Utterly boring kart racing game featuring Sonic and friends.

Introduction

Sonic Drift is a speedy kart racing game exclusively released for the Game Gear and featuring famous characters from the Sonic universe. This is the first Sonic kart racing game and it was released exclusively in Japan. It has been followed by a sequel called Sonic Drift 2 and later other Sonic racing games.
As a spin-off game, Sonic Drift has little or nothing to do with the story line laid out in the main game series and can thus be considered non-canon. In fact, the story is kept at a minimum – all that’s given is that Sonic along with Tails, Amy and Eggman engage in high-speed racing across several race courses in a Grand Prix style contest. The entire competition consists of three sets of races rated by difficulty level. On most race courses there are also special items that racers can use to increase their winning chances – this isn’t just an ordinary racing competition.

Content

Sonic Drift can be played in three different game modes. There’s the Chaos Grand Prix mode, Free mode and Versus mode. Chaos Grand Prix is the standard game mode for competing in a set of races. There are three different cups and each cup consist of six races. Hence, the game has 18 tracks in total. The winner of a cup is the one who has the most points at the end of the sixth race, and you earn points by placing high.
Free mode allows you to practice any race from the Chaos Grand Prix and Versus mode allows you to hook up another Game Gear unit and play versus another player.

As many racing games that are built on a 2D engine, the game tries to give you an illusion of a 3D race track. This is done through sprite scaling and a floor that appears to be moving and turning. This illusion of speed and movement is sadly very unbelievable in this game because it does not seem to play well with how your kart moves on the screen. When making turns, it is as if the game forcefully pushes you towards the edge of the track rather than that you drift there from the momentum of speed. Your kart does not seem to have any connection with the road what so ever, thus the play experience is suffering severely.

You can play as either Sonic, Tails, Amy or Eggman. The difference between them is that Sonic and Eggman are slightly faster than the others. Presumably Tails and Amy have better traction on their karts. Either way, they all play virtually the same. There are no special moves or anything like that, so you must rely on pure driving skill and to some extent on the power-ups.
The game is played from a behind-the-car camera and due to the hardware limitations of the Game Gear, the courses consist only of left- and right-hand turns. Power-ups appear on the racing track in either blue or red boxes, and there are also rings that you can collect. Blue boxes will trigger a temporary invincibility shield that protects you from collisions and red boxes will trigger a speed boost.
Other than the power-ups there are courses that have springs placed on the track. Jumping on these springs is very helpful as you can move freely while you are in the air, making tight turns an easy accomplishment.

If you have collected at least one ring, and happen to crash your kart, you’ll lose that ring and recover slightly faster than what you would if you had no rings. Rings will not help when colliding with other racers though – your kart is then slowed down while the opponent goes unaffected. This happens regardless of how the collision occurs, which of course feels cheap and quickly causes frustration.

There are two difficulty settings (Normal and Hard), but we couldn’t see any obvious differences between them. Maybe the opponents were a little faster on the Hard setting.

The concept of having Sonic characters race each other in high-speed races does have potential, but this game simply feels broken. Sometimes you’ll collide with environmental objects by simply driving beside them, and the AI controlled opponents totally disregards your presence on the race track. They can blindly drive however they want as they’ll never collide anyway. They don’t pick up power-ups either. If they take the lead, don’t count on catching up easily. The races consist of three laps, and all the courses are relatively short, so there’s simply no time to work yourself back up to the top. What’s more, the AI controlled competitors never seem to overtake each other. They’re basically just driving along in a line.
On the whole, Sonic Drift is not rewarding in any way, and the difficulty level is pretty high on the standard setting. This game has no real depth nor does it have any replay value. Once you beat the three Chaos Grand Prix contests there’s nothing else to do – except for perhaps playing the Versus mode, which also is a dull and shallow experience.

Controls

The controls are simple, but does not in any way give you a sense of driving a kart at high-speed. The game does very much have a mind of its own. As mentioned, during bends, the game seems to throw you off the track forcefully, totally disregarding any logic and laws of physics. The curves come really fast, giving you a split second to react to it before you are in the curve already.
As such, the game is at best somewhat playable. Braking will help you through the tighter bends, and holding both the acceleration and the brake button together allows you drift through the bends. You can spin out if you’re not careful, so drifting becomes a balancing act between your position on the track and the angle of your kart.

Playing Sonic Drift feels like trying to get through twists and turns as best you can while the kart is thrown back and forth by gravitational force. It’s worth noting that your kart is really limited in how much it can turn. It does not make much sense and only feels restrictive, forcing you to drift almost all the time.

Graphics

The graphics are decent for a Game Gear title, but as mentioned above, the illusion of 3D here is very weak. The first impression is that it looks bright and colorful. The sprite scaling is pretty rough, and there aren’t many details to lay eyes on either. Sure enough, there are six different locations in which the races take place, but they’re just color and backdrop variations. It all looks the same, which is a bit underwhelming.
The animation of the playable characters does have some charm, but it isn’t enough to give a positive feeling about the graphics. At least, the game runs on a high frame rate and there’s only minor sprite flickering going on at worst.
The screen is split in two. The top half shows an overview map of the course and how many rings you’ve collected and the bottom half shows the actual race track. It may look very cramped at first, but it doesn’t disturb the game.

Sound

Each of the six locations has its own music and it all has a familiar Sonic sound to it. It’s very cheery and fast paced – it suits the game pretty well. The songs are typically very short though, so you’ll get to hear the same tune play over and over again. There are a few good songs in there, but nothing that really withstands continuous listening.
The sound effects in the game are very typical for a Game Gear title. Overall it sounds pretty high-pitched and squeaky much thanks to the supposed sound of tires screeching during tight turns. It’s not overly enjoyable.

Summary

Sonic Drift is a weak game. It has no entertainment value, and is utterly boring to play much thanks to its unfair and repetitive design. The cast of Sonic characters does little to help the game and since they are so downplayed and flat they could easily be changed to other characters.
If you pick up this game you’ll quickly see how it’s not worth playing. Maybe that’s the reason why it didn’t make it outside Japan?

Developed By: SEGA Enterprises Ltd.
Published By: Sega
Version Reviewed: Game Gear
Genre: Racing
Players: 1-2 (Link Cable)
Released: 1994