‘ROLLING AROUND AT THE SPEED OF SOU…’ oh, sorry. You just caught me having a fanboy moment there. I do adore being able to talk about my boy Sonic in such glowing terms, and it gets my own personal hypemeter up for the franchise as a whole. Sonic has been my go-to gaming buddy since I was five years old holding a Mega Drive controller and repeatedly completing Sonic 2, the greatest videogame of all time*. I’ve played damn near every iteration of Sonic since then and well, it’s fair to say it’s been a bumpy ride to get back to this moment. After Sonic Frontiers was certainly fun but didn’t set my world alight, I had some questions. What Sonic Team have offered up in return? Probably my favourite Sonic game since Mania. And no, it’s not close.
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds then has a lofty job ahead of itself. Releasing the same year as a certain plumber’s new Karting iteration was enough to set the most devoted of Sonic fans ears ringing about this one. Whilst MK World hasn’t gone gangbusters in the way perhaps we (and certainly Nintendo) expected, Sonic Team have been busy finely tuning their own iteration of a karting experience with its madcap arcade-feeling super fast visual feast in their racing games. CrossWorlds, if I may be so bold, is leagues ahead of Mario Kart World in terms of just genuine fun and fanboy giddiness.
They’re not really all that comparable, they’re very different experiences in practice. CrossWorlds doesn’t have an open world to explore, get lost in and get unfathomably bored before giving it up altogether. What CrossWorlds does so damn correctly is laser focus on the races, the tracks, the characters. The fine tuning. CrossWorlds is a vastly better karting game because it simply isn’t trying to be anything other than exactly what it needs to be: a damn great karting video game.
There’s arguments that CrossWorlds is ‘Mario Kart World-lite’ and I wholeheartedly disagree with this. Whilst World is veering off in different directions and not particularly excelling at any of them other than their Grand Prix modes, CrossWorlds takes everything Sonic Team has learned from previous iterations and delivers a game that isn’t anything else other than that. There’s no story, no great big mission or other purpose, it’s just a great racing game and it shines in that regard, even if you go down the character list and get terrified and how few you’ve heard of past the primary six or seven. Seriously, it’s baffling. I thought I was a deepcut Sonic fan. Turns out I’m not.
It’s not particularly important to know your Blaze the Cat from your Zazz (the purple dude from Sonic Lost World), but it does add a little bit of fun to the pre and post-race smack talk between the characters. Big the Cat is a particular standout here, he’s just so damn nice, he couldn’t battle rap anyone without complimenting their mother on doing such a good job raising them.
You’ll hear these back and forth jibes through the ‘rival’ mechanic, where before each Grand Prix the game will randomly pick another character you’ll have to beat in each race in order to gain credits to buy new cool stuffs for your vehicle of choice. It’s a fun addition to each race and they’re mostly always out in front, so it gives you an extra incentive to keep pushing up and ensuring they stay behind you to hear them concede victory at the end of the standard four races. There are some cracking lines between the characters, and the mighty Roger Craig Smith once again voicing Sonic, so natural and effortless in his cadence and performance.
The four races, well, let’s say three races and then a fourth and final race which, disappointingly, features a lap of each of three tracks you’ve already completed in that Grand Prix, is where the CrossWorlds of it all comes in, where in the second of lap of each race the player in first can choose between two portals – appearing in rings, a nice little nod to the Sonic movies – to end up on an entirely new track for a lap in a gloriously quick Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart-esque effect, taking the entire race to a whole new map for a lap and all the chaos that would bring along with it. It’s a wild moment and it never really got old for me, even if the portal tracks began to repeat themselves over time. A casino track and a volcano were particular highlights, all visually bombastic and bringing these new worlds to life in seconds.
I’d argue that it may not be enough, though. I had a feeling these portal worlds would last longer than a single lap but that’s how it goes. It’s not particularly a problem, you’re in the middle of a race elsewhere, after all, but it would have been fun to spend a bit more time in these new locales before you’re shot back all over again to proceed on the GP map. That could just be greedy perhaps, but it was really fun to see the creative flair in what was hiding behind those ring portals.
A staple of any Kart racer though is the power-ups, and they’re a wild bunch of choices this time around. I’d argue that MK World will always win this particular bout over Sonic purely because they don’t have anything as iconic as the Red/Green/Blue shells, but nonetheless, there’s enough here to disrupt your perfect runs and/or be a major pain in the ass to the characters around you. The Wisps return to give you a hefty amount of boost, you can throw a red or a green (!) punch at your rivals , protect yourself from projectiles with a shield or a tornado or turn yourself into a Monster Truck and tear through those in front of you like a Bullet Bill, if you like. They’re effective certainly, but I certainly had my favourites in the later hours of my time with the game, like you do with any kart racer really. Some are simply more effective than others. Those ninja stars can go to hell. Not a fan and not because it threw me off a perfect run and I ended up finishing 6th instead of 1st. Nope. Didn’t happen. Unrelated Wave the Swallow will be hearing from my lawyers. Stupid bird.
Where CrossWorlds really excels though is the customisation throughout. So long as you’re racing, you’re tinkering, always adjusting, adding and taking away and simply making your vehicle of choice work in that exact way you want it to. Modifying the stats of each racer is an awful lot of fun, and I certainly had my favourites for whom I would focus on first (Tails is life). The intricate decision making of ‘speed+!’, ‘acceleration+1’ or ‘boost+!’ making minimal differences on their own, but together can have a huge effect on your races, which is hugely rewarding when you’ve been getting deep in the trees trying to work out why Metal Sonic is tearing off the start line quicker than you even though you’re on a Sonic Riders hoverboard that you feel like you’ve crafted with your bare hands three hours into the customisation modes. It’s delectable and terrific fun, and Sonic Team have made it all matter. It really, genuinely makes a difference so don’t shy away from it.
The Gadget system is where major additions and taking away can take place though. You have five classes across each speciality to play with and you can earn gadget spots the more you play. In the Gadget mode you can add modifiers together to offer you an advantage in each race, again fully customisable. Your loadout could be, ‘start the race in a monster truck’ alongside ‘double boost’ and ‘handling’. It’s glorious, and offers huge replayability as you work out what works best for you and your style of racing. I was primarily focused on the boosting with a triple boost modifier from the start line to get a good start and it seemed to work for me fairly well. The monster truck one is just good fun. Take that, Storm the Albatross from Sonic Riders and Sonic and the Secret Rings. No, your face is what it’s in.
The online races ran fairly smoothly for me. I was lucky enough to receive review code within the ‘early access’ pre-order period and as such the hardcore were whipping me around the course left and right, but I managed to win several races, which was great. I had no trouble connecting and all ran smooth as silk. There’s also Time Trials and a mode called Race Park, where you can take part in custom rules matches, team races and the like, it’s a distraction but nothing more. It’s better to stay primarily focused on the Grand Prix and online modes, which is where CrossWorlds truly shines.
And it’s all so beautiful. I’ve mentioned before about the wild creativity of some of the tracks, and they shine on my PS5, where I’m reviewing the game. I’ve experience no slowdown or visual hiccups despite the ton of madcap things going on across the screen at once. It’s a gorgeous game with easy to navigate menus, a killer soundtrack and a lovely selection of genuinely different and unique courses.
I’m kind of in awe of the creativity and dedication on display. Whilst it’s probably not easy to fill out a character roster when you only have five or six genuinely headline grabbing characters – Mario Kart World also has this problem – it’s credit to Sonic Team that they’ve dug seriously deep to find some of the rarest Sonic world characters for this one – with plenty not from the Sonic universe very much on the way -, and it feels like a genuine love letter to the fans of this wild universe. The entire game does, to be honest.
Alright Sonic Team, you got me. I’m back in. Let’s keep this crazy hoverboard moving. I’m absolutely locked and ready to see what is coming next for the finest kart racer of the year.
*- It is. This particular topic is not up for discussion. Thank you for your co-operation regarding this.
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is available now on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5 (review platform), Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC.
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: SEGA
Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.
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