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Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled (June 21st, 2019)


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3 minutes ago, Rowl said:

I think Oxide was always met to be small or have normal human size, it was just his vehicle that was pretty big.

His character model is actually pretty big in the original too, but I was mostly referring to his vehicle.

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In Nitro Kart, Oxide was actually smaller than Tiny and N. Trance. Taller than, Crash, Cortex, and Coco, but much not as tall as other characters.

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1 hour ago, Your Vest Friend said:

To be fair, the Crash series was pretty shit with their female representation in the ND era. The only character who wasn't made to be an eye candy model in a bandicoot suit was basically forced into existence by the executives because they rightly saw this. 

Allegedly she was made because Sony of Japan wanted another female sidekick for Crash, since Tawna was likely to be retired following the fiasco with Universal's feminist executives.

In hindsight it's kind of a miracle Coco didn't end up "the Scrappy" of the series, since she was essentially forced into conception for marketing ploys. You can kind of tell, Naughty Dog don't have nearly as many amusing conceptual notes about her as Crash or the bad guys, and while they got to promote her a little in Warped, they never really capitalised on it. Her personality was pretty bland compared to the others at the time as well, it was obvious she was just meant to be a positive token female. It was the slow process of trading around other developers that gradually developed Coco into something that made her a big favourite (along with several other more substantial female characters being made around that period).

34 minutes ago, Plasme said:

His character model is actually pretty big in the original too, but I was mostly referring to his vehicle.

Most of the bosses were oversized in the original games (compare Cortex's model size in Warped). This seemed to be a thing in early 3D games, likely so they were easy to see and target despite the limited polygons and resolution (remember those preview screens of gigantic Metal Sonic and Fang in Sonic XTreme?).

Later games likely 'shrunk' them to better suit cutscenes, along with instances they were playable so had to share a similar hit box. Coco for example interchanges between being taller or shorter than Crash depending on whether she is playable (or strange cases like WOC where she's practically half Crash's size due to her levels' tiny geometry).

Also keep in mind characters can switch karts in this version, so everyone has to be somewhat in proportion to take the others' wheel. Oxide for example has a steering wheel in his hovercraft in this game that he didn't in the original, likely so they can interchange animations (hope we get his CNK kart as an extra like we're getting Crash's).

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14 hours ago, Your Vest Friend said:

To be fair, the Crash series was pretty shit with their female representation in the ND era. The only character who wasn't made to be an eye candy model in a bandicoot suit was basically forced into existence by the executives because they rightly saw this. 

-I think you referring to Coco , despite her being forced character or not , I consider creating her one of the best decisions in ND era . I see her potential of appealing to little girls , and even I saw guys and girls like her for how cute she is and a good sidekick for crash . I don't think other ND females will ever better than her .

- While Tawna meant to be eye candy herself , but developers wanted her to be more than that , she wasn't meant to be entirely fan service .

-I agree with with on trophy girls , they are 100% fan service .

- Now there is post ND  females that I really wish for them to get some love from developers ,

I want to see Nina Cortex , Pasadena O'possum and Yaya Panda to be in future games .

11 hours ago, Rowl said:

A lot of old school series didn't handle their females correctly: Crash, Spyro, B-K, Conker, Mario, Zelda etc. 

Actually Spyro has  females who was handled correctly , Bianca , the sorceress and Sheila . 

Crash franchise also a female handled correctly , which is Coco .

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3 hours ago, Gumbit said:

Sheila

Have you seen that god awful redesign?

 

 

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3 hours ago, Jovahexeon Fitzroy said:

Have you seen that god awful redesign?

 

 

Yes , and I like her redesign , it makes her more like female character now .

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On the topic of female characters and Crash, I absolutely hate what they've done to Coco in the remakes.

All she does now is pull stupid faces while taking selfies, or other such cliche 'dumb teenage girl' tropes. Firstly, it's a betrayal of her actual character in the original games, where she was more like the stereotypical grown up big sister who was serious and didn't act goofy like Crash. I know she's canonically younger than Crash, but that's always how she was presented, even in her entrance to the franchise in Crash 2's opening. She was the mature foil to Crash's wackiness.

Secondly, I hate the way she's been designed with eye-rolling cliches in mind. Yeah, she was bland in the original games, but I just find it so annoying when she keeps taking selfies, and messaging on her phone. It's like some middle aged people thought up how to redesign her with the 'kids' in mind and made a walking hyperbole. And I get Crash is supposed to be silly and over the top, but I feel it just goes too far with Coco. Especially because it comes across as quite condescending to young girls as well (at least to me).

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While the selfies and girly things are maybe too far, I think they're too small a part for me to care. It's nothing like say, Radical-era Coco where she was non-stop stereotypically ditzy and obnoxiously teen-like. Since Aku Aku became a proper character, Coco being the mature foil feels a bit redundant anyway, I like her being more the middle ground, more sapient than Crash but still fooling around with him and having a childish streak sometimes. He doesn't have a lot of allies so he may as well have one he can relate to a little. Besides that isn't the 'saner housewife' dynamic kinda cliche now as well?

I like Coco being as goofy and flawed as Crash and there being some sort of balance in the competence level, rather than the now long overdone cliche of the female character being a blandly smarter, saner and overall 'better' person than the male character to the point of being boring (which is even more dangerous here since Coco shares nearly all of Crash's powers, why have a more competent version of Crash?). I love her expressiveness, I love her complete lack of immunity to slapstick (which is considered a rare treat with female characters), I love her dancing and laughing with her brother in the idle animations, I love her interactive moodiness towards the player whenever you screw up, I love how, despite the excuse of her playability in the remakes being detrimental in cases like Crash 2, something like that still feels in-character for her. I love she is a fallible and amusing character that takes part in the fun rather than a lifeless pandering to the female gender.

Even besides that, I love the rare archetype of a smart non-villainous character that is still kind of wacky and fun loving and doesn't act like they're ashamed to be around their less intellectual family and friends. It's actually kind of sweet how much she thinks the world of Crash, and to be fair she's not always wrong to. I don't remember much of a bond between them in the earlier games where she was saner, while the later playful Coco got way more cute interactions with him.

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2 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

While the selfies and girly things are maybe too far, I think they're too small a part for me to care. It's nothing like say, Radical-era Coco where she was non-stop stereotypically ditzy and obnoxiously teen-like. Since Aku Aku became a proper character, Coco being the mature foil feels a bit redundant anyway, I like her being more the middle ground, more sapient than Crash but still fooling around with him and having a childish streak sometimes. He doesn't have a lot of allies so he may as well have one he can relate to a little. Besides that isn't the 'saner housewife' dynamic kinda cliche now as well?

I like Coco being as goofy and flawed as Crash and there being some sort of balance in the competence level, rather than the now long overdone cliche of the female character being a blandly smarter, saner and overall 'better' person than the male character to the point of being boring (which is even more dangerous here since Coco shares nearly all of Crash's powers, why have a more competent version of Crash?). I love her expressiveness, I love her complete lack of immunity to slapstick (which is considered a rare treat with female characters), I love her dancing and laughing with her brother in the idle animations, I love her interactive moodiness towards the player whenever you screw up, I love how, despite the excuse of her playability in the remakes being detrimental in cases like Crash 2, something like that still feels in-character for her. I love she is a fallible and amusing character that takes part in the fun rather than a lifeless pandering to the female gender.

Even besides that, I love the rare archetype of a smart non-villainous character that is still kind of wacky and fun loving and doesn't act like they're ashamed to be around their less intellectual family and friends. It's actually kind of sweet how much she thinks the world of Crash, and to be fair she's not always wrong to. I don't remember much of a bond between them in the earlier games where she was saner, while the later playful Coco got way more cute interactions with him.

Agreed. Coco's a thousand times more interesting when she's a genius who's not above her brother's tomfoolery. Even the infamous Titans games had some adorable interactions between them, like how kidnapping her is one of the very few ways to truly tick Crash off. And even though both siblings are goofy, they still have enough unique traits to not feel like clones of each other- Coco loves science and tinkering (Even though some of her inventions are completely impractical, like a butter-recycler), and Crash is lazy, reckless, and too trusting for his own good. (Crunch also fits nicely into the family in the Titans games. I don't really care if he's Mr. T; he had a lot of funny lines and an actual personality for the first time)

I'm really not a fan of the Women are Wiser trope (Or the inverse, for that matter), so I applaud later games for establishing that these two are on equal footing despite having different skills and interests.

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17 hours ago, Gumbit said:

-I think you referring to Coco , despite her being forced character or not , I consider creating her one of the best decisions in ND era . I see her potential of appealing to little girls , and even I saw guys and girls like her for how cute she is and a good sidekick for crash . I don't think other ND females will ever better than her .

- While Tawna meant to be eye candy herself , but developers wanted her to be more than that , she wasn't meant to be entirely fan service .

-I agree with with on trophy girls , they are 100% fan service .

- Now there is post ND  females that I really wish for them to get some love from developers ,

I want to see Nina Cortex , Pasadena O'possum and Yaya Panda to be in future games .

Actually Spyro has  females who was handled correctly , Bianca , the sorceress and Sheila . 

Crash franchise also a female handled correctly , which is Coco .

ND removed her cause Sony wanted her more family friendly. ND of the 90s is definitely not ND of today. But that was the 90s for you.

Also the T.girls are not fan service honestly ( and the only reason I myself name them that is cause I do not want to list all 4 every time I type. Seriously all they ever did was wave to you. Creeply nudge their nose at you and wave. Megumi was my favorite. Still Id like to see them in the game post dlc if they have to be.

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Yeah, and the trophy girls are even named after women that worked at Naughty Dog, so it's a cute little easter egg. I really hope at least one of them is playable and they're not censored, because there's nothing to be censored.

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C'mon guys, Coco is actually one of the better handled female characters from the 90s. She is smart, a good mix of girly and tomboy, and competed. Yeah, she is a bit more silly nowadays and yes, she also has these silly death animations like Crash, but that doesn't really destroy her character in my eyes. It actually made her more layered.

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6 hours ago, Rowl said:

C'mon guys, Coco is actually one of the better handled female characters from the 90s. She is smart, a good mix of girly and tomboy, and competed. Yeah, she is a bit more silly nowadays and yes, she also has these silly death animations like Crash, but that doesn't really destroy her character in my eyes. It actually made her more layered.

Coco was harmless in the early games. She was smart and cute, that was about it to her character, likeable but pretty bland. Crash and Cortex were the real stars. I will grant that, being the 90s, she could have been FAR worse than harmlessly bland, she could have been some annoyingly Mary Sue-ish spotlight stealer that always stole Crash's thunder (Crash 2 had a worrying foreshadowing of an 'Inspector Gadget and Penny' type dynamic, with Coco having to stop Crash dooming the planet, but that turned out to be a one off, and in later games they are equals). I mean, it wasn't like say, Sonic and Princess Sally, Crash was ALREADY an oaf, they wouldn't really have to flanderize him to make Coco look better, but they surprisingly kept the balance well. Again since Coco was mandated, I feel like ND were a bit apathetic towards her, so maybe that helped in keeping her role humble. She had uses but they didn't feel the need to force her down our throats.

Radical had an okay idea of making her comical and giving her a bond with Crash, but it was kind of dumbed down with their trademark over-the-top humour. Like with most of the cast in that era, there were times I just wanted her to stop talking she was that obnoxious.

The remakes' Coco feels like the best of both worlds, being goofy and childish but still competent and sweet. Her humour also comes way more from expressions and animations, like an actual traditional video game character. I mean NONE of her role or dialogue is altered from the original games in N Sane's cutscenes, just the execution of the same lines shrewdly gives her more of a personality.

 

I've already pre-made a long winded analysis about what I feel about Coco's evolution in the games so I'll just leave it here if there's anything left to explain:

https://www.deviantart.com/e-122-psi/art/Character-Over-Analysis-Coco-Bandicoot-787376123

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9 hours ago, Rowl said:

C'mon guys, Coco is actually one of the better handled female characters from the 90s.

Being bland isn't really being better handled, it's just inoffensive at best.

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Retooled Hot Air Skyway, retro skins and confirmed CNK tracks? Heck to the yeah. 

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11 minutes ago, TheOcelot said:

From the State of Play stream:

 

Yeah.

PRE.

F*CKING.

ORDERED.

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I think I made out Electron Avenue, Deep Sea Driving and Clockwork Wumpa, some of CNK's best tracks (though I wonder how some of them will work without the anti-gravity mechanic). Well we've officially confirmed above 20 tracks at least.

The low poly models are a cool concept, but they look kinda weird with the same proportions as the N Sane models.

Oh and Oxide's CNK car confirmed and what seems to be some of CNK's battle modes.

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What arena is that at that after Crash Cove? I don't recognize it.

Also there's another one I don't recognize a couple seconds later.

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Oh no, wait... The retro skins aren't pre-order exclusive, they're PS4 exclusive 😯 Boy, some folks are gonna be salty. I hope the Switch version gets Mario as exclusive, being thinking about that recently. As much as it's bound to happen, I wish CTR and MK could compete friendly instead of diving into the "NO, MINE'S BETTER THAN YOURS" abyss... Time will tell. 

As far as this trailer is concerned, CNK tracks are looking amazing. The bastards not only brought back the racing tracks, but also the battle arenas from CNK too. Everything is looking fantastic. I also spotted a battle mode involving collecting power crystals. It's been ages since I've played CTR's battle mode, but is this crystal collecting mode new?

Pretty sure this game will have a bunch of new content that wasn't in the original, as much as people are still trying to keep their expectations down about new stuff. This is looking like a meaty game. Trust me. I'm confident CNK characters like Crunch, N. Trance and some bosses will be DLC.

@E-122-Psi Good eye! I can't remember any of these CNK tracks' names for the life of me, but I remember their music and level design, they got good ones. Wonder which will be the fourth CNK track if they want to make a cup out of them. 

Also this:

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is revving up with exclusive retro content for PS4 players: Retro skins for Crash, Coco, & Cortex, Retro karts, and a

Retro track.

A track with PS1 graphics too? Neat! 

Also, can't forget about HOT AIR SKYWAY. It looks like they added some futuristic structures in the sky, it's like a city... In the skies!

 

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I actually played Nitro Kart WAYYY more than Team Racing back in the day, so very happy to see content included from it in this. They're really making this the definitive Crash racer in terms of sheer content alone.

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