Now Playing: Sonic Racing Transformed

I’ve never been heavily into racing games, but I’ve enjoyed several immensely down the years. There was the original Sega Rally, Metropolis Street Racer and F-Zero GX to name a few. But kart racers? I’ve played a few iterations of Mario Kart and fairly enjoyed them, but they never quite hooked me.

So I wasn’t quite sure about SART. I’d not played the first game and in fact, I hadn’t really touched any sort of racer for a few years. But when I saw it on sale at half price I thought I’d give it a shot, and I was surprised to discover what is certainly one of the most enjoyable, if not high quality titles I’ve yet played this year.

So this is a kart racer based around Sonic and other classic SEGA franchises. In fact, the entire game is practically a gushing love letter to those franchises new, old, popular and less known. Given that it was SEGA consoles keeping me occupied when I was younger, I guess this aspect of the game was always going to appeal to me regardless of the quality of the racing itself.

Tracks are based around classic SEGA games and levels, with the fantastic soundtrack being a remix of classic SEGA tracks. The courses are packed full of wonderful nods and details to the games upon which they are based. Sonic, Afterburner, Panzer Dragoon, Jet Set Radio & Burning Rangers (!) are a few of the settings on offer.

The graphics are bright, crisp and vibrant, and aside from a rare frame rate stutter on a couple of tracks when things get hectic, everything runs practically flawlessly. SART is a fantastic looking game.

In terms of gameplay, everything is pretty much spot on. The handling of the karts is responsive and solid. The courses are well designed. And above all, the game has an excellent learning curve that moves the player from Rank C races to Rank A, before unlocking the challenging S class difficulty. The racing itself is entertaining and addictive and weapons are well implemented and fairly balanced - none of them are too powerful to completely knock a character out of a race or to gain a significant advantage.

The game has several different single player modes in addition to a multiplayer option (which I’ve not tried yet). These include the expected single races and time trials, as well as a Grand Prix event. In addition to that, there is a World Tour mode featuring races, boost and drift challenges, battle races, versus races, mirror track races and even ‘boss’ fights. Through this mode you can earn stars to unlock new courses, characters and mods for karts. Characters can earn XP which also unlocks more mods. On top of that, you have unlockable stickers to customise your ‘license’ - not really important, but a nice little touch.

Overall, Sonic Racing Transformed is an absolute joy to play. Even if you’re not a big fan of SEGA franchises, the quality and challenging nature of the gameplay on offer more than makes up it. And if you are a fan, then you’ll probably fall in love with this game quite easily. The content is rich and varied. The game is sharp and colourful. The sound is excellent. The controls are smooth and responsive, and it features a challenging learning curve that will test the player. The only things I’d really want to improve upon is more tracks and characters based on more classic franchises (Virtual-On, Virtua Cop, Streets of Rage etc)

SART excels at everything it sets out to achieve. Highly recommended.

9/10