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

[Jango]

And it doesn't? Colorfull tracks, super animated and charming characters and the stuff only CTR had back in the day: story mode (which I wanna bet will have co-op this time). It looks tons better than Team Sonic Racing right from the bat, and we only saw a trailer and some screenshots. Honestly, all that game needed besides the graphic and sound remake is an online, but we're even getting new karts and tracks. I say it's appealing enough to old and newcomers. They don't need to change how the game plays. I read the PS blog article, and the game director said he played the game with his gf back in the day... Casual? This doesn't inspire hope. I don't want another uncanny valley, close but not cigar game. A big part of what makes CTR so good untill this day are the mechanics. This is a real case of don't fix what isn't broken.

A guy who worked on the mechanics of CTR did an AMA on Reddit, and IIRC, he said he still has the coding of Crash Team Racing and that he could give Activision if a CTR remake was made. Guess what? It is now.

[Tornado]

7 hours ago, Jango said:

Not really, to this day many people consider CTR better than any other kart racing, and I agree 100%

You don't say.

[E-122-Psi]

Well it's not like the original game would be Sonic R level in content compared to even its current competition, it had 18 tracks, fifteen characters, and extra modes. Even the Adventure mode is still a bit of one player longevity rarely seen in the likes of Mario Kart (even if CTR didn't necessarily invent it). Yes Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is HUGE compared to CTR, but being a 'deluxe' version of the game, it's huge compared to most racing games.

We already know the game will feature at least one more character, switchable karts and online play.

[MetalSkulkBane]

You know, I'm aware preserving past is important, but I hope they add few faces from later games, like Nina or Crunch (or even Tawna).

Heck, if the budget is tight they could just replace less popular faces. I mean, how many people played as a penguin or Komodo Joe?

[DarkRula]

There's no point removing anybody or anything. Everything from the original stays, new things get added to boost the amount of content. In fact, with the new tracks and characters, I wouldn't mind if they even boosted Adventure with a new world or two.

[Jango]

1 hour ago, Tornado said:

You don't say.

I do... Wait, are you calling me biased?

[Rowl]

The Crash games are actually the only fun racers (besides Diddy Kong Racing)  who actually had a story modus. Diddy Kong Racing was actually an inspiration for CTS, which is actually kinda nice to see that a pretty small Rare title inspired one big name series like Crash for his racing title.

[E-122-Psi]

If there's one thing I think CTR could maybe do with inheriting from the newer Mario Kart, it's the two item mechanic, which downplays the tedium during battle mode. CTR copying Super Mario Kart's HUD layout was kind of an artifact anyway, since the latter was clearly a homage to Super Mario World's.

Granted even on the PSOne I thought that these titles' battle modes were surpassed by that of, of all things, Muppet Racemania, which got rid of weapon necessity altogether in favour of ramming the opponents stupid, to the point even a single player battle mode worked okay.

[TheOcelot]

Crash Team Racing was an amazing game back in 1999 with a shit-ton of content. Very challenging. Not at all easy to 100% (actually you can reach 101%), to get all platform relics, beat all time-trials, but very satisfying to do so. Those time-trial ghost races against Oxide were fucking hard. You had to take every short-cut in every lap and had to turbo-slide for 99% of each lap just to keep up with Oxide. The turbo-slide controls were just about perfect, so much fun to spam like crazy.

Fast forward to 2019 and this is the perfect opportunity to add content to bring CTR up to the standard of games like MK8. I don't think the main story from the original will be given any additional content (although hopefully some extra characters to play as) but there's no reason why multi-player & time-trials can't been given additional tracks, characters and battle arenas etc. 

CTR had about 15 playable characters. If they add characters, such as Kola Kong & N. Brio from Crash 1, Rilla Roo from Crash Bash, Emperor Velo from CNK, Crunch from Wrath of Cortex and of course Spyro, then we've already got over 20 which is a healthy number.

The tight-turning controls were a bit naff in the original and could do with some tweaking, as does the jumping controls.

So there's plenty of things they can do to improve on the original.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

13 hours ago, Jango said:

Not really, to this day many people consider CTR better than any other kart racing, and I agree 100%, have played Mario Kart 8 a few weeks ago. Transformed comes close, but that game isn't just racing, so... 

You for real? I mean,  sure back in the day,  it as the bees knees and it certainly has aged well,  but not to the levels where it stands to to toe with more modern racers like Transformed and MK8 Deluxe.

The controls would definitely need some refining and tightening up. 

Sure. I know you probably like it better than those games, but objectively speaking,  we don't even know yet how it'll feel,  or if it'll be better than MK8 Deluxe, Team Sonic Racing or Allstars Transformed.

[Jango]

7 hours ago, JokerJovahexeonJoranvexeon said:

You for real? I mean,  sure back in the day,  it as the bees knees and it certainly has aged well,  but not to the levels where it stands to to toe with more modern racers like Transformed and MK8 Deluxe.

The controls would definitely need some refining and tightening up. 

Sure. I know you probably like it better than those games, but objectively speaking,  we don't even know yet how it'll feel,  or if it'll be better than MK8 Deluxe, Team Sonic Racing or Allstars Transformed.

Yes? I am for real. Have played some (arguably too many) kart racing along my life (including even the licensed stuff like DreamWorks Kartz, sue me), there's something about CTR that just feels right from the moment you start playing. It's really easy to pick up and play, but incredibly challenging to master. The level design of almost every course is ballanced, with secret entrances and clever shortcuts, something many modern kart racers still can't do it right. Comparing the controls, although yeah, the game is from 99, the old CTR still feels better, tighter and especially, faster the most games that came after it. Obviously I can't compare CTR's content, graphics and animations against MK8 or TSR, but now looking at CTR Nitro Fueled, and honeslty? Looks waaaaaay better than Mario and Sonic, for one, characters appear to animate much more than any of these 2 (especially TSR, which is the most static of all three All-Stars Racing to be honest). Maybe the Switch version of CTR NF will look as good as MK8 because of the graphics being downgraded a bit. But I know, "whatever graphics".

CTR doesn't have much to proove, as long as the remake keeps the gameplay intact, it will continue to be the best kart racing to date, only prettier now.

[Tornado]

15 hours ago, Jango said:

I do... Wait, are you calling me biased?

No (I mean, come on, but that wasn't what I was saying at the time). I'm saying that we get it. There's no need to keep jerking CTR off every time other people who have probably also played it dare suggest that they'd like to see something more from this than a graphics patch.

[Marcello]

15 hours ago, Jango said:

I do... Wait, are you calling me biased?

I'm not saying I think you're biased, but this in combination with your avatar made me laugh. xD

[Jango]

9 hours ago, Tornado said:

No (I mean, come on, but that wasn't what I was saying at the time). I'm saying that we get it. There's no need to keep jerking CTR off every time other people who have probably also played it dare suggest that they'd like to see something more from this than a graphics patch.

But, but ... You gotta understand my excitement. It's CTFR. It's been a long cold lonely gaming life without a great kart racer on a Sony platform, the only one I ever owned. The sparkle of hope came with Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, which was 6 years ago. I've played the shit out of it. It's so good. But I always returned to CTR and thought: "Fuck. This is still better". Its simple, yet deep mechanics don't need to change for this remake. They don't have to do anything with it. 

I'm all for more than just "graphics patch" (c'mon seriously? Look at the animations and how much life the tracks have now), I'm super excited about the surprises they've promised. It's just... The core gameplay can't change. New stuff it's welcome of course, it should be added in fact!

8 hours ago, Marcello said:

I'm not saying I think you're biased, but this in combination with your avatar made me laugh. xD

Well, if you ever post something about HP, I'll think you're biased too

[Plasme]

I do hope it is more than just a graphics update. While I think N Sane Trilogy didn't add enough, the inclusion of Coco was really cool and unexpected. I'm hoping for more stuff like that with the new CTR.

[Rowl]

I played CTR and I must say it is a really fun and a really well thought out fun racer. Mario Kart is also fun, but for my taste way to luck based. It doesn't matter how good I am at Mario Kart, every single time before I cross the finish line a blue shell or another item will screw me over. 

CTR was very balanced when it comes to items, same also with DKR. 

[Agie]

I do kinda sorta look forward to this. It looks good, I like that they're using the N. Sane engine, and I hope it works well, and I hope the Switch version all fits on a cartridge (which, considering all of N. Sane could, there's no excuse not to be the same here).

But since Activision is still publishing? I'm wondering if there will be a catch to this. I can't help but feel I should wait and see how this turns out. If there's no catch, I might buy it day 1. But I'm gonna play the wait and see game, and see how that goes.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

8 hours ago, SurrealBrain said:

I do kinda sorta look forward to this. It looks good, I like that they're using the N. Sane engine, and I hope it works well, and I hope the Switch version all fits on a cartridge (which, considering all of N. Sane could, there's no excuse not to be the same here).

But since Activision is still publishing? I'm wondering if there will be a catch to this. I can't help but feel I should wait and see how this turns out. If there's no catch, I might buy it day 1. But I'm gonna play the wait and see game, and see how that goes.

There was no catch to Reignited Trilogy’s release bar the download debacle. Really, I don’t think our worries should be how they could mess up with potential DLC, microtransactions or what have you, but rather how well developed it is. 

I loved Reignited, but the game had a good chunk of bugs and performance issues which indicated a rushed developmental cycle, and I really hope it isn’t the case here, especially since we’ve handed the reigns to Beenox.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

1 hour ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

especially since we’ve handed the reigns to Beenox.

Yeah, Beenox, you wanna be careful with, given the slippery slope they themselves went down with their Spider-Man games.

[Meta77]

They better keep in the trophy girls. I still think cortex evil one was the best. Hell make them racers to

[Rowl]

Sure. I mean there is no reason that they should remove the Trophy Girls.

[Agie]

The trophy girls probably won't be removed if Tawna remained in N. Sane. We might see a toned down redesign, but probably not an all out removal.

[Meta77]

They better not tone them down lol. Noting was wrong with them outside that scary in your face nose twitch

[Jango]

One of them as playable character should be more than enough, IIRC, the green hair one says in the epilogue that she wanted to become a kart racer. She was sick of giving out trophies xD 

[TheOcelot]

Ain't no one gonna remove ma trophy girlz

Surely having them in-game isn't gonna offend anyone. Nitro-Fueled should have all the content the original had. I know they changed Crash's celebration dance in the N-Sane trilogy, but seriously if they do remove the trophy girls then that's pathetically sad.