Transformers: Galactic Trials | Review

Győző "FairyEmpire" BakiOctober 14, 2024Last Updated: October 13, 2024

0 695 5 minutes read

The Transformers franchise has seen toys, cartoons, movies, and even plenty of videogames – many quite well-received ones too, in fact. Some of the most beloved ones have been third-person action games, but if that style was somehow fused into a high-octane racer? Color me intrigued, so allow me to share my thoughts on Transformers: Galactic Trials, reviewed on Xbox Series X!

What I’ve Done

The game’s very basic plot begins in the proto-cyberpunk setting of Cybertron, the origin planet for most of the transforming robots we know. The basic plot has the titular bad guy Nemesis Prime (the naming schemes are so subtle in this franchise, aren’t they?) steal all the Prime artifacts, something that both the Autobots and Decepticon want back at all costs. The interception goes slightly wrong and said artifacts are spread across the galaxy. The missions to recover them amid vastly protected bases will be called the Galactic Trials and will see both factions try and get them back. And what better way to do this than racing, with a hint of combat?

At a glance, it could be easy to toss Transformers: Galactic Trials in the massive group of Mario Kart clones, but that would be doing the game a huge disservice – and not just because of the game’s somewhat darker look. Not that there’s anything wrong with mascot-kart racers, but 3DClouds’ latest title doesn’t try and scratch that itch. Sure, the core is somewhat similar – arcade handling, lots of ramps and drifts, boosts, and shortcuts. There are even floating cubes to collect, surely they’ll be funky power-ups? Well, not really, since they only replenish health or boost. This is much more of a combat racer than a party game, where managing your attacks, your health, and your shield is key, and there are no random power-ups or funky events to turn things around. Let me explain that a little bit better.

For all the power of Cybertron!

A typical race in Transformers: Galactic Trials has the players do the classic boost start by pressing the accelerator just the right way, and then off we go to tortuous tracks. This feature fast turns to drift through, multi-path segments, ramps, boosts, traps, and moving parts. There are even anti-gravity segments reminiscent of Mario Kart 8, and even certain tracks where the track drastically evolves from one lap to another, as different paths open up or a devastating cataclysm like acid rising changes the landscape. While technically nothing to write home about, the visuals are nice, with a lot of details, moving parts, and creativity shown in the track designs.

As said, the handling is somewhat close to the arcade feel of other mascot racers, but there aren’t random power-ups to spice things up here. Players get to choose their character and their loadout, they can even get certain perks here and there to boost their stats, and then it’s time to race to the finish while duking it out in more ways than one. Having to look at the shield and health levels, players have to navigate the twisty tracks, with offensive side-dashes called bashes that can be used to quickly move either to the left or to the right. This move can be used to navigate sections better, but realistically, usually, it’s used to hit other opponents, trying to get their health reserves down and destroy them, so they lose a lot of time until they get to respawn.

As long as power flows through any of my circuits, Megatron, I’ll fight you.

But this enjoyable racing part is just one part of the equation – the other half is something I like to call speed combat. You see, in certain segments of the tracks, an actual combat arena to traverse comes up. Here, our vehicles transform back into robot form, as they quickly move around sliding across the floors, doing air-dashes, and using bounce-pads placed around to proceed quickly. It is still a race, so players will have to get to the other half of this segment as fast as possible and race to the finish. But what happens in the Fight Club… I mean, these fight arenas, are a whole other story.

Here, players get to take out their weapon of choice and fire away, both at the defending factions of the area, ranging from robots, drones, turrets, and then some, but also being able to shoot the other racers directly. It’s a bit odd how you get to destroy anyone, regardless of them being Autobots or Decepticons, but I guess anything goes in an arcade racer. Causing enough mayhem even allows for “ults”, ultimate skills to be activated – devastating single-use attacks that could wipe multiple opponents, if timed right. Each character has its own, with all having their stats regarding speed, handling, health reserves, boost bar length, and so forth. This all would make for quite the exhilarating stuff in multiplayer, but unfortunately, the only way to play with someone else is local play, and that is only limited to two players. Oh well, at least it’s Play Anywhere, so you get to share your copy across Xbox and PC if you so desire.

There are mysteries to the universe we were never meant to solve

And let me just be frank for a quick second here – this formula very much slaps! It’s rare for racers based on licensed properties to be this unique and fun, but here we are. The actual racing is nice, with players having to micromanage their resources on top of optimizing the driving lines, with sometimes even falling back to destroy opponents being a very functional strategy. The combat sequences are fast, and strategic, even offering shortcuts and a decent amount of player agency in optimizing the traversal. On lower difficulties, it can be a bit easy to trick AIs to keep dying to our fire repeatedly, but that can be a risky game too.

Where the game falters the most is a little bit of polish, with some odd collisions, invisible walls and wonky bounces off surfaces at times, and most importantly a slightly sparse progression system. The variety isn’t too bad, with 11 characters to choose from, and even tons of weapons, and perks. The list of tracks isn’t long, but their variety keeps the game fresh for more than a couple of hours for sure. What risks breaking the game for many is that to path to unlock new tracks, weapons, and perks is long and convoluted. It all boils down to beating specific challenges, such as finishing 20 times in the top 3 or beating the highest-difficulty Trial with a specific character to progress, and it took me some hours to even see some of the last tracks or characters. Let’s just say it’s a bit padded, in a way to hide some of the unlocks behind way more instances of similar races than there really would be a need for. But since the game is a ton of fun, I didn’t find this to be a fatal flaw, as I kept wanting to keep on playing anyway.

And now we stand here together as one, proving we all have the power to transform.

A licensed Transformers racing game with actual robot combat elements being one of the most unique and fun racers of 2024 was certainly not on my bingo card, but I ain’t complainin’. A very solid racing module, a lot of smashing and bashing in car form, and then a fast-paced, if quite simplistic third-person robot-shooting intermissions make for a legit fun time, with even a surprising depth in the loadouts and available characters. Sure, a bit more polish and variety wouldn’t have hurt, and the progression is rather bizarre – and the lack of proper multiplayer is a bummer. Still, Transformers: Galactic Trials is both a great Transformers game for fans young and old, and an exhilarating racer with a lot of fresh ideas and a quite solid execution all around. Keep an eye out for this one!