In November 2012, Sega unleashed upon the world the ludicrously titled ‘Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed’ and, for two and half gloriously blue-skied years, the title of ‘best kart racer’ was in the hands, for the first time ever, of a franchise that wasn’t Super Mario Kart.
Eventually Nintendo would wrestle back the top-spot with ‘Mario Kart 8’, and rather than rejoin the battle with a Racing Transformed sequel, the follow was 2019’s ‘Team Sonic Racing’, which was, if every review written by anyone, ever, is to be believed, a step backwards for blue-blur racing.
Looking back at those thirty months at the top, it’s hard to imagine this was a journey that started in 1994 with a Japan-only handheld racer - but that's exactly how Sonic Drift was perceived; the first salvo in the battle for the karting crown.
In fairness, Sonic Drift doesn’t really try to beat Mario at his own game. Drift is actually much more of a straightforward racer than Nintendo’s 1992 SNES Masterpiece; along the lines of Pole Position or Super Monaco Grand Prix, albeit with the addition of items.
These items, too, are handled in a completely different way to Mario Kart; A few basic items are available on track that are triggered instantly, and each of the four characters (yep, just four) have their own special abilities triggered by, predictably, collecting rings.
The impact of these items and abilities on the race is pretty negligible, especially compared to the other racers of this type, and every race in every Grand Prix series can be won pretty easily without them.
Not being in possession of the instructions, I ploughed into the game headlong, without understanding the drift or item mechanics, and still won more than half the races in the first series. Having then looked up a PDF of the instruction book, I took to the second series and promptly beat that on my first go, too.
Admittedly I achieved this only with Sonic, who is likely the best character in the game (given that his name’s on the box). Longevity is added by inviting the player to complete the game with multiple characters; a tact fairly common in games of this vintage - but winning 18 races with four different characters still won’t take very long at all, especially considering the tracks are so short and simple that each three lap race is over in less than 90 seconds.
The tracks themselves are supposed to be based on areas from the first Sonic game. Green Hill, Marble Zone, and Spring Yard are all represented, as are Labyrinth, Star Light, and Scrap Brain. Sadly the only real difference is the colour next to the road and the scrolling image perched on the horizon. Besides this, there are no zone-specific details whatsoever.
With all this taken into consideration Sonic Drift is actually more fun than it perhaps should be. The game moves along at a fair old lick and your driving is accompanied by some decent tunes. Once you’ve nailed the drift mechanic and started to memorise the tracks you can build a nice, satisfying, rhythm. Other competitors will be long forgotten, but mastery of the tracks offers its own challenge.
Outside of the Grand Prix, ‘Sonic Drift’ offers only Practice and Versus modes by way of further diversions, but with the former being very dull and the latter being very unlikely, completion of the three Grand Prix series with each of the four drivers, at the two difficulty levels is essentially all the game has to give.
‘Sonic Drift’ is a very simple game. It was criticised at the time of its original release for a lack of content, and that remains true today.
I was about to explain that the low price the game is now available at offsets the lack of depth - but a quick check of eBay has revealed that the fiver (including postage) I paid for this in November last year may have been a bit of fluke, as most sellers appear to be asking about four times that today. I’m not sure I can, in good conscience, recommend it to anyone but the hardened Sonic fan at that kind of price.
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