Team Sonic Racing shouldn't be as uneven as it is, given the genre's long-standing role in the franchise. Racing games have long been a part of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, from the early incarnations of games like Sonic R to the more recent (and well-loved) Sonic & SEGA: All-Stars Racing Transformed. Every one of these games realized the competition they were up against in the form of the Mario Kart franchise, and therefor chose to do something wholly unique and infinitely more interesting with every title.

Team Sonic Racing doesn't really do any of that.

This Sumo Digital-developed follow-up to Transformed casts off the weird and wonderful SEGA history packed into the previous game. There's no Ryo from Shenmue riding a forklift, or Billy Hatcher (you know, from that one game) in a giant egg car. Instead, the entire cast is made up of Sonic the Hedgehog and his closest friends and enemies. Instead of cars and courses changing shape and racing across the sky, sea and land, the hook for Team Sonic Racing is right there in the name -- team.

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Characters are broken up into squads of three, groupings based loosely on Sonic the Hedgehog canon, with each team having a role filled by a specialized character. On the Sonic team, the blue blur is a "Speed" type, Tails is a "Technique" type and Knuckles is a "Power" type, a split carried across the game's other five teams. Speed racers get boost bonuses, technique racers can maintain speeds across all terrain types and power racers can break through obstacles and stage hazards without slowing down. This customization is taken a step further in the form of racing mods, bonafide loot boxes that offer buffs to racers, and cosmetic upgrades for the entire cast's vehicles.

Aside from the big three of the Sonic universe, the cast also includes the likes of Amy Rose, Silver the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog, Dr. Robotnik, the adorable Chaos (four to one car!) and the main baddie from Sonic Lost World. Whereas previous games dug through the depths of SEGA history to include everyone from Alex Kidd to guest characters Banjo & Kazooie, Team Sonic Racing doesn't even really delve deep into Sonic's own history.

There's no classic Sonic, or characters from the IDW or Archie Comics series. The roster is tiny compared not only to other games from the same series, but others in the same genre. Sure, the game is budget-priced, but it will almost certainly be compared to the likes of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or Crash Team Racing nonetheless.

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All of that could be forgiven if its main focus -- team racing -- actually served to enhance the game, right? Well, sort of. The team mechanic certainly works in practice, but your experience will range from the feature being fairly useless to being frustratingly annoying. This is most noticeable in Team Sonic Racing's Adventure mode, which is an over-world of stages strung together by "talking head-style" cutscenes. At the end of each "world" is a Grand Prix race, a series of four that you and your team will have to come out on top of to win it all. However, when the team mechanic actually prevents a win, you start to feel like the concept wasn't thought through all that well.

In some cases, you could come in first, but your teammates could fall in the last two spots in a race, ultimately dropping your overall score. Sure, the game has a built-in mechanic to prevent this by sharing power-ups with your teammates and in-turn asking for shared power-ups from them, but they rarely make a difference. These power-ups are indistinct from one another, even though their design is inspired by the love-able Wisps from Sonic Colors. One offers a boost, another a large, blue block you can place in the road. These power-ups can be enhanced by team play, but usually just result in having three boosts or three large, blue blocks to place in the road. In other racing games, these power-ups can be a make or break moment for the entire race. In Team Sonic Racing, that honor goes to the "Ultimate Power."

While it's basically just an enhanced "Boost," most races can be won by just saving up your "Ultimate Power" and using it whenever you fall out of first place. Your teammates will gain the boost as well, and knock out enemies as they make their way to the front. It should make players feel powerful, but it instead feels cheap. This is furthered by the game often stuttering in frame rate when the power is activated, even on a higher-end console like the PlayStation 4 Pro. 

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Where the game does succeed is in its course design and subtle racing mechanics. The landscapes in Team Sonic Racing look wonderful and often call back to moments from throughout Sonic's history, like the Killer Whale from Sonic Adventure. While nothing revolutionary, these courses offer enough variety to make playing through every tracks once a worthy trial.

The game's racing mechanics, including drifting and slipstreams, feel like they could have been the core of something much greater. Racers on your team will leave a trail behind them, which you can ride through to gain extra boost and then slingshot ahead of your teammates. Drifting works similarly, and can be stored on a turn and used to get ahead of competitors in a way that feels earned. It's a shame, too, because these cooler moments are often usurped by poor racer AI or an ill-timed "Ultimate Power."

Team Sonic Racing is by no means a bad game. It's well-priced as a budget title and has enough content to make the entry more than worth it if you're itching for a new cart racing game. Unfortunately, it races in the shadow of the games that came before it, and it's hard not to imagine how another game packed with SEGA all stars could have turned out. For now, we'll just have to roll with Sonic and friends.

Team Sonic Racing is now available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. A review copy was provided by the publisher and reviewed on a PlayStation 4 Pro.