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Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Game Review

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a 2012 kart racing video game developed by Sumo Digital and published by Sega. It was released on multiple platforms. It’s such an underrated gem.

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“It’s hard to believe;

but in my game, I’m the bad guy“

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I love kart racers. This is one of my favorite game genres as I just have so much fun playing these childlike racing games with different modes, obstacles and difficulty levels. I’ve sunk so many hours into this game by now that it’s beyond impressive how enormous and expansive it all felt. It did receive good reviews, but it needed stronger critical reception and cult status given how amazing this game really is.

First and foremost, this is a mascot-based kart racer. Sega is great at this type of approach for their kart racers and this is the one area where they are objectively better than their competitors at Nintendo. It has well over twenty playable characters, each being unlocked at different stages and each being quite different than the others.

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Some have better boosting, others are faster etc. Realizing each character’s strength and utilizing it best for corresponding missions based on that mascot’s strength was by far the most strategic element that was refreshing to witness in an otherwise heavily reflex-dependent experience. Each character is based on Sega’s classic games from the past and this is evident in every character’s corresponding area. I loved seeing the respect that this game has for these classics, though Sonic himself needed more areas as this is his game first and foremost after all.

My personal favorite has to be Tails as I adore this little fellow from the Sonic games, so of course I loved playing him here as well. He is so cute and lovable as always. But the strongest character most definitely is Gum as she just has the best stats with Pudding coming in second. I did love seeing Ralph from one of my favorite recent Disney movies, but he should have received better stats overall.

The game definitely has all of the recognizable elements from many other kart racers, but it also has some newly introduced elements that differentiate it from its competitors. Some work better than others, though, and within these fresh additions lies my biggest problem with the game. Transformed is mostly a land game of course, but it also has many levels that are either water or air-based. These levels are driven on a boat or a plane of some kind. I did not like those all that much.

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Well, we all know how water behaves in games. Here, the physics behind it is very simple, but it was frustratingly difficult to navigate it as a result (I despised those nasty waves in particular). The aerial levels fare a bit better due to the greatly utilized ring missions, but the game just becomes overly slow whenever you go into the air. They did the best that they could with these elements, but still they weren’t my favorites.

There are many different types of missions that you can play in this game that features multiple worlds consisting of a number of missions that, when finished, will give you either a new character or enough stars necessary to proceed further onto the next world. The star-system I adored, especially for how cleverly they utilized the difficulty level into it. Each level chosen is progressively harder, leading to some of the best and most layered difficulty progression that I’ve seen in a game in quite a while.

So yes, the game is quite diverse in these missions. I loved the tank missions. You have to destroy a tank before it kills you and simply following it and constantly bombarding it while both thinking of your health and ammo was brilliantly executed. I wished there were more of these levels for sure.

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By far some of the most difficult missions are the drifting ones. I actually love how drifting works in this game. It’s very polished and complex, requiring perfect timing above all else. These levels could get super frustrating when trying to beat them in hard mode, but all the more satisfying when you finally manage to do just that.

Boost challenges are similar in that they require from players to pass through boosts to stop time from moving on. These were also difficult, though with certain characters used in boost modes themselves, it could become significantly easier. Another type of mission is traffic attack. Just like the tank ones, I adore these missions, though they are significantly harder than the aforementioned ones. They require pitch-perfect evading as well as using power-ups.

I did not care all that much for sprint events. They were fine, but nothing special in comparison to all these other missions. The regular missions were great, but everything above easy requires first placement, which can get tricky as the A.I. in this game is actually tremendous. I cannot praise it highly enough. They are not only smart, but are always after you in particular, which makes evading their power-up attacks quite difficult. That is why I adored in particular those battle races where you have to defeat all opponents with each having three lives. That part of the game was absolutely exhilarating and the only problem is that they came in very short supply.

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Coins can be collected in Transformed to use for the slot machine to get weapons. Speaking of the power-ups, they are truly terrific and the usage of them made the game super entertaining and versatile. The blowfish is the weakest weapon as it’s only good for those behind you while it’s quite bad for those in front of you. The rocket fares much better, though it also requires immense precision. The snowball is the best weapon by far as you get three of them, making it almost impossible to miss hitting at least one opponent.

Swarms of wasps are also interesting while the hot rod engine did not appeal to me as it significantly slows you down after that initial boost. And of course there is the all-star item that gives you an all-star ability, which means shielding you from attacks and giving you a tremendous boost. It only lasts for a short time, but when used during the final lap, it can result in a well-timed, last-minute win. I also loved those shields as they were quite important defense from the other players.

There are other modes in Transformed, but the Career one is clearly the only truly engaging one. Of course, for anybody who has a friend to play with, this game is absolutely awesome in competitive mode, but the A.I. is so amazing that it’s a rare kart racer that’s just as fun to play against the computer as it is against a human, which is a huge accomplishment for the creators.

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Whenever you race for a long time with a particular character, that character gets XP that leads to a new mode such as for instance a boost one. By using so cleverly all of these different mascots and each having different stats that can be improved, the game became very dynamic and diverse. The level design is also incredible with amazingly realized race tracks, but more expansive and varied world building would have made it even stronger.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is immensely entertaining to play for 100% completion. It is hard enough, but not infuriatingly so, leading to such a perfect length, investment, longevity and difficulty. All of these worked in unison to make it worth playing for hours upon hours, which is exactly what I did in order to receive every single star. The game’s also very smooth as it only crashes infrequently.

Among all the different tracks, Ocean View is probably the most gorgeous one as it is lovely to look at. Samba Studios is the most colorful and energetic one. The plane ones and those set in interiors of buildings did not appeal to me as they were too confined in space, but the Shinobi one was super cool and Dream Valley was very charming. Adder’s Lair was very spooky, Sanctuary Falls is wonderfully futuristic and Chilly Castle was very cozy and wintery.

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The game’s plot is non-existent of course, but the score is mostly very good. It could have been even better and more varied, but for the most part they honored all those Sega classics very well. The sound is also fantastic. Transformed’s graphics are particularly outstanding with amazing character design across the board and truly gorgeous settings, impressive details and a cartoony aesthetic that really worked for me. The game’s not only super polished and cool, but charming and colorful without ever being garish.