Solid kart racer that’s lacking in quite a few key areas. People often say it’s a downgrade from Transformed and while it definitely is, I’d say what’s here is fun enough. The midair stunt system, drift chaining and continuous boost stacking system returns from Transformed, but the vehicle handling is floatier, the boosts are way less powerful and the track length from the recycled stages have been shortened from the previous games to give the illusion the cars are actually traveling faster. While it still handles well and the mechanics are solid, it’s still a downgrade nonetheless. Most of the tracks are also recycled from ASR and ASRT, with ASR getting the majority of tracks reused. ASRT has like one recycled track and it’s far less interesting when they took out the transformed mechanic, and that applies to all the stages overall. However, the new tracks constructed for this game are actually pretty well made for standard tracks. There are a plethora of shortcuts to take and fun ramps to jump and flip off of to get an advantage. For the most part all of the new tracks get a grade A in my book
The main gimmick this racer has to offer is the team mechanic. You race in a squad of 3, helping each other out and making sure all of you secure good positions in the race, not just you. There are a plethora of team actions you can pull off: slingshots which allows you to trail behind the team leader and get a good speed boost off of him, skimboost which allows you to save other teammates and get them back up to speed when they hit a wall or get slowed by an item, passing items you don’t need to other racers, and taking out other enemy teams along the track. Doing all of these actions fills up the team ultimate meter, which when activated grants you invincibility and a burst of speed for a limited time. This actually was way more fun than I remember it being, even with CPU players, and it really does give this otherwise kind of mundane racer its own identity. The issue is that with CPU partners you get screwed over in certain areas. For instance, with Team Ultimate, the effect lasts longer if all 3 of you activate the ultimate at the same time, but the thing is this is pretty much impossible with CPU players so I never feel like I can take advantage of that. The items are now wisps, most of them are the standard generic weapons kart racers are famous for, but there are some that are pretty neat (burst laser and spikes are cool editions). Not Quake though, Quake is awful. It tries to mimic the swarm item from ASRT, but the thing is while swarm could be troubling for the racers nearing first, pretty much all of them could be avoided with skillful driving. With quake it’s a complete crapshoot, as you’ll be faced in a situation where stone pillars clog up the lane you’re racing on and it’s next to impossible to avoid any of them.
TSR features a full fledged fully voiced story mode. The story is really nothing special and nothing really happens within the plot, but this is basically where most of the single player content is, and man you can tell they were STRUGGLING with the tracks to use the further you went in. Grand Prix races often recycle the exact same tracks you’ve already played over and over again, sometimes making them be in mirror mode so it’s not a complete carbon copy, due to the fact that there’s not a lot of tracks in this game. For a game that wants to deliver fanservice, the fanservice and the amount of content in this game is really pitiful. You earn credits to spend in this gumball machine to earn customization parts for your car or item boxes to give you a boost in the next race. The amount of car customization you can have is pretty admirable, but the process of getting them is kind of a chore. You can only spend 10 credits to get 1 item at a time and I don’t really understand why. Why not allow us to spend 100 credits to get a bunch of items at once and view them? This system just takes forever.
Overall Team Sonic Racing is still a fun time, more so with friends. It’s definitely better than All Stars Racing, but not as good as Transformed. It’s like a wierd middle ground. Also don’t bother trying to play online, there is literally nobody there to play with you lol. Some free bonus post launch DLC might’ve helped, but I guess they were just ok with TSR squeaking by doing the bare minimum
The main gimmick this racer has to offer is the team mechanic. You race in a squad of 3, helping each other out and making sure all of you secure good positions in the race, not just you. There are a plethora of team actions you can pull off: slingshots which allows you to trail behind the team leader and get a good speed boost off of him, skimboost which allows you to save other teammates and get them back up to speed when they hit a wall or get slowed by an item, passing items you don’t need to other racers, and taking out other enemy teams along the track. Doing all of these actions fills up the team ultimate meter, which when activated grants you invincibility and a burst of speed for a limited time. This actually was way more fun than I remember it being, even with CPU players, and it really does give this otherwise kind of mundane racer its own identity. The issue is that with CPU partners you get screwed over in certain areas. For instance, with Team Ultimate, the effect lasts longer if all 3 of you activate the ultimate at the same time, but the thing is this is pretty much impossible with CPU players so I never feel like I can take advantage of that. The items are now wisps, most of them are the standard generic weapons kart racers are famous for, but there are some that are pretty neat (burst laser and spikes are cool editions). Not Quake though, Quake is awful. It tries to mimic the swarm item from ASRT, but the thing is while swarm could be troubling for the racers nearing first, pretty much all of them could be avoided with skillful driving. With quake it’s a complete crapshoot, as you’ll be faced in a situation where stone pillars clog up the lane you’re racing on and it’s next to impossible to avoid any of them.
TSR features a full fledged fully voiced story mode. The story is really nothing special and nothing really happens within the plot, but this is basically where most of the single player content is, and man you can tell they were STRUGGLING with the tracks to use the further you went in. Grand Prix races often recycle the exact same tracks you’ve already played over and over again, sometimes making them be in mirror mode so it’s not a complete carbon copy, due to the fact that there’s not a lot of tracks in this game. For a game that wants to deliver fanservice, the fanservice and the amount of content in this game is really pitiful. You earn credits to spend in this gumball machine to earn customization parts for your car or item boxes to give you a boost in the next race. The amount of car customization you can have is pretty admirable, but the process of getting them is kind of a chore. You can only spend 10 credits to get 1 item at a time and I don’t really understand why. Why not allow us to spend 100 credits to get a bunch of items at once and view them? This system just takes forever.
Overall Team Sonic Racing is still a fun time, more so with friends. It’s definitely better than All Stars Racing, but not as good as Transformed. It’s like a wierd middle ground. Also don’t bother trying to play online, there is literally nobody there to play with you lol. Some free bonus post launch DLC might’ve helped, but I guess they were just ok with TSR squeaking by doing the bare minimum