Retro|Spective 101: Sonic Racing

[Neon Ignition]

The History in Games:
1994 - Sonic Drift
1995 - Sonic Drift 2
1997 - Sonic R
2002 - Sonic Racing Shift Up
2003 - Sonic Racing Kart
2005 - Sonic Kart 3D X
2006 - Sonic Riders
2006 - Sonic Rivals
2007 - Sonic Rivals 2
2008 - Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity
2010 - Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing
2010 - Sonic Free Riders
2012 - Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed
2019 - Team Sonic Racing

Overview:
Quietly building a long lineage of racing titles under the characters belt, Sonic has built up an impressive number of games but with a wide variation on quality and approaches to delivering the high speed experience. Starting with the Drift games, things raced off the starting line in a very traditional karting based style before the Sega Saturn played host to the ambitious on foot title Sonic R. Often referred back to in Sumo Digitals later additions, this title remains locked to its host platform (barring its old PC port) and pre-dated a trilogy of mobile phone racers. Eventually Sumo stepped in and Sonic stepped back in vehicles for the All-Star games that lead into this years Team Sonic Racing. The outlier here being the Riders games, a trilogy of titles based on hoverboarding races for the characters.








Share your thoughts and memories of the Sonic Racing range of games

[Dogg Thang]

I have a soft spot for Sonic R. I don't think I'd ever call it a great game but it worked and the music was fun and I enjoyed it at the time. Everybody's super sonic racing! It looked pretty good for the system too.

After that, I leap ahead to the All-Stars racing games because the others I either found to be rubbish or never played. Those All-Stars racing games are really great. Both a huge amount of fun and I feel like Transformed is one game that totally nails the Sega fanservice while also delivering a very polished and fun game. It plays really well. I think any game that can be held up alongside a Mario Kart seriously deserves kudos and I feel like Transformed easily reached those heights.

I haven't played the Team Sonic one because it dropped all the cool Sega stuff so I have no idea how that one is.

[Asura]

Part of me really wants to like the Sonic racers that Sumo made, but I still want someone to have another go at Sonic R, and have Sonic actually run. For some reason I always stumble over that. The actual games themselves are superb, among the best non-Mariokart games of their genre.

[Team Andromeda]

Loved Sonic R that game also features one of the best soundtracks going. I quite like Sonic Team racing, but its a massive step backwards from Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing: Transformed - Which for me is an incredible racing game and I enjoyed it more than Mario Kart 8.

Never really like the rest much.

[Cepp]

I love Sonic R, I always have a blast running through it and the soundtrack is amazing.

There's a fan made installer for the PC release that let's it run on modern systems that's well worth checking out.

As for Sumo's releases... I dunno, I just cant get into them? They aren't bad but I always end up wanting to play something else.

[Leon Retro]

I thought Sonic R was really impressive, but a bit too clunky to be a favourite.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing on the 360 & PC is a really nice karting game. The amount of care and attention that went to it is awesome. It stands up to the Mario Kart series really well.

Transformed is a incredibly impressive game on the 360 -- and it feels really nice to play. Once again, Sumo went the extra mile with tons of content and loads of cool features. Another golden classic.

[Super Monkey Balls]

Loved Sonic R that game also features one of the best soundtracks going.

What.

[nakamura]

I've not liked a single Sonic racing game. I do like the graphics engine that runs Sonic R though.

[Team Andromeda]

What.

That music score is so happy, so jolly, very much like Wonder Dog's music score. Love these tracks

[Neon Ignition]

Transformed remains the peak for me, Sonic R is probably my next fave but less through how it plays and more just the overall package's appeal. TSR was good but again, too much of a step back from Transformed