The next Mario Kart game may be coming later this year, but it’s going to have some competition. Sonic Racing: Crossworlds is another installment in the Sonic Racing series courtesy of Sonic Team and the developers behind the Initial D arcade game. It just wrapped up its first beta test, which teased gameplay elements that are literally out of this world.
I participated in the beta on PS5 last weekend, and walked away excited for its mind-bending races. I was blown away as I drove into another dimension during the second lap of the race using a Warp Ring. I loved seeing racers doing air tricks in the with their cars, Sonic Riders style. It’s the kind of image I’d expect to see in a Fast & Furious movie, with Dom and his crew jumping from one highway to another to get away from whoever is chasing them.
That’s the action Crossworlds promises to bring to the genre. The races I tried were fun and chaotic all at once, though still left some room for tweaking. I can count on one hand the number of times I came close to winning first place but lost out due to balancing issues. So long as Sega can smooth those out based on beta feedback, Crossworlds could be a real competitor to Mario Kart’s crown.
Chaos uncontrolled
Sonic Racing: Crossworlds is your traditional arcade racing game, complete with power-ups that add some chaos to the mix. Some of those items are approximations of the those used in Mario Kart. The Rocket Punch and the Homing Punch are the Sonic universe’s equivalent of the Green Shell and Red Shell, respectively, and King Boom Boo is the ghastly equal to the Blue Shell. Other power-ups, like the Slicer, Warp Ring, and the Monster Truck are interesting additions to everyone’s magic bag of tricks. Based on my first drive, some of those items could use a rebalance.
Let’s take the Homing Punch as an example. It’s already powerful enough in that it locks onto its target and flies straight into it as soon as the racer launches it. When three or four other players pick up Homing Punch at the same time, the course becomes a roller derby of other racers getting knocked down by a red rocket boxing glove every five seconds. Meanwhile, the Slicer, designed to look like a crooked shuriken star, cuts into your vehicle and slows you down for a second or two while you lose your rings. Although it hits randomly, you could get hit by it two or three times in a row, which can drag you down to last place if you’re nowhere near the top three. Moments like that are part of the genre, but they feel a little too frequent in their current implementation.
During races, players can also pick up speed-increasing rings which can be knocked out of them throughout a race. Ring loss is excessive — or rather, some of the ways ring loss occurs in the race is too excessive. I lost rings when I slammed into the walls or dragged along them, which is aggressive compared to how Mario Kart 8 Deluxe handles coins. It’s one thing to lose rings when you bump into another racer, hit an obstacle like the lava dragon on the Magma Planet track, or even fall off the track; losing them after running into walls feels a little too punitive for a casual racing game. It’s the equivalent of a little kid breaking their nose or losing a loose tooth after running into a sliding glass door leading to the back porch not knowing it was closed.
I hope those nitpicks get reworked in the final version, because it’ll give players one less thing to worry about as they race across dimensions. And that’s where Crossworlds is at its best.
When worlds collide
Crossing over to another dimension, as the title of the game heavily suggests, is an element of gameplay that sets Sonic’s latest apart from Mario Kart. Sonic Team made that possible because of the Warp Rings that were once exclusive to the classic Sonic games as well as the comic books and movies. Since the Sonic universe is so vast as a multimedia franchise, Sonic Racing: Crossworlds serves as a great use case for the Warp Rings to shake things up in the middle of a race.
Before a race begins, you’ll pick which track you want to race in. In the beta, the list included Metal Harbor, Ocean View, E Stadium, Rainbow Garden, Water Palace, Wonder Museum, or a random track. If you pick Metal Harbor as the main track, for example, two travel rings open before the leading player before the second lap begins. That player will get a glimpse of two different worlds through those rings. A track like Kraken Bay may apepar on the left, while a random track that surprises you with a different world will be on the right. They then choose one ring by driving through it, changing the track for all players during the next lap. Sometimes, the selected Crossworld triggers a frenzy mode where dash rings spawn everywhere and give racers a chance to catch up to the top of the leaderboard.
Some tracks have been taken from Team Sonic Racing and Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed, while others are new and inspired by locales in other Sonic games. For instance, Dinosaur Jungle originated from Sonic and the Secret Rings, although the enhanced graphics make it look like it came out of Jurassic World. Water Palace comes from Sonic Rush, and it’s more detailed compared to how it appeared in the Nintendo DS title.
Interdimensional racing is a great idea that makes Sonic Racing: Crossworlds a blast. It’s the most fun I’ve had with the series since Team Sonic Racing. Not only has vehicle transformation made a comeback after 13 years, but the ability to race from one world to another and back again feels like a fresh evolution. With Extreme Gear being added as a vehicle option along with the Babylon Rogues making a comeback, and every character not tied to their original cars for once, it’s shaping up to be one of Sonic’s best racing games. Heck, it could even outdo Mario Kart 9, which is set to be the Nintendo Switch 2’s biggest game. It’ll just take a little tweaking to get there.
Sonic Racing: Crossworlds launches this year for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
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