The Media Man Reviews: Sonic Racing CrossWorlds (ft. Overkill 0526)

The 2020's really has been Sonic the Hedgehog's big comeback, hasn't it? After being reduced to a joke during the late 2000's and throughout all of the 2010's, the 2020's feel like they've been taking pity on Sonic and have given him the big break he was looking for.

No joke, it's amazing how much things have taken a leap in quality or how Sonic's become so much more popular and beloved since this decade began. He has three critically beloved and successful movies, he got a new Netflix series which while not very good was still a hit and has made a whole new generation of kids Sonic fans, Sonic Frontiers blew everyone away with its open world gameplay and surprisingly nuanced story, Sonic Generations was given a solid remaster that for many was a better attempt at giving Shadow the Hedgehog his own game than his 2005 game, The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog proved to be a fun little mystery game that also made for an hilarious April Fool's prank at the time and IDW Publishing is still going strong with its Sonic the Hedgehog comic. So yeah, this really is THE time to be a Sonic fan, isn't it? And that streak continues with the subject of today's review.

Released near the end of September, we got a new racing game from the Sonic franchise in the form of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. The game was met with much hype, especially from those who got to play it early and when the game was released, it was widely acclaimed from Sonic fans and racing fans alike as possibly the best racing game to bare the blue blur's name. To put into perspective, this game got higher ratings and higher scores than Mario Kart World, which came out earlier this year. So yeah, for once we have a Sonic game that's more beloved than the Mario game! That should tell you how much people are loving this new game!

When it comes to Sonic the Hedgehog and racing games, I've played quite a few of them, including both All-Star Racing titles, Team Sonic Racing and Sonic Riders. I even named Team Sonic Racing as my favourite racing game when I made my Top 5 Favourite Racing Games list. So naturally, I HAD to give this game a play when it came out. What did I think to it? Was a great new racing game? Or did it crash out? We'll find out shortly, but first I'd like to welcome my collab partner for this review. Readers, allow me to introduce you to my friend and another fellow gaming fan, Overkill!

Overkill: Hello, everyone, my name is Overkill and I like video games. Sonic Racing CrossWorlds was first announced with a teaser at the 2024 game awards. Given Sonic's recent rise in quality over the past few years, people were excited for this game. That was until Mario Kart World was teased in the Switch 2 reveal back in January. Suddenly everyone was already writing CrossWorlds' obituary. I mean, you can't possibly compete with Mario Kart, right?

Plot twist! Mario Kart World did not live up to expectations. I can't really speak on this front because I never played Mario Kart World. In fact, at the time I'm writing this, my Switch 2 hasn't even arrived yet. Regardless, the fact remains that many people were disappointed with Mario Kart World. That left a void in the kart racer genre for a certain blue rodent to fill in.

If I were to describe the marketing of this game in one word, it would be "Confident." Following this game's launch, Sega went all in on an aggressive marketing campaign, releasing music tracks and a crosstalk miniseries where either Sonic and Tails or Jet and Wave discuss each of the characters in the base roster. Sega even released a trailer reminiscent of one of their old 90's commercials mocking Mario Kart World. Even though Nintendo did kinda fumble the ball with Mario Kart World, the fact that Sega struck while the iron was hot shows a tremendous amount of confidence in their own product.

To top it all off, the open network test that took place in on Labor Day weekend really sold this game to a lot of people. Influencers and content creators were singing the game's praises after it was finished. Needless to say, this game was getting a lot of positive attention (aside from the price point, that continues to be a point of contention).

But enough preamble, it's time to talk about the game proper.

Media Man: Indeed, so let's race into this review!

Section 1: The Gameplay

The game has no story, so there's no need to analyse the plot and characters for this review.

But for the characters, we can at least talk about the playable roster. This game digs deep into the Sonic games from the Advanced era to present as a lot of familiar names and less recognizable face show up in this game. We even have characters who should've been in Team Sonic Racing but were confusingly absent instead. The playable roster includes Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, Big, Shadow, Rouge, E-123 Omega, Espio, Charmy, Vector, Silver, Blaze, Dr. Eggman, Metal Sonic, Sage, an Egg Pawn (yes really), Zavok, Zazz, Jet, Wave and Storm with Super Sonic as an unlockable bonus for beating every rival character (more on those later). And that's just the base game!

Sonic the Werehog is also in the game as a pre-order exclusive and Rusty Rose, Nine and Knuckles the Dread from Sonic Prime are available in the Digital Deluxe Edition of the game. There are free updates that unlock new characters every month with Hatsune Miku from Character Vocal Series being made available in September, Joker from Persona being made available in October and Ichiban Kasuga from Like a Dragon being made available in November while NiGHTS from NiGHTS is speculated to be coming later down the line and then there's paid DLC where you can play as characters from Minecraft, SpongeBob SquarePants and Mega Man with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Avatar: The Last Airbender DLC pack planned for next year. Like damn, that's quite a lot, and it really emphasizes the multiverse aspect of the game given we're not just able to play as Sonic characters! This does harken back to the All-Star Racing games where we had more than just Sonic characters to play as, so fans of those games will be happy to see we have a multiverse roster again.

Oh and I'd like to point out that the voice-acting for the Sonic cast is much improved after Sonic Frontiers' terrible voice acting that made everybody sound bored and done with life. Cindy Robinson and Mike Pollock especially sound like they're back on form and have remembered how to act again. I've also seen a lot of praise go for Bryce Papenbrook as Silver, which I'm inclined to agree with as he sounded a lot better than his first time voicing the time-travelling hedgehog in Team Sonic Racing. Michelle Ruff also gave a much better performance as Cream then in Sonic Dream Team too. For me, the most enjoyable actor in the game is Roger Craig Smith as Omega. Not only does he get the funniest lines of everybody in the game, but Roger really nails Omega's personality and just sounds great with his voice modulated to get that trademark Omega voice.

So yeah, the playable roster is pretty large. How do they play? There are four categories of car that the characters and drive, which are Speed, Acceleration, Power and Handling with a fifth category, boost, being exclusively available for Extreme Gear. Yep, you can actually pick between cars or Extreme Gear in this game, thus making this the first time since Sonic Free Riders you can do this. Interestingly, the characters aren't categorized like in previous games. It's ONLY the vehicles this time. The characters aren't assigned to their specific cars or any specific category, meaning that you can have Tails drive a Speed-type car or Knuckles drive an Acceleration-type car or have Shadow in a Power-type car. Every character can also ride on Extreme Gear, meaning you have a lot of options on characters to play as and what vehicle they drive. This might make choosing the character feel a little redundant since there's nothing special about them, only the car you choose. However, the game has a lot of fun with the character roster, which brings us to the next part of the gameplay to cover: the rival racers.

Overkill: If you've ever played a Mario Kart Grand Prix, you know there's always that one CPU who does better than everyone else. Sonic Racing CrossWorlds decides to take that mechanic and brings it right into the forefront. Before each Grand Prix, you are assigned one or two rival characters to race. However, if you don't feel like racing against Metal Sonic or Jet, you can choose your own rival as well as their difficulty level (ranging from 1 to 10). This means that you can make the game as hard or as easy as you want it to be.

Beat all 23 rivals and you unlock Super Sonic. Super Sonic is only available in Grand Prix mode, you can't bring him online. That's a good thing because Super Sonic is broken! He has better stats than regular Sonic, and he is completely invincible! Yes, hazards and items do not affect him at all. Unlocking Super Sonic is so rewarding because there is nothing the CPUs can do against you. Its such a great reward especially if the CPUs have been giving you grief.

Circling back to the rivals for a second, the max level rival will drive you insane. Even when I was playing as Super Sonic I only barely squeaked out a win, and that was on my second attempt. The regular CPUs will all out-speed you at the start even if you get the best starting boost. They are also not subject to human error, so they aren't as likely to crash into walls or fly off the map like we mortals are.

However, the real standout from this system are the hundreds of different rival interactions. Before the first race, your chosen racer and rival will engage in small banter. When I tell you that everyone in the base roster has a specific interaction with everyone in the base roster, I mean that there is almost two hours of dialogue just for rival interactions. This was such a genius decision because it puts everyone's personalities on full display. Here's a few of my favorite examples:

Vector: "Help me out here, kid. Would Vanilla want me to let you win, or would she find it more enriching if I gave you a little challenge? Gimme a lead here!"

Cream: "As long as I'm safe, Mother will be happy! But if we got ice cream, I'll tell her you were extra nice! Haha!"

Blaze: "I have heard of your bravery and talent. Perhaps I could recruit you for my royal guard. Let us use this race to evaluate your skills."

Espio: "Apologies, but my loyalty is to the Chaotix Detective Agency. You will have to be content with today's competition. Unless, um… what's the pay?"

Eggman: "O-Omega! How about we bury the hatchet for now? Metaphorical speaking."

Omega: "Only if the burial site is your "metaphorical" head!"

Big: "You look tense, buddy. Wanna go fishing after this?"

Shadow: "No."

You don't get this level of personality in any other Kart Racer. Could you imagine if Donkey Kong and Rosalina talked smack to each other before a round of Mario Kart?

Media Man: Exactly. All racing games should do this really as it adds more to the characters and makes them more than just "a guy or girl you play as". Here, they get to talk to and interact with each other and I love how the writers made sure to give them interactions with everybody. This allows for some creative interactions and funny banter, as well as some characters getting the chance to interact with each other for the first time. Yep, in this game you get to see Sage talk with characters outside of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy, you get to hear Omega interact with the Babylon Rogues and you get to hear Cream smack talk Zavok and Zazz and so much more. It's just so fun seeing what all the characters say to each other...well, almost all.

The DLC characters have no dialogue with anybody in this game, not even any of the Sonic Prime cast or the Werehog despite them being Sonic characters. Super Sonic doesn't have any rival dialogue either, which I find to be odd. All the DLC characters except for Hatsune Miku (she's voiced by an A.I. so they don't need to pay for an actor for her) don't even have lines since SEGA didn't want to have to pay to get voice actors for them outside of the main Sonic cast. That's a shame as it makes the DLC characters feel less special and more like glorified props than actual characters. I know I'd have loved to hear Shadow the Hedgehog talk about how insufferably annoying SpongeBob is or hear Sonic banter with the Ninja Turtles, that would've been funny. XD And what's also weird is that Sage has an alternate skin where you can pick her black and red "dark" appearance from Sonic Frontiers and she has no rival dialogue with anybody. Like...why? Couldn't they have just used the same animations for Sage in her regular body for the alternate skins so Sage can still have rival dialogue? It's so distracting.

But that's enough about the playable characters. Let's talk about the most important aspect of the game: the racing.

The main gimmick of this game is that you participate in races that take you through the multiverse. You begin on a track, many of which call back to various Sonic games, and as you go through the race, a warp ring opens up and teleports you to another world that lasts about one lap before you return back. The CrossWorlds get pretty creative too with some being levels from Sonic games such as Holoska from Unleashed and Cyber Space from Frontiers and some go into other dimensions such as a Steampunk world, a world made of candy ala Wreck-It Ralph and many more. Seeing what these CrossWorlds will be is part of the fun of racing in this game for me and I like how then the warp rings show up, you've got one world where you know what to expect and then there's the second portal which is random so you have no idea where you'll end up next. They even take this a step further for the Grand Prix finals where each lap takes you through each of the three tracks you went through in the Grand Prix, which is befitting for it being the final race and all. That was so creative and I loved it.

Overkill: The player in first place gets to choose which track for the second lap, so if you don't feel like playing through Kraken Bay, you can roll the dice and pick a mystery track.

Can I just say, the CrossWorld mechanic is such an ingenious concept for the kart racer genre. One second, you'll be driving through the food court of a mall like some kind of maniac and the next you'll be flying through a world of magma avoiding fire dragons.

The game isn't exactly loading an entirely new area on the spot. The way it actually works is that there are two separate maps already pre loaded away from the main track whenever the race starts. To further elaborate my point, if you're doing a Grand Prix and you restart a race, the CrossWorld selection will always be the same. The random selection isn't completely random, but it is still a mystery until you go in. The random track even has a chance of being a main track. So you could be playing on Ocean View with the second lap being Metal Harbour.

There are 24 main tracks and 15 CrossWorld tracks, with 6 main tracks that will be added later in the DLC packs. That's going to make for a total of 45 unique tracks when all's said and done. All of the tracks are really fun to play on too. Even my least favorite map, Apatos, isn't something I outright despise. If we were to discuss each track in depth, this review's read time would probably be over an hour.

One last thing to discuss concerning the tracks, and that is the frenzy mode. Before the second lap, there's a chance one of the selectable CrossWorlds will have a green outline. That indicates that track will have a frenzy event. Frenzy's are special modifiers that can make the race even more hectic. There can be extra item capsules or dash rings plastered on the track. My favorite frenzy is when you can charge up your drift meter really fast.

To switch topics over to the driving, CrossWorlds has the usual drift system that you would expect. There is an added layer of complexity where if you let go of the drift button, change direction and then hit drift immediately after, you can maintain your drift charge. This trick can let you achieve a level three boost even on a straightaway.

Also, pro tip, let go of the acceleration when drifting on a tight turn. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but it will help you go inside the turn better, especially that one turn of death on Chao Park.

Media Man: The tracks all have something memorable about them be it Metal Harbour's war-at-sea like setting, Pumpkin Mansion being something straight out of a Halloween setting, Radical Highway bringing back Sonic Adventure 2 vibes and much more. They all have a good length to them where no track feels too quick or too long and an easy layout to get used to. Even going around these tracks once is enough for you to learn them and get used to them. Some tracks have shortcut opportunities, but not all of them do so it's not too easy, and those that do have shortcuts require you to have auto-steering off so you can go off-road and use them. Also, the transforming gimmick from Sonic and All-Star Racing Transformed makes a return here and the tracks provide moments to either fly or go on water and your vehicle transforms accordingly. Extreme Gear doesn't do that as they can obviously fly or go across water as they are. One thing I find a little weird though is when you're on water, you can't drift when in boat mode. Instead the drift button makes you jump up. It's so bizarre since boats could drift in All-Star Racing Transformed, so why not here too? Ah well, the game still plays fine regardless of that and at least making your boat jump provides air trick opportunities to get more boost.

Now let's move onto another aspect of the racing: currency. The in-game currency consists of Donpa Tickets. You win those after competing in races and how many tickets you win depends on how well you did in the race and what level rival you beat. Another way to earn tickets is to find and collect all five red star rings scattered across the tracks. On most of the tracks, these are rather easy to find and collect. When racing, I've often found them without actually looking for them. Some tracks have red star rings that are easy to miss and require another lap around in order to get them. The Northstar Islands track has one particular red star ring that's so tricky to get that you absolutely NEED a boost item or the monster truck gadget in order to reach it. Not sure why they made THAT particular red star ring hard to get above all others, but hey I'm not the one who designed this game. Still, collecting all five red star rings on each track gets you extra tickets. The tickets can then be used to buy certain items like car parts, decals, horn sounds and colourful flaming auras, but the auras cost about 2000 tickets just to get them so expect to be grinding A LOT for them.

We'll talk about the customizable options in a moment as I want to cover the gadgets first. As usual, this racing game has gadgets you can use to aid yourself in the race. You have an array of different weapons, shields or boosting items to get back at your opponents and get a leg-up in any sticky situation. I especially like how some of the weapons can simultaneously be used to block other weapons such as the twister weapon or if you drop a spiked ball behind you to take the hit or if you fire a boxing glove behind you to intercept a weapon coming towards you. It offers a more creative use of your arsenal than just "attack", "boost" or "block attacks" as now you can use certain attacks to block as well. And that's not all with gadgets. You also get a gadget card that has six available slots when you upgrade to the master card. You can fill these slots with gadgets to boost your car's performance with things like having a boost Wisp at the start, filling up drift gauges quicker, making certain types of gadgets appear more often etc. What I like to do is have the ones that upgrade the stats of the type of vehicle you're using (Speed, Acceleration, Power, Handling and Boost) while also having a boost Wisp at the start and to also be able to do air tracks more quickly. Those upgrades never let me down.

Overkill: My usual go-to setup is the quick boost kit for snake drifting as well as the quick air tricks paired with the gadget that earns you rings for each air trick you do. I also sometimes like to run a setup where I bump into other racers to get a speed boost and steal their rings.

The gadget plate is truly one of CrossWorlds' greatest mechanics. It really changes the game from a chaotic kart racer to a kart racer with controlled chaos. You can create builds to hold more items, make defensive items appear more often, add a fourth boost tier that makes you invincible if you reach it, and more.

And that brings us to Race Park, a mode where you can set up races using pre-set parameters or make up your own. Race Park is where the spirt of Team Sonic Racing lives on because these is where you can race in teams of 4v4v4 or 6v6. In team games, there's usually some sort of objective everyone needs to play. This can range from driving into the most boost panels or collecting the most rings. The score for each team will be dependent on what placement each team member received at the end of a race, with the score for each member's placement tallying into a team total. However, if your team did the best on the current objective, your team will get a point bonus to their overall score. This can be invigorating or frustrating depending on what side you're on. I've had instances where my team won because of the point bonus and there have been times my team lost because some other team got the bonus.

It is worth it to do Race Park, because there are AI rival teams you can race against to gain additional vehicles and Donpa tickets.

With those cars, you can mix and match those pieces to make something unique to you. You can even change your car's colors and apply numerous decals. Customization truly is the name of the game. With the amount of car parts you can buy with tickets or earn in Race Park, you can make your vehicle as cool, as cute or as cursed as much as you want.

Media Man: And since the characters aren't assigned to one certain vehicle, you can have anybody drive your customized creations too, giving you endless opportunities. One of my favourite things to do was make new cars for certain characters or give Jet, Wave and Storm a car so as to see what it'd be like if they raced using cars rather than Extreme Gear. Speaking of, even the Extreme Gear is customizable in this game, so you're not just limited to the cars. Here's an example of some custom cars I made in the game:

Cool, eh?

As is, I do think that compared to Team Sonic Racing, the customization feature is a slight downgrade. In that game you had a choice of four different fronts, rears and wheels along with three different gold coloured sets per car to pick from. Here, you only have the fronts, rears and wheels of every car you unlock per category to work with, which doesn't lead to as many different customizations that you had in TSR. But it is rather fun seeing how the different fronts and rears fit together, and a lot of them do surprisingly blend well with one another when you customize the cars. The Extreme Gear on the other hand really doesn't have a lot of options compared to the cars, so you're a little more limited in that area.

And of course, we have to cover another aspect of the gameplay: the multiplayer. Like with any racing game nowadays, Sonic Racing CrossWorlds gives you the option to play online with other players all over the world. As I'm a lonely shut-in who prefers his own company, I don't do the online stuff, so Overkill will have to cover that part.

Overkill: The online mode is what you would expect. You have your typical ranked matches where twelve players all frantically vie for first place. Your ranking will begin at E-, the overall ranking of Sonic Forces, and you can compete in online races to rise your ranking, with first place obviously netting the biggest increase. If you grind long enough, you may achieve the coveted Legend rank, the overall rank of Sonic x Shadow Generations. I'm currently sitting at a B rank, the overall rank of Sonic Frontiers, but I do plan on ranking up more little by little. From my experience, the connection has been pretty solid. I've only counted one time a lobby's been disconnected. That certainly is an improvement over the Open Network Test where disconnects happened more often.

You also have the ability to set up your own custom lobbies using the Race Park rules. This is especially useful if you want to get a big group together online and go at it with all sorts of different parameters.

In the words of Takashi Iizuka, "Unlike the another kart racing game, this game [has] online cross-platform matchmaking so you can race against all your friends across all of the platforms." Crossplay is one of the most important features in modern online gaming. Back in ye olden times, if you bought Call of Duty: Black Ops on the PS3 but your friend got the Xbox version of the game, you couldn't play with your friend online. Crossplay instantly fixes this problem. Something interesting to note is that CrossWorlds operates with its own in-game friend list. I suspect this was implemented because If you have the game on PS5 and your friend has the Switch version, both system's internal friend lists won't be helpful if you want to squad up.

But now to get into the meat of things. If you play Sonic Racing CrossWorlds online, do not expect to win every race. This is a kart racer after all. You are going to get screwed over a lot. People will veer into you with the monster truck, you will get a single boost wisp even if your in last place, and you will face King Boom Boo (or as I like to call him, the Boo Shell) more often than you'd like.

Even then, I still love playing this game just for a chance to earn that coveted first place spot. One time, I stole first place on Wonder Museum at the last second, even after I spun out on the final lap and ended up in last. The guy I hit with the bomb mere feet from the finish line had to have been fuming after that. It's moments like that that always make me think to myself "just one more."

One last thing to mention are the festivals that take place over the course of a few days during certain periods. I've never played Splatoon, but I have it on good authority that CrossWorlds' festivals function similarly to that game's Splat Fests. A festival is an event themed around a certain character or franchise that gets added into CrossWorlds. For example, during the Open Network Test, there was a festival themed around Persona 5's Joker. After the game launched, there was a festival themed around Hatsune Miku; and at the time I'm writing this, a Minecraft festival is set to happen.

In a festival, you get assigned to a random team of four and have to play an objective similar to the ones in Race Park. These are fun, but it can be really irritating when there's that one player who didn't even attempt to collect rings in Ring Grab, thus making the team lose out on the bonus and end up in second place. Playing in these festivals will earn you exclusive items themed around the festival's represented character, including decals, banners, and even horns. I went out of my way to collect all the rewards for the Hatsune Miku festival and I plan to do the same in the Minecraft festival because I like to collect rewards. The only real downside to festivals is that they replace World Match when they happen. I understand that separating the two would likely result in longer matchmaking for each, but it's just one of those things.

Also, I need to mention this. I am so happy that there is no friendly fire in team games. If there was, festivals would undeniably be the worst thing in this game.

Media Man: That does sound useful. Wouldn't want your own team mates attacking you by accident.

Before we finish on the gameplay, there's one more aspect we forgot to talk about: Time Trial. Like any racing game, you have Time Trial mode which is essentially just you racing against the clock and getting your own personal best time. I haven't actually done that myself so I don't know if it's easy or hard to do, but I imagine it'll be challenging and some Time Trials might be easier than others.

While this is a fun racing game with so many great things to enhance the racing experience, it does come with one of the biggest drawbacks of racing games. Like with many racing games, this is a game where once you've beaten everything and unlocked everything, you've done it all and there's not much else really to do except race for your own amusement. It's why I kinda wish this game had a Story Mode like Team Sonic Racing since it would've added a little more to do. But hey, the story wouldn't have been that great anyway and they did want to put more emphasis on the racing aspect of the game, so maybe it was for the best. As is, the game itself is ridiculously easy to beat unless you handicap yourself by challenging the rival racers at max level. I actually beat all the Grand Prix, found all the Red Star rings and collected all the parts over the course of a week and maybe a few extra days. As is, the DLC packs and new characters coming at later times do give players a reason to come back again later, so the game does have some staying power at the very least...

Overkill: Now that we've discussed the gameplay long enough, it's time to talk about the most consistently good thing about the Sonic franchise, the music.

As you would expect, each track has its own music track with a more frantic version that plays during the final lap. Speaking of, pay attention during the final stretch of the race, you'll hear clapping that's in tune to the song. Another attention to detail with the music I really appreciate is that you can hear a CrossWorld track's song build up before you enter it. However, that doesn't apply for the random track.

But now it's time to bring up the jukebox feature. The jukebox is where you can listen to the game's soundtrack, as you would expect. You can unlock even unlock more songs from Sonic's past games by achieving A ranks in time trials. Each song also has its own third lap variation, even the ones for the CrossWorld tracks.

The real kicker is that you can set up a favorites list and set it up where certain songs will play during specific laps. Basically, you can have the second lap song be "Escape from the City" and the final lap song be "Undefeatable". Just another example of CrossWorlds' stellar levels of customization.

Media Man: Just goes to show this game has something for everybody and really takes advantage of its customization options.

So overall, this is a racing game that just gets everything right, has lots of customization opportunities, has the best roster of characters to choose from of any Sonic racing game, it brings back beloved gameplay mechanics while introducing awesome new ones and overall is just a fun racing experience from start to finish. It may be a little quick to beat, but it's still a lot of fun...

Section 2: The Graphics

Now onto something else awesome about the game: its visuals.

Sonic games have been doing pretty well in terms of graphics lately with Forces and Frontiers especially looking very good graphics wise and this game is no exception. Like in Team Sonic Racing, the character models all look very nicely rendered and polished and while you have the reptilian characters like Espio and Vector rendered with a scaly texture, the other Mobians don't really have any kind of body texture to them, which just makes the reptilian characters stand out all the more. The characters who are made of metal look great here with their shiny metal textures really giving them a fantastic and eye-catching look. And speaking of textures, the customization tools let you change the textures on your vehicles to enhance their appearances and each one looks quite realistic and believably rendered from the glossy finishes to the metallic paint jobs.

Overkill: I mean, the low frame 2D chao in the audience stands are kinda distracting, but it's never a dealbreaker.

One thing I will note is how expressive the character animations are. The playable characters in CrossWorlds have animations for damn near everything. There are animations for selecting the CrossWorld, slamming into walls, and even animations for passing someone. There are even separate animation rigs for the Extreme Gear.

When you get a chance, look at the animation Wave does for when she passes someone on Extreme Gear and tell me it is not the most disrespectful gesture you have ever seen. Also take a look at Tails' animation for when someone passes him. He looks to the camera and gestures to the player as if he's saying, "Did you really just let that happen?" Again, the amount of personality every character has is on full display in this game.

Media Man: I tend not to notice those bits of animation because I'm far too focused on the race and concentrating on my driving to take note of what the characters I doing. As is, I have noticed some animations the characters will do, namely some gestures they make after you perform air tricks or when you hit someone from behind with your weapon.

But the animations that are easy to notice of course are whenever the characters celebrate winning race. When you conclude the Grand Prix as the winner, the characters will do a victory dance and a lot of them show off their personalities well. I especially love Omega's victory dance. Some like Tails and Cream have some pretty adorable looking dances and even Sage has a victory dance that's hilariously cute. Seriously, just look at her dancing with her new shoes and that, it's adorable! Oh and since this game loves throwing in Easter Eggs, many of the victory dances feature a familiar song or theme associated with the characters such as "All Hail Shadow" for Shadow, "Dreams of an Absolution" for Silver and more.

When it comes to racing games, naturally the tracks are one of the most important aspects of the visuals. So how do the tracks fare up here? All of them are unique in their own ways and are brilliantly brought to life with the amazing graphics. All the textures look convincing from the tarmac on the road to the cracks in the rocks and much more and every world looks unique and distinct from one another, be they the main racing tracks or the CrossWorlds. Some examples include the hi-tech appearance of E-Stadium, the colourful flowery meadows of Rainbow Garden, the war-at-sea setting of Metal Harbour, the colourful and mystical temples of Mystic Jungle and many, many more. They even get creative with the settings of these race tracks. One such track is literally set in a museum and has you and the other racers passing by various exhibits from dinosaur skeletons that come alive to a display of vintage cars and we even see the classic Tornado plane as an exhibit. Another great example of this is also Pumpkin Mansion. The track has a feature where you go either left or right and you go through a warp ring that has you appear on the ceiling above the other racers. And on the third lap of that track, you can even go across an invisible track that's marked with flames so you know where you're going. Those ideas really enhance the spooky, trippy, Halloween-y setting of Pumpkin Mansion.

And of course, as anyone will point out, many of the tracks are call backs to previous Sonic games, which is an extra layer of fanservice for those who have stuck with the series through thick and thin. You get Metal Harbour and Radical Highway which are homages to Sonic Adventure 2, Apotos from Sonic Unleashed, Mystic Jungle from Sonic Forces, Kronos Island from Sonic Frontiers, the Northstar Islands from Sonic Superstars and White Space from Shadow Generations. Some of the tracks are returning ones from Team Sonic Racing such as Ocean View and Market Street. The CrossWorlds feature even more homages to past games including Dragon Road and Holoska from Sonic Unleashed, Cyber Space from Frontiers, Roulette Road from Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, Dinosaur Jungle and Kraken Bay from Sonic and the Secret Rings, Hidden World from Sonic Lost World, White Cave from Sonic Riders, Sweet Mountain from Sonic Colours and Galactic Parade from Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed. You even get tracks that seem to reference other locations like Digital Circuit possibly being a homage to Shadow the Hedgehog. So yeah, this is a game where you can have fun spotting all the Easter Eggs and references to past material.

I think SEGA did a great job taking these past Sonic locations and turning them into race tracks, but they didn't just do that for the game. Many other tracks such as Wonder Museum, E-Stadium and more are brand new tracks exclusively made for this game and they're all fun too. None of the tracks feel too long or too short and they're not too challenging to figure out either. They're easy to get the hang of and win once you've gone through them.

Oh and need I forgot the DLC packs come with their own race tracks too? I haven't played any of them yet but I had to bring it up. This is probably the first and only time in Sonic history where you'll get the chance to race through the Minecraft world, Bikini Bottom, the world of Pac-Man and Dr. Wily's castle from Mega Man. I wonder what the TMNT and Avatar tracks will look like...

When playing the game, I'd say my favourite tracks are Radical Highway, Metal Harbour, Mystic Jungle, Pumpkin Mansion and Kronos Island and my favourite CrossWorld tracks are Cyber Space, Steampunk City and Golden Temple. How about you Overkill?

Overkill: After playing on each track a lot, I'd have to say my favorite main tracks right now are Aqua Forest, Kronos Island, Colorful Mall and Sand Road. And as for the CrossWorlds, my current favorites are Cyber Space, Dragon Road, Kraken Bay and Steampunk City. Also, can we take a second to appreciate how Sonic Team did not make a Green Hill track? I now people would have been up in arms if they did.

Even the crossover tracks are getting the same amount of love as the base tracks. The newest track in the game, Minecraft World, perfectly represents its source material. The track looks like it was made in Minecraft itself even though it wasn't. You even got to travel through the Nether in the first lap and the End in the final lap. This track has TNT, Ghasts, and the Ender Dragon as stage hazards. Needless to say, Sonic Team did their homework.

Media Man: Cool stuff there. I bet the other crossover tracks will be equally as great and lovingly crafted as well.

If there's anything to criticize about the graphics, it's only really the fact that sometimes in the rival dialogue between the characters, there are occasions when their mouths don't move. It doesn't always happen, but occasionally it does and it's pretty funny when it does happen. Still, if an occasional lack of lip-synching is the only criticism I have towards the graphics, then that just tells you how great the graphics in this game up.

Got any last things to say about the graphics before we finish Overkill?

Overkill: Not really.

Media Man: OK then, so let's wrap up.

Overall

This game might be my new favourite racing game after Team Sonic Racing. It really is a racing game that feels like it's for the fans by the fans. It just does everything so right! The racing is fun an exciting, the characters show a lot of personality, the playable roster is spot-on, the DLC adds an extra flavour of fun to the whole thing, the multiverse aspect makes the racing more enjoyable, unique and chaotic, the graphics are beautiful, there's a lot of customization options and there's so much fanservice for Sonic fans to enjoy without it feeling intrusive or forced. If you love Sonic games and love racing games, then you NEED to play this game! I highly recommend it. You'll definitely have a blast when playing it. What do you say Overkill?

Overkill: Before I deliver my closing thoughts, I feel as though I need to address Sonic Racing CrossWorlds pricing situation. Look, I hate $70 being the new standard price for video games as much as the next guy. I understand that CrossWorlds' price point is a detrimental factor for some. However, here is my counter argument:

This game is fun.

Even when I drop from first place to last because some jerk threw a slicer at me on the last stretch of Metal Harbor, I just dust myself off and queue into the next race. That's because CrossWorlds is always engaging with its stellar track design and deep customization system. Other times, I'll clinch first place on Market Street because I activated my shield item at the frame perfect moment. Value will always vary between person to person, only you can decide if CrossWorlds is worth your money; but to me, this game offers so many hours of fun that the price tag is a total non-issue. I even bought the Digital Deluxe edition for CrossWorlds for $90, and I have legitimately never done that for any other game before. Sonic Team really created something special with Sonic Racing CrossWorlds, and I plan on playing it for a long time.

Also, if the price is still an issue for you, I can almost guarantee that Sega will offer CrossWorlds at a discount somewhere down the line. Meanwhile, Mario Kart World is more than likely going to stay $80 for the next decade. Sales are truly something Sega does what Nintendon't.

Media Man: Sure seems that way.

So overall, Sonic Racing CrossWorlds is a fun racing game and a good time for Sonic fans and racing fans. I'll be racing back into this game again in the future...

And that's all I have for this reviews. I hope you enjoyed it and I invite you all to share your thoughts down below. Did you like the game as well? Do you not like it? Do let me know.

And special thanks to Overkill for joining me for this review. It's been a lot of fun to have you here mate. ^^

Overkill: Thanks for having me.

Media Man: No problem!

Join me again later this week when I list the Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V characters who got screwed over the most. See you then media fans!

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