Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled (2019)

This game is gorgeous and a lot of fun to play online with friends. I like how it's based on skill more than MK8. If you're new to the game, like I am, prepare to get wrecked if you play online in the public matchmaking.

The big negative for me is the amount of loading. It's horrible! Horrible enough I had to drop the rating 2 stars. I play mainly online in a private room with friends. After each race there is an awards ceremony which takes a while to load. This can't be changed! You can only do one race at a time. Moving as fast as I can between races, it takes about 2:05 to load everything for the next race.

I've created a petition regarding these issues. If you have these issues, too, please sign the petition. I just want the game to get better so I can enjoy it even more than I already do: https://www.change.org/CTRloading

I loved CTR as a kid. It was my favourite of all the Crash Bandicoot games. I never had a dull moment playing it.

When 2017's N Sane Trilogy was released and after how amazingly well done it was, I had no doubts about this game being remade. After the reveal, and as the weeks went on we saw new snippets of info and day by day this game looked better by the second. I'm sure the addition of Nitro Kart characters and tracks came as a total surprise to most people. When release day was finally upon is, this game was a blast to play through.

Here's my pro and con list:

Pro:

• Very true to the original. it looks and feels like it did back on the PS1 and it brings a lot of nostalgic value.
• The addition of NK tracks and characters was going above and beyond, this was great. It added even more content to this game.
• The power boost system remains unchanged and provides a level of skill you do not seem to get in other kart racers, so this is a strong USP for Crash

Con:

• Bugs and load times. The load times are a bit on the longside. When we're constantly having to sit doing nothing this gets a bit tedious. The bugs simply should not have been there on the release day. The save corruption bug (although now fixed) simply should not have been in the finished game. the idea that you could spent ages trying to unlock N.Tropy, only to unlock him and then have the game immediately freeze and corrupt your save file is soul destroying. I thank Beenox for fixing it but I feel for the people who lost all their saves. I can forgive a mistake, but I find myself thinking, "this should never have been an issue to begin with"
• Difficulty. I like that the game can be hard. I think it provides a good level of challenge for people. Me, personally I don't think I'll ever be good enough to beat the Oxide times or beat adventure mode on Hard, but that's fine. I don't mind that limitation. I do feel however the jump from easy to medium is far too great. Easy mode is incredibly simple with virtually no iota of challenge from the AI. So you think "this is too easy, let's switch to medium" only to find out its a massive jump in difficulty. Perhaps additional difficulty tiers should have been added? Maybe 5 instead of 3?
• Sewer Speedway. This was a fun track in the original however the shortcut is completely buggered. Its inconsistent and at the best of times, it comes down to sheer dumb luck. I hope Beenox fix this as when I first played this track I thought "this was never this hard in the original" so I whipped out the Vita, played the original and lo and behold I can make the jump every time. Its an issue with the remake. Something is wrong. Its ironic that N. Sane trilogy suffered from the jump mechanic in the first game and an argument can be made, its happening again in CTR.
• Pit stop. I flat out dislike the pit stop. I find the wumpa coins frustrating and they're made worse when you're not online. They cannot be earned whilst offline. Surely this is a massive kick in the teeth for Switch players. Items in the shop are far too costly and it requires a lot of grinding to be able to afford the items. That's if the item is still there. the shop rotates and refreshes every day. You cannot search for items. What a stupid idea! With the high prices, and rotations this shop practically screams microtransactions. Although, not in the game yet, I can foresee them implementing MTX later down the line, this is Activision at the end of the day. cough cough Black Ops 4. I sincerely hope they don't but if they do, this review drops from 3/5 to possibly 1 or 2/5.
• Grand Prix. This can also been as a pro, I like that this game is getting free content and being kept alive. I feel however that the structure is not great. Like I said rewards are great, however I feel this too requires a lot of grinding and only just enough time to do so. I don't like being shackled to game and feeling if I don't play in this time frame I'll lose out. Its sucky and I hate timed events. it was the reason I stopped playing Pokemon GO.

I gather the review comes across as more negative rather than positive. i guess its down to my attitude. I'm a half glass empty kinda person. All this being said. I feel if pit stop was restructured and wumpa coins were made more plentiful then this would warrant a 4/5. I can turn a blind eye to GP unlocks as although they're timed, the characters seem to be quick to unlock and for me that's the most important aspect. I do not care about skins and kart customisation.

There’s not much to say, this game is good. While its main goal is to remaster of Crash Team Racing, Nitro Fueled is an homage to all the Crash racing games. I know giving too much praise to remasterings can be a dangerous slope, because it promotes unoriginality, but I still find it cool to see these old 90s characters updated with modern graphics. This game recaptures that nostalgia of those Saturday mornings, playing the original CTR on the main TV before my parents got up.

It’s been years, since I’ve picked up the original game because I remember it being tough, & probably what inspired my avoidance of racing games, so I don’t remember how it controls. Either way, this new game feels good to play. The one thing I do remember is the jump boost and it’s still fun to do. The karts have a good weight and momentum when you pick up speed. They are arcade racer controls, but they feel more realistic, outside of using the jump button to cheat turns & the fact they’re being piloted by furry animals. Every character has one of four driving styles; speed, handling, acceleration, and balanced. It was the same way in the original, but now you have the option of changing karts. I would’ve the stats rather been attached to the karts, cause I’d love playing as Dingodile, but he is a straight away racer. Granted, while they have different stats, I haven’t noticed a super huge difference that makes one character complete garbage or totally OP.

And of course, the original only had about 6 racers, not exactly a vast roster. Nitro Fueled has those and more, including the bosses which were only unlockable by cheat codes originally, and the racers from Crash Nitro Kart. There’s also a few other Crash alum, like Crunch and Tawna, and I expect Nina Cortex, N. Brio, and others will show up in the future free updates. They even added in the grid girls as racers, and their designs make me wonder about the developers. All of these characters are voiced and add more humor to the races. My favorite line is when Pinstripe wins a race “Of course this race wasn’t rigged.” wink wink.

As mentioned, you can customize your karts now, no more “everyone riding on go-karts”. And this is where the input from Tag Team Racing comes in, a game that I thoroughly enjoyed, but everyone else seems to loathe. The cart bodies are modelled after the ones you unlock in that game; Crash’s trike and Jeep, Cortex’s low rider, and Pasadena’s racecar. I wish there was an option to create a preset of custom karts instead of having to switch everything each time, because I like my racers to have different karts for aesthetic reasons. I’m pretty sure the new grand prix course set in Egypt is also a mashup of the Egypt tracks from Tag Team.

The tracks have all gotten a nice makeover as well. They’ve got the base tracks recreated with a few more flourishes added on. Hot Air Skyway, the Rainbow Road of CTR, is now a floating casino, Dragon Mines has a dragon, Cortex Castle is still a bitch with turns. The tracks from CNK are recreated as well, but I never played the original, so it’s sort of new content for me. And all these tracks still have the shortcuts to get you an edge up. I have some respect for the shortcut makers in CTR. You have to have a good amount of skill & timing to hit some of those shortcuts or else you end up falling to your death.

Online mode is fun, I don’t get as smoked as bad as I figured I would. I can usually pull in at least a 4th or 3rd place, because I’m still not good at shortcuts. The time in between matches seems a little long, especially when you are grinding coins for something I’ll mention next. The ability to select to race in a cup would be appreciated, and in offline mode being able to make your own cups would be nice. With online mode, Beenox made the smart choice not to include microphone support. You don’t have to listen to the usual online garbage of people blaring shit music, kids screaming nonsense, and people shit talking. You show off with your driving skills in online mode.

The one big misstep in this game that I don’t care for is the Pit Stop Store. I appreciate that it’s not a pay to win, give us real money, overpriced money pit, but the layout is terrible. It does the thing where you just have a page of daily exclusive deals. There’s one character, costume, tire, and 2 decals for sale, along with a new kart set. The kart or character set is the most expensive thing usually around 5,000 coins. If a character you want to race as, like Crunch, isn’t the daily exclusive you either have to wait a day, or keep buying characters until the one you want comes up. You also can’t buy just a kart body, you have to buy the set of the body, tires, paint job, and sticker. I’d rather just have a proper store page where you can browse the characters and karts and buy which ones you want.

All in all, much like the N. Sane trilogy, this remaster does the original justice. I’m glad the classic Crash games are back and being introduced to new gamers. Like everyone else, I’m hoping all these remasters will inspire a new, original Crash game, the audience is there for it. If you want a good kart racer for a decent price you can’t go wrong here.