Sonic's racing games are ever-commendable for finding ways to defy the dreaded 'Mario Kart Clone' label. Sumo draws on their Outrun experience for a blitzkreig-infused flowmotion machine, where drifting is constant and seamless. Plays like scissors gliding through giftwrap.

But, I can't shake the specific 'mobile game' taste this game has. Specific quirks to the environmental design, audio mastering and UI just constantly trigger the same sedatives that Wii shovelware do. This may rival MK in game design, but not in experiential factors and polish.

And like its kid brother TSR, the 24 tracks are actually 8 or so 'biomes' with 3 tracks apiece. I didn't mind this in TSR because each one feels like a different flavor of the same dish, but in S&SASR, it only feels like one track from each biome sticks out. And as-is, these world selections are kinda generic. Love all the Samba De Amigo and JSRF tracks, but did they really need to kiss up to Billy Hatcher and House of the Dead so much? These are some scrimbo-fuckin'-bimblo locales.

And speaking of tracks, they get pretty bad near the back half when they oddly infuse 90' turns and excessive trick ramps (which feel really bad to use compared to both MK and TSR). I think a bounty needs to be put on the chump who put back-to-back staircase 180's in the Monkey Ball pirate course (parody satire satire).

I love how this game plays and I just love the novelty of having these classic SEGA icons drifting around, though I think there's way more they could've done with making it 'feel' like a proper crossover. It is cool that the Bonanza Bros are playable in a 2010 videogame, but the nostalgia rings kinda hollow when they're unceremoniously hidden in a shop like a fucking Fortnite skin.

May revisit someday just to play as Alex Kidd (read: drive him off a cliff)

Dropped it for a bit there as I was playing some Panzer Dragoon games but after Saga and no Orta, picked this baby back up and even though Transformed improves on many things, the first game is pretty damn good. Despite the lack of achievements or online on Steam, it's still a worthwhile ride and especially as this entry has many things the sequel did not. Has all stars all unique to each character, characters that didn't make it in the sequel, and yeah. Will say right now I do think it's strange the tracks are mainly based on a set of games rather than one per game. Regardless, still a fun time yeah.

AND MAKE A THIRD SEGA ALL STARS RACING!!!! WITH MORE SEGA SATURN CHARACTERS TO BOOT!!!!!!!
and #BRINGBACKBONANZABROS

This is an alright game. The lack of budget is noticeable (there's only about 6 different possible themes for each course, which means some racetracks look nearly identical to one another. This allows for heavy amounts of asset reuse), and I find it a bit weird that most characters you need to spend in-game currency to unlock. But it's actually pretty fun to race in - this game really emphasizes drifting and getting extra speed boosts in the process. I had a good time with the core gameplay, but this leaves a bit to be desired.

On it's own, it is a solid kart racer and there's really not much you can go wrong with it in terms of controls and whatnot, but I feel like it's lacking in identity and feels sort of "basic", especially in comparison to games like Transformed and Team Sonic Racing. I won't deny that I was able to have fun with it, but I definitely feel like the track designs feel pretty simplistic overall, and I really feel like the game lacks in variety as far as that goes. The controls also lack interesting mechanics, and again, feel pretty basic and shallow, which is also pretty noticeable considering how poor the AI is, being pretty easy even on the game's highest difficulty.

Overall, while this game is fun for what it is, the lack of interesting mechanics and pretty basic track design leaves me little reason to revisit this game compared to other kart racers and especially it's successors, Transformed and even Team Sonic Racing.

Um crossover entre diversas IPs da SEGA no formato kart racing??? TOME MEU DINHEIRO!

As copas Grand Prix são bacanas mas são muito fáceis, leva em torno de 2-3 horinhas pra completar cada dificuldade. As pistas são temáticas de cada IP, com direito a trilha sonora respectiva. O que eu acho mais divertido nesse título é o modo Mission, que conta com objetivos diversos como drift, knockout, 1v1, etc.

A jogabilidade é bastante fluída, porém em algumas fases parece que está on-rail. Em suma, é um jogo bem casual.

O roster não é muito grande, por outro lado conta com personagens de outras séries como Ryo do Shenmue, Amigo do Samba de Amigo, Akira do Virtua Fighter, BD Joe do Crazy Taxi, etc. Cada um tem seu próprio special move com sua musica tema.

Quem prefere Mario Kart do que Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing só pode ser maluco. Sonic pisa muito em Mario.

For a game that kickstarted the "All Stars Racing" series, leading to the absolutely phenomenal Transformed, I'd say this is a great start to the series. However when looking at it standalone, it's super primitive and not really that fun to play for me. The handling is good, drifting feels nice, and the game has a good roster variety as well as colorful and varied visuals and track themes (and heck I even like the sports commentators that talk about the current race you're in as if it's a live event, it's a nice touch), but the difficulty is practically nonexistent (even on expert), the track design is super basic, weapons are all direct rips from Mario Kart and barely do anything to any racer (with the sole exception of the All Star), and there's just not a lot of interesting mechanics. You can't chain your drifts, you perform only one sluggish midair stunt (and the stunt that’s performed is entirely random, meaning it’s up to chance if you’ll actually get any boost value off of doing stunts depending on when the randomly chosen animation stops playing), and if you keep drifting and gaining boosts off of your continuous drifts, the opponents never have a chance, hence the low difficulty I mentioned earlier. Overall it's fine-ish I guess. You can definitely play this and have an OK time, but Transformed absolutely blows this game out of the water in pretty much every single way imaginable, it's not even funny.

Sega's answer to Nintendo's Mario Kart. It was a pretty decent first try not gonna lie. I like how here Sega are representing their IPs and not just sonic, something nintendo didn't do until Mario Kart 8. Except, here there is more representation of other franchises than than Mario Kart represents from Nintendo. While Mario Kart tracks are designed like standard racing tracks with setpieces and gimmicks, SSASR tracks are designed like an arcadey roller-coaster. You will be going really fast through each stage drifting and turning through its snake like track design while visual elements from the represented game are popping up everywhere as if you're driving through a Sonic/Sega theme park. The amount of tracks the game contains is not bad. Pretty much the Mario Kart standard 24, which today is a small amount. But for then, that was fine. Only complaint here is that there are only about 5 franchises which represent each track. So you will get like 8 sonic stages, 4 Jet Set Radio stages etc. This could be improved as Sega have so much IP. The game controls perfectly and is so easy to pick up, which I commend Sega with their first try. Drifting in this game is just as satisfying here as it is with Mario Kart 8. The character selection is very diverse. You'll get a bunch of characters from different Sega ips as well as some obscure ones which I love. I'm hoping Kiriyu is in a future game. The biggest issue here is each character is simply cosmetic, and they bare no differences in how they play, which is kind of disappointing considering that defeats the whole purpose of having multiple characters to choose from. My biggest complaint is that there really are many deep mechanics with the driving aspect. The best part about driving is the drifting. But there aren't tricks and jumps that you can perform like you can in Mario Kart or CTR. Because of that, the driving in this game lacks it's own flair and feels like just a generic kart racer done really well. I know Sega will eventually find their own stride with the transform mechanic in the next game to stand out from the rest, but here there is nothing of that nature. Only pick this up if you like Transformed and want a go at the other tracks that aren't in the sequel. Otherwise just play Transformed.

I think this is a brilliant beginner's racing game. If you have heavy nostalgia for this title in specific, I absolutely get it. The drift system is Mario Kart's pumped up to eleven - drifting to get speed is EVERYTHING in this game. Your natural movement speed is so painfully slow and getting a drift boost is so easy and lasts for so long out of the initial drift that getting back up to high speed is an absolute priority. Additionally, the actual drift is smooth as butter, both letting you weave out and cut in depending on the strength of your control stick hold flawlessly. Maintaining speed all throughout a lap is both simple to get a hold of and feels good to do!

Additionally, dang for a first draft, they really nail character in this game. Sure, you can tell that the budget isn't exactly stellar, but there's some REALLY good pulls for Sega all-stars and vehicle designs! Big the Cat on a motorcycle far smaller than he is with Froggy colors is hilarious, Eggman on a big wheeler because he "wants to look down on everyone he passes" is great, the Chuchus IN a rocket is a fantastic little touch, and Opa-Opa alone is a celebration of silent characterization. Seriously the amount of animation flourishes on that little guy; zero attachment to him before and now I would protect him with my life!

Unfortunately, simplicity is Sonic & Sega All-Stars' greatest downfall. I call it a "beginner's" racing game because most of the track design is based around the drifts - long, shallow turns that let you get that boost sky high. It makes the actual navigation of tracks rather samey, the chokepoints where you would use items repetitive and basically identical as "where the hazards are" or "when the split paths converge". There IS a lot of personality in these environments, but the process of going through them doesn't change due to the simplicity of the track design and the game's base mechanics. And due to the lower budget of the game, it doesn't have the time to sell the spectacle of each track mechanically. Sure, the Samba de Amigo tracks are visual spectaculars, adore those, but you don't interact with those visuals in any meaningful way; they're just neatly there, off to the side as you do the same drifts you do anywhere else! It is a good-feeling game with a lot of love for its source material, but very rarely does it come close to meeting its potential. As-is, it kinda just peters out halfway through the mission mode.

Note that nothing I said about the tracks above applies to the Super Monkey Ball tracks. For no reason, ALL of the Monkey Ball tracks are rude, filled with 90 degree turns and obstacles, and handle gravity differently as your kart clings to it rather than jumping off of it most of the time. They are fantastic and singlehandedly show the potential of this original game being realized. Seriously, Monkey Target is an all-timer of a race course and I want that to be known.