I’ve played Sonic Racing: Crossworlds twice now, and both times, I had the same fleeting thought: “What if Sonic outruns Mario Kart and has the better kart racer this year?” Mario Kart World is pretty good. It is a really solid One of Those, and it will no doubt be a mainstay in the Switch 2’s long lifetime–but it plays things safe, has several frustrating things going on under the hood, and by God, 24 players is too damn many.
After playing about a dozen hours of World with friends since the Switch 2 launched in June, playing Crossworlds for even an hour was refreshing, as it feels like Sega is not only taking some cool risks to shake up the formula, but also making calculated choices that rein in chaos and allow for more strategic racing.
Crossworlds’ biggest shake-up is the introduction of the Gadget Panel, which is essentially an overhaul of Team Sonic Racing’s Bonus Box system. Before each race, you can use your panel to create a loadout of upgrades, usable items, and stat boosts to fit your playstyle. Some upgrades take up more space than others on your panel. My typical arsenal included the option to start each race with a monster truck transformation item that gives you a significant speed boost and also lets you trample over enemies in your path. Having something like that takes up multiple slots on your panel, but it’s an excellent way to get a head start at the beginning of a race.
While that’s a one-and-done boost, a lot of the upgrades help you throughout a race, such as performing speed boosting air tricks faster, making your drift a little smoother, or offensive-based upgrades like giving yourself a boost every time you collide with an enemy kart. You can race in cars or the Extreme Gear hoverboards, which will define your playstyle, but your Gadget Panel lets you fine-tune it into something unique and personalized. I use the monster truck at the beginning of the race, but after I’ve gotten my head start, I want to make sure I have a smooth ride as I pass the rest of these slowpokes, so I use the rest of my panel to make my drifts faster and get a speed boost when I bump into others.
Having all those spinning plates on screen at once would overwhelm Crossworlds if it had taken Mario Kart World’s 24-player races as a challenge. However, Crossworlds maintains a 12-player limit on its races, and after all the World I’d been playing, it’s become pretty clear to me that this is the sweet spot.
Yeah, having 24 players on a track at once is a good technical showcase for the Switch 2 and feeds into the usual “bigger = better” mentality that permeates through most video games, but it has also turned out to be one of World’s biggest frustrations. By design, if there are more racers on a track, the slightest setback will inherently give more players a chance to pass by you. One well-timed blue shell can send a first-place winner back a dozen placements with not enough time or resources to regain the lead. So much of Mario Kart is determined by the luck of the draw. If you get the right item, you can Bullet Bill your way to the front of the pack, but you might get something less useful. Sonic Racing: Crossworlds has the same item-based play, but its Gadget loadouts leave your playstyle less to chance, and its 12-player races mean that the slightest misstep isn’t punished by being tossed down the rankings into an oblivion you can’t drive out of. It adds fun complexities without becoming chaotic and convoluted to the point where only the sweatiest among us can reach first place.
Crossworlds is doing a lot of things right, and in light of a relatively lukewarm reception for its biggest competitor, Mario and Sonic are potentially on an even playing field, and the blue blur could come out on top for the first time in a while. I may not be thrilled with the crossover slop this time around, but I’m eager to get on my board as Shadow when Crossworlds launches on September 25.