Whaaaaat. I said it was super fun!
Lol, it was kind of late when I posted that and missed that your cons existed mostly of the same point aside from the glitches.
I still disagree with the "identity" part. Yeah the character models and visuals in general are not up to par to standards, but keep in mind how much stuff happens and all in a consistent 30fps. Honestly i'm glad they put priority into having the game run well within a lively world. I think if the latter was missing, I'd agree with you. So much stuff happens that it still just blows me away. Galactic parade being my favorite track lol(No I don't do drugs XD)
I think every franchise has been portrayed well. Yes stages like burning depths don't feel very familiar, but then again there are many old franchises used in Allstars racing that needed a bit of reinventing because of the HD transition and to have the levels feel unique within the package. Forgetting about the representation, all the levels are all brilliantly designed and construced as you said.
I do agree about the models. Aside from the sonic models, some of the models look and animate a bit strange, but this is all forgotten when everything else is just so good. I don't believe sumo digital isn't capable of making great models, I think priorities were simply put elsewhere within the budget and time, while they still aimed for "passable". I'll give you that the shinobi stage has very little familiarities but still very much in the essence of a Shinobi game, as a result it is still a "unique" stage among all the others. Overall however I feel that not only do the levels compliment the franchises, but also sometimes feel better than where they came from.
I have gained a great amount of respect for Sumo after this game, like I would say that they should be set as an example for everyone at SEGA! Not just their gamedesign is great, but they have the perfect idea of what makes a game good. SOnic allstars racing Transformed could have been a simple and mostly the same game + transformations, but they went such a huge step further than that, its hard to not give them credit and understand how there are a few glitches here and there.
I found it hilarious how people were complaining how difficult the game was on hard, whereto S0L replied, that as the name says, hard is supposed to be... hard XD. Duhh, but people/kids these days don't even know what that is, which just shows how the general developer has given into this idea, while sumo knows exactly why there can be such a greater sense of satisfaction when a game actually challenges you. Failry of course. Fucking babies. Back in the days(yes i'm going there), we had to finish a game from start to finish, without save files, without nothing and just simply become good at it.
