Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed takes the Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing concept and adds onto it, for better and for worse. For starters, the stage and map selection is much more varied than the first game and there have even been many more characters added, including non Sega properties which is neat (except for the inclusion of Yogscast who is the single most annoying character in a racing game). It still feels good to string together drifts, however where I feel the game falls short of the original game is in it's other vehicle modes. The airplane makes most of the tracks much less interesting in my opinion, and any time I was in the boat was hell to control and manage. This game is good overall, but I'd much rather play the original.

I played this game only because Vyse from Skies of Arcadia is in it, so I could unlock and play as him. It's fun with friends, played it with two other people in the family to get him, has some unique gimmicks and was unique enough from Mario Kart, I still prefer MK Double Dash as a racing game though personally.

I did like the different modes this game had though, like the boost challenges and rival system that was like F-Zero 99, those were unique spins and good modes to make the game play differently in fun ways. This game also gets an extra half a star just for having Vyse in it.

Surprisingly really fun. I hear a lot of people prefer this over Mario kart and I can see why. The transforming gimmick is really fun and the track design are really well designed and thought out and used the transforming gimmick to it's advantage. The missions are also pretty fun but this is a big gripe I have with it. So I first decide to beat all of them on hard to get it over with. But after I didn't them all on hard it unlocked the expert difficulty on all of them!! So I had to replay all of the missions on expert! And there's like over 100 of them!! I dropped the game after that because that's just a time waster and you don't even get anything from it so I will not be 100% it anytime soon. But if you or a friend are tired of Mario kart give this one a go you won't regret it.

Honestly one of the better Kart racers out there. Transformed is just an outright improvement of the original in terms of track design, control and every complaint that I had.

The transformed mechanic that's in the title of this game gives this kart racer it's own flair to stand out from the rest and not be another generic mascot racer like the first. Every track will have sections where your kart is transforming to either a plane or a boat, which makes races more frantic and less stale. The caveat is that you'll need to master 3 different driving styles which raises a higher skill ceiling for a kart racer. But I really enjoyed this mechanic and Sega was genius to implement this.

Now even more Sega franchises are represented here, not just via selectable characters but also tracks. This definitely feels like one big Sega party. The tracks are super wild this time around and take the rollercoaster design of the first game to the next level.

The character selection is also improved as each character have their own stats now, rather than just being a skin. You can choose your favorite racer by the type of driver they are and stratigize what works best for you. Each character also has some neat-kart mods to change up their style a little. So there is some good customization here.

I honestly wish Nintendo will takes notes here and do a something similar to Sega All Stars. Like a Smash Bros Kart one day. We can only dream.

My friend SandyAJ (and Twitch) arranged for myself and many of the rest of us to do a regular/semi-regular stream with friends to both highlight each other's streams and also just have a whole lot of maddening fun!

The game involves playing as numerous popular and much lesser-known characters against your friends over evolving and living maps where the tracks often change and even the roads get destroyed, your car often transforming into a aircraft of some kind or a boat. Every track has a hidden shortcut and certainly makes me nostalgic for Mario Kart, only without having to pay a stupid subscription to play online with friends, however, that brings me to the issues with this game...

Despite what I was saying earlier, the game is programmed for purely local co-op, but thanks to the power of Steam and using remote play you can play together, up to ten players as otherwise it appears to be impossible as far as I can see.

Another issue is crashes. It's a little unstable and I have had it crash on me, even when I got a newer and far more powerful machine, it had the occasional crashes meaning you have to get reinvited to remote play to join in, but you've now automatically lost that race.

You have a limited number of tracks, unless you play through the campaign mode which has a interesting start with story of why the characters are racing, however, after a while and at the final race all knowledge of the race has been lost! You can also unlock other characters, like I said before. Some very popular like other characters from the Sonic universe like Shadow or Eggman and more obscure characters like Vyse from Skies of Arcadia, Nights from the game of the same name and so on! There's even a really cool track from the game "Burning Rangers" with a really bad-ass music track from the game. At one point it feels a little lazy as later stages are reversed versions of the others, but still quite entertaining and can certainly confuse you.

Beyond these issues, it plays like any kind of vehicular combat game that's similar to Mario Kart where you grab power-ups and then use them as weapons to fire at the other racers and get past them, but there's also a battle mode, ghost elimination and a capture-the-flag where you stealing a Chao and delivering them to a ufo and scoring.

Apart from the issues with the game, it was still a lot of fun and I got many hours of fun out of it playing with my friends online who are a lot of great fun on Twitch.

Stream and Gameplay

Friends on Twitch:

Anime_Artist_Gamer: https://www.twitch.tv/anime_artist_gamer

Dark: https://www.twitch.tv/darkangel61236

SandyAJ: https://www.twitch.tv/sandyaj

Serra: https://www.twitch.tv/serrabritt

TS_Yuudachi: https://www.twitch.tv/ts_yuudachi

I may have not unlocked the final two unlockable characters as of writing this, but after doing all the GPs, getting 150 stars in career mode, and especially getting the game's credits. Can truly say I've come as much as completing it.

It is definitely one of the best racers not only made, but available to play on Computers and Steam Decks. And with CPUs that truly are a challenge. This is no pansy ass forgiving Mario Kart 7 or 8. This game folds down and crushes you til you ask for more. It is a challenge. And a worthy one too. But yes the game itself. It is a fun one for sure.

Will start by saying it beats Ultimate by a mile for really knowing what itself is. A celebration of Sega. And a fine one at that too. Must admit my only gripes really in general, is the game's roster and it's lack of more Saturn reps. Not even just "where Segata Sanshiro?", moreso why not Kyle from Panzer Dragoon (the first one), or Shou & Tillis from Burning Rangers? especially as this game already has tracks that represent the two respective games, so it's strange the characters they could've added weren't. I would be fine with just NiGHTS but it don't help she's based on the Wii version ugh. Outside of the Saturn, there's alot that rep Sega's overall line in history. Sure the Bonanza Bros were cut, but you still got Alex Kidd.

Oh and I would not trade any of the Guest Stars for more Saturn Stars period, as I think they are funny and fit. I love Wreck It Ralph and TF2, they are just such fun characters to play. You even got a Nascar Driver in there too.

I do find strange however that they added two characters from Space Channel 5, but don't even got their own stage at all, as Billy Hatcher (who has a stage) was cut for the cutting room floor in favor of the two gals.

And one more about the roster, would be the lack of another character for Samba De Amigo and Skies of Arcadia. Happy they're in, just wish the two boys got a gal with em, like that Monkey Ball guy did.

Even though I mainly rambled about the game's roster, regardless, it's such a fun game for sure. The remixes for Sonic R music and everything were all done so lovingly by the fine orchestrator Richard Jacques, who also did LBP2 alongside Sonic R. Nice. That, and the Tracks and everything is all so great. Burning Depths makes me smile everytime. Just makes me wish more for a new Burning Rangers. Or a remaster really.

But yeah. Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed. Absolutely a wild and fun game. And definitely a new favorite of mine.

Whenever Sega and Sumo Digital decide to make a true third one, I hope they not only keep the hard as nails difficulty but also finally add more Saturn reps.. Maybe Clockwork Knight could get to finally shine and tick on the track the third time around.

(P.S. After unlocking the final two unlockable characters the next day, I also learned that there's actually an option to play a private game with friends, so I take back my complaints with the online. This game is indeed a 10/10.)

I woke up and just thought about randomly reviewing one of my biggest childhood games. This and a couple of other games are what made me crave Sports/Racing games that have tons of unlockables and content in them. It's a great kart racer. I don't really like to call things that aren't Mario Kart, "Mario Kart clones", because Mario Kart, I feel, pioneered the whole subgenre, but that doesn't mean that there aren't shameless cash grabs that just try to get a quick buck that basically do nothing to differ from Mario Kart. This however, isn't one of those games. The tracks are all beautifully crafted and feel like adventures. The transformation mechanic is a great one, since all 3 modes control well. Don't worry if you don't like inverted controls on the plane sections, then you can just turn them off. Some people hate the character roster, but to be honest. I just find it funny, seeing Danica Patrick casually appear in this game and be unlocked like it's nothing, it's hilarious to me. Speaking of unlockables or more so, content. This game's got it. I love campaigns in Racing games with multiple modes that test your skills. The A star missions are actual challenges, and if that wasn't enough for you, the devs just decided to add in an S Class difficulty after you beat the main bulk of the campaign. Be warned though that the CPUs can be kinda stupid sometimes in these. You can also unlock "mods" for characters that give them different stats depending on the type of mod. I know these aren't crazy, but I just like the customization options. There's your standard Grand Prix as well. The remixes for each track are great as well. I just love a lot about this game, even if some of it comes from nostalgia. I mean for crying out loud just go into the options and mess around with the announcer and see what happens. It's great. Just a fantastic kart racer all around.