Forum - View topicGAME: Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Game Review
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LinkTSwordmaster
 Posts: 817 Location: PA / USA |
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There was a lot of people pointing at Sonic at launch and trying to drag it for being similarly-expensive to Mario Kart World, but the reality of the matter is that Sonic stuff usually discounts pretty heavily - (new) Nintendo games are often harder to catch on sale, and it's worse now with the key-card garbage Nintendo is doing for the Switch 2.
If you caught the DX CrossWorlds game on sale with the full DLC pass, it was pretty close to the price of a standard PS4 or Switch release+pass launch. The amount of content it comes with is insane, given that the Minecraft stuff has been very fun, and crazier things like Mega Man are going to be coming soon too. They could have split the pass contents, and I'm proud of them, that the one pass gets you EVERYTHING.
It's an interesting mention, because after Mario Kart DS, it felt like Nintendo was doing everything they possibly could to easy-mode a lot of stuff for general audiences, or maybe more accurately, flatten the difficulty curve. When the WiiU Mario Kart 8 launched and didn't allow you to double-dip on items, and a majority of what you were picking up was coins, it was one of the most giant slaps in the face as someone that got started on the SNES and could lap folks once or twice per race on the DS. It was a lot more solid when they switched to the Deluxe release of MK8, but I still think some of the most focused Mario Kart experiences are probably the SNES, GBA, DS, and Wii releases. Reading the review, I wonder how much time Bolts has put into the series & got to devote to figuring out CrossWorlds - Sonic All-Stars Transformed didn't have a formal story mode, and prior to CrossWorlds was probably the top Sonic racer widely available. I've been racing with the Rivals set exactly one notch away from max and it's a really great indicator that if you're having trouble beating them consistently, that you need to have a second look at how/when you use your items, and what character/vehicle/gadget combo you have equipped. Initially I started with Amy/Miku, but the Minecraft Festival released a gadget for Power characters that has been giving solid results after switching. You're always gonna have the one-off races where the items roll bad with bad timing, but 80 to 90% of the time, if you are already posting great times and you understand when to save your item and when to fire it, CrossWorlds is hitting that sweet spot that I think even Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was lacking in online. You can grab a group of friends and have 4 v 4 v 4 co-op online, and I think that is infinitely more valuable than a bunch of CGI movie files bloating the game's install size for a flimsy story that 90% of players are going to skip - the Rival interactions alone have been a lot more than what All-Stars Transformed contained, and there are very few things I can realistically complain about. Eventually, CrossWorlds is gonna go on sale for sub-$40, and like All-Stars Transformed, probably be a staple to any major Sonic gaming collection too. |
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Varkias
Posts: 43 |
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So far, I'm liking it more than Sonic Team Racing, but not as much as the two Sonic & Sega All-Stars racing games. The themed variety of the racers and tracks made those more interesting for me (and it probably helped to keep my interest by needing to unlock both through progression).
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BrazillianCara
Posts: 89 |
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I don't know what the key-cards have to do with this case, since Mario Kart World is on a real cartridge (much like all of Nintendo's first-party releases). |
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DKL
 Posts: 1994 Location: California, USA |
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I've already expressed my intense dislike for this game over the last few weeks, so I guess I'll be petty and just teach people how to climb into Legend quickly, which isn't too hard since rank in this game is essentially a number that goes upwards at a spread of around +10/-2, at least as far as Legend 6 or whatever I was watching.
To understand how this game is designed, I recommend quickly watching this video from a dude who apparently is a dev for a Sonic racing fan game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24b78rpPJiU&t=3s With that in mind, we have established that two things are very strong: 1. Purposely falling behind and then farming good items 2. Driving vaguely behind people to utilize the game's busted comeback mechanics (I believe it's called slipstream or something) So, you want to design a loadout that takes advantage of this. My recommendation is 3 item slots gadget for max gacha and the item that lets slipstreams happen more often, since it makes it so that you don't have to drive well when behind. There is also a gadget that gives you rings during slipstream, so you can toss that on too since you have a significant speed boost at 100 rings. In practice, this is what this loadout looks like, taken from footage of my own races: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XETUJ1UqcNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHtP3kGdqk I also have raw footage of me doing this to consistently place well in the Miku festival, but ain't nobody wanna watch 2 hours of races The general strategy is as follows: -Let everyone pass you at the start -Pick up the first item, which is normally a boost if you're in the back -When you see an undesirable item, get ready to purge it quickly, even if you already have a power item in the loadout since you can just refarm the item later by sandbagging more... you can do this as late as the first set of double boxes on the third lap, that's how stupid the comeback mechanics are in this game -Exodia in this game is essentially some combination of boost, laser, drill and monster truck -Once you have the win condition, just drive normally and use slipstream to get you out in front, preferably in the tail end of lap 2 and just defend against items whenever you see the onscreen prompt since they might make you drop your win condition -Even if it's tempting to mash during being hit by a homing missile, if it's not one of the power items that makes you drop your items, stand your ground and only activate your power item during the cut that usually precedes the finish line, which you can see if you just go look at world records in Time Trials or something once Slipstream is so degenerate and designed to carry you past people that I actually have to jam down on the brake button in order to not pass people so that I can be in placement that will let me farm good items. It's possible the meta or whatever will change in a few months after they do some balance changes and maybe when people get good at using boost level 4 defensively, but I'm not terribly interested in sticking with it since there will probably be something else out by then that I'll actually want to play. Also, the TLDR for placing highly in time trials is to xcopy the world record. I was able to get a bunch of top 100s and like 2 former world records without even grinding too much since I'm not sure how competitive time trials are since everyone good is probably still too busy grinding out ranked, which is not very satisfying because it's essentially mostly based around participation (to understand how mind numbing this grind is: I was able to reach level 20 in the Virtua Fighter beta, which is around the point where you can actually rank down, in like 4-6 hours... I think this amount of time barely gets you anywhere in Sonic Racing even if you're doing well since I would get like +16 for first place in Legend 8,but needed like 1,000 points to get to Legend 7 and, even when you get there... you're still just getting plus points for each race), though I imagine my records are all out by now since I haven't bothered playing more. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 20109 |
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It's a bummer the DLC characters aren't voiced.
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LinkTSwordmaster
Posts: 817 Location: PA / USA |
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I know the internal structure of their files may limit some of the options, but the modding for CrossWorlds is already very impressive (you can sort of re-skin the entire game to look more like Riders if you so choose). My hope is that the playerbase eventually comes up with their own solution for it. Seeing Jack Black as Minecraft Steve is already a hoot in-game. |
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