kart-racer, it doesn't have to be difficult to be fun.

Depends on who you ask really. For me transformed is fun because of how difficult it can be on the higher difficulty settings and because of how skill based the missions were. I can't even do the difficulties below expert nowadays because I just find the speed too low and the AI too forgiving. Also (and I don't say this with any elitism even though it mind sound like it) I don't think the games going to have all that much of a satisfying single player mode as transformed if it isn't going to be as hard or harder, it just felt good to go through the challenges and see my efforts rewarded for getting good with the game on it's higher difficulties (most games only give you trophies or something for beating the highest difficulty nowadays) and while I know that's alienating for less experienced players I know the alternative will be "make it easy to get everything and then whatever to everything else".

Personally, i'd prefer if they made it hard to get everything and just offer some kind of DLC or in game cheat codes for the people that can't do it.

Edit: New gameplay lads!

 

[Dr. Detective]

The guy said it's Ice Cap Zone from Sonic Advance? I've never played Sonic Advance so I'm not too sure how well the representation is here.

Oh wait. I just looked it up. The level actually IS called Ice Mountain Zone. Huh.

[Sonicka]

1 hour ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

The guy said it's Ice Cap Zone from Sonic Advance? I've never played Sonic Advance so I'm not too sure how well the representation is here.

Oh wait. I just looked it up. The level actually IS called Ice Mountain Zone. Huh.

Yeah, this is the interview I mentioned earlier. Doesn’t give much me much confidence when he talked about Easter eggs and representation for fans if he ain’t sure himself what level this even is from ahaha! 

Im still trying to work it out myself, personally.

[Dr. Detective]

2 hours ago, Son-icka said:

Yeah, this is the interview I mentioned earlier. Doesn’t give much me much confidence when he talked about Easter eggs and representation for fans if he ain’t sure himself what level this even is from ahaha! 

Im still trying to work it out myself, personally.

Well, again, I'm a bit of a poor example of that since, like I said, I've never played Sonic Advance.

I've never seen Ice Mountain Zone so it being represented here wouldn't have caught my eye at all.

[Salamander]

I believe we've established that tracks can have different names from the wider zone they're a part of - "Market Street" instead of "Rooftop Run," for instance, in what I guess is a similar way of approaching locales to Forces.  So I could buy that "Ice Mountain" is a subset of a wider "Ice Cap".  At the same time, it does rankle that the interviewer correctly picked Sonic Advance as the originator of the Ice Mountain name (which is no mean feat), and then Sumo's representative immediately confused it with a different game and got the name of his own level wrong.

[Gabz Girl]

These previews don’t sound very promising so far. I know that’s how it was received at E3 but jeez. Also surprised that there still isn’t an official release date announced. Probably can’t decide if they should release it during the holidays or next year where it’s up against a ton of games! 

 

[Pawn]

I actually really like Blaze's car, looking at that video. The ears are odd, but they aren't really noticeable from behind. It looks like it was based on an old Rolls Royce Phantom (it even has a "Spirit of Ecstasy" - the mini statue - at the front of the bonnet), which is appropriate given her status:

[Meta77]

How much was all stars and transformed st launch

[Blue Blood]

11 hours ago, Meta77 said:

Best casual. well there goes my hopes of this surpassing transformed. Least I know the difficulty is seems to suggest  transformed bronze tier at best.

For what it's worth, ASRT could just as easily be be classed as "casual", as could Mario Kart or any other party game. Just an easy going, multiplayer kart race that's designed for anyone to pick up and play. Don't get me wrong, TSR is still looking to be more and more disappointing every time we get more info. But the game getting an award for "best casual game" at a pre-release event show means literally nothing except that the game is better than whatever else was on show in the category in some people's opinion.

For what it's worth, the competition was Life is Strange 2 and Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight. 

[Badnik Mechanic]

Casual on this context means a game you can pick up and more or less master the controls to do well very quickly without guides or aids across all ages and ability.

Why are some people arguing that this is a bad thing.

[Mr Loopone]

Casual just means pick up and play. You don't need to look up the control scheme or requiring pressing every button on the controller to get anywhere, it might still need a tutorial but they are much quicker than going through a level or two like some games. It was made into a dirty word during the Wii era by some people because they wanted traditional styled gameplay instead of something that kids played with their Wii Remotes. Casual has been used in some games as an easy mode though.

1 hour ago, Meta77 said:

How much was all stars and transformed st launch

No clue about US prices but I have a hunch. Originally I thought they were at £30 in the UK since that's how much that I paid for the DS version of the former and the PS3 version of the latter (technically cheaper though) but did a bit of digging because each platform varied in price. Thankful that Transformed was released when digital started to get popular so it was easier to get more accurate prices.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing was £40 for the PS3 and the 360 versions (that'll be $60, full price), £30 for the Wii and DS versions. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed was £30 for the PS3 and 360 versions both physical and digital, £40 on the Wii U because it was a launch title (so $60 again), £25 for the physical Vita version (£35 on PSN) and the forgotten 3DS version. For what little I know about US prices, does $40 sound right for Transformed?

Team Sonic Racing at the moment is around £35/$40 by comparison.

[Sega DogTagz]

The casual thing is a mute point anyway. Kart racers have multiple speed/difficulty levels that make a huge difference in how easy the game is to pick up and play. Transformed lowest settings are incredibly noob friendly but at the same time, cranking it up the the max and racing on some of the end game levels with challenge you to bring your A game.

So long as the game has its multiple difficulty levels, then who cares how easy to play the lower modes are. Thats just a happy bonus for weaker players.

[Dr. Detective]

12 hours ago, Pawn said:

I actually really like Blaze's car, looking at that video. The ears are odd, but they aren't really noticeable from behind. It looks like it was based on an old Rolls Royce Phantom (it even has a "Spirit of Ecstasy" - the mini statue - at the front of the bonnet), which is appropriate given her status:

Silver's car, I found out recently, also is a thing that exists. A Mercedes Benz Biome.

 

[Jango]

Oh man, after reading all this, it's amazing how this game gets worse everytime. 21 tracks would be fine, but then I read "7 areas" ... and then comes the "casual" thing... Good Lord, they're trying their best to make this an easy skip, huh?