- For the drifting maneuver performed by Sonic the Hedgehog, see Drift.
The Drift[1][2][3] is a move that appears in the Sonic the Hedgehog series and its spin-offs. It is a controlled skid that allows the user to take tight corners at high speed while building up a speed boost.
Description[]
The drift is a move that is performed with race cars to get through sharp turns. When performing this move, the user makes a sharp turn while using their accelerator and braking/drifting controls at the same time, braking their vehicle's tires a certain way to reduce their usual traction. This causes the user's direction to shift rapidly in a smooth curve without them losing much of their momentum, albeit at the cost of limited control over their vehicle to a degree compared to normal turning as they are intentionally over-steering their vehicle to achieve such a state (akin to a powerslide done with a car's emergency brake in real life).
At the same time however, the user builds up a speed boost that will be triggered once the user finishes drifting, tying in with the main benefit of drifting being the ability to exit corners/turns as soon as possible and cleanly upon ending their drifting maneuver (due to the position at which the vehicle is shifted towards mid-drift via the aforementioned reduced-traction-over-steer state).
In gameplay, the drift is useful for the player when they have to get through tight turns at high speeds, especially to exit them with the boost built up. In fact, mastering drifts can help the player conquer the most complicated of tracks by making them able to perform various tight turns, including varied 180 degree/hairpin turns or more by ending in a boost each time to effectively "attack" corners, but only if the drift is held long enough to even generate the boost at minimum.
Sometimes, using a drift will be the only way to master tricky corners to boost from them right afterwards despite normal turning being faster in very specific scenarios (or ironically on some VERY specific paths, not turning at all). In addition, by continuously drifting, the user's aforementioned speed boost will build up to higher levels the longer the drift is maintained without it being interrupted by crashing and the like. Using the drift long enough, the player will build up their boost, allowing it to power through three different boost levels. For each increase in level, the drift's speed boost will be empowered further, allowing for greater and faster acceleration when triggered.
A playable character's boost level earned from a drift is indicated by the color of the exhaust coming out of the playable character's race car while drifting, with each increase in level changing the color of the exhaust.
Even then, solid drifting is often done with good judgment and discretion; it is normally not recommended if the user is unable to generate the speed for it initially (MUST BE GOING FAST ENOUGH FIRST!), since drifting in general requires the use of the vehicle's brakes. This at times can cause some drifts done from lower speeds to slow down the vehicle as a result. Some turns may require a sooner drift to tackle with, since they may not allow enough time for a boost to be generated if done too late.
Game appearances[]
Sega All-Stars series[]
Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing[]
The Drift made its first appearance in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. On the console/PC version of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, the color of the race cars' exhaust, which appear when using the Drift, will turn blue when the Drift's boost level reaches level one, yellow when reaching boost level two, and orange when reaching boost level three. On the Nintendo DS version on the other hand, a race car's exhaust that appear during a Drift will be colored blue when reaching boost level one, yellow when reaching boost level two, and red when reaching boost level three.
To perform the Drift in gameplay, the player must first keep their finger on the Accelerator button and steer their character into a bend. While keeping the Accelerator button down, the player must then press and hold down the Drift button to make their character's vehicle start drifting. The player can at this point steer in both directions to control the Drift. Note that the vehicle will not change its Drift direction as long as both buttons are held down, and it's possible to rapidly tap the accelerator if need be while drifting to make tighter turns by reducing the vehicle's speed. The character's vehicle will continue to drift until the player releases either the Accelerator or the Drift button. At this point, the boost will kick in.
Notoriously, this version of the drift can be easily chained into itself for Chain Boosting, with the physics of the game allowing characters to drift along straight paths to maintain and unleash drifts back and forth, as well as drifting in alternating directions to "snake" along a path or even to drift on opposite turns to a slight degree. This is mainly done by using both the right thumbstick and the directional pad or left thumbstick to steer the vehicle extra further than intended, which by proxy on many varied paths allow for more frequent level 1 boost chains with some airborne tricks added should a jump be involved.
The reverse drift exploit however, was removed in the DS version, which also made the camera more horizontally centered whenever a drift occurs (drifting in the console and PC versions caused the camera to be slanted respective of the player's drifting direction).
Vehicles in drift also depending on how wide or tight their cornering is during it, will have their front wheels (if they even exist on the vehicle in question) either turn towards or away-inwards of the drifting direction/turn.
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed[]
In Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, the Drift made a return appearance, but now heavily reworked in its mechanics. In this game, the color of the race cars' exhaust, which appear when using the Drift, will turn red when the Drift's boost level reaches level one, purple when reaching boost level two ("Mega Drift" in the Japanese version), and blue when reaching boost level three ("Tera Drift" in the Japanese version). In addition, whenever the playable character reaches boost level two/Mega Drift or above, a notification of that achievement will appear on the screen.
To perform the Drift in gameplay, the player must keep their finger on the accelerator button as they approach a corner, before steering into said corner. They must then press and hold the Drift button to drift in that direction, and in a split second can release it and press it again to swap drifting directions without releasing their drift fully for consecutive turns if need be. In addition, the player can continue to make limited adjustments to their direction using the movement controls. The drift will continue until the player releases the Drift button. At this point, the boost will kick in.
However, unlike in the prior game, drifting can no longer be chained into itself on most paths to allow for snaking, as the boost build-up will be halted if switching the drift direction (and will only resume afterwards); repeatedly trying to snake with barely any boost built prevents it from doing so. The player's camera also no longer slants itself when drifting occurs, but only does so during boat mode and/or plane mode.
Though like failing a stunt, failing a drift by crashing or releasing it too soon causes the boost to fail building up (including switching drifting directions too soon) to let out a puff of normal smoke as indication.
It's also possible to perform a Held Drift by continuously tapping the opposite direction the user's drifting vehicle is tilted towards, allowing for more obtuse turns if done soon enough (compared to holding away from the direction which will only work for a limited time during the drift). On the other hand however, letting go of the accelerator will de-accelerate the vehicle mid-drift, allowing for tighter acute turns if need be on certain corners before the accelerator is pressed again. However, the accelerator should not be released too soon if going for a tighter-drift as early as possible, mainly since it will cause the vehicle's normal brakes to kick in and/or causing them to reverse as well; having the accelerator be released for too long during a drift also cancels it due to losing speed rapidly.
It is also possible to perform airborne stunts while drifting, unlike in the prior game, which if done correctly without messing up the stunt window or crashing (either on boundary impact, getting hit or crash-landing), can allow stunts to stack up a boost as normal (and to be combined with the drift boost).
Drift rolling is also possible during certain airborne jumps-into-turns which helps orient the user's vehicle towards their desired direction further, which is arguably far more effective than a beeline-styled multi-flip. However, the maintained-drift state is cancelled if jumping through into a transform gate mid-drift. The aforementioned drift rolling trick also heavily benefits those who have mastered plane mode to chain risk boosts mid-drift depending on the course section, or when building up a drift during a normal turn in plane mode.
In regards to drift rolling, intentionally messing up a stunt in midair before even landing by doing them too soon successively within 0.6 seconds (standard and boat modes) or 0.85 seconds (plane mode) can allow the driver to maintain the vehicle's momentum with a bit of directional nudging to prevent from overriding the boost specifically powered by the drift (as boost-stacking tends to be very specific in Transformed), and as both the stunt boost and drift boost can act separate of one another. However, this mainly works on specific course sections, especially ones with small windows of airborne launch to allow for one single air stunt to be performed without fear of crash-landing; this trick regardless is mainly best done when the driver chooses to forgo any involvement from a simple level 1 boost if making use of a specific drift level (again, due to how specific the boost-stacking functions).
It should be noted that switching drift directions too early before any boost level is built up will halt the process for a brief moment, and the same applies to building up further levels. As a result, some continuous corners (such as on Roulette Road) may prevent sufficient boost build up due to continuous early switch drifting while attempting to snake through the corners.
Unlike in the prior game, the front wheels of vehicles in their default mode in drifting are only angled towards the driver's frontward direction; tighter turns do not cause the wheels to angle inward in anyway.
When drifting up towards a course boundary, especially in standard mode, the vehicle will still be drifting but depending on how deep into the boundary it nudges into, the boost stacks may be either reset or if the boundary passes by soon enough, maintained once more. This trick of wall tapping mainly works on corners that are more concave shaped, and can be a trick to help build up to a higher level boost on certain corners. Note that the drift itself whenever this happens, is not interrupted, but the boost build-up is.
Team Sonic Racing[]
In Team Sonic Racing, the Drift made another reappearance as a useable move. In this game, the color of the race cars' exhaust, which appear when using the Drift, will turn red when the Drift's boost level reaches level one, purple when reaching boost level two, and blue when reaching boost level three.
To perform the Drift in gameplay, the player must keep their finger on the Accelerate button as they steer into a corner. They must then press and hold the Drift button to drift in that direction. While drifting, the player can continue to steer to make limited directional adjustments. The Drift will continue until the player releases the Drift button. At this point, the boost will kick in.
If anything, the physics of the drift still remains the same as of Transformed, albeit with slightly more leniency to allow for snaking on certain straight paths akin to the first Racing game, but still requires dexterity to pull it off. The camera much like in the first All-Stars Racing game and during the boat and plane modes of Transformed, now slants once more respective of the drifting direction of the vehicle. Even then the boost can now build up during snaking unlike with Transformed where switch-drifting no longer halts the boost build-up as much, though the similar physics carried over prevent it from being as overly infamous as in the first All-Stars Racing. Even then, drifting alongside specific course sections or snaking in general is now often required for specific challenges, such as passing through checkpoints or collecting rings mid-(continuous) drift.
Due to the physics changes of the stunts, intentional stunt fails are no longer possible as the strict window for stunt-chaining has been removed (and may lead to more unintentional crash-landing stunt fails instead). Performing a successful stunt-landing while drifting no longer causes the stunt boost to occur automatically on its own separate of the drift's boost, but instead have its boost be stacked with the one being held by the drift. Beginning a drift just before or upon landing after any successful stunt landing also halts the boost build-up.
Front wheels of vehicles now once more angle themselves in accordance to how tight or wide the drift is like in the first All-Stars Racing. Another notable new trait to a drifting vehicle is that if a drift happens to be exaggerated depending on the terrain of the course, said drifting vehicle will actually start to tilt sideways opposite of drifting direction, and may take a while to cause the vehicle to remain firmly grounded even after a boost is unleashed. However, it's possible to steady/ground the vehicle from its tilt by switch-drifting to the other direction for a small bit, or simply de-accelerating for a bit before the vehicle slows down too much to cancel the drift and have the brakes kick in.
Wall tapping is also no longer possible as drifting into a wall causes the vehicle to exit drift upon losing the boost build-up, and drifting up towards a wall opposite of the turn may cause enough of a bumping collision which in turn cancels the boost build-up fully. Held drifts via continuously tapping away from the drifting direction for wider turns still work, even though the window for maintaining a wider drift by just holding away from the direction has a more lenient window before the vehicle fights back against it for the aforementioned drift-based challenges.
However, due to the fact the vehicle will slant via its center of gravity if the drift is held for too long, releasing any kind of drift-into-boost if the vehicle is not properly grounded beforehand results in a less-potent boost compared to otherwise. As a result, it should be taken into consideration whenever time trial records are considered for optimal speed. As said before, switch-drifting for a bit or de-accelerating for enough allows the vehicle to be steadied-back to the ground once more. However, some builds and focuses in certain stats such as having less top speed likely factor in some cars slanting sooner than others or less often during extended drifts without switching directions.
Trivia[]
- Much like Sonic Drift, Sonic Drift 2, and several other kart-racing games (and arguably unlike in Sonic Riders and the Drift mechanic in mainline Sonic titles), the drifting maneuver utilized in these games has the camera focus on the direction the vehicle's driver is facing towards, and the vehicle only faces forward in unison with the camera once more upon the drift being released.
- This as a result causes the drifting to be used more as a way to simply "slide along" turns solely for building boost, as opposed to properly orienting the vehicle to cut-through-and-exit the corner (which is how realistic-yet-tighter drifting often works).
- Furthermore, this version of drifting unlike with power-slides and other sharp turn mechanics has no issue of having the vehicle spin out of control from oversteering (steering too inward) during the lack of traction drifting provides.
- Normally in real life, drifting depending on the vehicle suspension (weight distribution) and composition of the tires in regards to traction and amount of times continuously done would all factor in slower speeds, especially without the speed boost build-up seen commonly in other kart racing games.
References[]
- โ Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (PlayStation 3) United Kingdom instruction booklet, pg. 11.
- โ Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (PC) United Kingdom Steam manual, pg. 4.
- โ Team Sonic Racing English instruction manual.