I got accepted into the Sonic Racing Crossworlds closed network test, which lasted for a couple of days. I like kart racers but honestly don’t have that much experience with them. Played a bit of Mario Kart 8 in split screen but that game never really did much for me, despite being the gold standard of the genre, I assume.
So, positives: the game looks good, it’s colourful, it’s bright. I like the track selection, after Team Sonic Racing had a very safe track list, SRC so far already seems to have a more interesting track list. This closed test only had 6 of the confirmed 24 tracks, but of the 6, 3 are based on stages from games, while the other 3 are original. Only Ocean View, based on Seaside Hill from Sonic Heroes, which has popped up a few times over the years feels rather safe, everything else, like having a stage based on a level from Sonic Rush,
The Crossworlds mechanic is very interesting. Essentially, each race works like this: a track is selected, you race on that track for the first lap, the second lap you go through a ring that transports you to a Crossworld track, then you go back to the race circuit for the third lap. It is a fun gimmick, it does mean that a track you select doesn’t get old. Although the downside of this test was that there was only 5 Crossworlds, which meant it was possible to get repeats frequently. The final game will have 24 tracks and 15 Crossworlds, which will hopefully be enough variety.
Pretty astonishing amount of kart customisation, in addition to a pretty decent sized roster, with characters able to use any vehicle, and characters having their own stats that affect the car’s stats. Lots of car parts to pick and choose from, with a very good paint customisation system, once the full game is out and you unlock everything, I can see players spending hours giving their favourite character a ride worthy of their love.
But there are some strong negatives. It takes a while to get used to how the karts control, they can feel a bit heavy and sluggish. For some bizarre reason, the game’s default control scheme has X as acceleration, and R2 as your drift button. Thankfully, the game has an alternate control scheme that lets you swap them. I really don’t like how the boats feel, they can’t drift unlike in Transformed, and they just feel slower.
Item balance is definetly the biggest issue in the game. There are a lot of items, and the power of them goes from underwelming to outright broken. Arguably the “meta” for this game is getting a powerful item like the drill, waiting until the final stretch, then firing it at anyone in front of you and overtaking them as they get knocked to the side. And everyone is allowed to carry 2 items at a time, and even 3 if they have the mod that allows it on their car. With 12 players, the amount of spam is absurd, and at times, I was getting overstimulated by how much was happening on screen. Biggest issue the game has, the game basically has no skill ceiling, more like a skill floor.
Music is very weirdly mixed. Partly due to the kart noises and character voice lines being quite loud, the music itself just doesn’t sound right. This is a stab in the dark but I’m not sure if the intent is for the race music to sound like it’s actually coming from the circuit’s speakers itself, rather than just a normal music track? It really needs sorted. Seen a lot of people claim the OST is bad so far, but honestly, I think the mixing is the big problem.
Overall, I liked this but not super into it. Hope Sonic Team gets the time to polish the game up and listen to the feedback.
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