Mario Kart has is the grandfather and has often been considered the king of the kart racing games. However since the 2010s, the Sonic racing games have made a strong case for that title as well, with Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed being the most notable standout.
Sonic Racing: Crossworlds has in my opinion proven to be another standout. While some of the more annoying aspects typically found in kart racers are still present, it’s overshadowed by a fun racing game that moves at a break-neck pace and features a great amount of content with unexpectedly in depth customization.
Pros
First off, visually the game is a joy to look at. The game is colorful and vibrant to look at throughout as you zip through the various racetracks which are all callbacks to various games of the franchises past such as Metal Harbor in SA 2, Bingo Town from Sonic Heroes or White Space from the recent Shadow Generations. The different race tracks all look great and when playing through them, there’s even elements of things some levels are known for such as the Pumpkin Mansion having an illusion theme similar to Hang Castle from Sonic Heroes. None of the 24 tracks in the game look or feel alike when you run through them and they also change things up based on the lap you’re on.
The first lap of each race is the most straight forward where as the second is where the Crossworlds mechanic comes in which sees you play through a different level. The level is chosen by whoever is in first place and it can be completely randomized or you can pick one that’s set in stone for you as you go through the ring.
The Crossworlds mechanic shakes things up enough on its own but occasionally adds another layer by going into frenzy mode as well. When this happens as you pass through the ring something will happen such as characters getting an unlimited recharging boost until the lap ends or boost rings being all over the track to create a lap filled with pure chaotic fun.
After the second lap ends, you get taken back to the previous track but this time the map will have new routes available and more powerful items will appear as well. This keeps races feeling fresh throughout and I never got bored running through each of the grand prix runs. Similar to All Stars Transformed, vehicles will also turn into planes or boats at different points in the race which further adds to the gameplay. Boats also have a unique drift mechanic where you’ll perform a hop that gives you a boost upon landing.
As expected from a Sonic game, Crossworlds moves very fast. Similar to Mario Kart, there’s different speed settings you can pick but even the default speed setting feels as fast as Mario Kart’s 150 cc mode and the higher speeds start making it feel less like a standard kart Racer and a bit like F-Zero or Wipeout (stop ignoring these franchises Nintendo and Sony). Despite the high speed, Crossworlds does handle very well, even when using characters that may not have higher handling stats it doesn’t feel too hard to get around turns long as you know how to drift properly and when to let up on the gas a little.
Speaking of stats, they do matter in this game as there’s a different stat that each character specializes in. Power, speed, handling and acceleration, and boost class. They’re pretty self explanatory , speed has the best top speed, handling gets around turns faster, power knocks other cars out the way easier and acceleration reaches top speed the fastest. Where it gets a little more in depth however is the multitude of car choices for each class. You can mix and match a character with a different type of car that might offset a weakness. I.e. a fast character like shadow can benefit greatly from using the boost hoverboards from what I experimented with. This is just one layer of the games surprisingly in depth customization.
On top of mixing and matching the characters vehicles, there’s numerous parts to unlock and you can even give them custom paint jobs. There’s also a gear system within the game that you can add to your license plate. These can range from giving you an item such as a boost at the start of the race, making your combat items increase in size or help you recover faster after getting hit by an item. There’s also gears that can augment a characters stats by doing things such as increasing their boost or handling, which can offset a weakness even further. As you finish more races, you unlock more and more things to customize and the number of gears you can keep on your grows up to 6, although certain more powerful gears will take up multiple slots.
Another fun little aspect of the game is the rival system. As you play through grand prix mode, another character will be picked as your rival for the circuit and there’s alot of fun dialogue between the characters. It can range from being funny, to the characters being flirty with each other, being hostile if they’re enemies or even just being downright wholesome. The level of your rival can be increased up to 10 and they get harder to take on naturally but you get greater rewards for the higher level wins. The dialogue between rivals will also change if they’re ahead of you or further behind on points against you as well. The game has a large roster and there are even more characters on the way (I can’t wait to see Ichiban’s dialogue with some characters). You also get an unlock if you beat every character as a rival which makes it worth going through.
While there isn’t a crazy amount of game modes in Crossworlds, each one has alot to do. The Grand Prix features 7 different cups to race through and you get trophies based on which level of speed you race on and there’s a mirror mode as well. There’s also a mode called race pack which features team based gameplay races similar to Team Sonic Racing. In this mode you race against a team of ai racers based on different characters through races that have different mechanics such as gathering the most rings or hitting enemies with items granting your team a universal boost. Beating the ai racers in rival battles will net you new vehicles and the mode overall is just a blast to play through especially if you’ve got a group of friends.
There’s also a time trial mode in which you can earn medals to unlock songs in the jukebox as well as online races with up to 12 players and Sega has stated that festivals for online races will be held as well. All of this makes Sonic Racing: Crossworlds among the most content rich kart racers I’ve ever played.
Cons
So unfortunately, the most annoying thing about every kart racer is present in Crossworlds, and that’s the rubber band ai. To its credit, Crossworlds does do it’s best to alleviate this with its gear system but, there’s simply never going to be any fun or that feels balanced about getting bombarded with the game’s most powerful items when you’re closing in on the finish line then the CPU passes you and steals the win. Even more so, it also doesn’t feel like the game balances the same way. Typically in kart racers, if you do find yourself behind the game will give you a more powerful item to help out but it often feels like Crossworlds doesn’t do that. Even if I did work my way back into the lead or close to it, I’d often immediately get bombarded again. Rubber band ai is never fun and Crossworlds can sometimes feel even more annoying with it than others.
Also, the game can begin to feel a bit grindy just due to the amount of stuff you have to unlock overall. If you don’t have people to play with often, it can begin to feel a bit tedious later on.
Final Thoughts
Although the rubber band ai can get annoying like it generally does in kart racers, the fact that Sonic Racing: Crossworlds actively tries to give you abilities to combat it does help out significantly. And the gameplay is just so fun and there’s so much content in the game that it’s far from a game killing experience by any stretch. In my personal opinion, Sonic for now is the king of the kart racers.
Reviewed on PS5. Thank you to Sega for providing a review copy.
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is set to release on 25 September 2025. It will be available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
