I'm not denying there's nostalgia pandering going on here with the music, more that the argument I had was Sonic has a history of interesting locales/music to take inspiration from for a kart racer while Mario has a bunch of forgettable locales/repetitive music that would provide for a dull racing experience if it tried to do the same. Honestly for Mario though I'd love to see the main games take some of the level themes from Mario Kart 8. A lot of them are really interesting and it would be a nice break from grass, desert, water, ice, rock, cloud, lava.
I think this game needed to hit Christmas 2018 to stand a chance. Well before Crash got any momentum and the similar release timing - a game which is probably going to vastly eclipse this because Crash has hype and nostalgia around it whilst this - as many have said here - has a slick soundtrack and not much else. As others have said it's lacking a hook. Something compelling to drive interest and sales - and that team mechanic isn't it. Crash is probably going to annihilate this which is ridiculous if you think about it as Sonic is the far greater icon. They needed to produce a killer game. Something that would have surpassed its predecessors. Not a mildly interesting distraction.
I have no doubt after playing it that this will be a quality game, but it lacks enough to differentiate it from the pack (the team stuff is cool but not a huge draw for people) and Crash has the benefit of nostalgia and name recognition. Crash Team Racing was huge, and the thought of getting another one is exciting for people who grew up with it. There's no Sonic equivalent. Even if Transformed was launching this year instead of TSR it'd be screwed.
I think judging from how popular CTR was in the UK, anything would struggle over here. Can't speak for other regions. I'm really not sure why people are so excited for CTR, though - sure, it'll be a good nostalgia blast but surely anyone can see that multiple better kart racers have come out since? I don't know, maybe I'm being overly negative. :v:
I can understand the popularity. Just as man only knows the shadows on the wall and is unaware of what cast them in Plato's allegory of the cave, people who had no access to Diddy Kong Racing only knew Crash Team Racing, so they hailed it as the best racer unaware of the great light of DKR that shone behind them.
This is basically how I feel. TSR looks like a decent game, but it sorely lacks the wow factor of CTR. CTR has the nostalgia push going for it, coming hot off the tails of the remastered trilogy. TSR on the other hand just has people asking "... why?". The obvious one is the question about Sonic being in a car. From a gameplay point of view, fine. ASR and ASRT were great games, so this will follow suit. They at least justified it as something necessary because it was a cross-over where the mechanics weren't workable otherwise. This time around, it's Sonic-only, so that reasoning has been lost. What we're left with its a game that is always going to look/feel somewhat off for an obvious reason, and totally fails to capitalise on what a Sonic racer could theoretically be. On top of that, there's so little info about TSR out there. We've got the entire character roster, which isn't pulling in anything exciting and is actually incredible small. And then we've got the tracks themselves; only 21 in total and 3 or 4 are actually being lifted out of the previous games. TSR is boring. It might be really good fun to play, but as a product to look at, it's incredibly dull. What we know about it isn't enough to make many people care, and when you look more closely it just starts to appear like a lacklustre affair.
This is basically how I feel. TSR looks like a decent game, but it sorely lacks the wow factor of CTR. CTR has the nostalgia push going for it, coming hot off the tails of the remastered trilogy. TSR on the other hand just has people asking "... why?". The obvious one is the question about Sonic being in a car. From a gameplay point of view, fine. ASR and ASRT were great games, so this will follow suit. They at least justified it as something necessary because it was a cross-over where the mechanics weren't workable otherwise. This time around, it's Sonic-only, so that reasoning has been lost. Why has the SEGA cast been dropped? Yes, they were all pretty much dead IPS because SEGA refuses to do anything with their old brands, but they still had an appeal in a SEGA- CROSSOVER. What we're left with its a game that is always going to look/feel somewhat off for an obvious reason, and totally fails to capitalise on what a Sonic racer could theoretically be. On top of that, there's so little info about TSR out there. We've got the entire character roster, which isn't pulling in anything exciting and is actually incredible small. And then we've got the tracks themselves; only 21 in total and 3 or 4 are actually being lifted out of the previous games. TSR is boring. It might be really good fun to play, but as a product to look at, it's incredibly dull. What we know about it isn't enough to make many people care, and when you look more closely it just starts to appear like a lacklustre affair. The transforming gimmick of ASRT was so solid. I figure that a lot of people found it too complex or undercooked, but this was an opportunity to refine and improve it. At the very least, replacing it entirely with the team gameplay isn't a good trade off.
I agree, if they were to release of remake of Diddy Kong Racing, Team Sonic Racing would still look bad in comparison. Honestly though, why couldn't we just get another Sonic Riders game (minus the Kinect fuckery). Modern Sonic makes more sense on a hoverboard then a kart anyway.
I've played both and I still think CTR is better :v: DKR is good too and I like the multiple vehicle access but CTR just feels so damn good to play and the boost/drift system it has makes for some really interesting routes and shortcuts.
The excitement must have slipped me by - I'd almost forgotten that remake had been announced. Although it does speak volumes about this Sonic game when the best title it could come up shares 2/3rds of its name with CTR. Have multiple better kart racing games come out since 1999? Not ones with more attractive words to steal, apparently! Although genuinely I don't think there has been that many big-budget kart racing games over the last 20 years that aren't Mario Kart. Even fewer that were best played on PlayStation platforms, so I can see why people might care. I've been trying on-and-off to track down a copy of CTR for years - I refuse to pay £15 for a pre-owned PS1 game that sold millions of copies out of principle. It's not "rare"!
The existence of a mobile version/port of the game has seemingly leaked. Guessing this was one of the SXSW reveals.
Well, the Sonic Forces mobile game is still getting updated which tells me it did better than its console counterpart. In all sincerity, it makes sense to me. Gonna milk those whales for all they are worth and pretend it isn't a predatory practice like gambling or payday loans.
Funny thing is that they tried that with Sonic Runners. They were able to hook some with the roulette during soft launch but the moment the game got a wide release, they threw out the brakes on the pay-to-win and everything went to hell. (Although the game's constantly buggy software performance didn't help either.) With the result being the game was labeled a failure in Sega's IR reports and taken offline after barely a year it went online. (The fact this was a Sonic Team-branded and Sonic Team-developed game should surprise nobody.) Sure, it got replaced by Gameloft's Sonic Runners Adventure, which doesn't haves gambling mechanics...or not as egregious ones, I don't recall. But that's the problem--nobody cares about Runners Adventure as much as they did for the original game.
I'd be fine if it was some kind of Speed Battle re-skin, honestly. I honestly think I put more hours into it than Forces proper.
Apparently this has been known since August. Speed Battle isn't too egregious with microtransactions. If it's that but cars, I'd give it a shot. $2 to cut ads in half was worth it. Also, the Holiday costumes are cute.
Seems mad that they'd reskin Sonic Dash again when S&ASRT already has a pretty good mobile port, but I guess this option is comparatively cheap and is better placed for microtransactions. Man I wish this game gave me some reason to want it. It would be awesome to see Studiopolis Zone in 3D, for example, but most of the tracks look like someone looked at Mario Kart and then Googled Sonic levels to make the tropes fit. I'm really surprised that the amount of characters is so low. They *might* be saving some for surprises but judging by what is on display so far I doubt it. I don't know if it's SEGA/Sonic Team or Sumo coming up with these teams, but they're rather uninspired. Here's some random teams that I literally just thought up: Team Fighters: Nack/Bark/Bean Team Chaotix: Vector/Espio/Charmy (take Vector out of whatever team Silver and Blaze are on and put in Marine the Raccoon in instead. She's a real character, right? Or Sticks since Sonic Team seem to like her) Team SEGASonic: Classic Sonic/Mighty/Ray (or Classic Sonic, Tails and Knuckles for the cheap reskin option) Team Chao: Neutral Chao/Light Chao/Dark Chao (Mario Kart has loads of babies, so why not? Put Cream The Rabbit back in Team Rose) The Deadly Three: Take Zavok out of Team Eggman and replace him with Eggrobo, Orbot and Cubot or Tails Doll for 9001 internet points. Pick the first other two of the deadly six you can actually remember. The girl and the emo, or the fat one. The Babylon Rogues: The green lad (Jet the Hawk?) and two other ones. I didn't play Riders. The fact that they decided to take out the other SEGA properties to focus on Sonic yet somehow have such a small and uninspired roster of characters and levels is frankly baffling. I don't mean any disrepect to the developers, but I am left wondering who this game is actually for.
Team Eggman / Doctor's Mine screenshots: https://www.4gamer.net/games/421/G042176/20190212105/ Look to be the same as the ones in Famitsu magazine, but clearer and unobscured.
Not necessarily related to Team Sonic Racing itself, but Crackdown 3, the other Sumo Digital game the studio has been brewing over the good half of a decade has finally come out... ...and it's reviewing like most modern Xbox exclusives that aren't part of the Forza series. + - (tl;dr very mediocre reviews, with low 60s metascores that threaten to dip into the high 50s.) Guess internally, the pressure will be high for the Nottingham team to deliver with TSR. They're gonna need all of the luck they can get if you ask me. I read a comment not too long ago that said something to the effect that TSR feels like a Sonic Team project, despite being made by a different studio. Which honestly feels like the most accurate descriptor of this game to me.
That's a pretty accurate descriptor. I'm honestly pretty convinced that TSR will be a solid, decent racer that I'll enjoy. But apart from the soundtrack, it's lacking absolutely any soul whatsoever and feels exactly like the safe, boring, tame and genericised brand tat that Sonic Team and SEGA have been putting out for years now. It's a huge shame, because Sumo's efforts with Superstars Tennis, All Stars Racing and All Stars Racing Transformed were brimming with passion. I can almost imagine SEGA corporate (and Sonic Team's) guidance on this game essentially being "make it like ASRT, but a lot more boring".
