You can disable the DLC when creating matches. Funny. I bought the DLC and nobody else was using it. Must have died out within the first couple of weeks when it first came out.
Good to know. That makes planning this a little easier. As with bike characters being overpowered (it's not just Shadow as mentioned before), it's not terribly surprising. The idea of giving them an instant boost by wheeling makes them more potent in the hands of a person who gets the course layout. Ans although they only get a level 1 boost on drifts, that into a wheelie is enough to compensate the lack of a level 2 or 3 charge. Despite all this game's glaring flaws in terms of track design, items (which are otherwise pretty well balanced) and just technical issues (see videos of glitches earlier in the topic), giving the game more polish and far more track variety would help it a lot. I wouldn't mind more racer balance to actually give cars and aircraft more balance in comparison to bikes.
Not to mention the light characters get a starting line boost much quicker and faster than the heavier characters. Seriously, has this ever been looked into? I honestly find Mario Kart Wii a much more enjoyable game because of the little intricacies like this. Bullshit weapons or not, it doesn't excuse the crappy character balance issues. Sega All Stars Racing is like a love-hate relationship for me. Like, it's actually a fairly mediocre Mario Kart clone, but at the same time still has a little bit of flair that makes it nice to go back to. For a sequel, I really wish it just felt more, you know, Sega and less Mario Kart. I mean, there are a wealth of Sega racing games they could harvest from. Hell, make Daytona USA tracks or something. I remember Lycett wanted to make a Daytona/Outrun/Rally type of crossover game. Not sure what happened to it. But I wonder if those ideas are going to go straight into this one?
Mario Kart Wii has character/vehicle balance issues too, though maybe not as pronounced and less noticable due to the aforementioned item chaos. It has the aforementioned problem of bikes almost universally being better than karts, and Funky Kong + Flame Runner, Daisy + Mach Bike, and Baby Daisy + Bullet Bike are widely considered the best options. I remember winning online matches with Banjo, albeit usually it involved races in which I didn't get hit with items/everyone else did as his acceleration is terrible and he needs a wide berth to drift.
Kazuma, Akiyama or Majima, Axl from Streets of Rage and any character from the Phantasy Star Series (minus Ethan) would make me pretty happy.
This is very excellent news. Maybe they can possibly take the Sonic Team cast, besides Dr. Eggman, out of their vehicles. It kind of makes them look lazy. Maybe even more lazy than America. Maybe we'll even get an excellent cast. I smell Vectorman and Tempo & Katy. I'm sure they can do something interesting with Vectorman based on the attack formations from the second game. Ecco was another one of my thoughts but with the vehicle situation the idea of him doing what his ancestors did in Tides of Time, float, becomes a bit defunct.
They're going to stick with Sonic being the focus, deal with it. I support the idea of them actually diversifying the track selection, though. Way too many Sonic stages with the same environments, give us something other than Sonic Heroes.
Sumo said that when they first began making the game, Sonic and Beat weren't in vehicles and simply ran along the tracks, along with them experimenting in various other ways. In the end they decided it simply didn't work with other characters in vehicles and decided to put everyone in cars. It's a random spin-off crossover game, so who cares?
I don't care about the characters, SEGA & Sonic All-Stars Racing had a fine roster. I do care if they are going to make the game a lot better. It has the potential to be a really great alternative to Mario Kart, the drifting and trick mechanics work a lot better than Mario Kart's, not to mention the cars control fluidly and more... car-like, than Mario Kart, but it also does have a ton of issues. I don't remember all of the issues that I've had with it, but right off the bat, the items are pretty dumb and there were several tracks which weren't graphically designed too well, as in only when you hit a wall is when you realize that you had to go left. IE: the Monkey Ball tracks.
I have a good feeling about Ristar this time around, remember in the last one when sega heard the demand for ristar so put him in the Death Egg track? Plus if he's in, Sega might finally make a toy of him~ I dunno if anyone else is a collector but I'd really like to have a Ristar figure
Whatever characters they might add (Ristar and TJ&E, please), I hope they don't remove any of the existant ones, except perhaps for a few of the way too many Sonic characters. As strange as it might sound, I loved the inclusion of Alex Kidd, Opa Opa and the Bonanza Bros...
It already looks like Tempo and Katy are off to an excellent start. And if they did do this, which is like a one out of a billion chance they'd even remember this corny game series, I'd also like to see a Tempo-ish track like from maybe the first game just cause Super Tempo wasn't as funky with its designs.
I'm also a big fan of Sonic and Sega all star racing and hearing these is a good news for me :3. I'm only concerned about 1 thing. I read somewhere few days ago, when trying to find more info about this game, that it comes on WiiU and Vita and 3Ds etc. I really hope not. It was few months old article but I still hope they do not leave console people left out :C. I do not really wanna buy a console for a 1 game. I just have to wait and see, when more info about this game comes up.
I really hope they fix the mouths and such. The first installment lacked any sort of movement from the character whilst they were driving. For instance, Knuckles spines were static, they didnt move at all. The only example I can think of that isnt the case is Big. During the 1st, 2nd, 3rd screen, the characters lacked any emotion, just static faces. Especially Sonic.. his front mouth freaks me out.
Shit! I just had an idea. The classic trio in some tricked-out open-top police buggy. Sega! Get it done.
After the success of Generations, it would be silly not to include Classic Sonic (Bonus points for Sonic Drift car or Naka's Ferrari). I'd love something Golden Axe and seconding Ristar. I really want Vyse and maybe Aika piloting an airship together. Obvious All-Star move is obvious: I'd love for a more diverse selection of tracks based on things like the house in Toy Commander (make everything huge compared to the characters, maybe add in having to avoid those pencil missiles.), the city in Crazy Taxi, or Tokyo-To from the original Jet Set Radio, along with a selection of the sweet-ass soundtracks from the latter two games. A track from Daytona USA would be awesome, and I would officially call this the best game ever if they included "GAME OVER YEEEEEEAAH!" I'm really hoping there's a console release for this, as I don't have any of the platforms rumoured so far, but if Segata Sanshiro is in there, I'm buying a motherfucking Vita. You know who really needs to be in this game? This bastard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MqvIHxkQo All my rings SEGA, ALL MY RINGS. If they do third party bonuses like they did with the first one, it would be awesome (if rather unlikely) if they had someone from Fur Fighters or Power Stone. Fuck it, while I'm reeling off all the things I want out of this game, I want the announcer to be voiced by the dude that did the CRAAZY commentary in Crazy Taxi if you play as BD Joe.
As I recall they only made toys for the Sonic portion of the cast (aside from the Ryo bonuses), so don't count on it.
