SUMO Digital TRANSFORMS the Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing formula to create a challenging and fun Arcade Racing game.
The most recent game was Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing, where they all got cars, trucks, planes, motorcycles, and other modes of transportation and did some Super Sonic Racing.
While players of the past were worried because of failed attempts with Sonic and Racing with Sonic Drift, Sonic R, and Sonic Rivals. However, SUMO Digital was able to make the concept work and the game was awesome.
Now for the sequel of All-Stars Racing they decided to take an idea similar to Diddy Kong Racing: What if your car could transform into a boat and plane during the race?
This is where Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed comes and changes things up a bit.
*Gameplay*
Controls
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Even though we have now have cars, boats, and planes, the controls are the same for all 3 and haven't changed much since the last game.
You use the Left Analog Stick to steer, you use the RT to accelerate and keep your vehicle moving, use the LT to drift, and the Right Analog Stick to perform stunts.
If you drift for a long time or pull off a certain number of stunts, you can do Drift Boosts and Stunt Boosts. However, if you drift into a wall or miss the landing on your stunt, you'll lose both boosts and slow down.
You use the A Button to use and fire weapons in front of you. If you hold the Left Analog Stick down and press A you can drop and fire some items behind you.
Press the X Button to have the camera quickly change to a Back View, putting the camera right in the front of your car so you can see who's behind you.
Transformations
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During the races, all Vehicles will transform for certain segments of the Locations and during certain Laps. This will automatically happen when you go through the big spinning Transformation Gates.
As mentioned before, the controls are the same for all 3 transformations. However, there are differences with the boats and planes.
While in a boat, you'll sometimes be able to do stunts off of waves depending on how big they are.
Planes are faster than cars and boats, although there's a lot more stuff to dodge and look out for. For some Plane Tracks, if you don't position yourself properly when getting close to a transformation gate, you can crash into something and get stuck or miss the gate completely, in which the game will treat it like you fell off a platform, like in a car, and reset your position.
Racers
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The first game had 21 Racers, which includes extra characters like Avatar. This time around we have about 24 characters, although some characters have been swapped out:
-Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, and Eggman return with Metal Sonic once again being DLC while Big leaves the roster
-B.D Joe returns from Crazy Taxi
-AiAi returns with newcomer MeeMee from Super Monkey Ball
-Beat returns with newcomer Gum from Jet Set Radio
-Ulala returns with her rival, Pudding, from Space Channel 5
-NiGHTS gives his Flagman role to Ristar and joins in the race with his twin, Reala
-newcomer Vyse from Skies of Arcadia joins the race
-newcomer Gilius Thunderhead from Golden Axe
-newcomer Joe Mushashi from Shinobi
-your Xbox Avatar and Miis can once again join the race
-there are some secret characters but I won't spoiler them here...8)
There's a special reason why the word "SEGA" has been taken out of the title of the game: special guest characters, like Banjo in the Xbox 360 version of the last game, will appear to race with everyone else. We have Ralph from the brand new Disney/Pixar movie "Wreck-It Ralph" and Danica Patrick who is a Nascar Driver IRL.
Although people have complained about the new character roster, since a lot of favorites either got removed or didn't appear this time around, I personally think it's nice to see some more female racers and not just have 1 of each character from a specific universe while Sonic is the only one to bring friends. That and I'm happy NiGHTS is at least playable this time around.
The Stats System has been upgraded with a Mod and Experience System. Every time you use a character in an Event, they'll receive Experience Points based on different criteria. When your character levels up, it unlocks a new Mod, which can increase and decrease stats, for that character. Each character has 6 unlockable mods.
Finally, all racers this time around are balanced. In the first game, characters that had a motorcycle (*cough*Shadow*cough*) dominated the races. This time around you can pick any character and have a chance of winning...depending on how well your own skills are.
Locations
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While the character cast is debatable, the Locations in Transformed are more diverse than the original.
This game has 16 brand new tracks based on different games and franchises from SEGA's history and 4 returning tracks from the first game.
Some of the Tracks include:
-Ocean View, a track based on Sonic Heroes' Seaside Hill
-Samba Studios, a track based on Samba the Amigo
-Carrier Zone, a track based on After Burner: Climax
-Dragon Canyon, a track based on Panzer Dragoon
-Temple Trouble, a track based on Super Monkey Ball
-Galactic Parade, a tracked on Sonic Colors' Starlight Carnival
-Seasonal Shrines, a track based on Shinobi
-Rogues' Landing, a track based on Skies of Arcadia
-Dream Valley, based on NiGHTS
-Chilly Castle, based on Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
-Graffiti City, based on the level from Jet Set Radio
-Sanctuary Falls, based on Sonic & Knuckles' Sky Sanctuary
All Tracks have segments and Laps where the course transforms adding Transformation Gates, except for the 4 returning tracks which are the Car Only Tracks.
For example, on Ocean View, the first 2 Laps start out in your car but in Lap 3, the platforms at the starting line lower into the water, starting up the Boat segment.
On the Carrier Zone course, you'll change from Car to Plane to Car to Boat to Plane and Car again all in 1 Lap, all 3 Laps.
Also, as you continue to play different tracks, the courses get harder. Not only do the Laps change up the paths but different obstacles will start to appear each time.
Once you've unlocked all the Courses, you'll also unlock the Mirrored Tracks, which are versions of the original tracks that have been reversed horizontally and some cases you go through the original course backwards.
Items and Weapons
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This time around we have some new creative items, some which can be fired forward and backwards like the first game
-Boost: Moves you faster
-Glove: Acts as a shield that catches any other item meant to hurt you and allows you to use it
-Hot Rod: A engine that makes you go faster and explodes into a small range attack depending on when you press A. If you wait too late, you'll get hurt instead
-Rocket: Basic projectile, that can bounce off the sides of the course
-Blowfish: Similar to Rocket, except that it can also be used as a land mine
-Drone: creates a mini remote control version of your racer that homes in on other racer and blows them up
-Ice: snowballs you can shoot at other racers. If you have 3, you can shoot them all to temporary freeze a player
-Sky Tigers: Sends a group of hornets in front of whoever's in first place or behind you that grow into giant obstacles. They can be dodged though.
-Twister: This causes a racer to turn backwards, causing the controls to reverse for the Left Analog Stick (I hate this with a passion)
-Tokens: These are Star Coins that appear on the track. Collecting these power up your character allowing them to do an All-Star Move (not sure how many is needed or if it's the same for every character) and allows you to use Casinos/Bonus Chances
Before a race starts, you can use Tokens in Casinos to get a Bonus Chance, which are slot machines that can give you special effects depending on if you can get 3 in a row. For example, you could get an item early in a race or have a certain item be not as effective when you can get hit by it. These only last 1 Event and not easy to get.
All-Star Moves
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All-Star Moves are each character's special attacks they can do after collecting a certain amount of Tokens and touching an Item Box. Unlike the first game where Sonic and Shadow turn Super, most of them have been changed.
Some Examples:
-Sonic's All-Star has him in his plane, home attacking anyone in front of him
-Tails' All-Star has him shoot missiles in a straight line in front of him
-Knuckles' All-Star has him use the Master Emerald to do small short range explosions
-Shadow's All-Star has him doing Chaos Blasts
-Amy's All-Star has her chunking multiple hammers at people in front of her
-NiGHTS' All-Star has him go into his regular form and fly around and Drill Dash like in his games
Also, multiple characters can use their All-Star Moves at the same time. However, trying to get your All-Star is hard because any attack from a weapon or obstacle will make you drop your Tokens.
Career Mode (1-2 Players)
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This is basically a more organized Mission Mode. Here you'll play different kinds of Events on 6 different Tours (which are on maps that remind me of the Super Mario Galaxy 2 Galaxy Maps) which will gain Experience for your characters, Locations to race on in Single Race and Time Attack, and unlock Stars, which can be used to unlock Gates to progress the Map, 9 more characters, and the exclusive Console Mods.
Speaking of the 9 characters, which are Amigo, Shadow, and most of the Newcomers, Career Mode is the only way to unlock them in the game. Also, as you get further, the unlockables become more expensive. To unlock NiGHTS, you'll need about 80 Stars. The last character needs 165.
You'll be able to get more Stars after you unlock Expert Difficulty, but that also means having to replay certain Missions again.
Match Making (Online Multiplayer)
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At the time of this review, I have not played in the Local Multiplayer.
As for the Online Multiplayer, you have 3 choices:
-Race: Here you can have regular 3 Lap Races with 9 other players
-Arena: Here you can play in 2 different battle style arenas
-Lucky Dip: A combo of the first 2, allowing different kinds of Races like the Boost Races and Battle Races
While in the waiting rooms, you pick your character (Avatar is the only character that can be picked by multiple players), wait for the Event to start, and get to it. After Events are over, players must vote on 1 of 3 choices, randomly chosen by the computer, for the next Race or Event. Also, each player has a rating that gives you some sort of idea of how good they are.
Online Multiplayer is pretty awesome. I used it to help get some Experience for some of my characters and unlocked courses that I had raced in. Also, if 1 or 2 people decide to leave during an event, the Computer will take control of their characters.
Bonus Edition DLC
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If you download this DLC, you will unlock Metal Sonic, Outrun Bay's regular and Mirrored Course, and bonus stickers for your Sticker Collection. Metal Sonic starts out with all his Mods unlocked which is nice. The Outrun Bay stage switches between Car and Boat and may remind you of SEGA's Arcade Time Attack games that you could find in an arcade back in the day or at Chuck E Cheeses'.
Complaints
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Now that I've talked about some of the games' features, here are some problems I found that may or may not affect others as well.
First off, unlike the first game, there is no tutorial. I was able to get into the game easily because I played the first one and the controls are virtually the same, but if you haven't played the first one you may have to practice on Easy Difficulty until you can understand how the game works.
Second, the collisions between racers is randomly chaotic. Having another racer slightly touch you can cause you to slow down, get a random speed boost, or randomly come to a complete stop. In some cases, you can actually knock someone into an obstacle or off the course into a pit.
Third, in Multiplayer, you no longer have any control over the Location, Event, items, or the number of Laps for each race. The only thing you can control is your character. If you want a race without Items, you can do this in the Boost Races but you have to wait to see if you get the event in Lucky Dip.
Another problem in Multiplayer is the Lobby rooms are smaller than in the first game. Basically, you may get stuck with the same number of people in the Lobby for different races, even if you leave and come back in.
Finally, if enough people quit the game during a Multiplayer Race or Event, you'll get thrown out. While this doesn't affect your rating, you won't get Experience for your character. Also, if you're playing a course you've never been on before, you won't unlock it.
Besides these 5 problems, the game is doing pretty good.
Overall Gameplay Score: 9
*Graphics*
The characters and courses look awesome. The idea of each of the courses being represented by floating islands is brilliant. The art direction reminds me of Sonic Generations in that they brought back old levels and remixed them in new ways.
For example, even though Ocean View is basically Sonic Generations' version of Seaside Hill, they added an giant Octopus Robot in the Boat Segment.
Overall Graphics Score: 9
*Speed*
In the game, speed is determined by the racer's stats and the location you race on. Obviously, Sonic is one of the fastest characters here as well as some others.
However, there are some things that will slow you down like the awkward collision physics, hitting the railing or crashing into something, or getting hit by weapons.
Overall Speed Score: 9
*Sound*
Besides the character's sound bytes, every Location in the game has a remix of 1-3 songs. Each Races starts with a Intro Theme and goes into its main theme during the entire race.
Some Examples:
-in Ocean View, the Intro starts out with the Japanese "Sonic CD" Title Screen Theme and the race theme is a mix of Seaside Hill and Sonic R's Super Sonic Racing
-in Sauntuary Falls, the Intro starts out with the "Sonic and Knuckles" Title Screen Theme and the race theme is a mix of Sky Sanctuary and Sonic R's Regal Ruin music
During the All-Star Moves, different remixed themes will play as well:
-Sonic's is "Reach for the Stars"
-Tails' sounds like the Sonic Adventure Invincibility Theme
-Knuckles and Amy have their Sonic Adventure themes
-Eggman and Metal Sonic have their Sonic 4: Episode 2 Boss Themes
While it would have been nice to have a Sound Test area, it was mentioned by a SUMO Digital worker that it might not make it in.
Overall Sound Score: 9
My Final Overall Score for the game is a 9.
Keeping the first game's philosophy of using your skills to win instead of just item spamming and adding new features like the boats and planes, Mods, and new characters makes Transformed a must have sequel for people who played the first game. However, the game's difficulty may not be for everyone. Whether, it's racing, tennis, or something brand new, I can't wait to see where Sonic and the All-Stars go next.