Team Sonic Racing (2019)

Placed 1st in all 5 Team Grand Prix cups & all Final Fortress Races on Expert

Final Thoughts: My original complaints with the AI still stands even with this replay, but your teammate AI feels much more competent on Expert to the point I'd say its easier than Hard. I've had plenty of team 1st, 2nd, and 3rd/4th finishes this way.

The game aesthetics still blow me away, I'm pretty convinced this HAS to be one of the best Sonic soundtracks ever considering it has Crush 40 & Jun Senuoe, Tee Lopes, and Hyper Potions all contributing to this! All of the remixes are a delight, especially new arrangements for S3&K's Sandopolis Zone, SA's Final Egg, and even Sonic R's Can You Feel the Sunshine. Even the new original composition fits right in too. Visually, some races look very gorgeous compared to their original counterparts. The Casino Park races are the most improved looking with much more dynamic lighting.

Mechanically speaking, your vehicles drift more tightly in this game compared to Sonic All-Star Racing Transformed. Some very tricky turns (especially some Final Fortress races) are much easier to handle now. I do think the team mechanic is interesting and is best utilized when you have real teammates, and that the gameplay has a lot of depth if you manage to find 12 human players that are willing to learn the game. Let's be real though, this will almost never happen as pretty much everyone else will default to Mario Kart 8 instead -- which I think is a terribly unbalanced local multiplayer game if even just one person happens to be more skilled than the rest.

Replaying this game made me appreciate it more than my first attempt, and now I view this game in a much more positive light.

Side Note: Still skipped playing the single-player story, and loaded a save to instantly unlock Final Fortress races.

Original post I've made back on July 21, 2020 when I retired this game:

Difficulty is waaaaaayyy too inconsistent. Normal is like Mario Kart's 50cc (Too slow and Easy), and Hard is impossibly hard. This is one of these games where your skill might not matter. You can lose a race because your teammates all decided to place last, or all of the AI opponents will Team Ultimates on the last turn. I played a lot of arcade racing titles, and the rubber banding AI in this game is some of the worst I've seen. Only positive about this game is I do like the cast's banter, and the music by Crush 40 and Hyper Potions is really really good.

I've played through the campaign mode, and have done some casual online races off and on for the past month or so. Overall I'd say this game is... good! And that's good. If you like kart racers and want something a bit different from the norm, this is a fun one. The focus is on racing in teams of three. You help your teammates out by giving them items and paths to boost on, and they'll hopefully help you in turn. So winning is about all three of you doing well, instead of just you. The tracks are all right, the character selection is okay, and the game controls well enough too. And the music is fan-tastic stuff. How is it that the music is almost always well-worth noting in Sonic games. =P

All that said, Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed is the GOAT kart racer, and I still have to recommend that one over this any day of the week. Damn is Transformed an awesome game. This one in comparison is just... "safe" I guess is the word I'd use. The tracks for the most part just don't have that wow factor that Transformed had, and the cars themselves lack a certain oomph that I seek in these sorts of racers. (Transformed meanwhile had the charm of controlling cars that turn into boats and planes.) I'll still recommend this for kart racing fans, but I imagine many of you are already occupied with the new Crash Racing remake.