Video Game / Team Sonic Racing

Gear Up. Speed Up.

Team Sonic Racing is a Mascot Racer spin-off of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, and a follow-up to the previous Sega Superstars racing games from developer Sumo Digital. As the name suggests, this installment focuses on team based gameplay where up to 12 players can compete in online multiplayer or local split-screen co-op. Working together with your team allows them to initiate a "Team Ultimate" attack on opposing players. The Wisps from Sonic Colors also make a return, reprising their roles as power-ups from previous installments and can give a boost to other racers.

The roster contains 15 characters, all with unique customization options.

Characters

• Team Sonic
  • Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna
• Team Dark
  • Shadow the Hedgehog, Rouge the Bat, E-123 "Omega"
• Team Rose
  • Amy Rose, Chao^note Chao, Hero Chao, Dark Chao, and Omochao in one vehicle, Big the Cat
• Team Vector
  • Blaze the Cat, Silver the Hedgehog, Vector the Crocodile
• Team Eggman
  • Metal Sonic, Dr. Eggman, Zavok, Eggpawns^note NPCs, Death Egg^note Final Boss

It was released on May 21, 2019 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Steam.

Reveal Trailer, E3 Trailer

Keeping with the tradition of the games getting a comic to promote it, the game got a one-shot tie-in comic from IDW Publishing in December 2018, likely meant to tie in with the game's original release date before it was pushed back to May 2019. A promotional Web Animation series, Team Sonic Racing Overdrive, was created by Neko Productions, the animation team behind Sonic Mania Adventures; it was split into two parts that were released in March and April of 2019.

Not too long after the game's release, a simplified mobile port of the game titled Sonic Racing would later be released exclusively to iOS devices through the Apple Arcade service.

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The game provides examples of:

Main Game

• Adaptation Distillation: Ocean View, one of the tracks returning from All-Stars Racing Transformed, cuts out the water-based section due to the removal of that game's transforming gimmick.
• Big Boo's Haunt: Boo's House and Haunted Castle. The former combines this trope with Shifting Sand Land, while the latter plays this trope completely straight.
• Big Budget Beef-Up: From the All-Stars Racing series; the graphics have gotten a boost in color and detail, every character has new fully-voiced dialogue, there's an actual story mode with a plot, and there's more unique music instead of reusing songs from previous games. This is due to Sonic Team having more of a hand in the game's development.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Black, Orange, Grey, Magenta, and Crimson Wisps make their first appearance since Sonic Lost World, and Pink Wisps make their first appearance since Sonic Generations. This also marks the first appearance of the "modern" Egg Pawn design since Sonic Lost World.
  • The Hero Chao and Dark Chao return after being absent outside of cameos since Sonic Heroes.
  • Big the Cat returns after an 8-year absence.
  • The Mother Wisp from the DS version of Sonic Colors makes an appearance in Mother's Canyon, one of the Planet Wisp tracks.
  • The Cyclone from Sonic Drift makes its return as Classic Sonic's car in Sonic Racing after a lengthy absence from the series.
• Canon Immigrant: As this game is canon, unlike it's spiritual successors, it also makes the Speed Star, Pink Cabriolet, and Land Breaker canon.
• Casino Park: Roulette Road, Bingo Party, and Pinball Highway all take place in the trope naming zone from Sonic Heroes, with the latter having elements of Pinball Zone as well.
• Character Customization: Or rather, wide open kart customization. You can customize any character's kart's parts, colors, horn sounds, and decals with a variety large enough to make your jaw drop.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: While Espio and Charmy are given a Hand Wave explaining why they aren’t participating along with Vector, Cream is not mentioned at all despite her prominence within Team Rose, instead being replaced by a team of Chao.
• Clockworks Area: Clockwork Pyramid, which combines this trope with Build Like an Egyptian.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Sonic's artwork◊ uses the same pose as artwork for Sonic the Hedgehog CD.
  • The "R" in the game's logo (and which appears on the button which triggers the Team Ultimate Boost in the intro and in Team Sonic Racing Overdrive) is stylized like the logo for Sonic R.
  • Ads for Chao in Space 3D can be seen on some of the trackside banners in the Wisp Circuit.
  • Zavok's car resembles the dragon mech he uses during his boss fights in Sonic Lost World.
  • Blaze has a noticeable fear of heights, as was previously revealed in Sonic Rush Adventure.
  • One of Shadow's lines upon attacking Blaze is a reference to a similar line upon clearing Westopolis' neutral mission in Shadow the Hedgehog.
  SHtH: Anyone who gets in my way is my enemy.
  TSR: Anyone who gets in my way is my enemy, Blaze!
  • In the Japanese version, Sonic comments on his previous encounter with Silver in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). Silver doesn't know what he's talking about. This is because 06 had a Reset Button Ending, but Sonic still remembers what happened due to his Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory.
• Did Not Do the Bloody Research: Shadow has the line "Let's slag those robots!". "Slag" is a metal by-product; however, in Britain it's also a slang term synonymous with "slut".
• Dub Personality Change: The writing of the game has the characters with different personalities between the Japanese writers and American writers. Generally, the American writing makes most characters a bit more snippy and sarcastic.
  • Silver in the Japanese version still acts like his confident self from 06, while in the American version he's less self-confident, a bit more naïve in not understanding trash-talk, and seemingly a nice kid. The Japanese version has Sonic acknowledge the events of 06, while the American version omits any reference to the infamous game.
  • Omega is snarkier in the American version, following his interpretation from the American comics and Chronicles.
  • Shadow is an affable and stoic rival to Sonic in the Japanese version, while in the American version he's more of a jerk (calling his friend Omega a "dumb robot" if he goes against him) with an ego regarding his abilities.
• Dumbass Has a Point: While everyone works together to try and figure out what Dodon Pa's evil plans are, Big points out that Dodon Pa works with Wisps, and that Wisps only work with good people. This actually changes their way of thinking, and even Big is surprised that he made a good point. Big ends up being completely right about this, as Dodon Pa wasn't evil and had nothing to do with Eggman.
• Eternal Engine: Thunder Deck, Dark Arsenal, and Turbine Loop, which are set aboard Eggman's massive airship, the Final Fortress.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: There are unlockable golden versions of the parts for the cars. Equip three — one for each category — and the whole kart turns golden. It might just be a cosmetic change, but who doesn’t love gold?
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Every member of Team Eggman has tried to destroy Sonic, but here you can put them on the same team with him. This is especially the case for Zavok, since he hates both Sonic and Eggman, so seeing him on Eggman's team is somewhat jarring.^note And it's the real Zavok this time, instead of the clone that worked for Eggman in Sonic Forces. Come his introduction in Story Mode, Zavok is revealed as helping Eggman with trying to find something, but thanks to Omochao getting the Chao in the stands to look out for any problems, he gets spotted, and Eggman "forces" him to race as part of Team Eggman.
• Good All Along: Dodon Pa was heavily speculated by the heroes right from the get-go to be an associate of Eggman, because of his mysterious origin, his vagueness on why he was hosting the race, and his appearance and laugh having similarities to Eggman. Turns out he had nothing to do with Eggman, and he later ends up being kidnapped by the villain.
• Green Hill Zone: Wisp Circuit, Mother's Canyon, and Doctor's Mine are all set on Planet Wisp and act as the tutorial levels, though as with the source material, they're mixed in with Eternal Engine elements. Also returning from All-Stars Racing are Whale Lagoon and Lost Palace, along with Transformed's Ocean View; the latter is affected by Seaside Hill's Divergent Character Evolution brought about by Sonic Generations, leaning a lot heavier into the Underwater Ruins elements. The Trope Namer itself would get added into Sonic Racing as part of the franchise's 30th anniversary.
• Hailfire Peaks: Hidden Volcano, much like the trope namer, is a mix between Lethal Lava Land and Slippy-Slidey Ice World elements.
• Intelligent Gerbil: Dodon Pa is actually an alien resembling an anthropomorphic Tanuki.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Dodon Pa mentions about exploring the World Map, playing side races, and collecting Hidden Keys during an early story mission.
• Levels Take Flight: Sky Road takes place on a floating road in the skies of Spagonia.
• Me's a Crowd: In multiplayer, the same character can be used by any number of players, and teams with multiple copies of the same character are possible.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Floating monitors will occasionally display advertisements for air fresheners shaped like 16-bit Sonic sprites, likely a nod to Sonic's Early-Bird Cameo as an air freshener in the game Rad Mobile.
  • Amy’s explanation to Big that giving nice things does not always mean nice people makes a cute reference to an episode of Sonic Boom: If Eggman offered her a cookie, she would be sure something was wrong with the cookie.
  • Sonic's car horn is the first half of the SEGA chime that plays on the Logo Joke screen from Sonic Spinball.
  • The suits of armor near the end of the Haunted Castle track are taken directly from Sonic: Night of the Werehog, an animated short made to promote Sonic Unleashed. This is especially humorous since Haunted Castle is one of the tracks for Rooftop Run, the most popular level from Unleashed.
  • Several of the unlockable Paint Kits are based on levels from past Sonic games that aren't featured as tracks. These range from popular ones like Green Hill and Studiopolis to more relatively obscure ones like Music Plant.
  • Omega refers to his organic opponents as "meatbags" in some racing quips, much as he did in Sonic Chronicles and the comics.
  • One of Sonic's lines is "Love me some bounce pad!", acknowledging the infamous Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric.
  • Most of the tracks have hidden 16-bit sprites of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles.
• Nostalgia Level: Racetracks based on Seaside Hill^note Ocean View, Lost Palace, and Whale Lagoon, Casino Park^note Roulette Road, Bingo Party, and Bingo Highway (the last of which was actually the name of Casino Park's "Act 2" stage in Sonic Heroes) and Final Fortress^note Thunder Deck, Dark Arsenal, and Turbine Loop, return from the previous Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing games. Interestingly, rather than place the retro tracks into their own Grand Prix cups like All-Stars Racing Transformed or the Mario Kart series, the past racetracks are mixed with the new tracks indiscriminately.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Vector, as per usual. While his given excuse for joining the race is to win the prize money, in actuality, he and the rest of the Chaotix are performing an investigation into Dodon Pa and he's using the races to get close to him and throw everyone off the trail. It's not as effective this time around, and Blaze is able to drag the truth out of him once she gets curious enough.
• Obviously Evil: Subverted with Dodon Pa, whose blatant Lack of Empathy, clinical and disaffected analysis of other characters, occasionally condescending comments, and plain ulterior motives all suggest he's up to no good, even before Tails catches him secretly conferencing with Eggman. That said, as Big points out, he's enough of a good guy that the Wisps are perfectly comfortable with him. It turns out that Dodon's actually just doing research and development for the Ultimate Energy Engine and he's just very eccentric.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. Sky Road shares its name with both a track from Sonic Riders and a Zone from Sonic Lost World, but is unrelated to either of them; instead being based on Rooftop Run.
• Original Generation:
  • According to Takashi Iizuka, Dodon Pa was created specifically to facilitate storylines where Sonic would be required to participate in racing events.
  • Most of the Wisps in Team Sonic Racing are all returning from previous Sonic games. The one exception is Jade Ghost, who's an entirely new Wisp making its debut here. It later made its main series debut in Sonic Colors Ultimate.
• Palmtree Panic: Whale Lagoon, Lost Palace, and Ocean View all take place in the beach-themed Seaside Hill.
• Pinball Zone: Pinball Highway weaves its way through oversized pinball tables.
• Player Elimination: In Survival Race, any racers in the lowest places at the end of each lap are removed from the race. The team with the most remaining teammates after three laps is the winner.
• Plug 'n' Play Technology: Omega's default car doesn't appear to have a steering wheel or a seat; rather, the vehicle appears to be a part of him.
• Precision F-Strike: One of Zavok's lines has him saying "damn", in an E-rated game of a kid-friendly series not known for using mild profanity as part of its main style. (The ESRB rating doesn't even provide "Mild Language" as a descriptor, though fortunately, the E-rating allows extremely minimal mild profanity.)
• Promoted to Playable: The Hero Chao, the only Chao featured not to have a prior playable appearance.^note The Neutral Chao was playable in Sonic Adventure 2's battle and kart racing modes, the Dark Chao was made playable in that game's Updated Re-release, and Omochao could be controlled by a second player in the Wii U version of Sonic Lost World.
• Red Herring: Dodon Pa is designed in such a way that suggests he's working with Eggman, since he has a similar moustache, laugh, and flies around in a vehicle that looks a lot like Eggman's Egg Mobile. This is all pointed out by the heroes. Turns out he was not affiliated with Eggman at all, and he ends up being kidnapped by Eggman near the end of the story.
• Retcanon:
  • Silver's characterization is close to his portrayal in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) and Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW). He's less self-confident, more naïve, and overall more adorable.
  • Omega similarly gains a lot more of his comedic Not So Stoic snark from the Archie comics.
• The Rival:
  • Shadow to Sonic as usual. The debut trailer has the two going head to head in a fight for first place.
  • In Team Adventure Mode, Sonic tries to teach Silver how to act like a rival like Shadow, to limited success.
• Robo Speak: Omega, naturally:
  "PAIN SENSORS ACTIVATED. OW."
• Ruins for Ruins' Sake: Ocean View and Lost Palace are based around the Underwater Ruins of Seaside Hill.
• Shifting Sand Land: Two of them: Boo's House takes place in Sandopolis Zone, and Sand Road takes place in Sand Hill. The latter plays the trope straight, while the former mixes it with Big Boo's Haunt. Within the same area, there's also Clockwork Pyramid, which is a mix between Build Like an Egyptian and Clockworks Area.
• Ship Tease: One of Rouge's lines to Shadow: "Shadow, I could kiss you!" Whether this is a sign of genuine love or just Rouge's typical flirting is up to interpretation.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Ice Mountain, Frozen Junkyard, and Hidden Volcano all take place in Glacierland, and also have a few Eternal Engine elements. The first stage takes place in the mountains, the second takes place in an icy cavern, and the last mixes it in with Lethal Lava Land.
• The Speechless: Metal Sonic doesn't speak or have any dialogue (though the other racers talk to him).
• Spiritual Successor: To the Sega All-Stars Racing series and Sonic Heroes, with the latter's focus on team-based gameplay and having at least three of the four teams from that game.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Big has never been a genius, but he wasn't stupid enough to say things like "What's a Final Fortress?" or blindly believe total strangers.
• World of Snark: Everyone sure loves to hit each other with insults, teases, and otherwise snarky remarks while racing.

Tie-In Comic

• Combination Attack: All the racers let loose on Eggman with their Wisp powers.
• Hypocritical Humor: Eggman cites "Cheating Rules" when he gets some extra Wisps as power-ups and hits Sonic and Shadow with them. However, when their allies help the duo get past him, he calls their teamwork "cheating".
• Mysterious Stranger: Tails cites Dodon Pa as this as none of the characters really know much of anything about him.
• Oh, Crap!: Eggman gets this when all the racing team surround him and hit him with a variety of Wisp powers.
• Villain Has a Point: While Eggman is pretty blatant about cheating, the racing here is more a team event and he's coming in as a solo racer, citing it unfair that everyone is ganging up on him. Dodon Pa actually agrees with this and gives him some extra Wisps to even the odds.

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