Game #913: Team Sonic Racing

  This ain't Supaaaaa Sonic racing.

 Team Sonic Racing is yet another racing game in which Sonic decides to handicap himself by driving a car. I've always wanted to delve into the Sonic Racing games, but for whatever reason never got my chance... up 'til now.

 The game offers 15 playable characters, which felt a bit... lacking. I mean, the basics are covered: Sonic, Amy, Knuckles, Tails, Shadow and Rouge are here.... but I feel like Sonic has so much more to offer, that just 15 characters feel a bit lame. On the other hand, each character has a very unique vehicle, and each vehicle has its own exclusive customization parts, so it's not like work didn't go into the game.

 Speaking of customization, these pieces are earned through a luck-based mini game in which you spend in-game currency. I've never liked hiding unlockables behind luck-based mechanics, and like any modern game, these luck-based mechanics include garbage you really don't care about, like 'start with a power up' bonuses that only work in Story mode. Utterly worthless. At least it's not like in ArkSys games, in which there's a ton of garbage you'll be getting instead of color palettes.

 Aside from parts, that change how the vehicle looks and performs, you can also edit the color of your car. Most cars have about 4 different pieces you can change the color of, and you pick from different 4-color palettes. But it doesn't stop there, you can give different textures to the paint, such as 'plastic', 'metal' or 'solid'.... and you can make some pretty cool looking stuff. Like metallic gold paint job with metallic red highlights. It's really cool!

 The story mode was alright. I don't agree with having objectives such as "You and your teammates must win in the first 3 spots' in a game that A) Has rubber-band AI so that enemies can catch up to you pretty easily and B) You are depending on two AI teammates. Needless to say, early on I decided I wouldn't care about fulfilling every objective, not only is it unnecessary, but you also depend on having luck. This mode offers various challenge stages, like having to collect rings under a certain amount of time. I'm terrible at racing games, so I skipped them. There's a single mandatory non-race event in the story mode, but thankfully, it was relatively easy. I've heard some people gave up on story mode when they got to this event, but it ain't too bad, trust me.

 As for the game mechanics, the game is pretty solid. You have drifting as well as mini-turbos earned from drifting. You can also spin on the air to generate turbos, like in Mario Kart, and it works pretty well. If anything, I felt like the power ups/weapons weren't too self explanatory. Like the white Wisp, how was I supposed to figure out it's a boost? The bomb wisp doesn't look anything like a bomb. So it might take a while until you are familiarized with how each power up works.

 Story mode is played entirely using the team mechanics, although you can turn them off and play without teams in the other modes, and the team mechanics are alright. You can send power ups between team-mates, and driving over the trail of whoever's the furthest ahead will grant you free turbos. I mean, I don't think I'll ever pick Team driving if it was up to me, but they were alright and didn't make me hate the story mode.

 All in all, it was pretty fun for what it was. It's not as colorful or fun as Mario Kart, but damn if it isn't a great attempt. The game feels good to play, which is what matters the most. I think it should've had a better roster and more noteworthy race tracks if it wants to compete against Mario Kart.

 7.0