Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers (Sequel to Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart) officially released!!

Yeah, that's the issue with Rival Systems. The game just cheats hard to challenge the player.

 

A post-launch patch has been posted to address some issues with the CPU AI, by the way, as well as other problems noted in this thread. (It's a long read.)

https://www.kartkrew.org/news/2024-04-26_dr-robotniks-ring-racers-version-21.html

tl;dr version: "We sent the wrong message."

 

As someone who played SRB2Kart out of curiosity since I heard rave reviews of it and had a decent time with Time Attack, I'm interested in Ring Racer for the considerably heavier focus on Single Player content. I will say the presentation is very well done and feels much more like it's own thing compared to SRB2Kart.

...However yeah I will also chime in and say the tutorial is far, far too overwhelming in it's current state and leaves a very negative first impression. I just started playing the game for the first time and grabbed the most recent release. Even with the tutorial 'nerfs', I felt compelled to try to complete it in it's entirety due to comments in this thread recommending it due to the techniques present in the game. I got up to the Drifting tutorial where the player is asked to outrun the bomb before I started getting incredibly annoyed with the whole thing. I guess my big issue with it is that it feels like the tutorial values visual style and story-telling over properly explaining what's expected from the player to win races.

The opening with the game starting from Metal Sonic's perspective is really cool, but the issue is that the player immediately begins with their selection cursor on the Password option. Unless the player did reading ahead of time, this option serves absolutely no purpose and it feels weird knowing there's nothing they can really do with it. I feel I wouldn't have issue with this if the 'Enter Password' option was better hidden from the average player? I dunno. It feels weird to me to have this 'instant skip' option out in the open if the average player who doesn't want to 'cheat' can't interact with it in any meaningful way.

Past that, a lot of options are hidden behind Eggman and Tails' banter when starting on a fresh save. From an in-game story perspective, it makes sense you can't access the video resolution options until Eggman and Tails are done explaining it. From a player perspective though, it's incredibly obnoxious and feels very anti-user that they have to wait before they can customize something this basic. As far as I can tell, there's absolutely no way for the player to speed up Tails and Eggman's dialog either (every button I tried wasn't working - please correct me if I'm wrong).



I was also pretty annoyed to discover a similar snippet of dialog occurs if you choose to quit the game prior to properly finishing the tutorial. In-universe, it's explained as Metal Sonic having a malfunction and being rebooted. That's incredibly cute, I adore the sprite work here, but the option to resume the tutorial is arbitrarily hidden from the player until this dialog is finished. Every single time. So there's a solid minute before you can even begin to play the game again. It's genuinely really frustrating and I wish the option was always available in this scenario.

Past this menu dialog, the actual tutorials feel very...disorganized unfortunately. It's very weird to explain, but it feels like the game assumes you know what a kart racer is, as well as the primary goal of every kart racer, and then just starts chucking techniques at you that are buried underneath a lot of lore and storytelling. It's really cute if you do enjoy the dialog (and it is pretty well-written!), but it makes the tutorial feel very cluttered.




The Ring system tutorial is a good example of this. The game just...kinda plops the player into a room with 5 Rings in their inventory already and plops a couple of rings ahead of the player on the way forward. It feels like the game kinda assumes you've played a kart racer that had a similar collectible before (like Super Mario Kart) or just assumes player curiosity will drive them towards the Rings (which is fair). Despite the game having tons of dialog elsewhere, there's no dialog here from Eggman or Tails that hints later on what you'll need Rings for or even explains how many you can carry...



...But then for some reason the tutorial completely stops dead in it's tracks to talk to you about this Ring that Eggman and Tails built. Nothing from this exchange has anything to do with the game mechanics and nothing in this room really teaches you anything. It's just...there because?

Then the game picks up where it left off in the room before explaining that Rings can be used for speed, but still hasn't told you how many you can carry or anything. You have to figure that out yourself. You don't really find out about the 20 Ring limit until Eggman mentions the 20 Ring deficiency or if you've been paying attention to the bottom left corner (and a player might have not grabbed the 20 max prior to this point). It feels so half-explained in one area, and overly explained elsewhere. It's genuinely really maddening to play. It's also made more obnoxious by the game using a Standard Saturn pad layout in the options, and the completely different 3D Saturn Pad in the bottom right corner during gameplay. It becomes difficult figuring out what button does what and I frequently forgot what button did what as a result.

The harsh penalties of not having rings also makes later sections feel very difficult to adapt to. The bomb tutorial not giving you any Rings and having to sit through the explosion animation when you fail just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Knowing this is a core mechanic in racing doesn't inspire confidence either. I eventually got past it, but it feels weird the middle of the tutorial asks for this much engagement from the player when they haven't even raced anyone yet.

Really I think the tutorial would massively benefit from some major overhauls. In it's current state it's just a really disorganized mess.

I apologize if anything I stated comes across as harsh to the Kart Krew. I know they must have been excited to put this out and there's a ton of work that goes into game development. I appreciate the transparency in the recent patch notes and I think it's a really great thing to share, but I think starting from scratch in a later update would be beneficial if this many people are completely put off by it.

(Edited to fix some minor grammar mistakes and add one or two more sentences.)

 

The tutorial isnt even fully comprehensive.

I had to learn about slipstream/drafting mechanics a day after the game came out from a random twitter conversation lol.

Lo' and behold; drafting is actually kinda important to know since its capabilities are impacted by how many rings you have! Wow what a surprise!

 

I really, really wanted to like this game, but it's just not fun in its current state.

Like others have mentioned, the tutorial just needs completely overhauled. It's a terrible first impression as it stands and very overwhelming. My suggestion would be to turn it into an optional story/challenge mode that begins with a tutorial covering just the basics: how the start of a race works, rings, and drifting. Then have an open HUB area with gates to seperate challenges covering advanced tech and items. For example, the challenge for the spring item would cover the trick system, the sneaker item for shortcut gates, SPD item for outrunning them, etc. Completing a challenge could offer an unlockable as an incentive and players would be free to go through them at their own pace.

Onto gameplay, the ring system is terrible as-is. I like the mechanic of using rings for a speed boost, but the problem is that tracks are designed to require said boost just to go through regular parts of the track, punishing players with no or low rings often for reasons outside their control. This is even worse with items, as getting an item prevents ring use, leading to getting an item being a punishment instead of a benefit.

Hitstun and tumble isn't fun. Since there is zero item play due to the ring system, there's no way to defend yourself from being flung across the map from the rival cpu racer during the final lap, ruining your entire run because using continues penalizes your score and screws you out of getting the emerald. The cups are already long enough at 5 races and 2 battles, I simply don't have the time or patience to restart the cup until I've gotten a lucky run. Speaking of the battles, the time limit is ridiculous. You only get 10-20 seconds, so if you haven't memorized the layout and gimmicks beforehand, you are pretty much screwed.

 

The tutorial makes you use the Insta-Whip to hit switches, a scenario that never occurs in live gameplay, and then forgets to tell you it can also parry items in a pinch, while still treating zero or below Rings like a state that has its own advantages rather than pure trouble. It doesn't tell you about the race start-ups so you just have to pray the bots don't bully you into Faults all the time as you learn the hard way what works and what doesn't.

It also forgot to help explain anything for the rest of the items beyond Sneaker boosts and the Gachabons or whatever, how drifting or ring usage truly needs to be utilized in certain ways to optimally keep speeds or even make it up basic slopes thanks to mostly designing itself to never actually emphasize the necessity beyond the initial Spin Dash use uphill, or even how character weight/speed classes work, something silently carried over from SRB2 Kart but you wouldn't even realize exists until you notice the prompt on character selection that barely describes each character's ranks.

Instead they have you do lightweight platforming and ramping situations that simply don't happen the way they do in races, outrun a bomb in a controlled drift scenario that doesn't reflect how courses actually ask you to drift between off-road terrain, pits and obstacles on the rest of the game's course design, or have an entire section devoted to a weird and kinda finicky trick system that appears in only a handful of courses from the 200+, which begs the question of "why even have this mechanic if it's barely used?"

If some of this reflected a sort of Crash Team Racing or Diddy Kong Racing adventure mode thing with some sub-challenges in between it all, then hey, but as it stands, the current tutorial does a really poor job of actually prepping players for the rest of the game.

I don't like being harsh on this sort of stuff, but it's not simply "it's too long" as some people in other places have strawmanned about, though having to rapidly tap through dialogue boxes over the course of 30-40 minutes is indeed a problem. The whole thing would benefit from being an (optional) set up of Tails and Robotnik giving you a list lowdown on a makeshift driving course akin to some sort of license training, covering what the player wants to cover and giving you controlled case scenarios of racing situations for different features. Get the initial setup out of the way and then have them ask how familiar you are with racing games to jump to advanced stuff or start with the basics.

As it stands it feels more like a rough draft attempt to start off a Story Mode thing that never took off than it does a real game tutorial, aimed towards people who played SRB2 Kart and no one else while creating a narrative that ends up pointless by the game's own plot-less design. And by my own standards on kart racing games needing to be pick up and play affairs with a low skill floor but a high ceiling, if you need a half hour or more to explain everything and still don't actually explain everything, something got lost in the commotion and direction.

 

(Huge wall of text incoming.)

I think what you stated is a much better explanation of what I was trying to get at, and now feels more apparent since I've reached the 'real' part of the game. It assumes you're familiar with the basics of a kart racer and never explains how to apply what it teaches to the actual racing portion of the game.

Instead, it's a weird 'Lite Adventure Mode' that feels like it was written assuming you played SRB2Kart before and just applies a select few new game mechanics into it hoping the player will understand how they're meant to work in the context of a race. I think that's why I was so critical of it in my last post where I stated it assumes you've played a kart racer before. I think if you're going to semi-force a tutorial like this, it's not necessarily bad to have something that just reminds you of your end goal (win the race) and then slowly build from there. The tutorial kinda gets it right initially with starting you off with basic movement, but then jumps into a weird 'look around' tutorial and just stops being beginner friendly from there.

The whiplash I got realizing something as simple as the menu gets a complete overhaul aesthetically makes it feel like I played two completely separate games rather than being a cool buildup to something grand. It feels like they both had entirely different design goals in mind rather than working with one another and just sorta used the same gameplay mechanics.

I'm genuinely pretty baffled reading this. The game has an entire other parry method system in place that you aren't told exists at all in it's tutorial, which has an area where it would be completely reasonable to teach this in a controlled environment? Why does the game instead choose to teach you a completely different parry system 10 minutes later in a separate tutorial? The parry system in that context seems more situational too since it seems a bit less likely the player will have a shield compared to not having any rings with how frequently the game relies on ring usage. So it's not even like one parry system is slightly superior over the other or much less likely to come up.

Timing to parry the bomb was something I already was getting frustrated with since I kept forgetting what trigger on my Xbox One controller used the bomb, and I was already sort of baffled the shield didn't abide by Sonic the Hedgehog rules (the shield doesn't take a hit for you automatically, you instead have to 'use' it rather than it being used automatically). Why is this system so weirdly complicated and inconsistent with the property it's based off of? I see no reason for this and it feels like it makes items more of a punishment if they require these extra steps in addition to them blocking Ring usage.

My frustrations with the bomb segment of the tutorial are made bigger by an earlier tutorial having a single instance of something that I think would have solved my issue by providing me with more reaction time, but it also would've solved a lot of woes I have with the current tutorial setup:


The brake section of the tutorial has an instance where the game freezes and won't unfreeze until you hit Z to advance the text. This gives you time to process what's going on and allows you to adjust for the proper button inputs needed. As far as I'm aware, this is the only section in any of the opening tutorials that the game provides that does this. I was very caught off-guard as a result.

Why didn't more of the tutorials have this? Even stranger, why on earth does the first brake tutorial that happens like 5 seconds before this tutorial section not do this? The second instance of the game testing your brake reflexes is easier as a result when it feels like it should be vice-versa. The only difference I see is that one actively hurts Tails while the other just slaps him back to the start, but even if a player mucks up the former, they're protected by Rings given earlier. It actively feels less punishing as a result since I can just tank the hit and not lose progress in the tutorial, whereas the first brake tutorial does this.

If more tutorials had the 'freeze feature', then the player would've had the ability to properly readjust themselves and get ready for what the tutorial was throwing at you. Having this in the Trick tutorial segment so the player knew when to do the trick would've been great. Better yet, it seems like unfreezing the game could've been tied to the correct input for that section of the tutorial so you were actually doing what the game was asking you to do, as opposed to 'Z'. So physically the game wouldn't let you move forward until it saw you did the right input. The Mario & Luigi games did something similar with freezing combat for a better visual example as to what I'm referring to.

I get this wouldn't fix everything (as there are issues at the core of the concept), but a huge issue is that the kart explosion situation most tutorial scenarios let you run into feels really demeaning. I think it's not only because of the fade out and long animation, but also because it can actively interrupt text from Dr. Eggman and Tails and I have to pay attention to it again. It also feels like it can occur in areas that really shouldn't have it. The Springs tutorial having a 'death pit' at it's start feels really cruel when initially starting a tutorial, when I think a 'walk of shame' back to the Springs would've felt more forgiving. The game kinda does something similar with the Blue Springs in the water skipping segment of that tutorial too. Having that design applied everywhere would've been more 'friendly', or just have the player instantly respawn like with the pink goo in the Turbine section of the tutorial with some flavor text from the current racer ('Ah that didn't go well lemme try again').

I also feel this 'freeze' trick might have potentially allowed for instances where the player is in a controlled environment against an AI racer, so they could potentially see in live action how they're meant to respond in a race. The only time the game does humor the player with an AI racer is in the Ring tutorial where a completely stationary Eggrobo can be whacked around a bit. That's literally the only time you see another racer in this tutorial, and said racer does not drive. It sort of gives you a decent idea of what needs to be done and how an AI racer will look, but I question why the Eggrobo wasn't also used in favor of the switches slightly prior to that if the game's course design never uses the latter.

(Everything pertaining to this quote is spoilered since I realize I got a bit long-winded here and so it's easier to talk about without ruining the experience for others.)

Spoiler

When you say this, does the game actually not elaborate on why Tails and Eggman are buddy-buddy at the start of this game? I actually found a lot of their back and forth really cute since it feels all decently in character to 'game canon' (and a couple of the jabs Eggman takes at Tails are pretty funny). It kinda feels like they just recently agreed to become lab partners and there's some slight tension between both characters that they're trying to put behind one another for the sake of science/moving on.

I figured the game was going to be a Colors/Mean Bean Machine hybrid in terms of plot and there would be little nuggets of story explaining how exactly they came together to create this High Voltage Ring through journals or something the player could unlock through in-game progress (think the manual from SRB2Kart but reserved for lore). Then it actually turns out Eggman was doing this for personal gain, he gets his butt beat, the Ring is destroyed, and status quo is restored. Nothing insane, but it gives the player a little more to work towards as they go through the cups. The game never actually does anything further with this relationship? It's literally all for the opening of the game? I'm hoping I'm misunderstanding here.

I would've been okay if there was a throwaway line at the start or something explaining this is like a little fan fiction 'what if?' thing. It feels weird to adhere kinda closely to 'game canon' but then not elaborate on why these characters are suddenly pals. They're enemies for a majority of the titles they're in together. It's not something that can easily be handwaved and the 'marketing' for the game makes the two prominent. Why go this extra mile if there's nothing there? Was there anything in marketing that I missed that wasn't tied to a Discord server or something?

Again, I actually really like the writing! I just figured there would be something stating 'oh this is why this is happening' that's drip-fed to us as we progress through the game. If it's all junked at the introduction, why should a player get invested in such a long story? It feels silly to have this whole mini plot arc on Tails and Eggman meeting up with one another at Eggman's base if nothing happens with it.

I think another issue I have with the Bumper item is that (assuming the player didn't use the cheats given out in the latest update) Robotnik Carnival is the first course of the game that you get to play. I...actually thought they were environmental hazards and not something the player can actually get from the Item Roulette. Since the Bumper is based off of the Bumpers from Sonic 2 in terms of design, they feel very natural in that environment and it didn't click for me 'Oh this is an item that a player threw out' since I never got it during my first run.

I also agree the knockback is insane. If you're at a moderate pace and get hit with that it feels like you lose a lot of progress and I dunno how to apply what I learned to save myself really.



This experience is also made more sour by the game starting off on 'Normal' mode which I still think is a smidge too difficult for dumb baby brain me. I kinda mindlessly mashed through this after the tutorial and it didn't really hit me this was a difficulty selector and you can go back to an easier difficulty (appropriately named 'Easy'). The game also doesn't remember your last selection here, so I have to manually select 'Easy' again before starting a Cup. Why does the game not default to 'Easy' instead? I feel you're less likely to run into huge knockback from the AI playing dirty there, and some of the knockback 'loops' are so nasty that it makes the game very difficult to access to newcomers.

I really want to like everything here, but there are so many odd choices that feel like they were only tested individually without considering how it all looks condensed from someone who just wants a little kart racer. I really do hope something positive can come from the feedback given.

 

IM just trying it still but can i just say, playing on a pro controller this games button mapping is horrible, and why does the look back button also use rings and items? This game is incredibly bizarre and so far ive gotta say i kinda hate it compared to SRB2K

Edit: For whatever reason my controller disconnecting and reconnecting has "fixed" the issue of looking back using rings and items as well, not sure what was going on but still not feeling great about the game so far

Edit 2: No offense to the devs but this game sucks real bad compared to SRB2K. Don't think im coming back to this one, way way way too many bad track designs for all the anti-fun mechanics there are.

 

So, I have committed the sin of downloading a 100% finished save file to have everything unlocked, even after the passwords.txt becoming a thing. From what I have played thus far, this game feels like a very cursed mash-up of Mario Kart 64 and Muppet RaceMania. Considering I still like both games, I think I might be here for that?

I'm curious enough to see where this goes. Opinions are so divided, I've come to the conclusion that the only way to know if I'll like it is to play it for myself. We'll see how my opinions start to mirror y'all's.

While I will say your post/essay was an interesting read, I appreciate that you don't want to fixate on the tutorial itself too much. My feelings basically mirror yours, and at the same time, I wouldn't see the tutorial as too problematic if it were to become even more optional in future builds. (It's clear from the changelog from earlier that the Kart Krew are listening to feedback.) The worst a tutorial can be is yet another little chore to unlock more content, as long as it's not forced.

Modern games have (largely) strayed from forced tutorial levels for a reason. It is so much more streamlined to teach a player how to play the game while they're playing it for real, through careful staging with the introduction of one game mechanic to another. (As well as optional tutorial text/spoken dialog for players who need more direct guidance, such as Robo Chao in Sonic Adventure 2.) Front-loading basic game mechanics pushes more people away than anything.

One thing I do know for sure: Some of SRB2's developers never played any modern 3D platformers beyond Sonic Heroes, which lead into a conundrum for the game's analog controls. No one knew how to make it better for a lack of experience with modern games to use as a reference. (Fortunately, multiple volunteers stepped up and provided even better control systems than before.)

Given the crossover between developers for Kart and SRB2 proper, I have to wonder what Kart Krew's "reading material" was for Ring Racers? What racing games did they play that they wanted to replicate here?

 

We don't know if this is the final version. I say we stop treating this like Sonic Omens and look at this more with an open mind.

 

Who is "we"? I mean, everyone can criticize the questionable choices of that fangame.

 

​

 

I've seen a lot of posts on here focusing on the bad parts of Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers. Some are justified; other aren't.

 

I haven't played it yet, this thread has been pretty negative and I'm sure there's good stuff to mention, but nothing is immune to critique. It's at least presented as a "final version", i.e. a feature complete stable build, current release is "version 2.1".

 

The reason for that is because, for many people, the bad parts completely overshadow whatever good there is left to be had. Ring Racers is a hell of a kart racer that's a lot of fun to play when you get into it - but when you're *not* into it, it becomes a confusing slog bogged down by unforgiving AI, unexplained/cryptic mechanics, and an overwhelming tutorial that paints a completely inaccurate picture of the actual game.

There's been plenty of positive feedback on the game in other places, this is not obligated to be one of them. Personally I'm waiting to see what other changes they have in the works, because the fixes they put out are band-aid fixes by their own admission.

This is also a very different situation than Omens. Omens caught fire because of their actions outside of the actual game - the game itself was pretty solid, at least in my opinion. Ring Racers is catching fire because of actual game mechanics that present themselves immediately upon starting.

 

I finally checked it out and actually did the whole tutorial and was fine with it. But the actual racing against the AI...what the hell is with this rubber banding. I only tried easy even, maybe Fang just sucks but my rival (Knuckles) was in a constant super charged state after I won a single race in the first cup.

Edit: Like if I'm fighting for my goddamn life in the equivalent of 50cc, the balance is pretty messed up. I could play F-Zero X or GX if I wanted AI that cheated that bad, with a better sense of speed and control.

 

The Rival is basically cheating. Tracker posted the Rival's code on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/Tracker_TD/status/1784683298284867641



Also I could be wrong on this, but I think there's dynamic difficulty, where the better you do, the harder the AI becomes. Least that's what it felt like.

 

That's insane, the game shouldn't work that way on normal and easy. Not even classic Mario Kart did, it just sped them up when behind and slowed them down when ahead. My brief experience with it actually reminded me a bit of the CTR remake and that the AI was over tuned because the devs were CTR masters that expected people will just pull out all the stops at average play. In other words.

Spoiler

Edit: Spoilered the image due to the crassness of the humor

Edit 2: I played some more and unlocked a character I actually like (Jack Frost, I also used him in SRB2K) and I can kinda sorta deal with the rival AI now but there is definitely still a scenario where you can get completely Mario Kart'd and be unable to ever catch up with them. I also tried match races with the hardest AI and they're easier to deal with than the Rival ON EASY because they don't have busted stats. I really do wonder what game they referenced for the GP difficulty considering this (what was it, F-Zero GX's Story Mode on Hard?). It sucks because so much stuff is locked behind single player and the main mode is kind of not fun to play.

 

I gave the game another shot with friends and I just, don't like it. Between the AI being obnoxiously difficult even post patch to mechanics that feel solely designed to screw you over, It just doesn't feel good for me to play at all. And the things i do like just dont make up for everything that constantly drags the game down. Why do the shortcut paths have barriers? Why do said barriers fling you backwards? Its bad enough to slam into a wall as is. Why does the rival just have a better ring boost than you do. What even is the point of the melee attack with no rings. Hell, what even is the point of most of these mechanics? they feel like they just make the game artificially deeper by virtue of simply having more in it. Why are the special stages just... that. They're so bad.

Also, I really dont like having sonic accurate "slope physics". Getting hit before even small hills and having no rings, and then not even being able to just drive up the slope without spindashing is insane to me. Hell, the spindash really only feels like it exists for this reason, and its not a fun addition for it, its just intrusive.

It feels like they didn't really understand what actually made SRB2K a fun game, and I'd say that game was already a bit harder on average than your standard mario kart. But add all the bloat, the cheap ai, the insane knockback, and some pretty terribly designed tracks, and frankly it's just a miserable time. I could go a lot harder or more in depth with my thoughts but honestly I dont want to be here for too long writing about it, the game just frustrates me on a base level. There's some good to be had here, but, man, its completely overshadowed to me by just a miserable experience

 

Trying to implement Sonic physics into a kart racer is definitely insane. It's pretty obvious it was put in there to make ring use mandatory but then when you don't have ANY, generally due to getting hit, you are absolutely screwed. It also makes grabbing items less than ideal because of the speed you lose on inclines and, bizarrely, drifting (it's pretty damn significant). Also as others have said, who the hell puts hitstun in a kart racer. It's not a fighting game, the spin out/flipping is more than enough. It's just so weird to pause in place from a whack and then spin out/tumble.

Edit: The special stages being ass also sucks because that BGM is a banger.