Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed's developer has explained why it had to omit certain fan-favourite franchises like Shenmue and Daytona.
Sumo Digital said that for courses it wanted specific themes that could cater for three vehicle types - car, boat and plane - which Sega's various properties had to fit into.
"We took a different route on this one [than the original]," design director Gareth Wilson said.
"What we wanted was the game experience and the visuals to dictate what IPs were in the game. So we did the George Lucas approach of scene setting, so we said, 'We want a desert, we want a water section, an ice level, some lava, we want space'.
"[For peaceful scenery] we wanted forest, so we went with Shinobi. For Billy Hatcher, we picked an ice level. For a lava level, we had Golden Axe."
Wilson also explained why one particular franchise that appeared in the original Sonic & All-Stars Racing - Shenmue - couldn't be included.
"We didn't want a dock - if we wanted a dock then Shenmue could have gone on the list! We did want an urban area, but we decided to go for Jet Set Radio because it was a lot more stylised and it fit better with our game, to be honest."
A decade later, Sega's iconic racer is still a formidable foe to the Mario Kart franchise.
Yes, yes it is! Damn shame that Sega never made another sequel or even updated this one with new tracks and characters.
"The platform of choice, however, is the Xbox Series X."
Yessir, the game runs extremely smooth because of the frame rate boost. Still, till this day I play Sonic ASR with friends.
Transformed is my favorite of the series. Even Team racing (the next iteration) is pretty good too but I liked transformed better.
I tried team racing and it just didn't click with me as much as Transformed did.
I seriously just wish Sega would do another sequel to that game instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.
It was the best alternative to Mario Kart on Xbox/PS
What are the best titles to feature the Blue Blur?
Good list. Personally I’d probably trade the Sonic CD game in this list for Sonic the Hedgehog (1), simply because CD is quite easy so you’ll blast through it, and the original Sonic was basically a new benchmark when it was released which blew everything and everyone at the time away. It also features my favorite zone, Starlight Zone.
I really hope one day we’ll be blessed with a Sonic Mania 2.
Yeah, the first game will always be a classic, but I believe Sonic 2 and 3 moved the chains for the series quite a bit. Sonic CD definitely innovated as well, particularly with its amazing soundtracks and 3D bonus stage. :D
R was one of my first PC games along with Worms 2 and some others like Virtual Springfield. R was kind of good in a strange way i guess, i didn't hate it at the time.
Sonic CD was decent but I'd say i liked the music more, at least for the JP/EU version, some of the levels felt a bit all over the place and most of the bosses were odd and a bit too easy. Even though the system was a flop too it did have some very good games like Final Fight also which had some great music.
My top top5 (After mid 2000's sadly I stopped playing sonic)
Sonic 2
Sonic adventure
Sonic & Knuckles
sonic cd
Sonic 3
Honorable Mentions: Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine,Sonic Spinball
1. Sonic adventure 2
2. Sonic rush
3. Sonic unleashed ( day time stages)
4. Sonic generations
5. Sonic advance 2
Good picks! But...SA 2 kinda fell backward on those digging segments. Great rap song tho!
Phil writes, "Start your engines, as SuperPhillip Central is set to explore five of the finest forays in mascot racers from the past decade! These games sped ahead from the rest of the competition and delivered some of the most high-octane racing entertainment imaginable and in video game form. After you've perused the picks here, give a shout out to which of these mascot-led racers are your favorites."
no shenmue :(