Team Sonic Racing - Team Up Trailer

[Patron]

 

Quote

The race is about to begin! Join Sonic and friends as they speed across vibrant tracks and do whatever it takes to come out in first place. Race online with up to 12 friends, play with friends in your living room with split screen, customize and personalize your car for maximum speed, and work together as a team to unleash your Team Ultimate Boost. Gear Up. Speed Up. Team Racing at Sonic Speed.

Team Sonic Racing arrives May 21st on Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC!

[Rowl]

Well, we will see in a few months which game will sell better: Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled or Team Sonic Racing. Sonic's only hope is his mascot status, since most Sonic characters, even the bad ones, are most well-known by people, while Crash's cast is pretty unrecognizable.  

[Iko]

1 hour ago, Patron said:

 

I'm not really a fan of the linear track design, and those rock obstacles in the Rooftop Run track are the same seen in the ice track... I'm not sure what to think about the monster stage hazards...

Still on the fence but I'm getting a bad vibe from this video; the Customization trailer has shown less but what was shown was more interesting IMO (especially that piece of the pyramid level with axes, a secondary route and King Boom Boo far away). I hope the game is full of stuff like that and doesn't reuse the same obstacles in several tracks like the rock things.

[Plasme]

Crash Team Racing will probably sell better, the N Sane Trilogy was ridiculously successful.

[Tracker_TD]

The track footage was definitely a lot less interesting than the customisation trailer/b-roll footage, yeah. And the rock obstacles look extremely out of place. Hrm. I want to put this down to them just picking bad footage but given my earlier reservations on the tracks them being overly linear wouldn't surprise me. 

Alternatively - perhaps the obstacles could be an item? I dunno if we've seen them all yet. 

[Plasme]

What do people mean by linear track design? Don't most kart racers have mostly linear tracks? Crash Team Racing certainly does excluding shortcuts.

[Tracker_TD]

6 minutes ago, Plasme said:

What do people mean by linear track design? Don't most kart racers have mostly linear tracks? Crash Team Racing certainly does excluding shortcuts.

"Crash Team Racing has linear level design, excluding the parts where it doesn't have linear level design" isn't exactly a great argument. That being said - even if Crash can be considered to have linear level design, that doesn't really excuse it here. 

The footage shown here is very 'straight line' esque. There's no much in the way of interesting diversions for variety of anything, it's just long roads with curves and stuff, maybe the occasional jump, like something out of a simulator game. That's not to say they're all like this, because we know they aren't - the customisation trailer footage showed as much. But it's puzzling why they'd go with relatively boring footage to promote it. 

[Plasme]

1 hour ago, Tracker_TD said:

"Crash Team Racing has linear level design, excluding the parts where it doesn't have linear level design" isn't exactly a great argument. That being said - even if Crash can be considered to have linear level design, that doesn't really excuse it here. 

The footage shown here is very 'straight line' esque. There's no much in the way of interesting diversions for variety of anything, it's just long roads with curves and stuff, maybe the occasional jump, like something out of a simulator game. That's not to say they're all like this, because we know they aren't - the customisation trailer footage showed as much. But it's puzzling why they'd go with relatively boring footage to promote it. 

Yeah, but we don't know what shortcuts the Sonic stages may have. Like, if all you knew about for Crash Team Racing were the videos being uploaded to Youtube now, you would think that was really linear too.

I mean, straight lines, curves and turns is kind of what kart game tracks are?

[tailsBOOM!]

This game keeps on looking better and better! Can't wait!  I have full trust in Sumo!

[Tracker_TD]

12 minutes ago, Plasme said:

Yeah, but we don't know what shortcuts the Sonic stages may have. Like, if all you knew about for Crash Team Racing were the videos being uploaded to Youtube now, you would think that was really linear too.

I mean, straight lines, curves and turns is kind of what kart game tracks are?

On a level geometry level - yes they're straight lines and turns. You're forgetting setpieces that actually set the levels apart - and example in Mario Kart might be something like the cannons, or the wavy roads and loops in Rainbow Road, or conveyor belts, etc etc. There's not much in the way of that in the footage here besides the buzzsaw in the Planet Wisp bit. Again - we know they're there in at least some stages (like the anti-gravity bit in Mother's Canyon) but they're just not really being shown or aren't all that common. It's more tame stuff like "here's a flat road... with laser beams on it". Arguably the cannons fall into that too but I dunno - they at least feel exciting in the context of Mario Kart. 

As for Crash, they've actually marketed Crash using gameplay, so no, I wouldn't. 

 

EDIT: As for the pillars, apparently they're in the Team Gameplay spotlight too, suggesting they are indeed just Wisp items. 

[LukA8]

Good catch! I thought how weird it looked that the pillars just fell from the sky in the old team trailer, and how unfitting they looked in Rooftop Run (thought it was Shamar for a second). It's likely the Gray Wisp scattering the pillars on the track, similar to the Wasp Swarm in Transformed which was basically the game's Blue Shell. This has to be the Wisp that's supposedly exclusive to Power Type racers, since they can just drive through the obstacles.

Also, the returning Roulette Road was shown in the trailer. I really hope the third Casino track is Starlight Carnival instead, or something new.

 

[Iko]

40 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

EDIT: As for the pillars, apparently they're in the Team Gameplay spotlight too, suggesting they are indeed just Wisp items.  

That's cool then... as an item it's actually original enough too.

[Dr. Detective]

I appreciated that. It did its job. It looked cool. I like how seamless the transition from gameplay to CGI was. That was neat. Its actually been quite a long time since we've seen some of those characters in CGI.

 

[Blueknight V2.0]

What's this at the 22-second mark? Infinite is finally returning. But why are they not cubes this time?

[Salamander]

It's really weird that the CG parts of the trailer don't appear to include Zavok or Metal Sonic, just the generic Eggpawns which as far as we know aren't even playable.  It's not like Zavok and Metal can be late inclusions or anything, so what's with the pretence that they're not in the game?

5 minutes ago, Blueknight V2.0 said:

What's this at the 22-second mark? Infinite is finally returning. But why are they not cubes this time?

They're not cubes because it's not Infinite, it's just a flashy text effect.

[Red Hot Jack]

Actually it is a bit suspicious that they decided to go with "things shaped like rubies" for the destroyed text… anyway good trailer, I was definitely expecting more gameplay footage and less customization stuff so this pleases me, I wanted a new track but oh well, gotta save the surprises for launch. CGI looks sick. I assume Zavok and Metal Sonic are not in the opening because they were planning to keep them secret I guess?

[LukA8]

6 minutes ago, FFWF said:

It's really weird that the CG parts of the trailer don't appear to include Zavok or Metal Sonic, just the generic Eggpawns which as far as we know aren't even playable.  It's not like Zavok and Metal can be late inclusions or anything, so what's with the pretence that they're not in the game?

It's been mentioned Zavok is in the story "for his own reasons" (likely as a boss), so Team Eggman might not be a thing until later into the game. No idea why he wouldn't race with Metal Sonic from the get-go, though.

[Rowl]

Didn't Metal-Sonic also betray Eggman like the other villains?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

18 minutes ago, FFWF said:

It's not like Zavok and Metal can be late inclusions or anything

Well there is actually a story mode. 

[Dr. Detective]

3 hours ago, LukA8 said:

It's been mentioned Zavok is in the story "for his own reasons" (likely as a boss), so Team Eggman might not be a thing until later into the game. No idea why he wouldn't race with Metal Sonic from the get-go, though.

I'm tempted to say its because they remembered that Zavok hates the fuck out of Eggman and they want to include a reason for him joining later or the reason is given at the beginning but it takes a while to get going. But I'm hesitant to give them that much credit. 

 

[DabigRG]

4 hours ago, FFWF said:

It's really weird that the CG parts of the trailer don't appear to include Zavok or Metal Sonic, just the generic Eggpawns which as far as we know aren't even playable.  It's not like Zavok and Metal can be late inclusions or anything, so what's with the pretence that they're not in the game?

Yeah, I noticed that too.

I'm assuming it's because this CG footage is actually from the game's intro and thus putting them there instead of the custom Eggman Pawns wouldn't really make sense.

4 hours ago, LukA8 said:

It's been mentioned Zavok is in the story "for his own reasons" (likely as a boss), so Team Eggman might not be a thing until later into the game. No idea why he wouldn't race with Metal Sonic from the get-go, though.

Team Eggman seems to be more a product of convenience, as they wanted recognizable Boss characters to show up at intervals in storymode but were also seemingly obligated to have them be playable.

Thus, they picked the three big recurring villains for the job--Eggman, Metal, and Zavok.

3 hours ago, Rowl said:

Didn't Metal-Sonic also betray Eggman like the other villains?

Well, yeah.

Keep in mind that in Free Riders, Metal snuck his way into the World Grand Prix premises hoping to get the drop on Sonic, but Rouge and Shadow unknowingly picked him out to appease Omochao.

[Multikaris]

5 hours ago, Jack the Shadow said:

Actually it is a bit suspicious that they decided to go with "things shaped like rubies" for the destroyed text… anyway good trailer, I was definitely expecting more gameplay footage and less customization stuff so this pleases me, I wanted a new track but oh well, gotta save the surprises for launch. CGI looks sick. I assume Zavok and Metal Sonic are not in the opening because they were planning to keep them secret I guess?

Indeed it is. Remember the glitch-like red particles on the title reveal in the trailer? Or that sound that sounded kinda like the Phantom Ruby sound when the Bomb Wisp was thrown? 

[Silvereyes]

Zavok and Metal Sonic are also the only 2 racers not to appear in IDW's tie-in comic, and so far havn't appeared in Overdrive yet, with both of those media things only having Eggman by himself, and with him tasking an Egg Pawn outside the race to distract members of Team Rose. Who knows, maybe they'll appear in Overdrive episode 2, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are absent from that as well.

Maybe I'm wrong here but wern't Zavok and Metal Sonic the last characters to be announced? Perhaps the plan was to not announce them until the last few days before TSR came out last year before it got that big delay? Certainly would explain their IDW absence. No idea if Overdrive was intended to be put on Youtube back last year if TSR didn't get delayed, or if that got commissioned after the delay occured.

[Dr. Detective]

I wouldn't put too much stock in theories surrounding Metal Sonic and Zavok. Not to make light of the speculation but sometimes there are characters who just tend to show up a tad less in trailers because they were revealed late within the game's marketing. Kind of like how "Casino Forest" and that whole aesthetic was the least prominently shown stage in Forces' marketing because it was revealed late.

[StratusAsterion]

As much as I would like to see Infinite come back in this, I'm more curious was that an Iblis Golem at the 0:24 mark?  Cuz that guy got screwed over in Generations so I'd love to see it get a chance to shine here