What is NOT to love about this game? Plenty of banger courses, a steady stream of cheap DLC, and works great for a VR Game! Some courses are less my cup of tea than others, but they're all great. It has its quirks, but for the most part, the smoothest running VR Game I have in my collection. I will always return to this when I'm feeling chill. For the price of a AAA game (At the time of writing, about $50 for everything), you can pick this game up WITH ALL OF THE DLC. You also don't need the DLC if you have a friend WITH the DLC! Isn't that great? You don't have to leave your friends behind with DLC. It's a great way to preview DLC as well

If this isn't in your VR Collection (and you kinda sorta like mini golf), what are you doing!? Pick this up already!

Despite not being a recommendation from me, this is truly a fun game. A lot of mechanics from SART are ported over, and will feel like a skin over SART. (SART = Sonic and All-stars Racing: Transformed) Although I will be referencing SART a lot, this game was meant to be a successor to SART, and there's a LOT to be desired. For its price-point and very shallow game-play compared to Sumo Digital's previous entry, I will recommend that you pick up this title far cheaper than $40

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Team Sonic Racing is a breeze. And I'm not saying that it was easy due to playing SART previously; the achievements are laughably easy [with the only exception being a key on one challenge that just never seemed to unlock at times, despite when I confirmed beating both requirements by counting]. I've achieved nearly all of the skill-based achievements in a quarter of the time as I did on SART. To achieve all the stars, you don't need to play on the highest difficulty (like you did on SART), to unlock everything, you only need a fraction of the stars (SART required nearly all of them to unlock the last challenge), and you're not even asked to beat the staff/expert staff ghosts (My favorite skill achievement). --- I've done everything with the AI, no cheesing achievements with my friends at all.

There is a huge lack of variety in terms of characters, upgrades, and tracks. If you like Sonic, this will be a HUGE plus when you knew nothing about half of the SART cast, but if all you see is Sonic characters, you can't help but ask for variety. Instead of dodging traffic, you dodge Robots; instead of getting a "Rainbow Road" (Race of Ages), you Eggman's base; instead of getting a track that changes each lap (Pick almost any number of SART tracks), you get a sonic-themed set-piece. ----- And when it comes to characters, instead of upgrading characters by actually getting GOOD at them (or a specific event), you just get the parts randomly (which you're guaranteed to get eventually); instead of unlocking the ULTIMATE upgrade by being skillful, you unlock cosmetics. You don't even unlock characters, they're all there at the start (minus Team Adventure) --- I mean, they didn't even have the Promotional "Create-a-character" character from Sonic Forces as an unlockable for fun (Not to mention to cross-promote their own game)

One other flaw I ran across was a weird hiccup while playing. This frame stutter would only occur when I had another program (like Firefox) running, but got buried away once I doubled my RAM (weird, cause a game shouldn't require 64Gigs to run smoothly with other programs). And I have yet to see an update for the game, so I assume Denuvo is still hanging around in the software somewhere (at the time of this non/recommendation)

And MAN does the AI Cheat. I understand that they want to get team members near each other and not be a blow out with speed characters every single race, but when an AI with 20 top speed (Base stat according to a guide) swiftly passes you like it's nothing when you have 50% More Top Speed is a bit annoying. It's always a constant battle between me and my Technique team member with half of my top speed at the end of the race (even when I possess 200 rings). Also a bit more confirmation on some mechanics would be nice: How many Rings do you need for Max Top Speed? Or Vice Versa, how much of a Speed Loss is it when you have 0 Rings? How helpful is Defense, really (I didn't notice much of a spin-out-time difference between a power character and a Speed character)? Is Hot-Potato-ing an item box as useful as passing a "new" item box, and if it is, why not just spam-pass an item box? etc.

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Despite my Gripes, I had a fun time with the game by myself; I'm sure it would be even more fun with friends (like a Mario Party); Heck if it were $40/$50 for a triple-pack, I'd get it to play with friends. I enjoy that Power Characters can open up shortcuts for your team members, I love that you can always do crazy shortcuts with the Technique characters, and... Well Speed characters are just vanilla, with the shockwave ability you got from SART (Time a Boost to blow away projectiles). The game focuses heavily on team dynamics, but I hardly saw any emphasized besides the team Ultimate. If you're leading as a Technique character, you dare not go into offroad, or you'll jeopardize your team (They don't even get the safety-net if you're on the draft line); If you're leading at all, you dare not use evasive maneuvers (Or your drift line will be hard to follow), etc.

Again, if you're a huge Sonic fan, you'll grab it. If you enjoyed SART and want to chill with its mechanics, it's a buy (but on sale), If you want this as a Friend-group-game-time game, it's a buy (MAYBE at $40... Maybe... Still go for a sale), but as it stands currently, it's SART with the Planes and Boats stripped out and Sonic slapped all over it. It has the variety and depth of an Indie kart racer, but with a AAA-title price. Avoid the game until it comes down in price, or on sale... Unless you need a quick fix to your Sonic Kart itch after you've done everything on SART.