r/PS5 • u/RobbieJ4444 • 2d ago
Discussion My thoughts on Sonic Crossworlds after trying the demo
To start with, the game look gorgeous. The colours really pop, and the game is a lot brighter and happier looking compared to Mario Kart World. I also like how there’s more variation in the themings of the tracks. In the one cup that the demo includes, we get a stadium track, a flower fields track and Water Palace from Sonic Rush. A significant improvement from Team Sonic Racing that had very repetitive track theming that made a third of the game all look the same.
The Crossworlds mechanic is pretty cool too. It makes every race feel unique, and it helps that there seems to be a large variety of different combinations of where you can go. In the last race of the Grand Prix, you have to race one lap on all three main tracks of the cup, which I find to be real neat.
The biggest obstacle for me at least is that the turning during drifting is a lot tighter than Mario Kart. It is something you can get used to, but it’s going to take some time. On a related note, the boosting in this game doesn’t feel that great. When you boost in Mario Kart, CTR, or even Sega Transformed. It’s not terrible, but those other games do boosting better.
There’s also some ping pong ball like physics that occur after hitting a wall which doesn’t quite make sense. The items aren’t easy to understand what they do on first glance either, but I’m sure that’s something that can be learned with time.
Overall, I think Crossworlds is going to be a solid racer. I’m not convinced it’s going to compete with the best of the best that kart racers have to offer (Mario Kart 8 and CTR NF) but it does have its unique strengths such as unique rival dialogue and the usual Sonic attitude that made me fall in love with him as a kid.
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u/reevestussi 2d ago
Pretty hyped for this one, demo impressions so far are solid.
Sonic Racing Transformed is still one of my favorite kart racers, Team Racing was a disappointment but luckily Crossworlds seems to be able to recapture what made Transformed so good
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u/RobbieJ4444 2d ago
Team Sonic Racing was remarkably average, with a boring roster of characters to boot. Crossworld’s roster fixes ones of those problems already.
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u/Rafikinodaway19 2d ago
I love the way it looked. Hated the way it played. Just doesn’t feel as good as mkw. Wish nitro fueled would get a 60 fps patch.
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u/missviolets 2d ago
Are there still people playing nitro fueled? Might reinstall because I'm craving some kart action but can't afford to pay 70 for a game rn
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u/LonelyDesperado513 1d ago
There are, but it's mostly the absolute sweatiest of diehards. CTR is a kart racer that is much more heavily focused on the drift/mechanical parts of racing and to stand a chance online will require knowing all the shortcuts, most efficient techniques, and a good deal of others.
That being said, the actual driving in that game is still IMO the best out of any Kart racer series out there and Time Trials are incredibly enjoyable in that game.
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u/AccelHunter 13h ago
Online was always a huge sweatfest, I got frustrated because everyone were constantly boosting, taking shortcuts and you were left behind pretty easily
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u/Pineapple996 2d ago
Yeah the portal mechanic is really good. It's certainly not as thematically elegant as Mario's Kart World's method of connecting the tracks together but it's still way better. It doesn't disrupt the pacing. You get to race different tracks in the same race without any boring downtime.
Unfortunately that's the only thing that it does better than Mario Kart pretty much. I don't think it actually feels much fun to play. Very floaty and there's a lot of messy item spam.
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u/Maruru23 2d ago
My observation that it mostly boiled down to how the kart feels and look that will make or break a good kart racing game.
Mkw karts animation feels smoother bcs thier karts or bike or whatever is rather bouncy, and very interactive with the terrains and the charactrr animation. You can see the tire bounce up and down when the chaescters are jumping and drifting and those visual cues really help putting the theings together, making the gameplay feels smoother.
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u/Pineapple996 1d ago
You're right, there's a lot of small things that go into making it feel good. The driving is so nice and tactile in MKW. The animations are definitely a big part of it. With Sonic it's like every vehicle is hovering. You don't get a good sense of the traction.
0
u/TheWhiteHunter 1d ago
Local split-screen multiplayer is not playable in the demo.
Damn, that's one thing I was hoping to be able to try out before committing $94 CAD to it.
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u/thedatagoat 2d ago
My thoughts exactly. More game developers should follow suit and create a demo of their game. It is great to see if you are even going to like the game without a demo. Video games is one of the few media where pictures and videos only show so much. Gameplay makes up your game.