If Mario Kart is the Mario of kart racers, this is the Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze if kart racers, for all of the impressive good and odd quirks that might entail. Which is weird to say it's not the Sonic of kart racers, but we already have Riders for that, and Riders is off doing Riders things.

If there is something that All-Stars Racing Transformed is utterly unparalleled in, it's spectacle. The race courses that the game chooses to bring out don't just spread across Sega's history, but prove to be ever-evolving set pieces rather than simple circuits. Tracks very often crumble to pieces by their third lap, some invading force like the eruption of Death Adder's volcano, or the assault of the Death Egg crumbling away Sky Sanctuary, or a massive zombie dance party within the House of the Dead will cause the entire stage to morph, with first-place's reward being able to see exactly how everything changes and falls to pieces for leading the pack. It makes every single track exhilerating, as you wonder just how it's going to change, what laps will be the same and which ones will morph, what kind of set pieces will be thrown at you next. In terms of a first impression, All-Stars Racing Transformed is the top of its class; if you wanna play a racer for just two hours blind, this is absolutely brilliant.

But then ASRT decides to marry pretty fabulous track design with an engine that takes the greatest advantage of it. ASRT is patterned far closer to a game like OutRun than Mario Kart in terms of vehicle handling, and it makes every single turn feel silky smooth, figuring out just how much you wanna throttle or let off the gas and break respectively. The fact that it has essentially a revert for drifting to make s-turns a combo opportunity is absolute icing on the cake - driving is an absolute joy and is allowed to be endlessly more complex than the game's predecessor. This then leans into the game's main gimmick - your vehicle transforming mid-race into planes and boats - and these are handled pretty darn well too! The layouts of each course allow for a sort of freeform shortcut-making, where you need to decide how stringently you're gonna follow the suggested route that has turbo boosts and how much you're gonna try to cut corners to save time. The transitions between these sections are all absolutely seamless, and figuring out where to save items, what turns are the most dangerous, where your specific character can save the most time - THAT is when ASRT is at its absolute best.

Unfortunately, there are a few issues that hold it back. While ASRT's ambitions are incredibly lofty and the actual racing mechanics fairly solid, it doesn't quite adapt to the physics of these tracks particularly well. Any sort of diagonal surface is liable to cause a car to veer out of control, most notable in water sections where ramps can cause vehicles to launch real high into the air or stall out entirely. As the game is built on momentum, any time that it comes to a hault, it SCREECHES to a stop. But hey, that's no problem, this is a kart racer, crazy comebacks are a part of the whole shebang... except no, the item system is exceptionally poor. A vast majority of items are single-target, with the game essentially having two Green Shell variants (three if you count a forward-thrown blowfish), a red shell, a purely defensive item and two self-boosting items. As all of these only interact with either yourself or a single other racer (usually whoever's right in front of you), the middle of the pack is even more of a nightmare here than in other kart racers, where wild swings in position simply aren't possible and whoever's frontrunning is probably gonna have an easy time of things. There are two excpetions - the hornet swarm, which creates a skill check for the front of the pack to deal with in the form of walls of bees with a few gaps to race through, which can either turn things around or do absolutely nothing depending on player skill, and the all-star item, a Starman equivalent with some extra bonuses per character. The All-Star is basically the only comeback mechanic, usually only dropping once per player per race (if at all), so knowing exactly when to use it is paramount in a way similar to Mario Kart's Bullet Bill... but the lack of guarantee of its drop, dealing with everyone else's all-stars in the meantime, and need to still jockey into a good enough position to use it without the ability to use other items to hope for first makes it rather a struggle. Compounded with single-player AI that absolutely loves targeting you, specifically, and any issues with courses essentially leaving you in a position of "get All-Star or suffer", and it can make for real hopeless situations in instants, far more often than contemporaries like Crash, Mario, Diddy Kong, or even the game's own prequel might put you in.

Ultimately All-Stars Racing Transformed is a Sega love letter, through and through. It has incredible ambitions, and when it reaches those heights, it is an absolutely irreplaceable experience. Seriously, Burning Depths might just be the best kart racing course I have ever experienced, it is such an exhilarating rush with beautifully turns, and I'm uncultured and don't even know what a Burning Rangers is! But it does crumble under its own ambitions at times, with moments where the game stops working, odd gaps (why did you take Billy Hatcher out but still have a Billy Hatcher course that was a lot of new assets for the water section... which also is probably the glitchest part of the game?), and the crime of not having a race track for my beloved Space Channel 5. It is the best at what it does and sometimes pretty bad at what it's going for, and if it decided to stop being a kart racer and instead be purely focused on its racing elements, as the boost race sub-games imply, it might've just been the best mascot racer out there. As-is, it simply has to settle for being better than almost all Mario Karts and having some unforgettable moments more than worth showing off. What a terrible fate.

I'm gonna say it, I don't care: I like this more than Mario Kart 8.

Im baffled, I barely even know why. It has such good variety. I love the dynamic way you shift from driving, flying and sailing. The boss fights are actually pretty tough and hold your attention. It has good content and challenges and unlocking new characters feels good.

The courses are awesome, recreating old school Sega locations and creating something fresh and new to run around in.

If this game had some kind of vehicle customization, (not the stats) it would be amazing. As is, it's still great though!

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed injects a shot of adrenaline into the kart racing genre. Players zip, zoom, and soar through tracks that transform between land, sea, and air, demanding quick reflexes and split-second decisions. The diverse cast of Sega All-Stars keeps things interesting, and the chaotic power-up battles add another layer of fun. While the learning curve can be steep, especially for mastering the transforming vehicles, the game's tight controls and breakneck speed offer a thrilling and rewarding experience.

This game is very good. I would say it is better than the first one...But not by much.

The transformation mechanic is a cool idea and I love how most of these tracks are super dynamic, with different water and aerial sections, and some of these actually change completely by the third lap. However, there are a few minor things that make this game a bit of a step back from the first one.

- The commentator is not nearly as involved in the races and pretty much lacks any of the personality from the one in the first game
- The all star moves are all pretty generic and look almost the same
- You can no longer unlock different music tracks for each stage
- All star moves are still kind of a problem since you can save your all star move pretty much all race and use it to win for free right at the end.

I have also noticed that getting hit by anything in this game is way too common. It almost feels like there is barely any cooldown right after you get hit by an item, so getting hit by one means you are probably going to get comboed and left behind by like half of the racers.

I have also noticed that whenever I get pushed by other racers, my car essentially starts flying in one direction at high speed and I end up crashing or falling off. I'm not sure if these were also problems in the first game since I haven't played it in a long time.

With that said, I would still recommend this game. Whether or not it is better than Mario Kart is debatable, I personally prefer the higher difficulty and skill ceiling.

Plus you can play as Team Fortress 2. Why do they sound like that doe?

This game takes a unique twist to the kart racing genre. There's a lot to like here. Being the only solid contender to Mario Kart I cannot help but make some comparisons (to MK8).
The announcer has a very arcade type voice and brings me back to 90's arcade machines.
The track and vehicles change through the race. Lap 1 you are a car and lap 2 you could be a plane. This gives excitement to the game and I haven't seen used in this way before. The tracks are longer then MK - about twice as long. I personally like this as you change vehicles during mid-race you can be entertained with the extended track length.
There are less item variety. Items will appear no matter where you rank in the race. You can get bad items being at the back and good items when coming first. It is all according to change not position.
The rubber banding is kinda mild (especially compared to MK8). So the game has more of a skill focus. If you prefer this or not, it is up to you.
Career mode gives you a change to earn new characters to race. The customisation is limited and not cosmetic but that never bothered me as if I want a better handling vehicle, just pick another character.
The game is more difficult then MK for sure. I found I mostly did "B Class" to get though and I did struggle. Some courses I have to go on Easy as I had a hard time controlling the vehicles in Drift challenges.
The options of race types is creative but the battle mode challenges are nowhere near as good as MK8. It feels very random upon winning due to being in a race track and not an arena.
The load times are quite long and can take away from the excitement when you are waiting.
I had fun with the game but the vehicle controls are not as tight as MK and having challenges that are higher difficulty takes the casual fun away from the game but if you want a more challenging fun kart racer, you cannot go wrong with this one.

This is a great Kart Racer. While not as simple as the first All Star Racing, transformed makes the whole thing more flashy, something I think that was lost after ditching the Riders series.

Transformed does have a mission mode, I wouldn’t reccomend trying to beat it all because it’s a nightmare to do, but there is content there for the single player.

But obviously the fun is the multiplayer and the tracks themselves. The cars control super well in this game, the drifting mechanics from the first All Stars have been brought back and they work just as well here. But transformed brings in.. well transformations. After passing certain parts of the track your car will become either a boat or a plane. These both control super well so there’s no need to panic when this happens.

Tracks will often change during the course of the race, chucking you into a boat or flight section all the time, and there’s just this amazing sense of energy that never goes away. Often finding secret transformation point