Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled Review

When Crash Team Racing was originally released in 1999 I was four years old. During this time, my mom was working nights so my dad could come home from work and watch me. These nights mostly consisted of him kicking my ass in Crash Team Racing. He would always play as Polar and no matter what character I chose, I would still lose.

Getting to play Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled hits me like a wonderful wave of nostalgia. This remake of the PlayStation 1 original is a wonderful rendition that hopefully could lead to more Crash racing games. Every track and every character have been beautifully recreated for this game. Many times when you have fond memories of old games, you go back and try to replay them to feel those memories again. But often, those old games don’t hold up as either visuals or mechanics have aged poorly. CTR Nitro-Fueled allows players to relive those good times without compromise and ensures a classic racer holds up to today’s standards.

When the Crash N. Sane Trilogy was released, I could not believe how hard those games were. Especially Crash Bandicoot and Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. I did not remember them being so difficult when I was a young lad. I also felt this way about CTR Nitro-Fueled.

Before I began to play, I looked at the trophy list and noticed one of the trophies was to beat the antagonist, Nitrous Oxide, in Adventure mode on Hard difficulty. I thought to myself, “psh, no problem.” I booted up the game, started an adventure on the hard difficulty and went to my first race at the iconic course of Crash Cove. My first race was a loss, as was the second, same with the third. I was furious. I couldn’t believe it was that difficult.

After that, I decided to start over with a new adventure on medium difficulty. I still struggled but eventually gained a feel for the mechanics and came in first. The default controls are, in my opinion, the lesser of the two control options. The default option has players hold down the X button for gas, just like the original. It’s 2019 and I was unable to get used to holding down X to move forward in a kart. Instead, I switched the controls to R2 for gas and felt more comfortable and found myself not only moving forward in races, but in the adventure.

A huge part of the game is drifting. To drift, players need to perform a jump, then turn their vehicle either left or right and hold L1 or R1 to continue to drift forward. Adding to the drift mechanic is boosting. Boosting, along with drifting, were in the original but it was a mechanic I didn’t really use when I was four. Players need to use boosts when racing as it is essential to winning. To initiate a boost, first begin drifting then, at the precise time, press jump again to be propelled forward. Boosts can be chained together a total of three times. There are multiple indications that a drift is primed for a boost: the exhaust on the back of the kart changes color, the tires change color, and/or the meter on the bottom right side of the screen.

CTR: Nitro-Fueled’s new adventure mode is a blast. Nitrous Oxide has still come to Earth to challenge the fastest racer in a bid for the planet. The core plot is still the same yet a few new touches have been added to enhance the experience. When I was younger, I never understood the point of the boss races but Nitro-Fueled gives the bosses more dialogue and depth which helps to understand why players are racing against them.

In each of the four different areas, players are required to race four times and must come in first to race the bosses. After defeating a boss, a key is rewarded that unlocks the door to the next area. Once an area is cleared, players can come back and do different race modes on the same courses that were beaten.

Those two modes are Relic Race and CTR Token races. For me, CTR Token races are really fun. Within a race, players must find and collect the golden letters C, T, and R while coming in first place. This simple touch adds a new element to a normal race as some letters are harder to obtain than others. They may be off the beaten path or cause players to lag behind. CTR Token races are not that difficult to complete, only requiring a few tries because your first attempt is done trying to figure out where each letter is placed. In each of the four areas there is a special purple token that is obtained very differently than the others. This token is not rewarded on a race course nor are they against other people. It is simply the player versus a timer to obtain all the crystals located in the Battle Mode arenas. The purple token challenges are much harder to complete than the normal CTR Token races.

Much harder than the CTR Token challenges are the Relic Races. In the Relic Races, players must complete three laps of a course while finishing under a set time limit to obtain a Sapphire relic. In each race, yellow boxes with different numbers on them ranging from one to three can be found. If players break a box, the timer stalls for the same number of seconds as the number on the box. Breaking a box with the number two on it stalls for two seconds and so on. For those familiar with the regular Crash Bandicoot games, it’s the same kind Relic Race, but this time it’s behind the wheel of a kart.

A new spin with CTR Nitro-Fueled from the original is that players can now change characters at any time. In the original, players were only allowed to play the adventure mode as the character they picked in the beginning. Those who wish to experience the game that way have the option to play in Classic mode. Keep in mind, though, if you are interested in trophies you must play in Adventure mode.

Being able to change characters is a nice touch. There are four different driving types and different characters fit into one of those types. This allows players to pick and choose throughout the game what kind of style they want to play as or pick depending on what course is being raced.

The four different racing types are actually the same classes from the original. Beginner features characters like Polar and Pura and has a large emphasis on turning, allowing for better control when making those hard turns. There are two sets of intermediate racers, A and B. A is even on all aspects: turning, acceleration, and speed. Crash and Cortex are A-type drivers. 90 percent of the game I played as either Crash or Cortex because of this balance. Intermediate B-type drivers, such as Coco and N. Gin, have strong acceleration allowing them to reach their top speeds faster. Lastly is the Advanced group. This group has characters that focus on speed like Tiny or Dingodile. Once players defeat a boss, like Pinstripe, they are unlocked as playable characters. All unlockable characters will fall into one of these racing types.

In addition to choosing characters, players can choose what kind of kart to drive. The customization of a kart is strictly cosmetic and has no effect on driving style. This part is fun and a nice addition to the game. There are different kart styles, different tires, different paint jobs, plus stickers that can be added. Playing as different characters will unlock different skins for the character as well. After winning races, completing challenges, and defeating bosses, new karts can be unlocked.

A very awesome thing that has been added is the Pit Stop. The Pit Stop is an online store where players can purchase new characters, character skins, karts, tires, and more. It is important to note that real money does not have to be spent to unlock these things. Wumpa Coins are offered as a currency to unlock these items. Wumpa Coins are obtained by completing races and the higher a player places in the race determines the amount of Wumpa Coins earned. I love this. These days, it’s very common for games to have stores to buy cosmetics but often never provide enough in-game currency to purchase items. This causes people to end up spending real money. CTR Nitro- Fueled really makes it fair to easily obtain items in the Pit Shop just through racing.

Since every console is now connected to the internet, unlike in 1999, players can race online against friends or strangers. Not surprising as every modern game does this but it is nice to have this in CTR because it is such a quality racing game.

Not only can players race online, they can duke it out Battle mode. If you are familiar with the original, Battle mode is pretty self-explanatory, power-ups are used to hurt opponents and get points; just like Battle modes in other kart racing games.

The courses are delightful. They have been masterfully recreated to capture the essence of the classic CTR. They feel smooth to drive through as nothing feels janky or awkward while playing. The driving has weight too, where turning the wheel has consequence and driving on each course is overall nice. There are great courses with easy turns, while on the other hand there are some with harsh, immediate turns. No matter the type of terrain or the nature of the course, the mechanics feel wonderful. Though they are not found in Adventure mode, courses from Crash Nitro Kart, which was originally released on PS2 in 2003, are found in Nitro-Fueled. Crash Nitro Kart didn’t have as good of mechanics as CTR, so porting the Nitro Kart courses into Nitro-Fueled makes those courses even better and allows them to drive fantastically.

I don’t think it is crazy to say that Crash Team Racing is the best kart racing game. Unlike Mario Kart, players actually have to be skilled at playing the game to do well and progress, especially when playing against real people instead of computers. Nitro-Fueled is a wonderful remake of the classic game that we all know and love. The mechanics and courses are great. Combine that with a revamped Adventure mode and you have yourself a fantastic game. I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect game though due to its difficulty and pretty short story.