The second in the Sonic racing series and was ported to the Vita with pretty much all content intact. It is a kart racer, but Sonic theme. The controls are easy to pick up, although there are small tutorials when you first start playing. The right shoulder button accelerates, while the left shoulder button drifts. Then the X button uses the current power up that you have. The game plays similarly to Mario Kart and other kart racers. You race along a race with other racers, picking up powerups from containers along the way. Then you use this to wreck havoc on the other racers to get ahead. Drifting around corners is a must, as this is linked to a speed boost that’s dependent on how long you drifted for.
The unique gimmick here is the “Transformed” theme, where both the kart and the tracks will change. The karts transforming from vehicle to boat to plane is interesting, but not too mind-blowing (although the plane suddenly gains another degree of motion). The tracks changing after each lap are much more impressive, especially when some of the changes are substantial, and make it feel completely different.
There is a decent single player mode with initially only three difficulties, but a fourth one will eventually unlock. It forgoes any attempts at a story and instead provides you with events that have a variety of objectives. This is a good decision, and it gives the game a bite-sized play experience that ends up becoming addictive. You will easily get into the mindset of playing just one more stage to progress just that little bit further.
While there are only 20 or so tracks, the single player modes give it variety by having different objectives for each of those tracks. In this mode, the player plays each event to gain stars to unlock new characters and new stages. These differing objectives include racing, drifting events, attacking enemies, ring challenges, boosts and more. This variety keeps it from being too boring. While not all these objectives are stellar as something can be annoying, it doesn’t get to become too repetitive for this mode at least.
The events are spread across six “worlds” and after completing the first five, you will see the credits. The sixth world is a bonus, and it is one where you will need to go back to previous events to play the hardest modes to get enough stars to unlock everything. The gating of events by the number of stars you gain isn’t a big problem for the first five worlds, and it takes around three to five hours to complete it the first time around.
To be fair, the medium difficulty is a good difficulty for people who are not amazing at kart racing. It’s not too hard and not too easy. You must put in some effort to try and secure third place or higher to complete that event. It can get annoying but persist and you will proceed even though it can be luck based. Although that’s nothing new for this genre.
There are five stats to each character, such as top speed, acceleration and handling. Each character trades off one area for strength in another, and you unlock more characters as you play. There is a slight RPG element where every time you complete a race or event with a character; they will gain XP. Level up and it unlocks a slightly different stat distribution profile, like Sonic is focused on speed, but he can unlock a profile that gives up some speed to boost his handling. It’s a neat way to be able to keep using your favorite character but in a way that suits your playstyle, without making all the characters feel the same.
The graphics are good for a Vita game, especially one that was released this early on in its life. Of course, it cannot compare to the console versions but it’s good enough. The design of the tracks is generally good, but some can be annoying with its sharp turns and gaps on the track. While novel at first, the transformed aspect of the vehicles can be annoying as the boat and plane controls are naturally more floaty and harder to control. Also, it can feel like they slow down the race in certain sections.
The World Tour mode with all the events represents the bulk of the single player content. You can then play other modes such as Grand Prix, Time Trials and Single Race as supplements. You will need to play Grand Prix to unlock all the tracks, given that mode provides all the mirror tracks. Mirror tracks can feel so different even though it’s the same tracks you’ve been racing… just mirrored, so it can work contrary to your muscle memory.
Overall, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed is a surprisingly good kart racer. There is a sense of chaos and speed at its best, and it is extremely additive and fun to play. The difficulty is nicely balanced, since no one weapon feels totally unfair, and all of them can be avoided or blocked in some way. Yes, it can still be luck based but it feels less so than some other kart racers. The Vita version may not be the prettiest or the most polished, given that there are still bugs after all the patches, but it is a great portable version.
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