Team Sonic Racing: Overdrive

Team Sonic Racing: Overdrive

Original Release Date: March 16th, 2019 / April 25th, 2019

You'd think the critical and commercial success of "Sonic Mania" would have prompted Sega and Sonic Team to pivot towards similar ideas. At the very least, it should've gotten a direct sequel. Instead, the galaxy brained developers at Sega kept the series going on much the same direction it's been operating in for years. 3D mainline titles of hotly debated merit every few years and a smattering of spin-off titles that make little impact in-between. I know I'm obviously bias but you'd think somebody would realize that a "Mania 2" would have a lot more commercial value than another racing game. Because the "Sonic" franchise has been cranking racing centric spin-offs for years and they've never drawn much attention outside of the die hard fan base. Did "Sonic R" make a massive impact on the series' popularity? Is "Sonic Drift" anyone's favorite game? Did the "Sega All-Stars Racing" duology revolutionize gaming? They made three of the hoverboard racing games and, I guess, they are beloved by some... But did that entire sub-series match the performance of a single "Mario Kart?" Of course not.

I get the association. Sonic runs fast. Racing titles are a natural extension of that. Instead of doing something different – like, say, focusing on how Sonic is fast without a race car – these spin-offs will always be in the shadow of Nintendo's beloved go-kart series. At least Sega had the good sense to delay "Sonic Team Racing's" long enough to insure the game was actually playable. Despite that, this particular title seems to have been even more forgettable than the other "Sonic" racing games. Maybe in a decade, some young "Sonic" nerds will emerge that consider this game an all-time classic. That seems to happen with every otherwise forgotten game in this franchise. As of right now, however, it seems like "Team Sonic Racing" came and went without leaving any impression at all. Another forgettable entry in the sprawling "Sonic" empire that will only be recalled by the most obsessive of fans. 

"Sonic Mania" was influential in one way, however. It made somebody in Sega's advertising department realized what a powerful tool YouTube was for getting the news out there. "Sonic Mania Adventures" must've been a massive success because the company has followed that same strategy – release a cool animated short or two to promote the new game, usually directed by Tyson Hesse – for just about every title that would follow. This is presumably why "Team Sonic Racing: Overdrive" would drop on the "Sonic" YouTube channel, over the course of spring of 2019. This series copied "Mania Adventures" by being released in monthly installments, though only two of them. The existence of this cartoon is another clue that Sega had high hopes for this instantly forgotten racing game. It does give me something else to talk about so might as well get on with it.

"Team Sonic Racing" has a thin plot, of an alien tanuki organizing a race and inviting all of Sonic's friends to compete in souped-up cars he's made for each of them. "Overdrive" does not get into any of this, however. Donal Peepants does not appear in this cartoon. Instead, the series is merely devoted to the various "Sonic" cast members competing, while Eggman attempts to sabotage the race with various underhanded methods. Such as distracting people with a side-of-the-road merch cart or having an Egg Pawn dress as a cat and frolic in the middle of the track. Rivalries, partnerships, and challenges arise during the race as Sonic and friends go for the gold and Eggman inevitably heads towards humiliation. 

"Sonic Mania Adventures" was clearly a labor of love, beautifully animated by a team of artists fulfilling a life long dream with this assignment. "Overdrive" is, obviously, a much more mercenary effort. This is most obviously evident in the quality of the animation. The characters move a lot more stiffly here, with only occasional flashes of the playful expressiveness and fully formed body language we saw in "Mania Adventures." One gets the impression that Hesse and his team were given a lot more free reign to go nuts with their previous cartoon. With this one, it feels like they were commanded to stay on-model as much as possible. In other words, this two-parter looks a lot more bland than Neko Productions' previous "Sonic" series. That is very apparent in the decision to render the cars through what I think is some sort of cell-shaped CGI animation. This kind of thing is standard with mechanical designs in animation these days and – as someone who grew up watching "G Gundam," "Teknoman," and "The New Adventures of Gigantor" – I hate it. Get some people in here who know how to draw some fucking robots and airplanes and racecars and shit. 

Now, those handful of moments when you can tell this was storyboarded by Tyson Hesse are still obviously the highlights. After punching a bomb away from Sonic, Knuckles skids across the track and bounced back into his car, now covered in bruises and lumps... But smiling as enthusiastically as before. After getting one over on Rouge, the echidna makes mocking goo-goo eyes at her. Blankly staring Chao going demonic or a little smirk between Sonic and Shadow make it clear that some love and effort was put into this. Despite standing alongside less attractive moments, like Eggman opening his mouth really wide in surprise or Shadow simply Chaos-Controlling out of his car when it's clear he's lost. 

In general, the jokes that are based more on the characters interacting, playing off their well known personas, produce far sharper gags than drawn-out attempts at wackiness. Big the Cat gets a, uh, big appearance here. An extended sequence is devoted to him attempting to cross the street and reach a merch cart full of Froggy themed items. This moment feels like it takes up more than half of the first episode and it's simply not that funny. Maybe I find Big's unchanging reaction to everything a lot less amusing than some people. Generally speaking, I'd much rather have repeated scenes of Sonic and Knuckles making goofy faces at each other than more extended gags like this. I feel the same way about Eggman's schemes throughout the entire two-parter, the villain feeling like nothing but a cartoonish foe to provide some degree of conflict to this series. 

That gets at a core issue with "Team Sonic Racing: Overdrive." What's the story here? Why are these guys racing? What do they hope to prove by winning first place? Why does Eggman want to stymy their success so? Friendly competition is justification enough, sometimes. It's not like the "Mario Kart" put much thought into why sworn enemies like Mario and Bowser are having a race together. The idea here is probably, if you want to find out why any of this shit is happening, go out and buy the video game. That excuse only goes so far, when Eggman is a playable character in the game and this cartoon doesn't mention Dingaling Pap and his intergalactic car company at all. I know this is only a ten minute cartoon, cut into two shorter parts, and we can't expect it to have too much story. Still, it would have been nice to have slightly more set-up here than "Sonic and friends are having a race." Surely more could have been done with that idea than a mere series of simple gags. 

I suppose this is me, once again, expecting way too much from a glorified video game commercial. "Sonic Mania Adventures" was a fully formed work and you could feel how much love and effort went into it. The artists, animators, musicians, and everyone else clearly wanted that series to be great. I get the impression that the only stated goal for "Overdrive" was to make viewers aware of the new game coming out. Story was sidelined in order to showcase gameplay. That racers can get power-ups from Wisp or use them are projectiles against other players – in a way extremely similar to the different colored shells from the "Mario Kart" games – is heavily featured here. The cars were animated in the fashion they were, probably, to guarantee fidelity to the in-game models. Because one of the selling points for the game was all these "Sonic" cast members getting bitchin' new wheels. I suppose we should be happy that "Overdrive" managed to have the small amount of laughs and creativity in that it did, considering this was clearly a much more rushed and limited production than the previous straight-to-Youtube "Sonic" animated series. 

The same team that made "Sonic Mania Adventures" such a great show getting to play with beloved characters like Shadow and Rouge probably should've been a much bigger deal. Alas, such a promise was shackled to an instantly forgotten spin-off title that was, by most reviewers' estimation, totally serviceable and functional. Given that circumstances, it shouldn't be a surprise that "Overdrive" is of similar quality. It's... Fine. Doesn't look great but doesn't look bad either. Made me chuckle or grin once or twice. A perfectly cromulent "Sonic" cartoon that doesn't annoy or offend me in any particular way but also doesn't impress me too much either. When compared to "Sonic Mania Adventures," one of my favorite things to feature the blue hedgehog in years, it feels like a massive stepdown. Taken on its own, "Team Sonic Racing: Overdrive" is a mildly cute time killer that I won't remember much about in a week. As clear cut a [6/10] as I've yet seen. Knowing more could have been done here makes me want to rate it lower though.