What I did in the game: All Standard Challenges completed. All Red Rings collected.
The One Picture I have taken: Main menu where we can see our name with the title for collecting All Red Rings (which weirdly enough can only be obtained in the Special Challenges, so it's also proof all Standard Challenges were cleared).
I'm finally done with this one. Sonic Racing: Crossworlds is now my new favorite Kart Racing game of the moment, to the point where Mario Kart World was even deleted from my Switch 2 (yes, it's to that good). While I gave Mario Kart World a semi-positive review upon release, its negatives just grew on me even more than its positives over time. Even Knockout Tour, which I still love, could not save it in my eyes, and I didnt wanted to play it anymore. But for Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, it's the total opposite. Ever since I first tried it at a friend's place, I just couldn't stop thinking about it, to the point where I bought it on Switch 1 at first, where it looked really bad, and ran at 30 FPS...and even then, I was having the time of my life completing everything. And now that it's officially on Switch 2, looking and running amazing, there's just no reason for me to keep Mario Kart World. This is what I want to play for this generations as far as Kart Racing game goes.
The first positive is definitely the tracks themselves. They all feel great, amazing looking, and just plain fun to race on, unlike Mario Kart World which, except for a few, mostly felt uninspired. I was affraid about the fact that they were making only Sonic tracks at first (I'm a big fan of the first 2 Sonic & Sega All-Stars racing games, which had a lot of Sega contents, not just Sonic). But they were all hitting hard on the nostalgia, and were really diverse enough. Next would be the gimmick of this title. The "crossworlds". On lap 2 of every race, the person in first place can select between 2 tracks, one random and one you know about, and those lap 2 tracks are totally different from the one you're racing on currently, bringing you to crazy new worlds. Be it the North Pole with whales jumping out of water everywhere, a fire planet with lava dragons around you, or some others nostalgic tracks like Starlight Carnival in Sonic Colors. And when you're done with lap 2, you're back on the main track for lap 3. This system is so unique, and truly feels like every race will be different. Then you have the progression in itself. Sonic Racing: Crossworlds just doesnt beat around the bush, you have Grand Prix, lot of different way to play in Race Park, or the usual Time Trials. But you also have tons of challenges to clear in every of these modes, which often unlock new stuffs doing so. So I was always aiming at something on my way to 100%.
Still in the positives, if the base characters selection was only in the Sonic world, they're bringing free new characters in the like of Hatsune Miku, Joker from Persona 5, Nights, Ai Ai, which almost make it feels like we're going back to the old Sega All-Stars days. But even better than that is the DLC, which is brining both characters and new tracks outside the Sega universe. We're talking stuff like Minecraft, Spongebob, Pac-Man, Mega Man and even more. It truly feels like the Smash Bros. of Kart Racing we wish Mario Kart could have become. Next is all the little QoL things they've done, like showing you a meter of where to hit to have a boost upon starting a race, or another one showing your progress in every boost level when drifting, or giving you actualy items to defend yourself against rival items. There's just a lot of small things where you can see they know what people were annoyed in Mario Kart, and did something to improve it. In fact, I just feel the game handle better overall. It feels more arcady, you have more direction when in the air in plane mode like in Transformed, I just feel that the gameplay hits harder in Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, but this one is just a personal opinion. And finally, there's the soundtrack, which is just pure genius, if the base one is amazing enough, hitting a lot of Sonic nostalgia once again, you also unlock tons more by clearing more and more Time Trials with an A-Rank, with tons of collab in them too. Really, the whole game was just pure delight, and I was having so much fun...most of the time.
There's a few Shadows (pun intended) in this otherwise bright picture. First is the customization. Like I said in Mario Kart World, I was actually happy that they removed the customization from 7 and 8, because I felt it was a big time waster when I just want to race, not to micro-manage vehicles stats. But in Sonic Racing: Crossworlds unfortunately, you have A LOT of options. You can modify all your vehicle parts, but also use those things called "Gadget" which give you advantages during the Race. I would say not customizing your vehicle is such a big deal, there's not a lot of difference in stats in between most of them, so you can always use the default one. BUT, not using Gadgets clearly put you at a disadvantage. To be frank, once I found a set-up that was great for me (everything to make my Boost better), I just never changed it. Then there's the end-game grind. 95% of the challenges were really fun, and helped me try everything there is to try in the game. But the final 5% are for buying stuff with Tickets, which is the currency in the game you earn after each race. There's 3 in particulars. Unlocking an AI Skin (around 3000 Tickets), collecting all 39 course icons Decals (39 X 200 = 7800 Tickets) and collecting all 26 Horns (26 X 500 = 13000 Tickets). So, those 3 alone is almost 24000 Tickets. Best way to grind them is the Race Park, where after a LOOOONG while, you'll get 70 Tickets after 3 races beating your rivals. So getting 16 Tickets per race, and an extra 70 after 3 of them, you're getting 118 every 3 races. So around 600 races at a bare minimum to get enough tickets just to unlock those. So, if each races takes what, 3 minutes, we're talking maybe 30 hours of just grinding tickets to complete all the standard challenges without doing anything fun. And this is only to complete the standard challenges, because once you do, a final Tab unlock, the Special Challenges. And those ones, I will just never do them all. First, they ask to race for 40000km. After 75 hours, I have only done 5000. Next there's the Time Trials. In the Standard Challenges, they were asking you to get A-Rank on every one of them. In Special, it's S-Rank, and some of them are just not for my old hands. And finally, the last one is being Best Friend with a character which seems easy enough right? Nope, you actually need to spend 50000 Tickets just for one maxed friendship, more than the grind of everything else. The Special Challenges are clearly for those who will devote their life to this game, which is not my case. At the very least, Sega should have made the Tickets grind more bearable. Obviously,it won't be an issue if you're not a completionist.
So yeah, besides those 2 negatives for me, which might not even be negatives for others, this is my new favorite Kart Racing on Switch. I'll continue to play here and there over Mario Kart World, and can't wait for the new contents releasing every months. It's an easy 9/10 for me.
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