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

[Jango]

The game broke street date. Spoilers are incoming. In fact, someone's streaming the Switch version on Twitch right now. Can't link, at work. Switch looks super fine and plays smooth.

[Your Vest Friend]

 

Uka Uka's voice lmao

One of the optional settings in Arcade is casual mirror mode.

Ah shit, Joe managed to tap into the bullshit magic well Espio's been using to explain his ninja arts for years. 

[mayday2592]

Spoiler

Was really hoping the sections that replaced the antigrav segments would be more interesting. Aside from a small handful, those parts of the track are just flat segments with nothing visually going on. Tiny Temple literally just has a straight path replacing the loop. 

 

[Your Vest Friend]

Wow, some of these "epilogues" have changed massively.

-Coco runs a video game streaming service instead of a dating site

-N.Gin became a battle show commentator after the missile thing went belly-up

-Dingodile drops the genetic engineering thing entirely in favour of firefighting. 

-Pura gets to happily debut instead of biting a head off.

-Pinstripe gets his comeuppance and goes back to being CEO/bodyguard after the car salesman thing fails

-Papu Papu gets to stay a wrestler and gets a dance craze

-Ripper Roo becomes an amusement park engineer but has to stop because...he's a masochist??

-Komodo Moe gets a mention after Komodo Joe gets done for the cubic zirconia thing.

-Tropy gets to do something other than rust

[8ther]

Any word on what all the skins are?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Any word on what skins are exclusive to the Nitros Oxide edition?

[Jango]

Regarding Wumpa Coins and the Pit Stop:

 

They are the game's currency, and you only get them if you're connected to the internet, which means you won't get them if you're playing handheld mode on Switch, UNLESS, there's an offline backup system that keep your coins untill you go online. Nothing can be fully confirmed yet because the servers are not online.

Below there's a picture of a store. This is not confirmed to be the Pit Stop tho'.

You can see that the player has little more than 8400 coins, and the most expensive item displayed is a Coco skin, which doesn't cost much TBH. Zam himself is only 1500 coins. The Wumpa Coins are probably easy to obtain, but there's the always online thing which will, of course, blow for some folks and I can hear they coming already...

This store basically confirms that at some point there will likely be the option to buy WC with real money, BUT, as long as can still earn them by simply playing the game (which should always be the rule), I'm not complaining at all. It's a good step in the right direction not locking stuff, even if just cosmetic, behind real money payment walls. Not to mention, the things you can buy will NOT change the game, so no pay to win either (I mean, save for characters, but there's no unballanced or broken racers AFAIK.

22 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

Any word on what skins are exclusive to the Nitros Oxide edition?

The same that were previously announced AFAIK. Nothing new.

[Your Vest Friend]

Why would going handheld stop internet access? My Switch can do online connectivity in handheld mode just fine.

[Jango]

7 minutes ago, Your Vest Friend said:

 

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Why would going handheld stop internet access? My Switch can do online connectivity in handheld mode just fine.

 

 

If you leave home?

Speaking of Switch, it runs and looks great, to anyone that was concerned.

[mayday2592]

 

37 minutes ago, Jango said:

  Hide contents

If you leave home?

Speaking of Switch, it runs and looks great, to anyone that was concerned.

I mean that issue comes up with every multiplayer focused online game for switch. 

[Jango]

Yeah, but...

 

What's the logic behind not awarding the player with coins if he's not logged on? Unless this "money" is indeed kept in a virtual wallet of sorts, as in an online account based on your PSN/Xbox/Switch ID, which again hints at microtransactions, I don't get it. Well, we won't know for sure untill the game is out, for all we know, this could simply be a bug because the servers are not online yet. In any case... I don't understand the drama many people are making on Reddit regarding microtransactions... If you still can earn and buy stuff by playing, what's the problem? I would be concerned if Activision in a hypothetical future releases paid DLC that you can't unlock in-game... Surely having microtransactions is an open door to heavier drugs, but still... People are overreacting too soon IMO.

[Echidna Adventurer CC14]

As expected, Penta is readily accessible through a code. (Also, the Uka/Aku weirdness from the original is retained!)

[mayday2592]

Spoiler

So according to Reddit, there's no way to turn off those ugly recolor costumes for the AI outside of a glitch. Really weird oversight on the dev's part. 

 

[Your Vest Friend]

Managed to see the whole of the boss cutscenes now. 

How do you sharpen a sword on a tyre, that really is Espio levels of "that's not how anything works stop justifying bullshit with martial arts."

On the other hand, he does have the best cutscenes (Papu comes second there). And even though he isn't bawling his eyes out on the podium (because there is no podium), they still convey how salty he is about losing.

[8ther]

Wearing tennis shoes on the beach?

[Jango]

Beach Coco. Oh boy. I'm not gonna say anything.

[Guest]

New screenshot for Out Of Time ft. N. Tropy

 

[Jango]

So yeah, new streamers confirmed that Wumpa Coins...

 

...can be obtained by playing offline. The catch: you earn 10x times more if you're online. You can get many coins fairly easy from the look of it. The guy streaming got 2nd on Sewer Speedway and got 180 coins. Got 1st on Electric Avenue and got 400 coins. Characters are usually 1500~ coins. So yeah. Not much grinding will be needed. Some in-game unlocks are balls tho'. By beating the Red Gem Cup you get a freaking PINK RIPPER ROO SKIN. I shit you not. I wonder if I play the classic Adventure Mode first it will unlock Ripper Roo himself like it was in the original game instead.

Changing the subject a little: the voice actors for Spyro, Hunter and Ripto are credited in the game as "additional voices".

Oh, and last but not least, file names inside the game confirmed Grand Prix seasons up to December at least.

[mayday2592]

Spoiler

After listening to the soundtrack, I realized the boss music is different for every boss. The melody is the same but the instruments used vary. Ripper Roo's version has bike horns and goofy sounds while Pinstripe's version is a little jazzier.

 

[8ther]

Speaking of the music, with the exception of N.Gin Labs, all of the remixes are lackluster.

[KHCast]

I never cared much for the music in the original CTR, it was pretty forgettable imo, so that news doesn’t exactly effect me much either way.

[Jango]

Yeah, I heard the music. Most of them are pretty shit... Dragon Mines is the worst offender in my honest opinion, it's too much purposely out of tune and goofy, almost sounds like a parody version. Few remixes are almost as good as the original, but none of them I can honestly say is better. They really missed the mark with this soundtrack. Could've used more electric guitars, bass and drums, but they relied a lot on weird synths (my God what they have done to Skull Rock).

I'm very thankful for that original soundtrack toggle, because playing the game with these bad remixes would've been fairly unbearable, music really matters to me in videogames. It's a shame tho', they even got Josh Mancel on board to supervise this, and I was really looking forward to this OST.

[Echidna Adventurer CC14]

Looking over the cast list, Kevin Michael Richardson IS Stew but DID NOT reprise Crunch. (He's actually now voiced by Ike Amadi, the guy who played Knack, funnily enough.)

Also, Corey Burton is Oxide (kinda figured), Fake Crash and Ripper Roo are now played by Andrew Morgado, and the surprise reprisal of the game? Andre Sogliuzzo as Big Norm and Zem from CNK! (He also plays Velo now, meaning my Russian Steve Blum needs shall go on wanting.) Weirdly enough, Small Norm even has a voice now! (Robbie Daymond, the voice of Reignited Hunter.)

Also, yeah, those Tom Kenny and Gregg Berger credits in additional voices are pretty noticeable.

[Jango]

About the Grand Prix:

 

The file names found referred to October's GP as "spooky", meaning it will most certainly be Halloween themed. Perhaps an Academy of Evil (from Crash Twinsanity) track? Halloween skins are a given, I can already see Skeleton Crash. December could be Christmas themed.

 

[mayday2592]

So this is interesting. Source is BetaM, a trusted dataminer.

https://pastebin.com/Mj6sDkVs

Spoiler

Things to note:

Koala Kong, Brio, and Komodo Moe are all found in the files along with their skins.

Fasty, the mysterious Hippo charcter is also in the game. 

https://csydes.fandom.com/wiki/Fasty

Additional Skins Include Driver Crash, Dark Coco, Sumo Papu Papu and Ballet Brio

And a King Chicken?