by Stephen DeckAlso available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC
Review written by Stephen Deck; originally published 5/31/2019 on Teacher by Day, Gamer by Night
Team Sonic Racing is Sumo’s third attempt at making a Sonic kart racer following Sonic and All-Stars Racing and the incredible follow-up, Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed. Releasing a kart racer on PlayStation and Xbox is an obvious choice, but not many developers have the skills to take on Mario Kart on its home turf, and while I wouldn’t say that Sumo was able to beat them, they definitely put up a good fight. Like Transformed before it, Team Sonic Racing manages to deliver a kart racer that is obviously inferior to Mario Kart but is, nonetheless, a fun and competent kart racer.
Just as the transforming karts and tracks were the main gimmick in Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, the three-person racing team mechanic is the main gimmick in Team Sonic Racing. Races consist of 12 racers broken into four teams of three. The main gameplay is like a standard individual race, but each place is assigned a certain amount of points. These points are tallied at the end of the race, and whatever team has the most points wins. You could, theoretically, win the race in the first place, but if your teammates finished 11th and 12th, respectively, your team would still lose. There are more subtle team aspects, too; the teammate in the highest position gets a glowing trail behind them that can give teammates a brief speed boost. You can also give held items that you don’t need to teammates. Actions like these will fill your “Ultimate Team” gauge, and when it’s full, you can activate your “Ultimate Team” power. This gives you and your two teammates a temporary speed boost and invulnerability. It’s basically Star Power from Mario Kart.
As I said, while Team Sonic Racing is a lot of fun, it’s inferior to its main rival on the Switch, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. The main reasons for this, in my opinion, are the relatively limited track selection in comparison to Mario Kart 8, the relatively uninteresting tracks in comparison to Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, and the fact that the controls and mechanics just, overall, don’t feel as polished as Mario Kart 8. Granted, the game retails for $20 less than Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, so it’s fair with that in mind, but it’s definitely a step down from Mario’s latest kart outing. The exclusion of non-Sonic Sega characters was also a let-down for me as I really enjoyed getting to race as Ulala and BD Joe, but at least they include the vast majority of the Sonic series’s characters.
In terms of the game’s visuals, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, Team Sonic Racing on Switch looks MUCH better than Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed looked on Wii U. On the other hand, it doesn’t look as good as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch. It also doesn’t perform nearly well; Mario Kart 8 Deluxe keeps a rock solid 60 FPS whereas Team Sonic Racing keeps an average 30 FPS with the occasional dip into the mid-20s. Those frame rate dips aren’t bad enough to ruin the gameplay, but it is noticeable, and given that the target is half of what Mario Kart 8 Deluxe delivers, the end result is a product that feels markedly less polished and less skillfully developed than Nintendo’s recent kart racing masterpiece.
The online play is…rough. I’ve heard that patches are in the works, but as it was at launch, it was a major challenge to get put into the same lobby as friends, it was nearly impossible to end up on the same team as friends if you did manage to get in the same lobby, and connection failures and disconnections were extremely common. The connection issues definitely seem to be decreasing in frequency, at least from my experience, but Sega definitely dropped the ball on the online play at launch, at least on Switch.
Team Sonic Racing is a fun and competent kart racer, and if you’re playing on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, I’d recommend it would hesitation. On Switch, however, I don’t really see much reason to buy Team Sonic Racing over Mario Kart 8. I mean, I bought both, and I can say pretty confidently that I’ll almost never play Team Sonic Racing after this because Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a thing that exists. On PC…I mean, it’a PC. Either play one of the ten billion racers for PC or use Dolphin to emulate Mario Kart Double Dash on Gamecube. And that’s really the biggest downfall of Team Sonic Racing; it’s a really fun game, but it’s just not as good as the competition. As a result, there’s just not much reason to play Team Sonic Racing over the other choices despite the legitimately high quality of this game. Nonetheless, however, judged on its own merits and not in comparison to other games of the genre, Sumo once again created an excellent kart racer that would make for a great multiplayer experience.
