The much awaited by myself sequel to Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart, this is only gonna be a discussion of my first impressions of this game after testing it around for a few hours and hearing some stuff from Discord.

So I got some friends into a call and we all hoped on the game because I thought this would work the same as the first game where you boot right up into a menu and you can get to racing online straight away. That was not the case. Instead what followed was an hour long tutorial that felt confusing to those friends and extremely long to me, and I don't think they'll be wanting to hop on an online match with me anytime soon.

This alone I would say is Ring Racer's biggest flaw out of the gate. It's a game that unless you've already played SRB2K is a NIGHTMARE to learn the controls of. There's to many mechanics here to the point where it feels bloated and while you can come to understand how they work, a lot of them don't really come up in the grand prix mode and hell not even online. I never had to use a single trick once through all the courses I played minus the tutorial itself.

But that's not all, because they've also made the incredibly stupid decision to lock away basic customizability behind doing some stupid shit in the main game, INCLUDING MODS. And they try to present it as this cutesy thing of "Ooooh look at that it's like the Smash Brawl achievements room isn't that so neat". But I'm over here like "Dude stop fucking padding out this shit I just want to have fun already". YOU DON'T EVEN START WITH THE ONLINE RIGHT AWAY. YOU HAVE TO DO A GRAND PRIX CUP IN ORDER TO EVEN PLAY IT, WHICH FUCKING SUCKS.

It feels a lot less polished than the first game and that is undeniable, to the point where I would not blame anybody for being turned off by this if they didn't have enough time to grasp the controls or don't have that vast of an experience with the first game...but as somebody that DOES have that experience and can put up with that, I think there's probably a lot more hidden on the depths of the gameplay here that I'm willing to try and learn inspite of it's initial difficulties and bloatedness, because while the game is far from flawed, it's still the sequel to one of my favorite kart racers ever and it shows.

The visuals feel a little to distracting sometimes, but overall they're a massive improvement from the first game's coming closer to that early 3D Saturn-esque vibe that I love for Sonic so much. Hell if you could have the option for the 3D models in this we'd practically be golden and I love that. The track selection here is also great from the few I played, and their designs don't let down either. Mystic Cave, Emerald Coast, and pretty much all of the ones in the first grand prix were at the very least great, and I did not have nearly as much of an issue with the controls as a lot of people are saying. Now granted I did play as Knuckles so I dunno if it's worse for the rest of the cast, but his controls felt similar enough to not be bothersome to me in the way he handles.

The presentation and music is stellar, making things feel so alive and adding to the pumping excitement of racing through the tracks, and while the new mechanics quite frankly feel like filler to a system that was already prefectly fine as is, they're not horrible enough to be a huge problem, and for the most part I can just ignore them unless I absolutely have to utilize them.

Battle mode definitely got washed here though. Not nearly enough modes, some pretty boring stages, and it gets shoved into the grand prix with these dumb little minigames where you target a certain number of things that are just kinda lame. It was more fun online, but really most kart racers are more fun online so that doesn't mean much at all.

Overall, yes it's a very unpolished overblown sequel that should not have replaced the first game and is in no way perfect...but IDK man. There's definitely something there if you are willing to dig past the surface that I think is really fun.

{REVIEW OF THE SD VERSION}

There are two very different ways for me to look at this.

I can either say it's an interesting alternate telling of my favorite entry in my favorite series of movies ever with some very unique ideas, changes to how certain setpieces play out and a fun way to intergrate POTC into an action game with Jack Sparrow's shenanigans via QTE's and a decently good soundtrack of which some of the tracks went on to be used in the much better Pirates game that came afterwards.

Or a bland, dull, run of the mill licensed kids game with simple and repetitive combat, subpar visuals, reused assets that are more noticeable than my lack of a life and hit or miss voice acting that is on par with something like the Shark Tale game on the same console in terms of quality.

And frankly I don't know which one to pick, but fuck it. I like Pirates of the Caribbean and they gave me Pirates of the Caribbean for a coupla hours so I see it as a win in my book.