Sonic Racing Crossworlds Year One review: Speeding to the top

Within the past year since its release, Sonic Racing Crossworlds has given its player base a lot of post-launch content that has helped keep the game alive. From free updates to post-launch events and even paid DLC in its season pass, SEGA has done a pretty good job of making the game relevant for over a year now, but is it actually good? 

 

For its free updates, we have gotten a ton of SEGA All-Stars joining the race without paying a single penny. From long-time favorites like Goro Majima and Axel from Crazy Taxi, to new faces such as Joker from Persona 5, Kasuga Ichiban from Yakuza, and even new additions from the IDW Sonic comics: Tangle the Lemur and Whisper the Wolf. They even included SEGA’s newest studio, Rovio, in the game by adding Red from the iconic mobile game Angry Birds. Seeing all of these characters come each month helps give the game new life and new word of mouth for who's coming in next. 

 

For its paid content, however, we have been allowed to race as both video game icons and Nickelodeon characters. From the video game side, we are given characters, stages, and new carts from Minecraft, Pac-Man, and Mega Man, including Steve, Alex, a Creeper, Pac-Man, the ghosts (they're skins of each other, but it was nice they included all 4 in the game), Mega Man, and Proto Man. On the Nickelodeon side, we have 3 iconic cartoons entering the game: SpongeBob SquarePants, TMNT (based on Mutant Mayhem), and Avatar. Legendary characters such as SpongeBob, Patrick, all 4 turtles, Avatar Aang, and Katara are all playable in this game. Some of these might have been weird additions to the game, but they don’t devalue the game’s fun at all.

The paid DLC also gives us bonus tracks to race on, each with its own little gimmick that shakes up the gameplay and ends up giving the player two new cups for the Grand Prix. Minecraft has its gimmick to enter new worlds based on the Nether and the End. SpongeBob gives us a goofy look at Bikini Bottom. Pac-Man gives us a look at the rereleased World games with a blend of the classic arcade look. Mega Man shows us the innards of Wily Castle, where you avoid enemies like the Yellow Devil and use the stage-exclusive Mega Buster to blast your way to the top. TMNT showcases New York City, both in the sewers and above, avoiding Super Duper Fly from the recent animated film. And Avatar showcases a track that's been split by the elements themselves. All 6 of these tracks bring something unique to the game, adding new and exciting races for players. 

 

While there is a lot of exciting new stuff, there have also been alot of drawbacks as well. For example, except Hatsune Miku, none of the DLC characters, free or paid, have any voice acting behind them, making them very awkward when racing, while the base game characters all have lines to say. We also have the criticism that none of the computer players play all of the roster instead of the 23 from the base game, meaning if you want that crossover element, you need to pick it yourself. Finally, with all of the year one content in-game, it's very clear that we have more crossover characters in the game than actual Sonic characters, even with the addition of Tangle, Whisper, and Classic Sonic. It reminds me that even though Sonic is in the title of the game, this feels like a shameless spiritual successor to Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. It’s not a bad thing, but I do wish we would get some more Sonic Characters to help things out, like Vanilla, Sticks, Mighty, Ray, and other classic characters thrown into the mix.

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Despite all the changes, good and bad, seeing the game expand like this gives SEGA hope for its lifespan. While the new content has been met with a lot of positivity, the quality-of-life improvements to the game's base functionality could have been handled better to accommodate the new content, rather than cycling through the base game content. Year one has both good and bad, but I do hope we get some improvements to the game in Year two.

7.5/10