Team Sonic Racing - Upcoming Sonic Racing Game

[Blue Blood]

I think it's hilariously sad that they actually confirmed customisation (right down to vehicle appearance) months and months ago before the game was delayed, but it's news to the die-hard fans on this site because we haven't seen it heard anything about it until this random Japanese retail stand. This game honestly looks and sounds quite good, but it's being sent out to die.

[Rowl]

On 3/8/2019 at 9:00 PM, Blue Blood said:

I think it's hilariously sad that they actually confirmed customisation (right down to vehicle appearance) months and months ago before the game was delayed, but it's news to the die-hard fans on this site because we haven't seen it heard anything about it until this random Japanese retail stand. This game honestly looks and sounds quite good, but it's being sent out to die.

And this might be even the saddest thing of this story. It could be a good game in its own rights, but they really don't sell it well. It would be sad if it fails, if the game is good. 

[DabigRG]

Oh yeah, that was a mentioned thing one time.

Interesting. 

[Red Hot Jack]

Yeah the game does have content and unique things, but I'm mostly looking forward to tracks and gameplay, even though SEGA is doing nothing to makes us excited sadly. I know I'm not excited.

Anyway, from the other thread, I speculate a Green Hill new track instead of a third Seaside Hill track, and that's where Can You Feel the Sunshine would play… because we know from monitors that Green Hill is in the game.

While, Super Sonic Racing should IMO play in the twilight/sky Rooftop Run track. It would make sense.

[Rowl]

1 hour ago, Jack the Shadow said:

Yeah the game does have content and unique things,

Maybe, maybe not. We don't know for sure. It could have as much content as other racing games. But they do not tell us anything about it. We do not know how the story mode will play out. Will it have cutscenes, bosses, missions, stuff to collect? We do not know. Will it have side mini-games and a mission mode? Maybe, we do not know for sure. They barely show us anything form the game.

It could be as good as CTR, but they do not make a good job of telling us that.

[Dr. Detective]

Well. I did say it was either going to be a casino or an Eggman base next. Not that that was a hard guess to make. Again, music sounds neat though.

Talking about Bingo Party.

 

[Rowl]

We all knew that this will happen. Sega really is just way too afraid in taking risks with Sonic nowadays, that they recycle the same levels and themes over and over again. 

[LukA8]

Of course Casino Park returned as well. Bingo Party was arguably the best one from the trio and it actually looks really cool in this game, being all space-themed, but why reveal this of all tracks? If Carnival Night or Twinkle Park were part of the line-up, they would have generated a lot more hype, so it doesn't give me too much hope the other two tracks of that zone won't just be more All-Stars tracks. Hopefully at least Starlight Carnival is part of it, and there's still one zone unrevealed.

On another note, the customization looks neat as expected, and the other shown tracks look great as well. The Rooftop Run Night track might have something Dark Gaia going on, and the clip at the end looks like a Null Space portal?

 

[Sonicka]

Ok, so lack of promotion for this game (apart from this panel) withstanding, the more and more I see, the more I actually want to purchase this day one.

Sure, when the Casino theme’d track appeared in the trailer I was like “FFS Sega!!” ...but from everything else in the snippets they showed off has TSR appear more exciting with the glances of the new tracks. 

Graphically it looks a touch better than what I played last year as well, and hopefully the same can be said for the frame rate on release. But they had an extra half a year so I think it’s a reasonable expectation to run silky smooth and look lovely.

I also think soundtrack wise this is VERY impressive. I mean... 130 tracks?!? And presuming a lot of these will be Jun’s remixes with multiple artists has me just itching to hear it. Hopefully this won’t be all the game is remembered for.

But, It is a shame they didn’t demo this publicly on the panel (unless i missed something in the stream recap) because the tactical element of the racer is actually quite fun and is worth trying to show again rather than the customisation fluff. Team Tactical Racing is not something I would ask for or particularly want from a Racing game, especially in a Sonic Kart Racer (and I just wanted ASRT: 2 personally). However I can’t lie and say it doesn’t work, because it a surprisingly fun and unique mechanic - although I don have fingers crossed a single player mode will exist as well for regular players. 

Hilariously the awesome 5 minute TSR: Overdrive animation (how amazing was that?!) probably gave a better show of the game idea than the dev have themselves at this point haha!

 

 

[Fire-N-Space]

The customizing is wonderful its getting closer to F-Zero GX levels of detail. 

[Meta77]

Finally more gameplay. It's looking like a solid 7 so far. Still  more excited for crash but this makes me somewhat want to buy Sracing a bit

[Red Hot Jack]

Reposting this gameplay here:

This is what I expected to see but I still prefer the bits of gameplay we got during the short and at the beginning/end of the customization trailer.

Mother's Canyon looks and plays Amazing, but I think most of the tracks do, starting from Market Street and Frozen Junkyard from those we've seen, they look great, this along with the team gameplay are what sold the game to me.

But yes, it does look better now. I'm just annoyed that we're getting rehashed tracks, Bingo Party looks good graphically, and there are enemies on the track, something I was worried about (lack of items on-track), Ocean View is still meh, Seaside Hill ruins everything to me so… I'm expecting 1 more rehashed track that is Egg Hangar from both ASR and ASRT.

So far we know 13 tracks, 8 are still secret, which is good to me, I don't wanna know the Whole game. I'm speculating we get as final tracks: 1 Green Hill track as the final from the Seaside Hill world with Can you feel the Sunshine music, Rooftop Run Night Unleashed style, a Final Egg track from SA1, Egg Hangar, a Pumpkin Hill track hinted at in the drawing last Halloween, as for the Casino world… no idea, I hope we get Casino Night though, and maybe a Mystic Jungle track from Forces with Infinite??? The final track IMO should be Final Rush themed. I'm confident Super Sonic Racing plays in the twilight Rooftop Run.

For the record, I'm getting this and Crash day one, they both look and play good, but both are so-so on content, uhm… but quality is great.

[Tracker_TD]

It only took them a bloody lifetime, but I'm finally excited for this game. That's gotta be the quickest turnaround of my opinion SEGA's ever managed. 

OK, to get the bad stuff out of the way - Ocean View and Market Street look bad, visually. The lighting is insanely harsh there for some reason. I'm also not too crazy about the amount of returning tracks, especially if it's a Casino Highway world and a Seaside Hill world instead of just a retro world with the 3 tracks we have now. Made worse than how ASRT handled it given Ocean View is actively worse due to the lack of variety between laps like the original. I'm also still not sold on the Team Gimmick.

...with that out of the way - the new track, Mother's Canyon, looks much better and far more in-line with what I was expecting. A healthy smattering of alternate routes and the anti-gravity gimmick is actually used to good effect here. Beyond the two examples I mentioned, I also think the game looks much better right now - the Bingo Party track looks almost unrecognisable from its original incarnation, and it's now far more in line with what I'd expect a 3D Sonic game on modern hardware to look like. Provided the framerate can stay solid, I'm mostly on board with it in the graphics department.

But the real kicker for me - the customisation! It's so, so much more in depth than I expected, to the point I think this should've been prioritised over the Team Gimmick. I'm an absolute sucker for customisation (it was the highlight of Forces to me) and it looks really fun here. I can see myself spending an ungodly amount of time making cars for each character, and the fact the rings tie into getting new parts means there's actually replayability - something I think ASRT lacked beyond replaying missions on harder difficulties, which I found somewhat tedious after a while. 

So at this point, I actually want this game now. I doubt things like the bad lighting in some tracks are gonna be fixed before launch, and I'm still very cautious of the Team Gimmick (and I'm still overall pretty annoyed we lost SEGA characters), but it's turned into a game I can recognise as being a Sumo Digital Kart Racer, with all the good connotations that brings. Fair play to them for appearing to actually turn this around somewhat. 

[JezMM]

Honestly I'm thinking this casino stage might be a part of a more loose "weird/space" themed zone, with just the one track being casino-themed (and they just chose BINGO Highway for the music rather than creating a brand new track).  Those screenies that LukA8 singled out do look a little bizarre/final track-ish, and this might be their way of keeping the final track cool/unique looking, by attaching it to a general "surreal" zone trope rather than anything specific.  Avoids the awkwardness that the original ASRT had where, fitting as Final Fortress might be for the final track in the game, it feels less climactic when we've already played two tracks with the same aesthetic earlier in the game.

That's my prediction anyway, it's possible that all three tracks from that zone will be predominantly Casino-in-space themed and one of them just go off with some wormhole stuff or something.

To be honest I'd be a little bummed if it is the final track, since 1. Way to spoil it before the game comes out obviously and 2. What does that say about the other tracks that they needed to use final track footage to get some exciting stuff for the trailer?  Granted I tend to put too much weight on "final" things in games where that doesn't really matter so much, I was too raised on platformers and action games lol.

[Tracker_TD]

6 minutes ago, JezMM said:

Honestly I'm thinking this casino stage might be a part of a more loose "weird/space" themed zone, with just the one track being casino-themed (and they just chose BINGO Highway for the music rather than creating a brand new track).  Those screenies that LukA8 singled out do look a little bizarre/final track-ish, and this might be their way of keeping the final track cool/unique looking, by attaching it to a general "surreal" zone trope rather than anything specific.  Avoids the awkwardness that the original ASRT had where, fitting as Final Fortress might be for the final track in the game, it feels less climactic when we've already played two tracks with the same aesthetic earlier in the game.

That's my prediction anyway, it's possible that all three tracks from that zone will be predominantly Casino-in-space themed and one of them just go off with some wormhole stuff or something.

To be honest I'd be a little bummed if it is the final track, since 1. Way to spoil it before the game comes out obviously and 2. What does that say about the other tracks that they needed to use final track footage to get some exciting stuff for the trailer?  Granted I tend to put too much weight on "final" things in games where that doesn't really matter so much, I was too raised on platformers and action games lol.

I think it'd be a weird choice for a 'final track' given... well, it's from All Stars Racing 1. At least make a new track for the finale. 

EDIT: oh wait you meant the Rooftop Run one, I'll hush now

[Red Hot Jack]

I still want Final Rush as final track. I think Iizuka confirmed there would be 4 tracks in each Grand Prix so, I hope there is a fourth difficulty, like 4 regular cups plus the retro cup, which would mean 4 old tracks. That makes a total of 20 tracks, plus one new extra track that could be Green Hill. It would be in line with Transformed's Grand Prix mode and the 4 difficulties thing.

Also, new screenshots in case some people didn't see them, from Sega press: https://mobile.twitter.com/SonicWindBlue/status/1106999106067746821

They include Hidden Volcano, Boo's House and Twilight Rooftop Run track.

[Jango]

19 hours ago, LukA8 said:

Of course Casino Park returned as well. Bingo Party was arguably the best one from the trio and it actually looks really cool in this game, being all space-themed, but why reveal this of all tracks? If Carnival Night or Twinkle Park were part of the line-up, they would have generated a lot more hype, so it doesn't give me too much hope the other two tracks of that zone won't just be more All-Stars tracks. Hopefully at least Starlight Carnival is part of it, and there's still one zone unrevealed.

On another note, the customization looks neat as expected, and the other shown tracks look great as well. The Rooftop Run Night track might have something Dark Gaia going on, and the clip at the end looks like a Null Space portal?

 

What the... It's like a fusion between the Null Space and the Time Eater.. space? Zone? Dimension? 

[JezMM]

1 hour ago, Tracker_TD said:

I think it'd be a weird choice for a 'final track' given... well, it's from All Stars Racing 1. At least make a new track for the finale. 

EDIT: oh wait you meant the Rooftop Run one, I'll hush now

Oh, I thought those screens were from a "space" track much as how Bingo Highway seems to be in space.  I didn't want to rewatch the trailer to not sorta, "refresh" the spoilers in my head but does that come from a Rooftop Run track?  That is pretty bizarre if so, but honestly I was slightly expecting Rooftop Run to be the zone the final track uses out of what had been revealed so far.

EDIT: Okay I literally see the city below in those screenshots now, thought that was just more stars, never mind, question answered lol.  This also disregards most of my post about thinking that Bingo Highway and this black-hole containing track were the same zone.

 

As for Bingo Highway, has it been confirmed to be 1:1 with the layout of an ASR casino track then?  Kinda bizarre to give it such a space-themed visual overhaul if so when the two Seaside Hill tracks didn't get the same kind of remix treatment visually.

EDIT AGAIN: Okay I looked up the ASR track list and yeah it was literally named Bingo Party there lol.  Question number 2 answered as well, carry on everyone.

 

 

Just so this post serves an actual point I'll re-iterate that it kinda bugs me that they give Bingo Party such a visual overhaul yet didn't do the same for Whale Lagoon and Ocean View didn't get the same treatment.  It'll bug me MORE if these three tracks are the "nostalgia zone" considering the missed opportunity for a Sonic R track and the fact that one is an entirely different aesthetic from the other two. I mean good for variety but grrr obsessive organisational inconsistencies.

[LukA8]

True, the way they empathize on the space theme with Bingo Party makes me think they'll pair it with Transformed's Starlight Carnival. For the third track, that's actually giving me a small glimmer of hope on finally seeing Twinkle Park again, another wacky Amusement Park set in space (also in the middle of Station Square but whatever). Maybe the vortex will be part of Galactic Parade, to make up for the missing flying section, otherwise I could see a final track that connects all the different locations, Riders did that as well.

1 hour ago, Jack the Shadow said:

I still want Final Rush as final track. I think Iizuka confirmed there would be 4 tracks in each Grand Prix so, I hope there is a fourth difficulty, like 4 regular cups plus the retro cup, which would mean 4 old tracks. That makes a total of 20 tracks, plus one new extra track that could be Green Hill. It would be in line with Transformed's Grand Prix mode and the 4 difficulties thing.

Only four returning tracks sounds a bit too optimistic, they could have just announced that from the beginning like they did with Transformed. Either Egg Hangar or Final Fortress will return as well, possibly as part of the seventh zone, but considering the Death Egg track was already part of both All-Stars titles, I'd prefer to see them remake Thunder Deck this time, the final stage from ASR. It had such a great atmosphere but felt underwhelming overall, with only a few Egg Pawns strolling around. It would be fun to see what they could do with it.

[Plasme]

To be fair, all the Sonic R tracks are boring outside of Radiant Emerald, which isn't exactly the most famous track of Sonic R. What would you even include? Resort Island is a blander version of Seaside Hill, Radical City is a less interesting and less iconic Radical Highway. Regal Ruin and Reactive Factory are more interesting, but I don't think they are as interesting as Rooftop Run, Planet Wisp, Bingo Highway et cetera. The only memorable aspect of Sonic R's levels is the music, which we know is making it in.

What they should have done is added Tails Doll and Metal Knuckles to a Metal Sonic Team. That would have been the best way to represent Sonic R, but to be honest, with the amount of people bitching about the roster, wouldn't they have found it even worse if Blaze, Silver, Vector, for example, didn't make it in because some obscure Sonic R reps made the cut instead?

 

[Salamander]

It'd be contentious, but at least there'd be an obvious rationale which people could understand; and it would help that Tails Doll and Metal Knuckles would (presumably) be more than just skins, unlike the metal racers in Mario Kart.  Also, while it's making a big assumption about what both Sega and Sumo Digital are prepared to do for this game, Blaze and Silver to me make a lot of sense as DLC picks, as "outsiders," if you like, to the normal proceedings of Sonic's world (except when they're not).

[Dr. Detective]

One thing I love to do in my spare time is to write out lists. I just really love to do it.

One of those lists I've been trying to do is my ideal track list for a Sonic racing game. I kind of want to see if it's possible to make a game where you could take 1-3 stages from a good list of specific Sonic games and make a track list that was all-around diverse. Even if there was more than one City level, there'd be something about it to differentiate it from another. Yeah, even something as simple as Speed Highway being at night and City Escape being during the day but also there's a truck and it's wants to kill you.

It's a pretty fun thing to try and do. Even better, I give myself a level cap so I don't just keep adding stages. It's a good way to force yourself to be more concise. 

I've learned that there are A LOT of Sonic Heroes stages I want to keep though. Probably because that game just feels like the most definitive "level troupe" Sonic game out there. 

[Blue Blood]

1 hour ago, Plasme said:

Radical City is a less interesting and less iconic Radical Highway.

Be honest, dude. If not for the fact that both have the word "radical" in their names, you wouldn't even be drawing a comparison between the two. They're nothing alike. Radical City starts on the mountainous outskirts of a city and eventually runs through a pretty impressive pinball and casino district. Radical Highway is, not to undersell it, a highway and construction site away from the main city.

Besides, the R tracks are technically Sonic first foray into the 3D world. However bland you want to argue the environments are is largely due to their infancy. So much more could be done with them if there were to be remade for a game such as this. See Bingo Party for a direct example, or literally any of the Classic stages in Generations.

[Plasme]

41 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Be honest, dude. If not for the fact that both have the word "radical" in their names, you wouldn't even be drawing a comparison between the two. They're nothing alike. Radical City starts on the mountainous outskirts of a city and eventually runs through a pretty impressive pinball and casino district. Radical Highway is, not to undersell it, a highway and construction site away from the main city.

Besides, the R tracks are technically Sonic first foray into the 3D world. However bland you want to argue the environments are is largely due to their infancy. So much more could be done with them if there were to be remade for a game such as this. See Bingo Party for a direct example, or literally any of the Classic stages in Generations.

I get there are nuances between them, but the majority of the track for both Radical City and Radical Highway is motorway lanes

They look pretty similar to me.

And yes, the tracks could probably be improved with more modern technology, but the problem with them is that in concept a lot of them are very bland.

The thing is, people don't remember Sonic R for its tracks, because its tracks are generic and boring outside Radiant Emerald (which has a simplistic track design). Sonic R is memorable for its music and fucking weird characters like Tails Doll. I think taking cues from its levels would be taking from the least interesting aspect of the game and a mistake.

[DarkRula]

Radical Highway is focused more on the urban side of things, whereas Radical City tried to be a fusion of urban and amusement. Even if the Sonic Wiki says the two are similar, with modern technology there's a lot that could be done to fully realise what Radical City was trying for. Same with all the other tracks in the game. Even Resort Island could see a design overhaul that differentiates it from Seaside Hill and Green Hill if tackled in the right way.