Sonic Racing Crossworlds (PS5)

Oh, how I've waited for this to turn up. Our review code came in a little late (my fault) so very sadly I've had to cancel a few meetings and dive into Sonic Racing Crossworlds rather last minute to beat the release date, but that's just a sacrifice I'm prepared to make. I'm so good to our readers...

I have, for many years, been a massive fan of Sonic Racing Transformed. It has been a constant on the PS Vita and Nintendo Switch and I've unlocked everything. Twice. So a new iteration of the series with a larger roster on current gen hardware was always going to be an enticing prospect. It helps that I found Mario Kart World a bit uninspiring, though perfect for my 5 year old. Sonic is for me.

The roster was the first thing to catch my attention. 23 Sonic characters make up the initial roster, with Werehog Sonic available if you pre-order and Hatsune Miku available to unlock. I like the Sonic focus, every one of the main characters is from some iteration of the franchise, including characters from less popular games like Sonic Lost World and even very popular games like Sonic Frontier - two of the Zeti make an appearance, as does Eggman's virtual daughter Sage. My girl Rouge making an appearance doesn't hurt either.

Yep, I'm here for Rouge

In terms of longevity, two of the thirteen post-launch free DLC characters have been announced as Joker (Persona 5) and Ichiban Kasuga (Yakuza) have been announced, leaving ten more to come - that's a generous roster of free content.

For paid DLC I'm strangely uninterested - characters from Spongebob Squarepants, Minecraft and Pac-Man will be the first season pass drivers, not a single one of which appeals to me. I can however see how at least two of these franchises will excite younger players, so the logic is clear. I'm hoping against hope that in one of the character paths we'll see more Sonic characters that are making a splash in the comics - Whisper, Tangle, Surge, Kit and Trip would all be wonderful additions and I'll keep my fingers crossed.

24 characters and that's just the opening roster!

Beyond the character selection, you can also mess with your ride. Cars are split between Boost, Speed, Handling and Power. Earn yourself some credits and you can unlock parts to mix and match to create your own vehicle - I have to say it works very well, the cut-and-shut rides all look smooth and the pieces work well together. DLC might make this even more appealing, especially since the terrain will affect how each car handles. There's lots of room for fine tuning.

Speaking of fine tuning, there’s a LOT here to play with. Each character has their own base stats for Speed, Boost, Handling etc, and each vehicle has a class that specialises in one of them. So for the same car in the Speed class, Sonic will always be faster (80) than Rouge (65). But Rouge will always have superior handling. Each element of the car (front, back, wheels) changes these stats slightly too. Then you have a plate with various buffs that further changes things, but more on that later. Combine all these elements and you have some serious fiddling to do.

All of which brings us to the game proper. All the usual suspects are in play here - time trial, grand prix and multi-player, each of these has an online and offline mode so you can open up yourself up to the world or just play locally.

Comparisons to a certain Kart game are inevitable at this stage and, in terms of pure racing, Sonic gets the main thing right; you will race multiple times around the same track, with new paths opening up on the third lap if you know where to look for them. The inability to race in a circle multiple times has greatly frustrated Nintendo players (me included) so having this fundamental racing mechanic locked in is an absolute joy. It's not innovative, as you may argue Mario's open-world is, but it's what people want. Endless straight roads between actual courses that you can only traverse once isn't fun, so bravo to Team Sonic for having the common sense to make this a priority.

That said, the game does allow the leader of the race to pick between two paths at the end of the first lap, either continuing on the current circuit or transporting the participants to a fantastical world for a single lap. This is how you do variety, and of course the winner gets to choose. I found this a lot of fun and even these wackier course designs can be mastered.

Having a rival to focus on in the pack is a terrific idea!

The racing itself is far more competitive than Mario - I had to completely adjust my style of play during my first Grand Prix. I'd become so use to the sheer chaos of 24 racers randomly throwing stuff at you every 5 seconds that half that number of competitors genuinely keeping pace with you and trying to follow an actual racing line makes everything far more competitive. The music does a great job of driving you forward (the final lap increasing the tempo) and the game will even assign you a specific rival for each Grand Prix who will come at you harder than the rest. The banter also increases between rivals making everything feel more involved. It's a great touch and one I've not seen before.

This is a battle-racing game so we have some mechanics to get into here. You'll pick up weapons and buffs on the track as is standard in such games, but you also have a "plate" that you can customise with power ups that are available at the start of each race - these include boosts, the ability to pull off more tricks mid-air to increase speed, holding more coins (which increase your top speed) and even having the monster truck power up pre-loaded (you'll grow in size and squash the other racers). These abilities can be added to as you progress, the more races you participate in, the more slots you can unlock - this includes time trial races too. In-game, I did lose a few races due to getting clobbered too close to the finish line to recover, but these instances were rare and generally you can make your way back to the front through skill thanks to the copious boosts and jumps scattered around the track. You have to make the most of your environment, but it can be done. 

Like Sonic All Star Racing Transformed, you'll use three forms across the tracks, air, land and water depending on what's needed. As usual, just dive through the transformation ring (usually hard to miss if it's required) and you'll change automatically. Each environment feels different but they nailed this in previous games so it's no surprise to see it perfectly implemented here too.

You won't be getting bored either, there are 24 courses on offer at launch, with 15 Crossworlds to dive into, so if you want to master all of them be prepared to put some time in. I actually found myself completing the first Grand Prix and then diving into the Time Trials for the first three circuits just to better understand them and race against myself. Honestly I had more fun doing that than any of the free roaming in that other game.

Doing tricks in the air will boost speed.

Graphically the game is very sharp, the PS5 doing an excellent job of rendering the tracks with no pop-up or tearing that I could see (though I was concentrating on the driving for the most part). There's loads of variety and detail, lighting is gorgeous and every character is rendered with plenty of personality. There's loads of great presentational touches, such as the music changing when you select a different player on the character select screen, the animations for each of the characters and the fully voiced dialogue. Everything feels polished and premium, as a game of this price should. 

With a load of both free and paid-for DLC in the pipeline, the game feels like a solid opening salvo, much like Capcom's Street Fighter series. You know more is coming to look forward to but there's plenty to get your teeth into already. I'm thrilled that the opening cast is pure Sonic and not a more watered-down (if varied) selection like All Stars. It should be a Sonic game first and foremost if it has the Hedgehog's name on it and the initial selection is absolute gold (though as in my opening, I'll always want more!) The only real shame is that the Switch 2 version is so far off (January) leaving early adopters with only one inferior racing game to drive around aimlessly on. 

For the rest of us, this is a fantastic, near peerless racing game. True, I've had to cram a lot in today in order to get my impressions down in a timely manner, but this has me as pumped as Sonic All Stars Transformed and I'm still playing that 13 years later! I've no doubt this game will see me through at least another decade, it's exactly what I wanted - more of what I loved but better in every way.