TRANSFORMERS: Galactic Trials

I came into this one genuinely curious. A Transformers racing game with mid-race transformation into third-person shooter segments sounds like someone actually thought about the license for once, instead of just slapping the IP onto a template. The bones are there: pick from Autobots or Decepticons including Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, and Soundwave, then race across 10 Cybertron-themed battle circuits, drifting and boosting to build Energon, then side-swiping opponents to chip them down. When the track splits into a robot-mode gauntlet, you hop out, shoot turrets and drones, platform across gaps, and sprint for the exit. Before each event you pick a weapon loadout and a Prime Relic that buffs your stats - speed, damage, handling - with roguelite-lite logic that stacks upgrades across a run. On paper, solid. In practice, the vehicle handling is where things start to fall apart. The driving feels sluggish, there is almost no sense of speed, and the collision physics are inconsistent enough that a six-inch wall can send you into a full respawn spiral. The Energon boost-start mechanic is fine - nail the timing off the line and you get a decent gap - but the tracks are short and the AI rubber-bands aggressively, so that gap evaporates fast. All characters handle identically in vehicle form, with only basic stat differences between the slow-and-tough builds (Optimus is notoriously plodding) and the faster, frailer ones. No unique abilities in car mode, no weapon pickups on track, just drift, boost, and bash. The robot segments are more interesting but carry their own problems. The shooting uses auto-aim, which is fine for younger players but removes any skill ceiling for the rest of us. Platforming sections involve bounce pads that occasionally just fail to propel you, sending you back to a checkpoint arbitrarily. The on-foot pace is slow, and when gates require destroying a generator before the path opens, smarter players quickly learn to hang near the exit and let the AI do the work. That is not good game design. The Galactic Trials mode adds roguelite relic selection between races, which provides the most replay value the game has - but with only 10 tracks and 11 characters to unlock through challenge grinding, content depth is thin. Multiplayer is local only, up to two players in Arcade Mode, and there is no online at all, which in 2024 is a genuine miss. The audience here is fairly narrow. Kids obsessed with the franchise will get something out of it, and the Rookie difficulty with auto-aim makes it approachable for them. Hardcore racing fans will bounce off the handling inside an hour. Shooter fans expecting anything resembling TTK tuning, weapon variety, or real aim mechanics will be disappointed. If you have a young Transformers fan in the house and want a couch co-op session that does not demand anything from either of you, this works at the right price. For anyone else, the gap between the concept and the finished product is hard to ignore. Fred, Scout Team