Team Sonic Racing Review: Gameplay Impressions, Modes, Roster and Esports Appeal

While it does boast a legendary character for Sega, Team Sonic Racing still faced the uphill task of separating itself from another major character kart-racing franchise.  

Developer Sumo Digital has done just that with the latest installment of a beloved series, which also had to follow up from the superb Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed in 2012 (Metacritic rating of 82 percent). 

Innovation in the form of team-based racing allows TSR to operate in its own unique niche quite well. It boasts the expected cast and speedy gameplay alongside a fun suite of depth options. 

While standard in many ways, TSR's swipes at innovation are a welcome addition to the genre.

Gameplay

A mix of the expected with some welcome surprises is a nice way to briefly explain TSR's pick-up-and-play nature. 

The gameplay is fast and chaotic on twists, turns and loops littered with rings. It asks for quick reaction times, fun drifts, the usual character-kart items lists and close attention to detail for the game's varied, colorful locales. 

But it comes with a twist.  

There is a normal non-team-based race mode if players choose to go the traditional route. But the game's name says it all: This is about the team-based innovations. These are 12-character races split into teams of three, which then open up some interesting and unique abilities. 

The team-based approach goes far in the "fun" column, too. The slipstream feature sticks out, as lagging behind a teammate has its benefits: Cruise through their yellow slipstream long enough for a speed boost and an eventual slingshot mechanic that flings the user past opponents. 

And the team-based approach doesn't stop there. Players also create their own slipstream, which is a Skim Boost for teammates, so there is a fun, if not addictive incentive to keep chaining slipstreams with teammates over the course of a race.

The usual items found in character kart racers are here, too, though the fact they take a backseat to the team mechanics says it all.

Perhaps the best thing about the items list is that players can pass them around to teammates. Unlike other racing games, discarding items that are worthless depending on a player's position in hopes of grabbing a better one later doesn't happen. Passing off an item worthless to the player in first place that helps boost a teammate from the bottom is a fun wrinkle. 

Individually, drifting is loose and fun once understood, and there are some Crazy Taxi vibes here because many tracks can quickly devolve into a contest of who can chain the most drifts together. Not only does it help maintain speed, but it also builds the boost meter.

While innovative, it can be hard to keep up at all times. With everything split into teams, character types, Ultimates, items flying around, item switching and unique track happenings, the chaos of it all can blur things. But the basics are a blast: collect the rings while chaining drifts and seeking out those slipstreams. 

Graphics and Presentation

As expected, TSR isn't a slouch in the visuals department. The game is brimming with colors and variety from a track perspective, and these Sonic characters arguably haven't looked better. 

The sound design is superb as well, though the soundtrack is an acquired taste. But the characters offer funny quips at times during races, and the item usage and ring collecting is loud and clear, playing right into the addictive fun. 

The Adventure mode presentation is where things really start to crumble. The cutscenes between races aren't anything more than voice actors reading out text boxes over a still frame, and they seem to go on for way too long each time. Those voices are shrill and annoying most of the time, to put it kindly. Players aren't grabbing this one for a story anyway, so the option to skip the scene might end up heavily used. 

Luckily, there are options to turn off voiceovers during the race, which might come in handy given both the repetitiveness of them and the rather limited roster. 

But viewed as a whole, this is usual Sonic flair with speed-induced blur, colorful visuals and some random-seeming rock and techno music encouraging things along. Like much of the conversation here, more of the expected isn't too big of a drawback.  

Roster, Features and More

TSR is a mixed bag in the depth department. 

On one hand, there is a range of content for online or local play. There are Grand Prix events, pickup races, time trials, an Adventure mode and loads of minigame-type events within those.  

Then, on the other hand, there is the roster, which comes up feeling a bit sparse: 

• Sonic
• Tails
• Knuckles
• Amy Rose
• Chao squad
• Big the Cat
• Blaze the Cat
• Silver the Hedgehog
• Vector the Crocodile
• Shadow the Hedgehog
• Rouge the Bat
• E-123 Omega
• Metal Sonic
• Doctor Eggman
• Zavok

Adventure mode is where some serious variety kicks into the equation. Players race through a snoozefest of a story by starting on a map hubworld and unlocking events as they go. These events can have a car-combat feel with rockets and items given to the player to inflict damage. Or they can test skill in ring collection or drifting-based game modes, to name a few of the most enjoyable. 

Like the cookie-cutter items with one interesting twist, the team Ultimate ability is a decent idea with poor execution. Each team can build an Ultimate meter and unleash it together to devastate anyone in the way on the track.

But it's the same across all characters, which is quite unfortunate. It would have been fun to see a set of Ultimates as diverse as, say, those found in Overwatch. Character-specific Ultimates based on team composition would have created some serious depth and a strategic layer most games in this arena lack. 

There is some strategic depth to character types, at least. Power, Speed and Technique are the three categories, and they don't stray far from the names. Technique characters, for example, aren't slowed by environmental effects or track changes. 

From a team-building standpoint, at least in theory, throwing out a power character to lead the way could mean slamming through any obstacles on the track before the Speed element of the team slingshots past. The idea is good, though races are a bit too chaotic to be that methodical with it every time out.

As far as the tracks roster goes (three tracks on seven different worlds), this is standard fare for a character-kart racer. If looking closely, some tracks have specific areas that play to the strengths of each character type. But things are often too hectic for that to come into play consistently.

Sonic universe references and nods are all over the place for hardcore fans, but the structure of the courses feels familiar and done elsewhere—it's not bad, but it's not matching the innovation of the team-racer structure, either. 

There is (of course) a progression system as well, which permits unlocks via earning in-game currency. It's called Mod Parts and is a way to get the loot-box type feeling out of a rewards system. But it feels a little unnecessary and random in the grand scheme because there is enough replayable content here without an arbitrary grind working in the background.  

Esports Appeal 

Mario Kart and others have a hard time at the esports level because of the luck or RNG element that comes into play in the form of items. Some of these games have historically even had behind-the-scenes multipliers to gift better items to players lower on the race standings. 

Whereas games like Super Smash Bros. have had the option to remove these factors and still become tests of skill, Mario Kart usually doesn't, and it becomes nothing more than a time trial. 

This places TSR in an interesting space, if not makes it better positioned than those before it to become an esport. 

While the random elements are here as well, the team-based abilities make for an interesting wrinkle capable of keeping things fresh enough to feature on a big stage. Interplay between teams on top of the typical perfected course runs would make for a fun playing and viewing session. 

Even then, TSR will have a tough climb because esports are generally viewed as the best of the best only based on skill. Were it more accommodating, kart racers would break through more often.

But TSR can still have a competitive scene at the very top around the internet just like Mario Kart does, even if it doesn't take off on bigger stages. The mechanics involved seem to hint at it having a better chance than those that came before it. 

Conclusion 

TSR deserves a lot of credit for stepping up to the plate in a well-worn arena and trying something new. The new is fun and worth a look, if not capable of hooking players in for the long haul. The game could have simply done a by-the-books offering and called it a day.  

But perhaps the biggest fault is the inability to set itself apart by going by-the-book with everything else.

There are interesting characters and stories to be told in the Sonic universe. But this racer falls back on the same old things and misses chances to be unique in areas like the Ultimates department, which ends up making it borderline indistinguishable from its cousin Mario Kart outside of the fact characters are split into groups. 

If anything, TSR really sets the groundwork for an incredible second effort that builds on the strong baselines established here. It wouldn't be a shock to see competitors gobble up and build on some of the team-based ideas, too. As a pioneer of sorts for a new niche, Team Sonic Racing is a success and worth a look.