Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds

Genre: Kart Racer

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Split-Screen), 2-8 Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-12 Competitive (Online)

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

.

Review:

It’s a gutsy move when someone tries to release a Kart Racer in the same year a Mario Kart game comes out, let alone one as heavily-anticipated as this year’s Mario Kart World. However, Sonic has never been one to shy away from challenging Nintendo’s plumber, and they’ve got a solid competitor in the form of Sonic Racing CrossWorlds, releasing in 2025 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, with a Nintendo Switch 2 version releasing just a few months later in the same year.

Since we’re comparing the two games, it should be noted that CrossWorlds is nowhere near as ambitious as Mario Kart World. After all, this isn’t an Open-World game. However, unlike Mario Kart World, CrossWorlds doesn’t squander its core premise – every lap in a race teleports racers to a new location, with the lead racer selecting where everyone is going to. In Grand Prix mode, each track will start and end with laps in the same course, but the middle lap will be somewhere different, and the final race in Grand Prix has players doing one lap each in all previous locations for that cup. It’s a clever twist that ensures some good variety, and gives a nice reward to the player in the lead who gets to choose the mystery lap.

On Nintendo Switch, as one might expect, the graphics have been heavily-downgraded from other releases of the game, dropping down to 30FPS framerates and 720p resolution. This compromise is noticeable, but still makes for a perfectly-playable game, with the colorful world design and expressive characters making up for at least some of the lacking technical performance here. In other words, if all you have to play with is the original Nintendo Switch, don’t feel like you need to avoid this game just because its tech specs aren’t up to par with other versions.

These visuals are joined by some good sound design, and I would like to particularly draw attention to the extensive voice work for the characters. One thing I really appreciated in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is the way characters talk with each other specifically, having character-based conversations before and after races to taunt each other or wish their opponents a good race, and while racing they make comments about the courses on occasion, with all of this being in a way that really makes them feel like real characters in this world rather than just someone you select on the character screen based on their stats or appearance. Imagine if Bowser taunted Mario by saying after trouncing him in the race, he was going to kidnap Peach again, or Rosalina and Kamek looking to prove whose magic is superior – that’s the sort of interactions you get between characters here, and it really makes for a wonderful extra bit of world-building in this silly Kart Racing game.

The races are also backed by remixes of various themes from throughout the Sonic franchise, and particular I really dug this game’s versions of Super Sonic Racing from Sonic R, and Kronos Island from Sonic Frontiers. There’s also the new vocal intro theme, Cross the Worlds. While nice, I got really sick of how many times I heard this main theme repeated in different versions in menus and results screens throughout the game.

When it comes to the gameplay itself, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds has some things going for it, and some things going against it. I’ll start with the good, as I’ve already mentioned the CrossWorlds gimmick, which is a great addition to this game. I also feel like this game makes excellent use of the transforming vehicle mechanic introduced in previous Sonic Racing games, with players encountering gates in courses (some required, some optional) that transform your vehicle from a car to a motorboat or an aircraft.

Each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages – the plane has full free movement, but can’t get boosts from using jumps to perform tricks like the other two vehicles. And the boat can get boost-drifts without needing to turn and can charge jumps to trick anywhere, but boats don’t generally get boost gates like the other vehicles. And I’ll note that the game’s branching paths that have players choosing which vehicle to use can make this game feel a bit like Diddy Kong Racing at times, where players need to decide which vehicle is best for them.

Beyond this, I’ll note that the core Racing gameplay feels very good here, with drifting around corners feeling great. And there’s some pretty good vehicle customization and lots of unlockables to help players get exactly the experience they’re craving.

Also, I have to mention the really creative course design here, with some absolutely fantastic courses. One course has you racing while avoiding a massive train towering over you, another has you racing on a course surrounded by a rainbow of flowers, yet another has you dodging hot air balloons in mid-air as a plane, and one Halloween-themed course in a pumpkin patch has more delightful ghostly tricks than pretty much every ghost house track in the entire Mario Kart series combined.

However, now we talk about the bad. For starters, this game’s courses feel far too narrow for the 12 racers its courses have competing at any given time, especially since you’ll be bumping speed-boosting rings off your character whenever you careen off an opponent or wall. This is made worse by the fact that single-player races always start you out in the back of the crowd, forcing you to jostle your way through the group to get into a good position. This is true regardless of where you placed in the previous race.

However, there’s another major issue here, and it’s the presence of some nasty rubber-banding that ensures that there’s no lead so great that computer-controlled opponents won’t catch up, nor any screw-up so bad that you won’t soon find yourself miraculously recovering and becoming competitive again in short order.

It’s frustrating that these flaws detract so much from what would otherwise be an outstanding Kart Racer, but as much fun as it is to marvel at the excellent course designs and the wonderful way it feels to catch a corner juuuuust right as you drift into the perfect position, but these are balanced out by the frustration as you try to muscle your way through a crowd of racers or groan as your lead immediately evaporates due to the cheating rubber-banding AI opponents. I still think Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is at times an excellent Racing Game, but its flaws bring it down a few notches. Still, if you enjoy Kart Racers, I think you’ll find this one a lot of fun, despite its flaws.

tl;dr – Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is a family-friendly Kart Racer with a gimmick that each lap has players teleport to a different course. The course design here is wonderfully creative, and the racing feels great, but the frustration of far too many “bumper car” moments and nasty rubber-banding AI opponents suck a lot of the fun out of this game. What’s more, while the Nintendo Switch version of the game is absolutely playable, it definitely suffers from a pretty heavy graphics and performance downgrade. This is still an enjoyable Kart Racing game, but its flaws keep it from being a truly great one.

Grade: B

.

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

Genre: Kart Racer

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Split-Screen), 2-8 Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-12 Competitive (Online)

.

Review:

Sonic racing: CrossWorlds is a bit of an odd one when it comes to the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of the game, in that we knew it was coming all the way back in June 2025, well before the game’s September launch, yet it still received a staggered release, coming out on time on Nintendo Switch, but not releasing on Nintendo Switch 2 until December. However, it’s here now, and players who bought the Nintendo Switch version of the game can update to the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition for a mere $10. So, what does that get you?

Well, quite a lot, although the two games have the same content and features. The main difference here is going to be in graphics and performance, but it’s quite a difference.

The resolution gets a huge bump to 1440p in docked mode (even higher than Xbox Series S, as Digital Foundry noted), and 1080p in handheld mode. And in both modes, you’ll be looking at a jump to 60FPS framerates in 1 or 2-player split-screen mode, with the game dropping back down to 30FPS in 3-4 player split-screen.

While I would argue that the Nintendo Switch version of the game was perfectly playable, the difference in smoothness and clarity here is like night and day, making for a much better experience, and feeling much more like this is the way this game was meant to be played.

The loading times are improved too – on Nintendo Switch, it takes 27 seconds to get to the opening Sega logo, and 12 seconds to load up a course. On Nintendo Switch 2, these times have been reduced to 10 seconds and 10 seconds.

Look, I do not want to trash the Nintendo Switch version of this game, which is a respectable port given the hardware it’s running, but the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of the game is clearly superior, as becomes immediately apparent upon booting the game up. And while I still have issues with some parts of this game, on Nintendo Switch 2 the graphics are absolutely not one of those issues.

tl;dr – Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is a family-friendly Kart Racer with a gimmick that each lap has players teleport to a different course. The course design here is wonderfully creative, the racing feels great, and the graphical performance on Nintendo Switch 2 is on par with or even better than some other modern platforms. But the frustration of far too many “bumper car” moments and nasty rubber-banding AI opponents suck a lot of the fun out of this game. This is still an enjoyable Kart Racing game, but its flaws keep it from being a truly great one.

Grade: B+

.

This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2025 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Driving / Racing Game, Best Game for Kids and Casual Players, Best Multiplayer

.

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Johannes, Jaka, Jared Wark, Gabriel Coronad-Medina, Francis Obst, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}