Team Sonic Racing - Upcoming Sonic Racing Game

[Multikaris]

3 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Nope. Didn't have it on low volume. Aaron was shuffling through the slides really fast and I'm pretty sure I just heard grunts.

You know, those grunts characters make when their pictures first slide on screen? That's what I thought I heard. It was pretty easy for me to believe it since I've trained myself to be disappointed.

I just checked again, however, and on second viewing I am in fact hearing actual words being spoken. So that's good. 

I already knew this. I didn't even need them to announce it. I wasn't expecting the story to be on any kind of level from the get go. I'm just saying it's a contributing factor towards not being hyped.

It could be narratively worse, like one of the Crash racers or DKR. Those game’s stories just don’t suit Sonic. But I agree, it will start off like Free Riders unless maybe things ramp up past the halfway point. And there was the whole Ark deal in Riders, plus lots of world building and the Angelus Boss.

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Miragnarok said:

It could be narratively worse, like one of the Crash racers or DKR. Those game’s stories just don’t suit Sonic. But I agree, it will start off like Free Riders unless maybe things ramp up past the halfway point. And there was the whole Ark deal in Riders, plus lots of world building and the Angelus Boss.

I mean, I don't care if the story is light-hearted or not. I love the fuck out of Team Sonic Racing Overdrive after all. It's just... it's hard to convey what Overdrive did with stills and not actual animated cutscenes. So much of it relied on the character's actions and their expressions that looking at stills and hearing dialogue doesn't feel like it'll lead to much. From what I've heard, it doesn't sound bad. Certainly I'm not getting Free Riders vibes where everyone except Tails was just a huge asshole. When Tails tried to be nice to someone, he was treated like an asshole for it because that's how you respond to being complimented in Sonic Free Riders, I guess. 

That's also not to say that things would be perfect if the cutscenes were animated. After all, Colors barely had the characters do stuff despite having animated cutscenes. Generations didn't even really have a story. 

What this story is going to need to do is be more reliant on it's dialogue to carry it. Games and shows that do that are fine in their own right but Sonic's track record of relying on it leaves me feeling a tad bit worried about the outcome. 

I'm sure it'll be mostly okay though. 

[JezMM]

Story Mode is probably just there to provide some fun, unusual gameplay for people who don't enjoy playing online, of which there are many out there, especially younger kids.  It's as worth putting in as it was worth putting Mission Modes in the previous two Sumo Sonic racing games, which I get the impression most people played even without a story.

But yeah, I'm not expecting anything grand, though I am glad to hear it is at least voice acted. I hope the writing is decent enough to provide some laughs and fun interactions.  To be honest, after Forces, it might be a breath of fresh air to get some voiced character interactions for the modern cast where the stakes aren't high, assuming they are able to write them in-character, at least (which is where Free Riders stumbled thanks to almost everyone being petty jerks to each other).

[JosepHenry]

It wasn't grunts, Aaron clearly was skipping the cutscenes. Sonic even says "Sure!" like the text says so.

[Echidna Adventurer CC14]

Yeah, clearly not grunts, unless one of Tails' is randomly saying the word "fastest" in a way that would only make sense if it were starting a sentence. (Which it is in the dialogue box.)

[DabigRG]

17 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 

I'd be hyped for it if Vector got to be with his actual teammates for one. I can't imagine that'd be a deal breaker between 'hype' and 'mere anticipation' for most people but it is for me.

That general aspect's been fairly disappointing for a good while now.

12 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

The depth we sank if Riders 1's story is no longer light hearted and simple.
But yeah, I'm expecting it to be 100% Sonic Free Riders when it comes to story.

Not that story matters in a game like this, but it is making me wonder why they bother to begin with if it's going to be such a low effort job.
If there was no storymode at all, I doubt anyone would notice.
 

Yeah, seriously.

Except for the limited roster.

4 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

It could be narratively worse, like one of the Crash racers or DKR. Those game’s stories just don’t suit Sonic.

 

What makes you say that?

 

4 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

 But I agree, it will start off like Free Riders unless maybe things ramp up past the halfway point. And there was the whole Ark deal in Riders, plus lots of world building and the Angelus Boss.

Given Dodonpa being the reason behind the setup and his understated wantonness in the comic, I'd say there's a chance we''l get a little something.

3 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I mean, I don't care if the story is light-hearted or not. I love the fuck out of Team Sonic Racing Overdrive after all. It's just... it's hard to convey what Overdrive did with stills and not actual animated cutscenes. So much of it relied on the character's actions and their expressions that looking at stills and hearing dialogue doesn't feel like it'll lead to much. From what I've heard, it doesn't sound bad. 

That's another thing: one would've hoped we'd be getting to see some of these characters milk a cow again.

3 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 Certainly I'm not getting Free Riders vibes where everyone except Tails was just a huge asshole. When Tails tried to be nice to someone, he was treated like an asshole for it because that's how you respond to being complimented in Sonic Free Riders, I guess. 

Oh-ho what, even Cream?

2 hours ago, JezMM said:

  To be honest, after Forces, it might be a breath of fresh air to get some voiced character interactions for the modern cast where the stakes aren't high, assuming they are able to write them in-character, at least (which is where Free Riders stumbled thanks to almost everyone being petty jerks to each other).

Definitely.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

7 hours ago, JezMM said:

 To be honest, after Forces, it might be a breath of fresh air to get some voiced character interactions for the modern cast where the stakes aren't high,

After Colors/ Lost world's events being merely backdrops to Sonic's hilarious stand up comedian acts, Generations being an emotional flatline,, 2 seasons and 3 games of Sonic Boom, Lego dimensions, Wreck  it Ralph, the cast goofing around on conventions and twitter, I thought Forces was the breath of fresh air.
Other then Forces, what serious Sonic projects were the current voice cast in? Rise of Lyric? The dramatic energy of those cutscenes are so intense I use them as sleeping aid on restless nights.
Fine, I'll give you Amy was mostly distressed and Eggman angry in Lost World.

The only "nice to see them having a lighthearted chat" characters for me are Silver and Blaze who haven't gotten any casual screentime together other then a cameo in DS Colors.
Other then that, seems bussines as usual to me.

[JezMM]

2 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

After Colors/ Lost world's events being merely backdrops to Sonic's hilarious stand up comedian acts, Generations being an emotional flatline,, 2 seasons and 3 games of Sonic Boom, Lego dimensions, Wreck  it Ralph, the cast goofing around on conventions and twitter, I thought Forces was the breath of fresh air.
Other then Forces, what serious Sonic projects were the current voice cast in? Rise of Lyric? The dramatic energy of those cutscenes are so intense I use them as sleeping aid on restless nights.
Fine, I'll give you Amy was mostly distressed and Eggman angry in Lost World.

The only "nice to see them having a lighthearted chat" characters for me are Silver and Blaze who haven't gotten any casual screentime together other then a cameo in DS Colors.
Other then that, seems bussines as usual to me.

Colours, Generations and Lost World were entirely or PRETTY MUCH entirely Sonic & Tails adventures, and Boom is obviously a completely different canon with alternate versions of the characters. As far as the extended modern cast goes, Forces is pretty much the only game that gave all of them an equal amount of screentime in terms of character interactions, and it was... lacking.

Besides all that... even if they said "we learned from Forces and we're going to deliver a satisfying, intense serious storyline with great characterisation and interactions"... Team Sonic Racing would hardly be the game to deliver that.

[Yoshizilla-Rhedosaurus]

I don't blame anyone for not liking the fact that we have a relatively small number of tracks and a chunk of them are old courses, but I can let by them personally because I love the ever loving Seaside Hill out of SaSASR.

I just hope that there's enough variety in the voice clips, because Mario Kart voice syndrome is a thing.

[Plasme]

14 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

After Colors/ Lost world's events being merely backdrops to Sonic's hilarious stand up comedian acts, Generations being an emotional flatline,, 2 seasons and 3 games of Sonic Boom, Lego dimensions, Wreck  it Ralph, the cast goofing around on conventions and twitter, I thought Forces was the breath of fresh air.
Other then Forces, what serious Sonic projects were the current voice cast in?

Other then that, seems bussines as usual to me.

I'd much rather the light-hearted nature of those games then the grimness of Forces, probably one of the worst written Sonic games of all time.

Sonic getting tortured, a random shift to a dark tone, but for no reason because he seems unaffected by it.

Tails 'losing' it and then immediately going back to normal after seeing Classic Sonic.

Knuckles randomly being the leader of the group and taking the half-baked war aspect comically seriously.

And Infinite, while probably the best character out of the bunch, talking in ridiculously melodramatic lines and being almost completely two dimensional.

It's hard to think of a Sonic game other than 06 which is as atrociously written as Forces. 

[Dr. Detective]

Again, it's not a matter of light-hearted versus being serious for me here. The fun kind of adventure that was outlined by Mania Adventures and Team Sonic Racing Overdrive is a-okay with me. I just really don't want to face off with anything remotely similar to what Colors and Generations did. The problem they had wasn't the tone. Nothing interesting or cool was happening. Just a huge misfire of a stand-up routine on one end and a literal white void of nothing in the other. That's not fun. Not to me anyway.

On 5/6/2019 at 5:05 PM, JosepHenry said:

It wasn't grunts, Aaron clearly was skipping the cutscenes. Sonic even says "Sure!" like the text says so.

 

On 5/6/2019 at 6:18 PM, Cinematic Psychic CC14 said:

Yeah, clearly not grunts, unless one of Tails' is randomly saying the word "fastest" in a way that would only make sense if it were starting a sentence. (Which it is in the dialogue box.)

This was cleared up already guys. 

[Plasme]

I don't really care here, racing games aren't exactly well known for their stories. Mario Kart doesn't have one, and while Crash Team Racing had a great adventure mode, it's actual story was as bare bones as possible. Considering Sonic stories have almost always been awful, it'll be for the better if this has a very light story.

Sonic Riders had an utterly horrendous story too, no idea why people are hoping this game will have a story like that. 

[mayday2592]

I forgot how ridiculous the story in Riders was. How does Eggman, a criminal who has tried to overthrow multiple goverments and blew up half the moon publicly organize a racing event where the entry fee is one of the most powerful relics on the planet? That would be like if Charles Manson organized a karaoke contest and everyone was a-ok with it. GUN should have shut that all down the second Eggman popped up on the monitor. Even worse, Sonic and friends go right along with it as if this is something completely normal. I know its a spinoff, but still why is everyone an idiot in this game?

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, mayday2592 said:

I forgot how ridiculous the story in Riders was. How does Eggman, a criminal who has tried to overthrow multiple goverments and blew up half the moon publicly organize a racing event where the entry fee is one of the most powerful relics on the planet? That would be like if Charles Manson organized a karaoke contest and everyone was a-ok with it. GUN should have shut that all down the second Eggman popped up on the monitor. Even worse, Sonic and friends go right along with it as if this is something completely normal. I know its a spinoff, but still why is everyone an idiot in this game?

That depends on whether [opening stage of Riders 1] is in the animal world or the human world.

[mayday2592]

Still wouldn't explain why Sonic would willingly give up an Emerald to participate in an event hosted by Eggman. On topic, have the achievements/trophies been released yet? Haven't heard anything about them.

[Silvereyes]

4 minutes ago, mayday2592 said:

Still wouldn't explain why Sonic would willingly give up an Emerald to participate in an event hosted by Eggman.

I like to think sometimes Sonic feels sorry for Eggman by beating him so often, so he decides to occasionally humour him.

[DabigRG]

51 minutes ago, Silvereyes said:

I like to think sometimes Sonic feels sorry for Eggman by beating him so often, so he decides to occasionally humour him.

Well that and because he likes competition.

 

[Dr. Detective]

4 hours ago, Plasme said:

I don't really care here, racing games aren't exactly well known for their stories. Mario Kart doesn't have one, and while Crash Team Racing had a great adventure mode, it's actual story was as bare bones as possible. Considering Sonic stories have almost always been awful, it'll be for the better if this has a very light story.

Sonic Riders had an utterly horrendous story too, no idea why people are hoping this game will have a story like that. 

It doesn't matter to me that much. The logistics of Riders' story aren't really the point. It's easy to nitpick it to hell and back. That game's story was just fun. It was presented in an action-adventure, cartoonish way that didn't rely on having the characters just beating around the bush, doing nothing of substance. The fact that it was completely bonkers, ridiculous is something I largely consider to be in its favor.  No one who liked that story is going to argue in favor of it being a sophisticated work of art. The fact that it was so out there with it's talk of genies, flying carpets, a "special race to see who's the fastest" and all that jazz is what made it so weird and interesting.

I certainly wouldn't have minded if it was written a bit better of course. I also consider Riders story to be very light as well. 

I say this often but, again, I'm not asking for a lot. 

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Was just confused why light-hearted self aware humor is suddenly a "breath of fresh air" despite that being the status quo for a decade now.
I've seen sentiments like that before, sorry if I came across I'm picking on Jezz.
People suddely acted we're fresh from another dark age is confusing to me.
I suppose I should blame the movie for that.
(Despite the movie also looking to be a light hearted comedy, minus Sonic's nightmare face)


So no, I don't want a Sonic Forces style story in a racing game...Well, actually I do because that would be hilarious, but I concede most people wouldn't see it that way.


So in short, Team Sonic racing probably has the exact style of story and tone that would be natural and is expected for that kind of game.
My statement was not meant as a critique of the game, just a confused observation.


And outside of Team Racing, I'm really hoping the tone of future Sonic games are going to shift in a diffrent direction. (No, not Sonic forces direction) because the low energy lazy self aware stuff is getting to me after a decade of the same stuff over and over.
The fact that the occasional break we get, Rise of Lyric, Forces and the movie, are unfocused low-energy dullfests isn't helping either.
(Especially considering 2 out of 3 are STILL smacking you on the head with bad jokes.)
Tyson Hesse's work is a step in the preferred direction, actually remembering to inject some energy in the precedings.
Use that style to create an actual adventure and we're on our way. Or the IDW comics.

...And hey, considering Hesse's Team Sonic racing cartoons, perhaps his style will have a presence in the game. I doubt it, but who knows.



And agreed with Mike, it's not that stories like Sonic Riders or adventure or whatever are brilliant and have no plotholes, it's because they have energy, a sense of adventure.
It's a journey. There's a flow to it, we're going somewhere. I vastly prefer that, plotholes and all, over endless sterile scenes of characters standing around exchanging "smart" self aware statements. Or super serious exposition ala Forces, whatever.
It's not about plot perfection, it's about emotional drive. To be invested. To care. I haven't cared for any Sonic character in over a decade.
Worst case scenerio, something like Sonic Riders is funny because it's stupid and ambitious. the modern stuff is boring because it's smart and lazy.
Sorry, but i'm on team stupid. The stupid know how to party.


That all said, Team Sonic racing's gameplay still looks good, so still looking forward to the game part of the game.
Because I'm legally required to add a "Lol you must onyl care about gameplay lol" statement in every story discussion.

[Blue Blood]

Whatever criticisms I may have levelled at this game, I can't say that I'm not excited for it. It should be a great time. 

My only real concern is platforms. I have a PS4, but virtually never use it and don't fancy setting it up and getting a PSN subscription just for this game. I can do it, but going back to it in the future will be a major ballache. Most of my gaming these days is done on the Switch. It just works as a platform for me and my needs. We haven't actually seen the Switch version in action though, right? It's obviously going to be inferior to the PC and other console versions, but I just hope that it's not too much worse. If it is, then I'm probably going to have to get the PC version, and frankly I don't like the idea of that too much. I just don't like playing games when I know that there's a much better version of the same thing out there. Sacrificing a smooth 60fps for 30fps is my biggest worry. If the graphics and resolution are worse I could live with that, but the framerate is the most important thing. Do we know what the framerate is on PS4/XB1?

[Eurisko]

On ‎5‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 1:38 AM, Plasme said:

So seeing as it comes out soon, who's hyped?

ME!! The 21st can't come soon enough.

[Jango]

7 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

Whatever criticisms I may have levelled at this game, I can't say that I'm not excited for it. It should be a great time. 

My only real concern is platforms. I have a PS4, but virtually never use it and don't fancy setting it up and getting a PSN subscription just for this game. I can do it, but going back to it in the future will be a major ballache. Most of my gaming these days is done on the Switch. It just works as a platform for me and my needs. We haven't actually seen the Switch version in action though, right? It's obviously going to be inferior to the PC and other console versions, but I just hope that it's not too much worse. If it is, then I'm probably going to have to get the PC version, and frankly I don't like the idea of that too much. I just don't like playing games when I know that there's a much better version of the same thing out there. Sacrificing a smooth 60fps for 30fps is my biggest worry. If the graphics and resolution are worse I could live with that, but the framerate is the most important thing. Do we know what the framerate is on PS4/XB1?

60FPS on PS4 and XOne. 

[Blue Blood]

17 minutes ago, Jango said:

60FPS on PS4 and XOne. 

As expected then. Ta.

[Jango]

All I want from this game is the soundtrack. CTR will be my go-to kart racing this year.

 

[Multikaris]

10 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

Was just confused why light-hearted self aware humor is suddenly a "breath of fresh air" despite that being the status quo for a decade now.
I've seen sentiments like that before, sorry if I came across I'm picking on Jezz.
People suddely acted we're fresh from another dark age is confusing to me.
I suppose I should blame the movie for that.
(Despite the movie also looking to be a light hearted comedy, minus Sonic's nightmare face)


So no, I don't want a Sonic Forces style story in a racing game...Well, actually I do because that would be hilarious, but I concede most people wouldn't see it that way.


So in short, Team Sonic racing probably has the exact style of story and tone that would be natural and is expected for that kind of game.
My statement was not meant as a critique of the game, just a confused observation.


And outside of Team Racing, I'm really hoping the tone of future Sonic games are going to shift in a diffrent direction. (No, not Sonic forces direction) because the low energy lazy self aware stuff is getting to me after a decade of the same stuff over and over.
The fact that the occasional break we get, Rise of Lyric, Forces and the movie, are unfocused low-energy dullfests isn't helping either.
(Especially considering 2 out of 3 are STILL smacking you on the head with bad jokes.)
Tyson Hesse's work is a step in the preferred direction, actually remembering to inject some energy in the precedings.
Use that style to create an actual adventure and we're on our way. Or the IDW comics.

...And hey, considering Hesse's Team Sonic racing cartoons, perhaps his style will have a presence in the game. I doubt it, but who knows.



And agreed with Mike, it's not that stories like Sonic Riders or adventure or whatever are brilliant and have no plotholes, it's because they have energy, a sense of adventure.
It's a journey. There's a flow to it, we're going somewhere. I vastly prefer that, plotholes and all, over endless sterile scenes of characters standing around exchanging "smart" self aware statements. Or super serious exposition ala Forces, whatever.
It's not about plot perfection, it's about emotional drive. To be invested. To care. I haven't cared for any Sonic character in over a decade.
Worst case scenerio, something like Sonic Riders is funny because it's stupid and ambitious. the modern stuff is boring because it's smart and lazy.
Sorry, but i'm on team stupid. The stupid know how to party.


That all said, Team Sonic racing's gameplay still looks good, so still looking forward to the game part of the game.
Because I'm legally required to add a "Lol you must onyl care about gameplay lol" statement in every story discussion.

It’s rare when we get the perfect storm of something being stupid and lazy at the same time, just as rare as it is to get something smart and ambitious. Rise of Lyric is the only case I can think of of a game that is stupid and lazy.