All-Stars Racing Transformed: The Track Roster Thread

[Carbo]

Of course Sonic is a selling point, of course he's going to hold reigns. It's the same way you expect Mario to have most inclusions and content in a Smash Bros. game, along with being the name sake description who coined the name to the franchise. Doesn't mean that it's a Sonic game.

Obviously putting Sonic in the title is nothing but a mere preliminary to gain focus but when you have not many inclusions to pick from that people actually know of, and it's required to operate from a marketing standpoint. The fact that we have Vyse, Joe Musashi and Gillius Thunderhead in a game that has "Sonic" over the ones that had "Sega" in the name should speak enough about what kind of game this is.

[Barry the Nomad]

One of our faithful SEGAbits forum members, Kori, who dressed as Joe from Shinobi at Sonic Boom, hit the SEGA Arcade and says he thinks he spotted a Shinobi track in the menu screen. Check it out:

[PsychoJosh]

SST and then ASR, the focus has shifted strongly towards Sonic. It's not really a Sonic game in the strictest sense, but it's more that than a SEGA one.

No it isn't. The main reason people are buying it is because of all the Sega fanservice. What 's got people excited is the inclusion of tracks from Panzer Dragoon and Golden Axe, and the inclusion of characters like Vyse and Joe Musashi. The Sega properties in this game are a major driving force behind the sales. Sonic's in the title to capitalize on parents who just know about Sonic but not much else.

And Sonic getting more than two tracks would be a travesty.

[Balding Spider]

Shinobi track? This pleases Spider greatly.

[DaN]

just by looking at it I say that will be the best track of the game might be Dragon Road? Anyway I'm hoping it's a Shinobi themed one.

I hope SUMO will give us a great diversity about tracks, concerning both locations and franchises. For now I'm more that satisfied with the confirmed ones.

I'd like to see mostly:

a snow level: my personal favourite is White Park, for the carnival thing

a "horror"level: could be an House of the Dead one that mixes the haunted mansion with the underground part (with boat section in the green poison)

a future themed level: Phantasy Star is a must for this

a beach/tropical level: Emerald Coast would be my pick, but I don't mind another beautiful iteration of Seaside Hill

a space themed level: we already have Death Hangar, but possibly a Space Channel 5 level would add a lot of diversity

a sky themed level: and that's when I remind Skies of Arcadia

a desert track: when we come to this I have in mind Mazuri, but a Super Monkey Ball level is welcomed too

a casino park: a Sonic one, with no doubts

a Mall level: the awesome Tomato Store themed track from Shenmue is an awesome Idea I've read back in this topic

considering SA2 re-release, I expect a SA2 level...and City Escape would be my favourite

EDIT: Look at that

http://valkyria.wikia.com/wiki/Castle_Gassenarl

this Castle Gassenarl migt be interesting as a location

Edited July 15, 2012 by BlueHedgehog92

[JezMM]

No it isn't. The main reason people are buying it is because of all the Sega fanservice.

You say that and then...

Sonic's in the title to capitalize on parents who just know about Sonic but not much else.

Sorry but the majority of consumers ARE going to be such people. It might seem like everyone is excited about the SEGA stuff here in internetland but we're still quite a minority compared to the bazillion kids who will buy this just for Sonic. And of course the bazillion adults who still like Sonic!

And Sonic getting more than two tracks would be a travesty.

I'm still not quite getting this half-hearted "Sonic should get equal billing" arguements. Where are all the complaints about the fact that Sonic has about three to four times the amount of characters as the other franchises if you don't think he should get three to four times the amount of track representation as the other franchises?

Edited July 15, 2012 by JezMM

[Chooch]

I guarantee you can find people who take issue with the fact that so many Sonic characters are in All-Stars Racing. Even I would be up for sacrificing Sonic characters to make room for more of Sega's other IPs.

In all honesty, it doesn't really make much sense to put in more than like.. Sonic, Tails, Eggman, and Amy when you consider the fact that none of the other Sonic characters in the game's roster have been relevant post-2006. Maybe replace Amy with Shadow due to sheer popularity, but yeah..

I honestly wasn't expecting Big or even Knuckles to make it in the first All-Stars Racing. It's not that I didn't want Knuckles, it's just that I wasn't expecting him to be in the game along with four other side characters specifically from the Sonic series.

I don't know. I feel like I'd take way less issue with the staggering amount of Sonic tracks in the original All-Stars Racing if, as I said before, they weren't all from Heroes and the majority of them where actually good in comparison to the other tracks in the game. It just reeked of laziness.

Edited July 15, 2012 by Chooch

[Blue Blood]

I guarantee you can find people who take issue with the fact that so many Sonic characters are in All-Stars Racing. Even I would be up for sacrificing Sonic characters to make room for more of Sega's other IPs.

In all honesty, it doesn't really make much sense to put in more than like.. Sonic, Tails, Eggman, and Amy when you consider the fact that none of the other Sonic characters in the game's roster have been relevant post-2006. Maybe replace Amy with Shadow due to sheer popularity, but yeah..

I honestly wasn't expecting Big or even Knuckles to make it in the first All-Stars Racing. It's not that I didn't want Knuckles, it's just that I wasn't expecting him to be in the game along with four other side characters specifically from the Sonic series.

I don't know. I feel like I'd take way less issue with the staggering amount of Sonic tracks in the original All-Stars Racing if, as I said before, they weren't all from Heroes and the majority of them where actually good in comparison to the other tracks in the game. It just reeked of laziness.

People had big issues with Knuckles, Big and Blaze merely standing in the background of the Green Hill court in SST and not being playable, so I wasn't surprised to see Knuckles in ASR. Big was a surprise, and a very pleasant one at that. Even if the cast isn't relevant to the main series, they're still part of the series at large and have a following. It would be really silly of them to consider omitting characters in spin-off titles.

Not sure is the tracks in the last game felt lazy, because they were all fun to play apart from the three set in Final Fortress. It's more the motif that got me too though. All Heroes and just three stages. It's not a problem now though, so

[JezMM]

I can agree that the Heroes thing was boring yeah. If someone gave me the choice between just three brand new unique tracks for Sonic and the rest all SEGA... OR like 8 Sonic tracks but they share locales like last time, I'd certainly choose the former. I just really got it in my head that we'd be likely to see a lot of favourite locations in HD glory that didn't make it into Generations*.

(*I say this sort of lightly though on the basis that Eggmanland was one of my favourite track ideas when we were all wishlisting the day away and obviously we have already seen that in HD glory. ...But I'd like to see it again a bit different! 8D; ).

[PsychoJosh]

Sorry but the majority of consumers ARE going to be such people. It might seem like everyone is excited about the SEGA stuff here in internetland but we're still quite a minority compared to the bazillion kids who will buy this just for Sonic. And of course the bazillion adults who still like Sonic!

I think you're underestimating the popularity of Sega games. I've heard similar things about people buying Smash Bros just for Mario. I don't think this is entirely true, or even falsifiable.

I'm still not quite getting this half-hearted "Sonic should get equal billing" arguements. Where are all the complaints about the fact that Sonic has about three to four times the amount of characters as the other franchises if you don't think he should get three to four times the amount of track representation as the other franchises?

I don't mind the characters, I was talking about the stages. The stages are limited in number so Sonic getting more than 2 would be problematic. I never said Sonic should "get equal billing", everyone treats the amalgam of Sega characters as a whole opposite to Sonic. For example my most-wanted character Vectorman doesn't have any secondary characters so the series would receive maximum possible representation solely from him being in the game. The roster is very limited, so I don't want it to be filled up with secondary characters like Pudding, Fina, Corn and Gum. If there were going to be 50 characters in the game then maybe such a thing would be viable.

[DaN]

Sonic has a lot of different and varied locations, and should at least have 3 stages in this game (1 air/ground/water, 1 air/ground and 1 water/ground)

[JezMM]

Pfff. I'd settle for three but I still think Sonic deserves at least five considering he's the only franchise with a lot of memorable locations from a variety of eras that's still actually alive.

[PsychoJosh]

Sonic should have no tracks at all.

In fact I wouldn't be surprised if that ended up being the case. What a delightful curveball it would be to have nothing but Sega-inspired tracks with no more overused Sonic crap. There could be tracks inspired by Chuchu Rocket, Shenmue's Tomato Mart/You Arcade, and an air-based Skies of Arcadia track. Then a Fantasy Zone track complete with bosses and wacky visuals... or how about a Virtual On track with giant fighting robots all over the place?

God who needs Sonic when all these other stages are far more varied and awesome?

They could seriously fill up the game with nothing but Sega tracks and have more variety and uniqueness than they could possibly get from Sonic. The contributions from that series pale in comparison to what could be. So yes, give us your overused green waterfront track, give us your industrial/laboratory track and then step aside while we dig into the real meat of the game which is the Sega tracks.

Edited July 15, 2012 by PsychoJosh

[Solly]

Sonic should have no tracks at all.

In fact I wouldn't be surprised if that ended up being the case. What a delightful curveball it would be to have nothing but Sega-inspired tracks with no more overused Sonic crap. There could be tracks inspired by Chuchu Rocket, Shenmue's Tomato Mart/You Arcade, and an air-based Skies of Arcadia track. Then a Fantasy Zone track complete with bosses and wacky visuals... or how about a Virtual On track with giant fighting robots all over the place?

God who needs Sonic when all these other stages are far more varied and awesome?

They could seriously fill up the game with nothing but Sega tracks and have more variety and uniqueness than they could possibly get from Sonic. The contributions from that series pale in comparison to what could be. So yes, give us your overused green waterfront track, give us your industrial/laboratory track and then step aside while we dig into the real meat of the game which is the Sega tracks.

[Xenos]

Sonic should have no tracks at all.

In fact I wouldn't be surprised if that ended up being the case. What a delightful curveball it would be to have nothing but Sega-inspired tracks with no more overused Sonic crap. There could be tracks inspired by Chuchu Rocket, Shenmue's Tomato Mart/You Arcade, and an air-based Skies of Arcadia track. Then a Fantasy Zone track complete with bosses and wacky visuals... or how about a Virtual On track with giant fighting robots all over the place?

God who needs Sonic when all these other stages are far more varied and awesome?

They could seriously fill up the game with nothing but Sega tracks and have more variety and uniqueness than they could possibly get from Sonic. The contributions from that series pale in comparison to what could be. So yes, give us your overused green waterfront track, give us your industrial/laboratory track and then step aside while we dig into the real meat of the game which is the Sega tracks.

[WarioBone]

Where are all the complaints about the fact that Sonic has about three to four times the amount of characters as the other franchises

I don't know if you're just talking about him in particular, but I complain about this all the time. :V

[JezMM]

Sonic should have no tracks at all.

In fact I wouldn't be surprised if that ended up being the case. What a delightful curveball it would be to have nothing but Sega-inspired tracks with no more overused Sonic crap. There could be tracks inspired by Chuchu Rocket, Shenmue's Tomato Mart/You Arcade, and an air-based Skies of Arcadia track. Then a Fantasy Zone track complete with bosses and wacky visuals... or how about a Virtual On track with giant fighting robots all over the place?

God who needs Sonic when all these other stages are far more varied and awesome?

They could seriously fill up the game with nothing but Sega tracks and have more variety and uniqueness than they could possibly get from Sonic. The contributions from that series pale in comparison to what could be. So yes, give us your overused green waterfront track, give us your industrial/laboratory track and then step aside while we dig into the real meat of the game which is the Sega tracks.

Wow uhh... yeah no. Let's not get carried away and forget that Sonic is one of the four franchises still keeping SEGA afloat right now. And none of the franchises represented in ASR are among the other three.

Sonic's universe is very big and developed, and has a lot to offer.

^ This too. Sonic deserves to have multiple tracks because he's one of the few franchises who really has a wide variety of truly memorable locations to choose from.

I don't know if you're just talking about him in particular, but I complain about this all the time. :V

Well, what can I say, fair enough. P=

[KrazyBean]

Sonic should have no tracks at all.

I think you're forgetting that Sonic's name is on the box of the game...why shouldn't he have ANY tracks in the game? That's just absurd.

[TheOcelot]

Every character (from a different game) should have a track of their own. Each individual track should have elements that reminds you of that character and their game. Pretty straight forward.

[Pawn]

Every character (from a different game) should have a track of their own. Each individual track should have elements that reminds you of that character and their game. Pretty straight forward.

We pretty much know that's not how it will turn out though. Panzer Dragoon is a track alone and there are likely to be more than 16 franchises represented by characters; unless we get more than one character for many more franchises, which seems doubtful. A fair few games are better represented by tracks than characters anyway.

Edited July 15, 2012 by Lungo

[PsychoJosh]

I realize this is way more than just a Sonic game but getting no tracks at all is just absurd. He's a SEGA character too, and an incredibly important one.

I think you're forgetting that Sonic's name is on the box of the game...why shouldn't he have ANY tracks in the game? That's just absurd.

Psst... I wasn't being serious.

[blackherox]

I think you're underestimating the popularity of Sega games. I've heard similar things about people buying Smash Bros just for Mario. I don't think this is entirely true, or even falsifiable.

So Sega aren't just focusing mostly on Sonic, Aliens, Football Manager and Total War?

And there's not much you can with the latter 2 in regards to racers.

[KrazyBean]

Psst... I wasn't being serious.

It sure didn't look like it, but hey.

[Jango]

One side:

Too much Sonic tracks!

Other side:

Not enough Sonic tracks!

Oh, you guys >=<

[JezMM]

Psst... I wasn't being serious.

It sure seemed serious. If you want to make a joke fine, but make it obvious. Two paragraphs justifying your opinion comes across as pretty damn serious.

I guess from now on I can safely not take any of your posts seriously unless you state otherwise?

Edited July 15, 2012 by JezMM