I feel like he needs to be in this tbh. Shadow Gens solidified him as a character in a respectable game now so fuck it, lol
Zavok keeps getting used in the Olympic and Racing games for the same reason Vector does, because they need a certain number of “power” characters to keep the roster balanced.
Since concrete evidence of SEGA having full ownership of the characters from BOTH 1993 DiC shows has come to light, I say that Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts should be added in. Bring the dingbots home! + - Alright, fine. They could also put Sally in as a way to throw SatAM fans a bone.
All those characters you want are very interesting, unique, and not-oft seen. I think that speaks to an advantage of the game's large but conservatively chosen cast, which is that it leaves only the more niche, interesting, and "out there" choices to be added later. It gives little room for people to genuinely complain that some character that gets added later should have been in from the start.
I feel like I’m about to be the odd one here speaking about a non-Sonic character here for their wished characters in this game, but goodness would I adore some Puyo rep, so either Arle Nadja, Carbuncle or, heck, even the Puyo themselves could be fun as racers. I can only dream, I guess… oh yeah also Yes to all of this - they could reference them on an IDW cover, so by goodness, could they EVER bring them back!! + - And yes to Sally, too; SEGA owns her, as proven by Sonic Spinball.
I repeat, who's gonna play between two Zeti in Crossworlds? They put Zazz and Zavok in their game nobody asked for. Hence, unpopular picks.
What does it mean to "play between them"? Like I'm sitting on my couch doing a voyage in Sea of Thieves, and Zavok is sitting to my left and Zazz is sitting to my right?
Cream was being pushed really hard when she was introduced into the franchise, and fans at the time felt they/the franchise was being too infantilized by her appearance and the other pushes the franchise was doing to cater to a young audience (the Sonic X anime and its weird young american cartoon tone despite being an anime, which american audiences associated the anime format with being "more mature/edgy/cool", rather than something more kiddy), and also a lot of these fans were boy teens and pre-teens that did not want to see their favorite games being seen as more kiddy or cuter or girly, especially in the 2000s, where it was trendy for boys to insult each other as 'gay' for being into anything slightly non-mainstream or non-overtly super masculine. She was also representative of the criticism that started to bubble of Sonic "having too many characters" - Tails, Knuckles and Amy are essential characters, Cream wasn't. Cream occupies a strange "support role" that makes her be seen as unimportant, as fluff, her presence just making Sonic look kiddy and bloated instead. She isn't "cool" like a character like Shadow is, and probably she didn't also help in bringing young girls into the fold as much as the developers I think wanted or intended to - young girl Sonic fans I don't think imprinted onto Cream, they looked at the other characters instead. SEGA I think understood the pushback against Cream to an extent and downplayed her and put her to the side when the franchise was trying to improve its public perception, but the world and the franchise is at a much more different place than it was 15 years ago - the years of sidelining the extended cast has created a big demand for them, the cute appeal of Cream has found an audience now that the world is a little less overtly homophobic and more free to embrace or even understand that kind of appeal. I'm really happy that she's been getting such a big warm reception, I was playing as her for most of the closed test and would nearly always see at least one more Cream in the lobby, and everyone playing as her would 100% emote too lol
Choosing either Zazz or Zavok. Did they asked these two Zeti to be included in the game? My prediction is none of the competitive players will choose any of these characters that isn't Sonic or Shadow.
I am still sad that the character roster is apparently not divisible by three, so they aren't doing Heroes-styled teams for this one. I was sure that's where they were going with this since they bothered to add Cream and Charmy. As Heores was one of my first sonic games along with gems collections, it has earned my undying loyalty in a sort of regrettable blood pact situation, so I'm constantly obsessed with sonic characters being grouped into Power-Flight-Speed groups of three. I was really hoping this could finally be the time they canonize Marine into a team with Silver and Blaze. I'm guessing that Zavok and Zazz are going to be the only zetis (though I'm guessing they were only added because their models and animations can be reused from the olympics games...) which I'd rather none of them be here, yet this Heroes bug inside me makes me yearn for a third zeti to be added to even them out. Zavok is obviously power, and Zazz is kinda wirey and skittish so he works as speed, but none of the other zetis really fit in flight type. My pick would be Zomom, because I think he's inda funny and he can spin his arms like a helicopter so it works. And then you can even add the other three zetis as a SECOND team zeti! So Zor would be the flight one, since he can make shadow bats I guess. Zik would be Power since I think "old guy whos secretly strong" is a funny trope. And Zeena would be speed since shes the only one left. Spoiler By the way, I've seen people organize Team Silver with Siver-Flight, Blaze-Speed, and Marine-Power, which is so OBVIOUSLY wrong. I understand wanting to put Blaze as Speed since she is meant to be an alternate universe Sonic, but fire powers has consistently been associated with Power characters and it would be weird if Silver was the only non-speed hedgehog. If Amy is a speed character than so is Silver. And I like the idea they had of making a team out of Mighty Ray and Metal Sonic in sonic heroes originally, but putting Metal on a good guy team seems like it would be very circumstantially tied to the story of heroes and wouldn't last forever. It's a neat reference to SegaSonic, I just like to imagine the plot being mighty and ray mistaking the robot for the real sonic since they hadn't seen him in a while. Mighty and ray would need a new Speed character if you were going to bring them back, and personally I think Fang or Trip work the best thematically as classic characters but Fang is tied to the Hooligans and Trip is clearly a power type character. So if I had to pick one, I'd probably go with Honey the Cat. Or revive some obscure character from the shogakukan comics like MONICA THE MOUSE BAYBEEEE Ok i'm done.
No one made a good video. Kart customization can make a drastic difference to your stats, and character selection only has a slight influence. This is Tails in a Speed Type and an Acceleration Type car Speed vs. Acceleration 91 / 64 49 / 100 56 / 44 62 / 56 42 / 36 Tails has a the best acceleration out of the entire roster, with Zazz close behind him. But if you decide you dont' give a damn about about that, you can just set him up with some speed configuration. He'll be slightly slower than Sonic or Shadow, but he's going to still have better handling than the rest of the cast with a simliar set up. Throw in some Gadges to boost your speed and you'll be hitting the same speeds as those two. The customization pretty much lets you race whoever you want, however you want. There's this 40 minute video that shows character stats, bloated with some races. I don't think it's worth a view though because they swap car types rather than sticking to a default car. They also don't show the individual parts and their relevant stats. Here's everyone in the beta and their dominate stat. Speed Sonic = Shadow Acceleration Tails > Zazz Handling Amy > Cream Power Knuckles > Omega > Eggman
It dawns that me that alongside the fact that the races get way too chaotic with the number item boxes strewn across the tracks, the developers also went overboard with the sheer number of items in the game and they're not easy to understand at a glance. All four of the Sonic Racing games have now used entirely different item sets, with this game sharing some some from both ASR and TSR. To make it worse, the Laser Wisp returns from TSR but no longer functions as an offensive tool and is instead a variant boost. There's also the tornado, with an almost identical icon to ASRT's whirlwind but an entirely different function. There are 23 items in total (20 not counting multi variants of items that have them), but too many share such similar niches. And yes, MK8 also has 23 items in total (with one exclusive to battle mode), although they don't overlap nearly as much. I think this game might be better off outright removing some of them. Shield and monster truck both increase speed and grant invulnerability. Tornado also grants invulnerability to some forms of damage (it's unclear what exactly) and damages other racers ilon contact. Make shields a purely defensive tool with no buffs to speed and avaliable to the middle of the pack, whilst the monster truck and can given to lower ranked players. Scrap tornado. Laser and drill both serve the same purpose as a catch up tool. And the final boost of a triple boost is also very powerful. Just get rid of the laser as it's purpose is already served elsewhere and feels cheap to other players with how instantaneous it is. Warp ring is cheap and unfair. Warping to the player ahead of you and crushing them? Piss off. Cut it. Omochao and bonus ring. Basically the same thing, except Omochao gives you an advantage of having longer exposure to rings. Even when your ring count is maxed, you still accelerate as long as you're collecting rings. Just get rid of the bonus ring. It's less interesting. Void and magnet are confusing. Did anyone else instinctively think that they should do the opposite of what they each did? Void creates an AOE around your vehicle, pulling in items and rings, whilst magnet leaves a magnet trap on the track that sticks to other races and slows them down if they hit it. But I would have thought that Void would create a black hole of sorts as a trap whilst holding a magnet could be used to attract those golden rings that are strewn about everywhere. Arguably the ability to draw in items is unnecessary considering how abundant they are and how gadgets offer a wider collection radius as a passive buff. Scrap the void item for attracting items. And for the sake of clarity, repurpose the magnet trap as a void/black hole. King Boom Boo. He's not bad in practice, but I couldn't figure out what he out did whilst I was playing. He summons a pillars of blue fire/water/tornadoes/things on the track ahead of the player in first place, in essence very similar to both Quake in TSR and Swarm in ASRT. The visual communication here is poor. It's so difficult to understand, just like void and magnet! I suggest having it summon a bunch of ghostly hands or Boom Boos instead for some visual continuity. Any other thoughts on this? I personally loved ASRTs items that really focused so much in skill. They were balanced in a way unlike any other Kart racer I've ever seen. But it's pretty obvious that Crossworlds isn't designed like that game, and items like the snowball and firework just wouldn't work the same in such condensed courses this time around. TSRs Wisps were easy to understand even if you had little Sonic knowledge. That not the case for CrossWorlds though. It's got a messy hodge podge of random items. However, de-bloating the item-pool and focusing on clarity would really help with the sensory overload.
I basically summed that up in my survey post. There's a lot of redundant items that they can cut and no one would really notice the difference. What I would like to see is more items with dual functions like the Tornado and Rocket Punch. Tornado can act as an offensive item you can throw out in a crowd and guarantee hit someone, but you can also hold on to it to defend against incoming weapons. Rocket punch can be shot and you can pray it bounces onto someone, but if you take your time, you can lock on to someone. At that point you can get rid of homing and slicer since those are just automatic tracking weapons with no thought involved. Essentially, gut the redundancies and give the remaining items precision or panic usage options.
