Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

Genre: Kart Racing

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Wireless), Download Play Supported, StreetPass Supported

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Review:

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a Kart Racing game released in 2012 on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and Wii U, with a version of the game coming to PC and Nintendo 3DS in 2013, and then to mobile devices in 2014. This is the second game in this franchise, after the release of Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing in 2010, with this game once again bringing together characters from various Sega franchises… along with Wreck-It Ralph, apparently.

The presentation here is very good, with excellent, colorful 3D graphics featuring solid framerates, and some nice details within the game’s levels. The game’s energetic synthesized music works well enough, but it seems like a missed opportunity that this game doesn’t make better use of Sega’s memorable musical themes. For that matter, even the game’s levels seem to only vaguely represent the franchises in question, rather than clearly being directly based on any specific game or locale.

I will note that I said that this game has solid framerates, and I imagine this to be a point of contention – reviews of the Nintendo 3DS version of this game consistently complain about framerates, but I didn’t have this issue at all. In fact, my only complaint about the graphics here is the heavy aliasing to be found in this version of the game. Otherwise, I was quite pleased with the graphics and performance here. From what I can tell, this game was patched post-launch to fix many of the issues reviewers had with the game, and the current version is a much, much better game than it was at launch.

As a Kart Racer, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a solid entry in the genre whose main contribution to that genre is vehicles that transform during races, changing between car, boat, and aircraft based on what part of a track you’re racing on. Some tracks have you going back and forth between these different kinds of vehicles repeatedly, while others change things up in the final lap, shifting you onto a different section using a different vehicle. These vehicles all feel very different, and the change in variety definitely helps to keep things interesting, though it can also be disorienting at times.

In my Wii U review, this is where I complained about rubber-banding. No such complaints for the 3DS version – rubber-banding doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue in this version, apparently.

I suppose I should also mention the lack of online play, though at this point I suspect you wouldn’t be likely to find others to play with online even if this feature was in the game. On the bright side, the Nintendo 3DS version of the game supports Download Play, meaning that while you won’t be likely to find online opponents, the only thing you’ll need to play with others locally is an additional 3DS per player.

In the end, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a very good entry in the Kart Racing genre, and in fact I would argue in some ways it is even better than its console counterpart thanks to a post-launch patch. And while it may not quite reach the same heights as Mario Kart, it gets very close, and even does a few interesting things thanks to its different transforming vehicle types. It may not be quite the huge celebration of Sega franchises that you might hope for, but it’s still a solid Kart Racer that’s well worth getting if you have a Nintendo 3DS.

tl;dr – Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a Kart Racer that has players taking the role of one of various Sega characters and racing on tracks inspired by Sega games, using vehicles that transform from cars to boats to aircraft. Don’t be dissuaded by other reviews trashing this game for performance issues – those issues appear to have been fixed in a post-launch patch, and the result is a Kart Racer that’s very nearly on par with the likes of Mario Kart. If you’re a 3DS owner who enjoys racing games, you definitely want to pick this up!

Grade: B+

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