Unlike Team Sonic Racing, this game does not have a story mode. The idea is the player logs in the game and then selects offline mode. Then Dodon Pa from the prvious mentioned title will appear and will present you with the current events happening in the game,
Soon after, he will reccomend playing the tournament mode(Grand-Pri) where the player can pretty much race in a series of maps. Theres no story events and no cutscene that will be triggered. However, the player will have a Rival. This Rival is radomly generated and is there to mention a few lines
during or after the race. The goal in Single mode is to defeat the rival and claim the no1 spot in every tournament.
The gameplay is what you would expect. The player chooses a hero from the beloved Sonic series, or from a poperty of Sega or even from the third party roaster. Once the hero is selected, the player can choose the car they ll be racing in or the Extreme Gear AKA the hoverboard. Each hero in the roaster have their own
unique vechicles but similar to other entries the player can choose someone like Joker and make them race in the Patty Wagon from Sponge Bob. During Online games the players character will load in the lobby and once they re there they can vote which of the 4 maps(3 Races and Random) they would prefer to race. During
the loading time they can make any last minute change(character/car/abilities) and then a map is selected based on everyone's votes.
The race then is set to begin with the starting countdown appearing in front of the player. A black meter will appear with 2 red areas, a low opacity green and an intense green. The players hold down the acceleration button with the goal of stopping on the green in order to get a boost upon start. Stopping on red will instead burn the
engine temporarily stopping your vechicle and stopping on black will have no effect and the player will begin the game with a slowl acceleration. Certain people might have power-Ups available from their gear(which i ll mention later). The goal of the game is ofcourse to go through the level and end up in the first place.
Points are rewarded based on your placement, so always aim for the top spots in order to get more points.
During the game the players go through the chosen map collecting rings and power ups. Collecting Rings, allows the players car to move faster than others. For example, if two players with the same build(car/Characters) but have a significantly different ammount of rings race in a straight line, the one with the most rings
will be creating a gap between them. The rings are scattered arround the map and in some cases there are bigger rings that may worth x5,x10,x20 and even x100. Make sure to always have rings if you wish to have speed. As easy is to collect them, the easy it is to lose them. Pretty much being hit by an enemy, an enemy's power up, a map hazard or
bumping on the walls, will cause your character to drop some of their rings.
Power ups is what will decide the victor of the race. Around the map, there are bunch of scattered boxes that contain power ups. Usually they re aligned and sometimes scattered. Some of the boxes are placed on top of each other
indicating that the player will receive a double powerup instead of one. The items can be used to boost the players abilities or to take down the competition. The player can trigger the powerup with a tap of a button. Certain Projectiles
are usually shot either backwards or forwards, however the player can always hold back when sending a forward projectile in order to throw it backwards and vice versa. There is a Blue box that holds an overpowered item that the player can use.
Sonic Crossworlds is called crossworlds because it allows the player to shift through dimensions and worlds. At the end of Lap1 the racer leading the way can choose one of two paths, left or right, which will lead to a giant ring which will teleport the players to
a new location for lap 2. At the end of lap2 the racers will return back to the original track which may or may not altered or create more alternative paths. In tournament mode, the racers are going through a single lap of the maps that took place prior to the final.
Ofcourse the items you received are usually luck based but there are also skillfull mechanics. The first mechanic is the Drift. During turns, the player can press and hold the drifting button whilst turning to the desired direction. Whilst drifting,
theres a drift gauge that fills which upon release will allow the player to get a speed boost. Theres three levels of the drifting gauge, each lasting longer than the previous. The same gauge will appear when performing air tricks. When jumping of a
ramp or when your kart is elevating, tilt the stick to perform tricks. Tricks feels a gauge which will reward boost. Failing to land the tricks will stop the car and you ll lose rings. Last but not least, during areas where you fly or swim, holding down the drift
button will start filling the boost gauge which will grand you speed. During these segments, the player can even jump over obstacles and go through rings which will grant extra momentum.
Customizing the car is also an available option. The player can choose the type of car susch as Priotizing, speed, acceleration, turns etc. Upon selecting it, they then have to choose the front and the back of the car. For example, you can have the front part
of Shadows car with the back part being Joker's arsene. Hoverboards have their own unique category. Upon completing the looks of the car, the players will have to choose a color pallete which is preset based on the hero's pallete. Then, a selection of the cars sound engine
should be picked as well as stickers that will decorate the car back and forth. Lastly, an aura can be selected to be emitting from the car.
Last but not least the player can customize their own title and the Car powerups. These passive abilities will allow the player to get the upper hand on the race or allow them to have a more relaxed experience. Each player can have a total of 6 gears equiped at the
same time however, some of the most powerful gears usually have a higher cost. For example the player can wear a lvl 3 ability in combination with a lvl2 and lvl1. You dont need to put all 6 but thats the maximum ammount that you could do. Some examples of these abilities re
starting the game with a certain power up(Boost, Monster truck, or Dark Chao etc), others allow you to quickly recover from being hit or even lose less rings.
This feels like a great stop forwards for the series. First of all the movement and the drifting feels very good, satisfying and also has its complexity which can allow for more skillfull riders to master it and have drift boost more often than other players. The game is also very fast which is what the Sonic IP is most familiar with. The level desig is wonderfull and references alot of games, from Sonic Adventure 2, to Frontiers, to Shadow Generations and many more. Even the collaboration level such as the Overworld of Minecraft and Bikini Bottom from Spongebob are well designed from start to finish. The mechanic of crossing through worlds is entertainning and overall fun. The power ups are well designed and honestly they can change the placement with a tap of a button. Overall, its a fun experience and the many modes add new rules and diversity to the objective.
Being a mascot racer, means that the game has a limited ammount of things to do, and thus this segment is more focussed on the alternative game modes.
The game looks very good and lively. This is achieved by the fact that every track design is filled with colorful vibrant colors that set the atmosphere of the game. For example racing in Atopos(from Sonic Unleashed),
you can see the Greek color pallete of blue white and green where as racing in Kronos, you can see the green land with the grey cloudy sky. The enemies of each map can also be spot whilst racing in the maps. There design is that
of their respective areas/games. Guest tracks are also done in their unique artstyle, for example, the Minecraft track is filled with blocks and even the effects re resembeling that of the game. Sponge Bob's on the other hand resembles the
series and is also filled with details such as Squidward sitting behind the tilt and other smaller references that re triggered during the 3rd lap of the map. Gameplay wise, the cars have smooth transformations to boats and jet planes and
the powerups have their own animations.
Audio wise, the game doesnt miss. Lets be honest, the Sonic franchise has some amazing tracks. Ofcourse Team Sonic didnt want to simply add the tracks from their respective games, and instead they created remix versions.
Ofcourse they also composed new tracks for the game. Voice acting wise, nothing is here worth praising as most of the characters have limited interactions. Some guests characters like Joker dont even have a voice acting and
others like Miku have even more limited voice lines.
Overall Sonic racing Crossworlds is a fun game and probably one of the best mascot car racers of 2025. The game does not have a Story mode but realistically these types of games do not necessarily need them as most of the people who purchase them, are mostly doing it for the online mode. The game has a nice variaty of Tracks and characters with additional ones coming for free and w/ the season pass. The Crossworld mechanic is fun and offers a great variety to each race. The players can also customize their car's part in order to create a vehicle that suits their playstayle. Graphically the game looks very vibrant and good looking with multiple references to be found here and there. Audio wise it goes without surprise to say that is very good. Last but not least the game offers multiple alternative game modes to vary the gamepelay and offer other ways of experiencing the tracks.
This is a video of me platying the game.