The Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds cast has apparently been to see a very particular plastic surgeon.
A new GameBanana mod called True Blue Plastic Surgery Collection has been giving several of the game’s Sonic characters a fairly extensive makeover, heavily editing their 3D models to more closely resemble their respective 2D artwork and illustrations. The current version covers Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Classic Sonic, with the creator already suggesting that more characters could eventually join them.
And this goes considerably further than changing a few proportions.
One of the mod’s main features is a new dynamic 2D-style mouth system. The characters’ mouths are designed to mostly face the camera, recreating the familiar placement seen throughout Sonic’s 2D character artwork, while still opening, closing and changing expression alongside the game’s existing facial animations.
Anyone who has spent enough time staring at Sonic renders will probably understand immediately why someone would devote this much effort to mouth placement.
The remodels themselves aim to bring each character closer to their illustrated appearances rather than simply recreating one specific piece of artwork. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Classic Sonic all receive model edits under that general approach, while the latest Version 1.02 update also makes some smaller adjustments to Sonic’s ears to improve how they look from the front.
The same update gives Sonic a completely new finishing pose during the Grand Prix champion ceremony, replacing the end of his regular victory animation with a pose based on key artwork from Sonic Rush Adventure. The creator says they felt the original pose did not make the most of Sonic’s design when the camera lingered on it, so in their words, “the rule of cool wins.”
Fair enough.
The collection gets even more elaborate once Extreme Gear enters the picture. When the modern characters included in the pack use Extreme Gear, their models will automatically switch into their Riders outfits in-game, with no manual mod swapping required. That makes the alternate costumes behave more like a contextual part of the game rather than something players need to enable separately.
There are several smaller changes bundled in as well. Custom UI renders are included for the modified characters, while everyone covered by the pack will transform into their Super form while invincible. The normal Shield item has also been replaced by the S Monitor from Sonic the Hedgehog 3, complete with Chaos Emeralds appearing when it is activated.
So yes, somebody started by adjusting Sonic’s face and somehow ended up replacing item monitors and programming automatic Riders costume changes.
That sounds about right for Sonic modding.
The creator has wrapped the whole thing in an appropriately ridiculous “plastic surgery” presentation, describing the characters as arriving at their office wanting to return to their days of “Kinos” and “Mega Collections.” Underneath the joke, though, there is clearly a very specific visual target here: making the CrossWorlds models behave and read a little more like the 2D Sonic artwork that inspired them.
The True Blue Plastic Surgery Collection is available now through GameBanana, with Version 1.02 currently listed as the latest update. The creator says more characters are likely to come in the future, although no additional members of the cast have been confirmed yet.
Given the current lineup, there are certainly plenty of potential patients left in the waiting room.
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