Beat and Ulala are shipped together for being the main protagonists of two Cult ClassicSega games. This shipping existed prior to the series, but grew in popularity thanks to it, since they appear in three of the four games together.
Gateway Series: The series has helped bring new fans into old franchises. In particular, thanks to Transformed, a lot of people have become interested in trying out Skies of Arcadia, Panzer Dragoon and Burning Rangers and have even joined those asking for HD re-releases.
My Real Daddy: While the first game was made by Sonic Team, it's only after Sumo Digital started working on the series (particularly with the racing installments) that it gained popularity among fans.
It didn't take long for Shadow to have fingers pointed at him due to his very quick air tricks, fast boost, and the ability to do wheelies like other bikers can. The two things that set him back is his somewhat subpar boost and his weight, which allows other racers to really catch back up to him if he loses his momentum.
Amigo shares the same problem as Shadow. No matter what placement he's in, he somehow boosts his way into 1st place. If you're playing a grand prix against him, chances are he's in the top 3. And his All-Star move is the only one that can set players back despite its drawback of bringing anyone he passes along for the ride.
The Bonanza Brothers' All-Star pickup; Blimp Strike, is the most OP All-Star in the game. Mobo will ride a blimp ahead of the 1st place racer and with every press of the item button, the player-controlled Mobo drops loads of bombs onto the track, essentially being a Bullet Hell version of the Blue Shell. Meanwhile, the AI-controlled Robo still driving the car will zoom ahead at incredible speed, spinning out anyone he runs over and being Nigh-Invulnerable to everything (including Mobo's bombs) up until he catches up and reunites with Mobo. This All-Star will put the Bonanza Brothers in a favourable position of the race no matter the circumstance.
That One Level: The Super Monkey Ball maps are built perhaps a bit too much like the levels of their source material. Particularly nasty is the series of 180-turns at the end of Monkey Target.
Big the Cat, one of the biggest Scrappies in video game pop culture, makes a playable appearance as an unlockable racer.
Opa Opa, who is a sentient spacecraft. No one was expecting one of the characters to be the vehicle itself.
Some of the characters are lifted from very obscure titles, like Zobio and Zobiko, the ChuChus and the Bonanza Bros. The first ones in particular hail from a Japan-only arcade game.
Ristar was already a fairly obscure character from Sega's library. But even though he doesn't make a playable appearance, nobody was expecting him to cameo in the Death Egg track.
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed may provide examples of:
The final unlockable racer, AGES, a Composite Character of Daytona USA, After Burner, and the Sega Dreamcast. One group loves this character for being an Unexpected Character who represents SEGA as a whole, while another group thinks it took up a spot on the roster that a more deserving character didn't get.
Particular attention goes to Simon Lane of the Yogscast; to say that fans of the game weren't pleased with his announcement would be an understatement. The roots of this backlash can be found in the DLC character poll taken over a year prior note In fact, Sumo tried to convince Sega to let them release one of the poll winners instead for December 2013, but Sega was adamant on having something Yogscast-related to tie in with the Yogscast charity Humble Bundle. Him being paid DLC was the compromise., combined with the fact that Simon previously had nothing to do with Sega prior to his appearance as DLC. The fact that all of the money made from the DLC goes straight to charity has actually made the backlash worse due to accusations that the DLC was created as a publicity stunt by Sega. The Simon supporters, on the other hand, silently made him outsell Metal Sonic by a wide margin on Day 1.
Rogues' Landing is an insanely fun track to play, taking you through the docks, over the floating islands, through a sky tunnel and across a lake (or around it if you prefer) with a great layout, all with an awesome backdrop of the Valuan Empire flying overhead and attacking the islands. But it becomes truly amazing on the transition to Lap 3, when you're confined solely to the air and have to follow the Delphinus towards the Hydra, flying between Valuan and Blue Rogue airships shooting at one another. The final island even has a Valuan ship crash into it for dramatic effect admist the war and race. All this is set to exceptional music which really drives the atmosphere for the laps, and it's not a stretch to say it feels like you're actually playingSkies of Arcadia, at least ship travel-wise. Add in all the fan-pleasing cameos that still add something to those who have never played Skies like Rhaknam circling under the islands and you've got yourself an amazing, memorable level. And the cherry on top? When Sumo presented the Skies of Arcadia level to the game's original producer for feedback, she was moved close to tears. You know a level is amazing when you get a reaction like that.
Burning Depths is this for those who don't consider it That One Level, due to being amazing for drifting and boosting once you've got the hang of it, as well as having an amazing atmosphere with backdrafts of fires exploding everywhere and the track progressively flooding. Chris's navigation lines are also a fantastic touch for the setting, as is having the Burning Rangers fly around the track constantly. Did we mention how amazing the song is and how it goes hand in hand with the track?
Galactic Parade gets a lot of love for its ease, wide track and simplicity.
Carrier Zone is a level where the transformation mechanic really gets to shine. Few first stretches of a track feel as satisfying as accelerating down an aircraft carrier runway and transforming for takeoff. Then the second runway leads to a boat section just to mix things up a little before the return flight.
Sanctuary Falls is a beautiful and challenging course based on a classic Sonic the Hedgehog 3 that makes great use of the game's airplane mechanics. But the music is what really makes this level shine, with its amazing rendition of the Sky Sanctuary theme and "Back in Time" from Sonic R''.
Dragon Canyon is one of the most varied tracks in the game with whole laps entirely dedicated to specific vehicles (car mode for the 1st lap, boat mode for the 2nd lap, and plane mode for the final lap), each having their own sections of the track to go through. Because of this, you're never revisiting the same sections of the track twice with the only exception being the opening/closing stretch to the finish line, keeping the entire track fresh with each lap. This is capped off with a beautiful atmospheric remix of Panzer Dragoon's "Flight", "Empire", and "Opening" themes merged in one, which changes depending on your vehicle. The sheer diversity of Dragon Canyon would make it stand up to even the Mario Kart segmented tracks like Wuhu Island from Mario Kart 7 and Mt. Wario from Mario Kart 8.
Temple Trouble may be a simple track that doesn't really change much between laps, but it more than makes up for it by providing A LOT of opportunities to perform drift and stunt boosts that reward skilful play, especially on the final turn leading into the boat segment that has lots of drop edges to rack up boost combos. Combined with an excellent techno remix calling back to Super Monkey Ball 1 and Banana Blitz that changes between vehicles, and you have a very enjoyable track to race on. Design-wise, it's also a vast improvement over the Super Monkey Ball tracks from Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, avoiding the same pitfalls that made them so frustrating.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome: You will see people using Metal Sonic with the Console Mod a lot. If not that, you'll either see Sonic and Tails for their glitchy stats or Danica Patrick for the trolling factor.
Contested Sequel: On the one hand, plenty of fans love the fact that there are far more series represented in this game compared to the previous installment, the ability to race on land, water, and in the air, and the inclusion of Guest Fighters like Ralph or Team Fortress. On the other hand, plenty of fans are upset that characters like the Bonanza Bros. and Opa-Opa were removed and the less dynamic and unique All-Star Moves have left many disappointed.
Disappointing Last Level: Classic Cup, which is technically considered the game's final GP cup, consists of four returning levels from Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. However, because the levels are direct ports from the previous game, none of them were altered in any way to take advantage of this game's transforming gimmick so they come off as a bit bland to the rest of game's dynamic levels by comparison, being entirely focused on car driving. Composite Characters like Team Fortress and AGES are affected by these levels visually since you'll only ever get to see the Pyro and the Daytona USA Hornet on-screen at all times (except on rare occasions when they use the All-Star pickup).
Fandom Rivalry: With the Mario Kart fandom, due to their opposite stances on how much items should affect a race and them appealing to opposite sides of the Casual-Competitive Conflict. A large part of the Wii U player base for Transformed consisted of people who wanted an alternative to Mario Kart games where they could hone their driving skills and not be interrupted by items.
A early flaw in Alex Kidd's A.I. caused him to race horribly, since he'd often get stuck. This was patched later on.
Sonic and Tails, when using specific mods Namely... Sonic's Acceleration Mod and Tails' Console Mod have performance that doesn't match their stats. This results them in having superior performance compared to the rest of the playable characters.
A major plot point in Wreck-It Ralph is Ralph's desire to be accepted by his peers. Considering Sonic's cameo in that movie, he's clearly succeeded since Sonic is willing to include him in his racing game. (Eggman may have pulled some strings to make that happen.)
All instances of Team Fortress 2 characters coming up when discussing the eponymous protagonist of Wreck-It Ralph (and vice versa) come full circle now that both are part of the roster for the PC version of the game.
Speaking of which, when racing as Team Fortress, Spy is the one who pilots the plane. With the "Love & War" update of Team Fortress 2 in 2014, Spy was given a new item set that dresses him up as, you guessed it, a pilot. Adding to it, he also later got a special taunt that lets him fly around with a helicopter backpack.
Either this or harsher, depending on your point of view, but Bayonetta was considered for Transformed but eventually denied due to the developers not figuring out a way to keep her in-character while maintaining the rating. She would go on to star in a much higher profile crossover that operated under similar content restrictions.
Many people felt this game copied Mario Kart 7 with the water and air sections. Then Mario Kart 8 introduced anti-gravity, which both this game and the previous one utilized.
When unlocking the Mirror Mode version of Dream Valley, the game accidentally shows the thumbnail for Adder's Lair. If you're not expecting it, it's a bit of a Jump Scare.
Porting Disaster: The 3DS port has horrendous graphics, even if taking into consideration that it was released in a lower-powered hardware. Textures are murky and everything suffers from poor resolution. This would be excusable if the game at least played well, but the framerate drops below 10 constantly, and it's riddled with glitches, including one that disables the ability to do mid-air tricks after using an All-Star, essentially turning the game's Comeback Mechanic into a sure-fire way to end up with a poor placement in the race.
Danica Patrick. Audiences and critics alike criticized her for being unfitting in the game, considering unlike the other guest racers like Ralph or Team Fortress, she's not a video game character, she doesn't have any connection to video games like Simon Lane, and has hardly any connection to SEGA. Fortunately the developers predicted this by not only making her locked but by Reala having identical stats and mods, thus players who don't want to use her won't be completely screwed over unless they aim for 100%.
Simon Lane got a pretty heated reception on his announcement after it was revealed he was chosen rather than someone from the ballot to go with the Humble Bundle. It's the reason he was paid DLC rather than a free update, as the development team knew the immense backlash he would cause and made him optional as a compromise.
As before, B.D. Joe's All-Star theme is a stand-in for "All I Want."
Yogscast's All-Star theme is a soundalike of "Gay Activity" by Clive Richardson, a stock production song used as the channel's opening theme at the time.
That One Achievement: "Yokozuna" can be this as some of the Staff Ghost times to beat are incredibly difficult leaving little to no room for mistakes to beat the times.
Burning Depths, the penultimate track in the game (not counting the Classic Cup), consists of a lot of extremely tight turns along very narrow corridors, and it's entirely different each lap. It's quite possibly the hardest track in the whole game. The final track, Race of Ages, is practically a Breather Level by comparison.
Chilly Castle has its share of awkward turns, especially the last one.
Sunshine Tour and Roulette Road get this due to the absence of places to do tricks, thus leaving the pole position mainly unchanged throughout the race.
Graffiti City (specifically the first two laps) will likely be the first stumbling block for newer players since it mostly consists of parkour driving across the city rooftops with a lot of small gaps where one screw up or mistimed hit by an item will send you tumbling down into the Bottomless Pit, on top of having very tight turns that demand precision drifting to stay on course. Special mention goes to the big jump midway through the rooftops where if you don't have enough speed to clear it (even with the boost panels), you're guaranteed to fall down the pit and be set back quite a bit from the competition.
That One Sidequest: Traffic Attack challenges drive many players insane the most out of all the World Tour missions.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The watering down of the All-Star Moves. Where before, each character got a character-specific skill or transformation, now it's a generic switch to jet form with limited attacks.
They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Some Mario Kart fans accused Transformed of ripping off 7 just because it had similar vehicle transformation sections on water and in the sky, even though Transformed better resembles Diddy Kong Racing than Mario Kart 7.
DJ Professor K of Jet Set Radio comments at the beginning of each lap in Graffiti City. Could you imagine if he did commentary for the entire race? Or how about if he was the announcer for the game?
While some fans were happy that Ristar ended up with a much bigger role than his cameo in the first title, many were upset that he still wasn't playable.
Tough Act to Follow: While not a direct sequel, Team Sonic Racing's core gameplay is very similar to that of Transformed and it was even developed by the same team (Sumo Digital). While considered a decent racer in its own right, those who like the game tend to agree that it doesn't quite live up to Transformed.
For people unfamiliar with NASCAR Racing, Danica Patrick can be seen as this.
The final secret character, AGES. It's practically a tribute to SEGA itself, what with it being composed of the Hornet from Daytona USA, the Tomcat from After Burner, and the Dreamcast controller, of all things, as a boat.
Pyro, Heavy and Spy of Team Fortress 2 being chosen as PC-exclusive racers raised a few eyebrows.
Two more extra characters are also exclusive to the PC: a nameless football manager representing the Football Manager series, and a shogun representing the Shogun entries of the Total War series.
Another PC exclusive racer: General Winter. Yes, a Russian general, in a battle tank, which transforms into a submarine and a plane. He was released on the 4th of July, for massive irony, to boot.
For a charity fundraiser, Simon Lane from the Yogscast was PC-exclusive DLC.
Course-wise, Burning Rangers getting represented via a track. Sumo themselves admitted it's probably the most niche IP featured.
silently made him outsell Metal Sonic by a wide margin on Day 1.
