Sonic has had his ups and downs for a while now. Once one of gaming’s greatest icons, the blue hedgehog has appeared in numerous releases over the years with some very mixed results. Some entries take Sonic back to his glory days, capturing the speed and style of his earliest and most successful games so many years ago. Others aren’t nearly as successful; a mish-mash of ideas and concepts that are never as good as those offered by the competition. Unfortunately, Team Sonic Racing drifts into the growing backlog of mediocre Sonic games – an average racer that fails to build any real momentum under the weight of its design and mechanics.
This is a game that, at least on paper, should be a great time. The Sonic series has always been about speed, beating the clock and fighting everything that comes between you and the goal. Sega is also no stranger to this genre, with many racing titles (both with and without Sonic) under its belt. All the pieces were in place to create another solid arcade racer with some of gaming’s most recognisable characters – but despite this, Team Sonic Racing just doesn’t quite reach the mark. In what is likely the most divisive change to the racing formula here, Sumo Digital amd Sega have gone hard on the ‘team’ aspect. General races are run with 12 characters that are split into 4 teams. Default teams are designed to have one ‘speed’ driver, one ‘technical’ driver and another for ‘power’. This isn’t very different to many of Sonic’s previous successful outings, such as 2003’s Sonic Heroes or 2001’s Sonic Adventure 2. These games were really able to shine with characters in different roles, allowing for some nice variation in level design and gameplay. We’re told that the split of characters into different types here is for a similar reason; the technical drivers are used for precision driving and offroad, while power characters can clear obstacles and suffer slightly less damage than the other racers. But at the end of the day, this is a game about crossing a finish line as fast as possible – so what real incentive is there to pick characters outside the speed type?
Even outside of the allocated role system, the 3-person team design also creates a few other unnecessary problems. The game’s base race style is a ‘team race’, whereby the trio crowned as champions at the end will be the three characters with the highest group placing. This means that even if you place first, having your teammates place well behind the pack could cost you the win once all is said and done. It’s an interesting mechanic, and it’s the game’s way of making sure you’re playing with the team spirit it’s designed for. In order to make sure your team as a whole does well, you’ll need to exchange items with one another during the race, ride each other’s tracks for some boosts and coordinate ‘ultimate’ moves as a group as you go. Helping out the team results in more ultimate boosts during a race, and this is the key to victory in just about every level. It all plays out just as chaotically as it sounds, with each team aiming to build their boost as quickly as possible so they can cut a burning path through the competition. In what appears to be a mechanic designed to give everyone a fair shot at winning, having half the competition light up as invincible golden rockets every lap of a race just ends up feeling cheap. Even when playing against racers in the single-player mode, there’s no real reason to nail those drifts or thoroughly learn a track when the outcome essentially rests on the press of a button.
To that end, many items that you pick up during a race simply become a way to build your ultimate move by passing them around the team. This isn’t a huge loss, as the weapons and pick-ups on each track aren’t fantastic. The items (‘Wisps’) in this game act as they do in most other arcade racers – missiles launched at enemies in front, small boosts to give you a bit of space or hazards dropped behind for others to run into. With the exception of a couple new ideas thrown in, many of these items feel like they’ve been pulled from other similar racers – albeit with less care. None of the pick-ups ever really feel like they have much use, often doing next to nothing in fighting off those around you or giving you any breathing room. No matter how good you are at using these items strategically, you’ll be bowled over all the same once the other racers come burning through with their ultimate move. The tracks themselves aren’t too bad, generally being based off levels and environments from past Sonic games. Outside of the familiar sights and nice background designs, most start to blur together after a while – with a few feeling overly long and needlessly complicated. Some tracks will split into two or three paths at points, while others will be full of camera-tilting curves and turns aimed at sending you off the nearest cliff.
Where you can become quite familiar with the twists and turns of a level is within the game’s additional challenge levels. The single-player mode features a number of these semi-optional trials, removing all other racers and pitting you against the clock. You’ll spend the time either collecting rings, skirting past checkpoints or dodging obstacles on the road under some really tight time limits. If you’re looking to fully ‘complete’ these challenges, bear in mind that they are a brutal bunch of levels. Most will reward you with extra time if you speed through the track while drifting all over the place – a feat that would be easier if it didn’t feel like you were sliding on ice half the time. Should you manage to reach the top spot in one of these events, it will likely come in the dying seconds of the time limit after many, many attempts. It’s probably the only time that using a technical driver would be recommended, if only to get a bit more of a grip on the corners with the precise drifting you’ll need to pass. The difficulty of these do make for a great challenge, but one that generally feels frustrating and unfair rather than rewarding.
Underlying the events of the single-player adventure is a weak plot which is used to link these races together. In true Sonic fashion, it’s really just oddball stuff used just to move things along – and honestly, very few people come into an arcade racer expecting some powerful and thought-provoking narrative. Almost admitting how little attention the game’s plot deserves, the development team have inexplicably made the default option for starting a race to be ‘without story’. You could play through the entire adventure with next to no plot unless you remember to turn it on for each race. For those interested, a new character (‘Dodon Pa’) appears on the scene to challenge Sonic and friends to a racing tournament. There’s no real motive at the start, but it serves enough to pull Sonic and his crew to the racetrack to learn more. As your adventure continues and the plot thickens, you’ll meet up with and unlock new racing teams from the Sonic series. Sumo Digital was unfortunately unable to pull in a wider cast of Sega characters for this one, and Team Sonic Racing‘s structured stats and specific roles can sometimes make picking your favourite a bit restrictive too. While there are a number of upgradeable vehicle parts and designs to unlock, having such a limited character roster while other games of this type offer dozens of choices is a bit of a drawback.
This becomes even more obvious when you head online against others. As mentioned before, speed is the name of the game here and most in the online community know it. Majority of races will generally be run with the same two or three speed-type characters for every player, and each run generally descends into who can boost their team to the top as soon as possible. The design of the supermove also means multiplayer becomes a bit of a mixed bag depending on your situation. Once the team has the boost available, activating it at the same time as your group provides the best result. This is fine if you and your friends are in the same room or chat and are able to coordinate it, but it becomes a total guessing game when trying to play with randoms online. The game honestly feels like it’s at its best when played with a few friends on the couch, rather than battling through the single player challenges or online chaos.
Team Sonic Racing has made a solid attempt at an arcade racer here, with some slick visuals and the return of many of the series’ most recognisable characters. Yet beneath the surface it attempts to differentiate itself almost too much from its kart-racer competition, focusing heavily on its team approach without noticing the very obvious flaws with it. The game seems to lack the tight and reactive feel of a great arcade racer, opting instead for flashy moves and huge difficulty spikes to extend playtime. While it’s a bit of fun for friends in the same room, the game is a tough recommendation given the stronger existing racers around and Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fuelled on the horizon. Grab it if you’re really into your blue hedgehogs, otherwise it might be best to hold out for Sonic’s next outing – he’s about due for another success.
Team Sonic Racing – Available now on PS4, XBOne, PC and Nintendo Switch.