Title: Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Developer: Beenox
Publisher: Activision
Release Date: June 21st, 2019 (NA)
File Size: 5.8GB
Review copy provided by Activision
After making his grand return with a remake of his original trilogy of games on PS1, Crash Bandicoot returns again, this time with a remake of not just Crash Team Racing on PS1 itself, but also with content returning from Crash Nitro Kart, and later on from Crash Tag Team Racing. How does this fare? How does it compare to other kart racers, as well as being its own thing? Let’s find out!
Here’s the main menu.
Now, it needs to be stressed that I have NEVER played the original Crash Team Racing on PS1, nor have I played Crash Nitro Kart on any of its platforms (not even on GameCube, I regret this lol). I DID however play and ADORE Crash Tag Team Racing on GameCube, in fact that is my all-time fav Crash game to date. So that should help add context to the review as a whole. So don’t exact me to compare it directly with its PS1 counterpart, sorry about that!
So the game is naturally a mascot kart racer. Most would’ve played one at some point, be it Mario Kart, Sonic, Diddy Kong Racing, or any of the prior Crash racing games. Most of the time they’re very good. I even just recently reviewed Team Sonic Racing on Switch so right now Crash and Sonic have a bit of a rivalry going on. But enough about that, let’s get started.
Here’s Crash in N. Sanity Beach, the first part of the hub world.
We begin with an opening cutscene with Crash, Coco, and Cortex just racing around… for reasons (maybe they race on weekends). Then all of the sudden ALIENS (well, just one) named Nitros Oxide, who just shows up above Earth and tells our heroes (and villain) that he challenges them all to a race, and if he wins, he’ll turn the planet into a parking lot (but why?), and if Crash and company wins, he’ll leave, simple stuff. Am I the only one who finds Oxide to sound like Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas & Ferb? Anyway, once that happens, you’re transported to the 3D hub world of N. Sanity Beach. The game starts out in a very Diddy Kong Racing-like fashion (hell both games feature an evil alien as the main antagonist…). The hub is also very similar to Diddy Kong Racing. However it starts out being a bit small, but I’ll explain more about that in a bit.
The first level you can race is Crash Cove. You just drive to the level’s warp gate and in you go. Actually you’ll get quite a few tutorial comments from Crash’s trusty mask companion Aku Aku before hand… you’ll be seeing him quite a bit early on. So the race begins. For controls, you hold the B button to accelerate, use the L and R buttons to power slide and boost (hold one to slide and then time the other button’s presses to boost), and A to use items, and that’s the gist of it. You can also use Y to brake to make tight turns on a dime. For some odd reason, you can only back up by holding down on the left stick, not with the brake button. There’s actually a second control mode with different button functions, but the loading screen tutorials don’t account for that, so you’ll get confused when reading them…
The first level; Crash Cove.
During races, there are a couple things to keep in mind. In traditional karting (that’s a word) fashion, you can collect up to 10 Wumpa Fruit which will increase your speed the more you collect. Next is the item system. Items include TNT crates, potion beakers (both are your typical drop obstacles), rockets that can home-in on opponents, bombs that roll in one direction and can detonate on command with A, a shield that you can also fire forward with A, a typical boost item, and Aku Aku as basically your Starman equivalent. But, there’s a bonus; if you have 10 Wumpa Fruit, most items get a powered-up version. Beakers now slow down opponents for a few seconds, shields and Aku Aku last longer, etc.
Once you win a race, you’ll unlock some goodies. These can include new karts, new wheels, new stickers, new character skins/outfits/colors and new colors for karts. And if you fulfill certain conditions, you will unlock a new character as well! As far as I can tell, only different characters have different stats, the rest is all just cosmetic. So that’s done and then you move on to the next race. In N. Sanity Beach, there are four races, and once that’s done, you then get to race a boss; Ripper Roo, who sadly doesn’t say WELL DONE in a silly voice. Beat him and you unlock him, as well as obtain a boss key. You can then move to the next area, the Lost Ruins, or stick around to do more with the current courses.
The character select screen featuring THE CRUNCH!
Those things are three things; first the Skull Rock course opens up, which is a collecting “mini-game” where you’re tasked to collect 20 power crystals within the time limit, beat that and you get a purple CTR token. Next, you can re-enter the four main courses to do one of two things; earn a CTR token (color depends on the course) by doing a race to collect the silver coins C, T, and R letters and finish in 1st place. The other is a time-trial run where like in Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, you have to finish as quickly as possible while also breaking time crates that freeze time for the amount of seconds displayed (1, 2, or 3 seconds). Beat the first time to get a sapphire relic. Come back the second time to do it even faster for a gold relic, and then a third for a platinum relic.
In a later area, you’ll see the point of the tokens and relics; these open up more courses and cups to race in. Getting said tokens and especially the relics as you can imagine, will NOT be easy. Hell I only barely manage to get some of the gold relics… Also worth noting that as the hub opens, it actually is all one world with no load-times between areas. So while at first it looks very small and more confined than in Diddy Kong Racing, it starts to resemble it slightly more as you unlock more areas. Problem is, there doesn’t appear to any fast-travel, so you’ll have to manually drive to each area.
Here’s a look at the Pit Stop menu. Remember, the selection changes daily.
Another big part of the game is the Pit Stop mode in the main menu. This is where you get to spend all of those hard earned Wumpa Coins. You earn coins each race you finish, whether you win or lose, and you only earn slightly less the lower your place is, something like 40 coins for 1st but 36 for 2nd place? Anyway, the Pit Stop is a marketplace where you can buy new characters, themed costumes and sets it appears to be, stickers, and stuff like that. New characters seem to run you about 1500 coins. There’s a catch though; the selection only lasts for 24 hours and refreshes to a new one at I think 8:00PM EST? So if you have something you want, it may take a bit of waiting. Some stuff can be unlocked I believe through normal progress but I’m not entirely sure. I was super lucky that Crunch was there when I first looked and I had 1500 coins. Can never go wrong with the Crunch!
Visually it’s pretty damn impressive. It’s a down-port from the higher-end consoles, but unlike Team Sonic Racing, it feels more properly made for Switch and there’s much less notable drawbacks to where it’s an eyesore. It runs at a very smooth 30fps and 720p in docked mode and 480p in portable mode. Digital Foundry just did a video about the Switch version so check that out, it’s super informative as always! Anyway, the graphics are very good. There’s few jaggies so that helps a lot as well. One major issue that is the long load times. Races can take 40 seconds to load, though it’s only a bit longer than on other consoles. It’s still the worst on Switch sadly. One aspect I did adore is how expressive the characters are. Crunch makes a silly determined face if you hold ZR to reverse the camera when you start moving. It’s great!
“Oh yeah! That’s the Crunch!”
Audio-wise is very good also. Music-wise I legit prefer the music in this game over Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. They even got Josh Mancell and Mark Mothersbaugh back to help out unlike before as consultants apparently. Both were the original composers during the Naughty Dog era (who made the original Crash Team Racing as well). Even better, you can ACTUALLY select the original PS1 soundtrack from the settings at anytime! The voice-acting is fantastic. Everyone sounds well voiced, though some take adjusting, like Uka Uka is still voiced by John DiMaggio (Bender in Futureama), who voiced him in Crash of the Titans and Crash Bandicoot: Mind over Mutant. It’s nothing like Clancy Brown’s original voice. BUT I do like how chill and friendly he is here; he’s Aku Aku’s equivalent when playing as a villain like Ripper Roo.
Overall this is a fantastic game. It’s difficult at times and different folks will have different opinions on whether they like that or not. Normal races I find to be perfectly fair, but the challenges like the relic time trials will push my difficulty tolerance I’m sure (it’s not very high lol). I should note that there’s a Nitros Oxide Edition that includes early unlocks but more importantly exclusive content not obtainable elsewhere. Before launch pre-purchasing the standard edition would get you an Electron Skins pack, this is included in said edition as well, but it’s a fair bit more expensive ($75 vs $50 CDN I think). In Canada, we only get the Nitros Oxide Edition at retail with some pins for a whumping $95! Luckily the former price is for the eShop version. Look up what the content is and see if it’s worth skipping over to save money or not. Overall I HIGHLY recommend it. Don’t let the 30fps complaints sway you away, it really doesn’t matter IMO.
You’ll Love:
+ It controls really nicely, it’s fast, and it’s very fun to race.
+ Visually it looks pretty amazing. Honestly it being a down-port isn’t that obvious at all, the visuals are VERY well preserved on Switch.
+ Music does sound really good and much better than in the Trilogy collection, AND you get the original PS1 soundtrack to choose from to boot!
+ Voice-acting is awesome. Crunch even is voiced by the voice of Knack. Yes, that Knack, and he sounds AWESOME! I do miss Chris Williams as Crunch from the prior games though. lol
+ The amount of content already here is insane, and there’s LOTS more to come for FREE via updates!
+ Has screenshot and video capture support.
You’ll Hate:
– Some mechanics like the drifting are a bit iffy, like trying to even get a drift going properly, plus some jumps don’t seem to trigger the boost upon landing for some reason for me.
– Getting gold and certainly the platinum relics will TEST YOU! Get ready for some hard times with these.
– The load-times. They’re way too long. On the bright side, loading when reseting races only takes a sec, so don’t worry about that.
– Having content exclusive to the Nitros Oxide Edition is REALLY uncool. You can’t even buy it on its own if you own the base game (unless you buy the entire edition at full price possibly…). Better hope someone gives or sells you a code for the content.
Score: 8.5/10