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Team Sonic Racing Game Review

Team Sonic Racing is a 2019 kart racing video game developed by Sumo Digital and published by Sega. It was released on multiple platforms. I played the PC version via Steam. It’s a fun, but very flawed installment in this series.

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“Little something for you, Sonic!“

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This was the third game in the Sonic kart racing series. It received the weakest reviews of the three games and deservedly so. Coming in after ‘Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed’, it was especially disappointing as that one is among the pantheon of greatest kart racers while this game takes too many frustrating left swings to feel entirely satisfying overall.

The main difference between this entry and its two predecessors is the focus on cooperative gameplay. This must definitely be a great mechanic if you have friends who are into gaming, but I don’t, so for me this was useless as the A.I. companions were insufferably unintelligent. There are four teams of three racers in each race, constituting twelve players overall. Within your team, you have to work together and win together if you want to win the race itself.

What does that mean? Well, basic math tells you that if you finish in first and your two companions finish among the last, then the calculation would not work in your favor and you would lose the race. This was the most frustrating element of this entire experience as I ended up depending way too often on foolish A.I. companions with Knuckles being the biggest idiot of the bunch. But when you help them out and win, I have to say that the feeling afterward was quite joyous.

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You help your companions by giving away collected power-ups, but also by giving them boosts. Players leave these trails that when stepped on for a long enough time will activate a special power called “Ultimate”. This gives you super boost and super strength, knocking enemies easily into submission. This was the best part of this cooperative experience as it was a big thrill whenever I activated this power. I just wish that the A.I. were smarter.

There is another huge difference from the predecessors in this entry and this one unfortunately is obviously done for the worse. This cannot be even discussed as it was so clearly a bad move. In a terribly unintuitive move from Sega, they removed all the numerous characters from many other famous Sega franchises that were present before in favor of just the Sonic cast. Needless to say, having to choose just between fifteen players was extra annoying. Sonic is by far the best racer and the speediest, but I still loved playing with Tails as I always do. His handling was most definitely the best and he helped me out a lot in the races where that particular skill was acquired the most.

You can customize both your racers and their vehicles, which was great. Seeing each racer have different stats from others was terrific and this made for varied gameplay with lots of tactics involved for certain stages. As for the power-ups, they are actually quite standard with only a few being memorable at any capacity. Violet Void sucks in any players close by while Red Burst leaves a fiery trail behind you, nimbly stopping those trailing you in their tracks.

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There are only 21 tracks in Team Sonic Racing, of which Frozen Junkyard was among the most visually dazzling and intriguing. Sand Road is also quite gorgeous while Sky Road features some of the most unique designs of the bunch. You can play it online or locally or on your own, which is what I did. There is the usual Time Trial, Grand Prix etc, but I concerned myself the most with Team Adventure as I always do with these games.

There are seven stages consisting of around six to twelve races. Each beaten race gives you two to three stars and a key if you succeed in fulfilling an additional requisite within the race. Each star has its own goal that you need to meet before gaining said star and I just loved collecting them all and eventually 100 percent completing the entire game. The regular races are the easiest and most entertaining of the missions, but others could get super difficult, especially the Eggspawn Assault stages where you had to destroy a predetermined number of enemies and the rings collecting levels, which were also quite hard. You lose your rings in regular races as is always the case with the classic Sonic games and that made the game quite demanding.

The main issue with the adventure mode and the game at large is the story accompanying it. It was just horrendous. Not only is the story limp and instantly forgettable, but so are the characters, who range from somewhat annoying to plain insufferable. Their voices are truly atrocious as this game had some of the worst voice acting and dialogue in gaming. Thankfully, you can skip these dialogue boxes whenever you want, and really you should be doing that all the time given that these sections took the entire game down a notch or two.

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When it comes to its visuals, Team Sonic Racing looks terrific. The game is polished, colorful and many tracks are gorgeous to behold. The vehicles are super cool and each track is different enough and thus quite memorable. The sound is also great, though the score is only solid. It has some memorable themes, but most are forgettable. The game is quite difficult in some missions, which made it challenging for me, but I like a challenge, so I didn’t mind it. Eventually, I succeeded in getting every single star and key, but overall playing the game just wasn’t as fun as it was playing its predecessors.