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

[Sonicka]

Brilliant, Just like in the original game. Nice.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

2 hours ago, TheOcelot said:

I've started a playthrough of Nitro Fueled Mode (using the Nitros Oxide - PS4 - Special Edition) which I'm playing on Medium difficulty (you can of course choose between Easy, Medium & Hard when playing in Nitro Fueled mode).

Medium difficulty seems to be about the same as the difficulty on "Classic" mode. Only Hot Air Skyway & the Oxide gave me a bit of trouble. The PS4 version looks great. It's a lot of fun being able to play with Oxide straightaway, being able to switch to different characters & all the different character skins to choose from. 

Edit: If anyone is wondering how to unlock Penta:

 

The voice line is also "Penguin Yay 1" in Penta's voice.

The madmen actually did it.

------------------------

On another note - I just started the game and I'm kind of already having tons of trouble. I'm starting with Coco and she already feels kind of insanely floaty, and I haven't played a Crash racer in ages so I don't remember much of the controls either.

However, I tried turning on the Alternative control scheme after seeing the base game for some ungodly reason is still X (I honestly don't know why they couldn't have just retooled it for the standard R2/L2 go/stop/reverse), but anyways - question is - which is the better control scheme to try use? The base version, or alternative? Right now, the alternative feels really intimidating.

[Sonicka]

I’ve wondered this. The slide boosting feels natural enough on R1 & L1 in the original game, and really it needs the hard trigger to pull off successful. That’s gunna be much harder to do if you’ve got your fingers over R2 to accelerate as well. I’m intrigued about what the alternative is, but I think sticking with ‘X’ for accelerating in this game is probably the best way to play.

[Sonictrainer]

There's a Comic Book

https://www.activision.com/cdn/crash/CTR_NF_COMIC.pdf

[Jango]

2 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

The voice line is also "Penguin Yay 1" in Penta's voice.

The madmen actually did it.

------------------------

On another note - I just started the game and I'm kind of already having tons of trouble. I'm starting with Coco and she already feels kind of insanely floaty, and I haven't played a Crash racer in ages so I don't remember much of the controls either.

However, I tried turning on the Alternative control scheme after seeing the base game for some ungodly reason is still X (I honestly don't know why they couldn't have just retooled it for the standard R2/L2 go/stop/reverse), but anyways - question is - which is the better control scheme to try use? The base version, or alternative? Right now, the alternative feels really intimidating.

Ah, the time before PS3... Every racing game used X to accelerate. Good times. I also miss using triangle to return / undo.

Back on topic: I did also tried the alternate controls because I am so used to accelerate with R2 nowadays. But my brain keep trying to fight back, because it knows this is Crash Team Racing. I just couldn't, and TBH, accelerating with X and drifting with R1/L1 feels natural.

Anyways... There's just so many references and easter eggs in this game. They did their homework.

A comic book now? Is this Sonic? Hahaha 

They're really going all out with this franchise, huh? Man, next year will be awesome. There's 110% chance of a brand new Crash game.

[Sonicka]

I have a question for those in the know as none of the reviews seem to talk about it. So how have they integrated the Nitro Kart tracks into adventure mode? Did they just copy the layouts done in NK’s original game or did Beenox pull of some magic and just add new hubs or add the tracks as portals onto the existing ones? 

Adventure was always my favourite part of CTR with its variety of missions and sense of single player structure. So I’ve been really excited to see how they extended this somehow now all the new NK track content is in here that I’ve not played before. 

[8ther]

5 minutes ago, Son-icka said:

I have a question for those in the know as none of the reviews seem to talk about it. So how have they integrated the Nitro Kart tracks into adventure mode? Did they just copy the layouts done in NK’s original game or did Beenox pull of some magic and just add new hubs or add the tracks as portals onto the existing ones? 

Adventure was always my favourite part of CTR with its variety of missions and sense of single player structure. So I’ve been really excited to see how they extended this somehow now all the new NK track content is in here that I’ve not played before. 

Sadly no.

[Sonicka]

...what??! Then how are the Nitro Tracks in the game? Just as separate races in single player? 

Damn. I feel like I can’t really complain about this... but I can’t explain how really disappointing that has now made me feel. I honestly just expected adventure mode to extend on or for them to include whatever it was in CNK as a second adventure.

So there’s really, honestly nothing?? =O

I don’t understand this, why would they cut that experience out for those tracks considering all the other bells, whistles, upgrades, and not to mention new content in the Grand Prix modes planned. It’s such a shame. I hope maybe we’ll get a free update to fix this in somehow in the future, I can’t be alone in wanting it.

[mayday2592]

The CNK courses  have CTR challenges and relic challenges that can be done from arcade mode.

[Jango]

Well, today's patch fixed online mode! Going to my third online match, almost 100% lag free. Getting the hang of the controls back, this gets more and more satisfying at every race. This game is amazing.

Yay! 3 out of 3 online wins. Nitros Oxide is great to play as.

People, wait in the title screen to see Crash do all kinds of funny stuff. 

[Sonicka]

Yeah, this game. THIS GAME. About 4 races in and I don’t really have any huge quibbles so far, it feels as natural as when I played CTR PS1 yesterday. 

However I will say this (please patch this Beenox) I beat Ripper Roo on my second attempt (hey, when I was a kid he took me donkeys) - but the automatic select is “retry” when I won... which I pressed by mistake. No biggie right? As I can quit the race like in TSR and still reap the benefits as I passed. 

No. It’s erases your win and takes you back to the map without the key reward.

So Pro Tip - don’t skip menus haphazardly.

[Plasme]

I'm not happy about Oxide being an accelerate type. He should be a speed type like Trophy and Penta.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Good god the boss design in this game is utterly atrocious. I get it was a thing with the original CTR as well, but in a remake, I fully expect you to fix that, not just repeat the exact same mistakes as before. 

Not only do they still keep spamming items, but they're the worst offender of rubberbanding in the entire game as well, as well as having quicker cooldowns from being hit by an item, and having several items invalidated (rockets are near useless now). It's not fun, it's frustrating beyond belief and involves little to no skill other than plain dumb luck.

[KHCast]

Pinstripes the worst offender. If you get behind him, you’re pretty much fucked since he bomb spams HARD with no breathing room, and on a stage like hot air sky, yeah that’s not fun. And he rubberbands the worst to boot. You can’t shake him off. I seriously didn’t have that much trouble with any other boss for bullshit reasons like him

[Ryannumber1gamer]

7 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Pinstripes the worst offender. If you get behind him, you’re pretty much fucked since he bomb spams HARD with no breathing room, and on a stage like hot air sky, yeah that’s not fun. And he rubberbands the worst to boot. I seriously didn’t have that much trouble with any other boss for bullshit reasons like him

I'd argue Papu is just as bad. His stage already has a lot of tight turning, but Papu's constant item spam also means that it's stupidly easy for him to hit you with one item, and send you flying into either off a cliff, extending the recovery time, or into a plant, also extending recovery time, since the animations take so long.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Not really a fan of how needlessly stingy (what a shock) Activision are being with the coins.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Honestly, I have to say I'm kind of disappointed with the game as a whole. I have no real nostalgic connections to the original CTR, it along with Crash 1 being the one Crash game I didn't play until they released on PSN, while Crash 2/3 I played when I was younger. But for a remake, I feel like there's far too many problems with the game that it keeps overruling the fun factor I get from it.

When everything just clicks, it feels brilliant. When you get power-sliding down, and you use it effectively, there's such a rush to it because of how you had to earn it. When it dives into a skillful level, or even just a level of making you work to get ahead, it just works so fantastically well that it can rival Mario Kart IMO. But then there's all the other things that drive me up a wall with frustration so far. 

I hate how badly the rubber-banding is done in this game. It legitimately feels like no matter how far you get ahead, no matter how many perfect turns, powerboosts, shortcuts, or whatever you hit - the A.I will be caught back onto you within seconds. What I hate most about it is just how obvious it is about it too. Best example was when I managed to lay out Polar three times with rockets on the final lap. Literally every single time he was hit with the rockets, he'd recover as soon as I was past him, and immediately overtake me again. It was legitimately to the point that if I hadn't hit him all three times with the rockets, I would've lost in the five second race to the final finish.

What doesn't help is it feels like some times, the track design is just legitimately bad. Dragon Mines is the best example, where the spiral turn is so difficult that you usually end up hopping trying desperately to not hit the wall and lose all your momentum, meanwhile the A.I are just hitting the wall and somehow still boosting their way right past it miraculously. The boss design is downright awful, as I mentioned above. I legitimately don't know how anyone could've thought that item spam in a kart racer was a good idea, but given that ND was making CTR with every intention of trying to tank the Crash series before they left, it honestly wouldn't shock me if it was meant to be purposefully frustrating.

The coin system is definitely bad as well. It feels random with how many coins you get, and all the costumes/characters cost a hell of a lot of coins to get. Was extremely disappointed to find the CNK cast was also locked behind the Pit Shop. I was hoping we might see CNK's adventure mode used to unlock that cast as well, as an optional story extension after CTR's Adventure Mode.

Maybe apart of it was just the stupid amounts of hype this game was garnering as well. When you play TSR for a long while and have tons of fun with it, only to constantly hear about why CTR is better in every way, it makes a large check for the game to cash, and it really isn't doing it for me so far.

I don't know, right now, I just feel apathetic. I want to like the game, I think the game is legitimately fantastic when everything clicks just right and all of the mechanics really begin flowing together well, but the A.I, and Adventure Mode in general feels so badly designed that it comes off as frustrating the more I get into it. More often than not, it feels like the A.I is giving me a hard time due to rubber-banding instead of actual fault of my own and that kind of sucks IMO. Even TSR's Hard/Expert mode hasn't annoyed me with the rubber-banding level quite as much as CTR is doing on Medium right now.

[8ther]

16 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

Not really a fan of how needlessly stingy (what a shock) Activision are being with the coins.

Speaking of which, someone on Reddit made this discovery regarding the coins earn through playing online..

 

[mayday2592]

7 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Honestly, I have to say I'm kind of disappointed with the game as a whole. I have no real nostalgic connections to the original CTR, it along with Crash 1 being the one Crash game I didn't play until they released on PSN, while Crash 2/3 I played when I was younger. But for a remake, I feel like there's far too many problems with the game that it keeps overruling the fun factor I get from it.

When everything just clicks, it feels brilliant. When you get power-sliding down, and you use it effectively, there's such a rush to it because of how you had to earn it. When it dives into a skillful level, or even just a level of making you work to get ahead, it just works so fantastically well that it can rival Mario Kart IMO. But then there's all the other things that drive me up a wall with frustration so far. 

I hate how badly the rubber-banding is done in this game. It legitimately feels like no matter how far you get ahead, no matter how many perfect turns, powerboosts, shortcuts, or whatever you hit - the A.I will be caught back onto you within seconds. What I hate most about it is just how obvious it is about it too. Best example was when I managed to lay out Polar three times with rockets on the final lap. Literally every single time he was hit with the rockets, he'd recover as soon as I was past him, and immediately overtake me again. It was legitimately to the point that if I hadn't hit him all three times with the rockets, I would've lost in the five second race to the final finish.

What doesn't help is it feels like some times, the track design is just legitimately bad. Dragon Mines is the best example, where the spiral turn is so difficult that you usually end up hopping trying desperately to not hit the wall and lose all your momentum, meanwhile the A.I are just hitting the wall and somehow still boosting their way right past it miraculously. The boss design is downright awful, as I mentioned above. I legitimately don't know how anyone could've thought that item spam in a kart racer was a good idea, but given that ND was making CTR with every intention of trying to tank the Crash series before they left, it honestly wouldn't shock me if it was meant to be purposefully frustrating.

The coin system is definitely bad as well. It feels random with how many coins you get, and all the costumes/characters cost a hell of a lot of coins to get. Was extremely disappointed to find the CNK cast was also locked behind the Pit Shop. I was hoping we might see CNK's adventure mode used to unlock that cast as well, as an optional story extension after CTR's Adventure Mode.

Maybe apart of it was just the stupid amounts of hype this game was garnering as well. When you play TSR for a long while and have tons of fun with it, only to constantly hear about why CTR is better in every way, it makes a large check for the game to cash, and it really isn't doing it for me so far.

I don't know, right now, I just feel apathetic. I want to like the game, I think the game is legitimately fantastic when everything clicks just right and all of the mechanics really begin flowing together well, but the A.I, and Adventure Mode in general feels so badly designed that it comes off as frustrating the more I get into it. More often than not, it feels like the A.I is giving me a hard time due to rubber-banding instead of actual fault of my own and that kind of sucks IMO. Even TSR's Hard/Expert mode hasn't annoyed me with the rubber-banding level quite as much as CTR is doing on Medium right now.

Honestly with all the issues you have with the game, I'd suggest picking up the original on the PS Store. It's a lot more precise and polished gameplay-wise than the current build of the game. It helps that it still aged well and miles better than TSR.

[Plasme]

Papu's easy when you know the shortcuts, he can easily be beaten.

Pinstripe is definitely the most annoying, because Hot Air Skyway is an annoying track. The best way to beat him is to get ahead of him and try to keep USF when you do the large jump on the right for at least a few seconds. 

Oxide's definitely the worst for the item spam, you just have to drive perfectly and hope he doesn't catch up.

I think the game has aged wonderfully other than the bosses, which are pretty dreadful. I remember when the game came out, the bosses were criticised back then. So it's not an issue of the game aging, it was always an awful idea.

[TheOcelot]

I've 100%d Nitro Fueled Mode (on Medium difficulty).

The Oxide boss fight is bollocks. If you fall way behind it's impossible to catch up and get ahead of him.

I streamed my playthrough - nearly defeated Oxide at the first attempt (got screwed over by my own trap which I set for Oxide), then restarted like 10 times in quick succession because Oxide kept hitting me early on, until I finally managed to get ahead and stay ahead.

Nitro Fueled is a good game, but it does have a lot of issues (regarding AI behaviour, item allocation, boosting and jumping) which makes it less appealing than the original CTR. The graphics, presenation, new animations, all the different playable characters (being able to play as Oxide and use his hovercaraft is so awesome), Classic mode, Nitro Fueled mode and some of the characters skins are great additions.

I'm tempted to try and beat the N-Trophy (he's the only character I've yet to unlock) and Oxide time-trials, but I hear they're a fucking nightmare. There's only one solution...

 

[8ther]

Stay away from Time Trial! apparently there’s a bug that deletes your save data.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 hour ago, 8ther said:

Stay away from Time Trial! apparently there’s a bug that deletes your save data.

It's not just time trial, it can happen randomly in Adventure and Online.

On top of that, don't bother uploading a backup save to PS+. Because if you upload and download it, it corrupts the save even further, making it glitchy, making it more crash-prone, and making it more likely to fully corrupt. Also - Adventure Mode unlocks will be relocked and won't be able to be unlocked again without starting a completely new save.

Because it wouldn't be an Activision game without totally fucking up something huge. Kind of ironic after all the TSR shit-talking that not only did CTR release with broken online, but also a literal game breaking bug that stops you from even making a back-up save to be safe.

[Conando]

I don’t know where people are getting the AI being not as bad in the original. I just got through 100%’ing it as Coco in May and I’d argue it rubberbands MORE if not the same.

[Meta77]

No I have ctr right in front of me. the old one. The new game rubberbands waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than the old and items do jack shit to slow anyone down. i hit cortex with nitro box and he literally passed me again 4 seconds after the hit.