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

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

12 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

CNK's Adventure Mode would be more difficult potentially since it's much more character specific.

Not really. If they're lazy, they could just limit it to the first two characters and teams.

Of course, everyone knows that this being a remake, Activision has the money for them to allow at least the 4 teams from the original. It's a remake, so new and additional stuff like that isn't really a pipedream.

[Blueknight V2.0]

Considering Twinsanity's 15th anniversary is in October for Europe (September for US). I wouldn't be surprised if they made a track just for it. With Nina Cortex unlockable of course. I actually didn't think about Brio getting into the track as I forgot he was in Twinsanity (might've been due to the different design). Academy of Evil seems likely seeing as that's where we're introduced to Nina Cortex. I can imagine Twinsanity Island (if another Twinsanity track is planned) for the Evil Twins though.

[Jango]

Academy of Evil would, without a doubt, make for an incredible track, that can go from the outside area, to the boiler room, to the classroom and corridors, heck, even the rooftops. And by looking at their own original track, "Twilight Tour", I'll say we're in good hands, as if it wasn't clear already. I can't wait for the Spyro track too.

You guys were talking about the CNK levels, I love them in Nitro-Fueled. I'm a sucker for space-y and alien-like levels, with giant moons and planets in the background, colorfull and stary skies. The original CNK always felt so dull and pale. What they done to these tracks in Nitro-Fueled is beyond compare. I'm so glad they decided to bring them back. As for the story mode, as much as this is far from being a remaster, the central idea was to modernize CTR. The CNK levels were very much altered and are basically a "bonus" content to Nitro-Fueled. At least it's how they explained it. I doubt Beenox didn't added the story mode for lazyness, you wanna see a lazy racer, this ain't it. It simply wasn't the idea to bring the story. But who knows? Maybe as DLC? I'm fine with their absence, tho'. It would be just for the cutscenes anyway. 

Beenox broke all my expectation regarding the presentation of this game, it's brilliant. One or 2 things I feel like it could've been better (still bummed that they completely removed the garages in the classic Adventure Mode), but overhall, it's a great looking game. It blows the competition out of the water. I'd say it's on par with All-Stars Racing Transformed. Beenox nailed the feeling and atmosphere in Nitro-Fueled, even more so than Vicarious Visions. Everything is so rich, well animated and colorfull. There's never a dull moment in this game.

As for the mechanics, I'm 100% sure that the main issues will be adressed. Activision's been very suportative of this game since it launched on thursday, unlike N.Sane Trilogy which they basically left to die after it was out. I know it may sound fishy, I mean, this IS Activision, but I think they finally realized how big the community of this game is. They're listening and replying to feedback on Reddit even. Beenox is very much aware of all the issues too, so I'll say for now, relax. 

Anyways... had a lot of fun this afternoon with my gf, she likes battle mode better. That said, we felt like battle mode lacks some visual flairs to increase the experience. There's not visual indication when you hit someone or when you're hit. It's kinda underwhelming. At least a "HIT!" or "NICE SHOT!" would be enough. 

[Red Hot Jack]

I'm enjoying the game, it plays just fine, quite simple and traditional but there are a couple of interesting mechanics, and it's just fun and beautiful to watch. I still prefer the innovative gameplay of TSR, but that's about it, this game has a lot more content so it definitely has the upper hand, I'm sorry for Sonic but it's a better game overall. There is plenty to do.

The animations remain one of my favorite things about CTRNF. Anyway, I have yet to play online, does it work well?

[Jango]

23 minutes ago, Psycho_Jack said:

I'm enjoying the game, it plays just fine, quite simple and traditional but there are a couple of interesting mechanics, and it's just fun and beautiful to watch. I still prefer the innovative gameplay of TSR, but that's about it, this game has a lot more content so it definitely has the upper hand, I'm sorry for Sonic but it's a better game overall. There is plenty to do.

The animations remain one of my favorite things about CTRNF. Anyway, I have yet to play online, does it work well?

Working fine on PS4 to me.

[Blueknight V2.0]

And challenge runs are already being attempted. XD.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just reported on Reddit - The online rewards have been drastically nerfed - down from 5000 coin limit to 3000 coin limit.

Typically Activision garbage.

[Jango]

I didn't even knew there was a limit. How that works? There's itens that cost 4500 coins o.O

[Ryannumber1gamer]

3 minutes ago, Jango said:

I didn't even knew there was a limit. How that works? There's itens that cost 4500 coins o.O

The coin boost you get with Online (I.E - getting 600 coins in a race for example) only lasts up to a certain limit. Before, it was if you got 5000 coins, you would drop back to the godawful single player rates for coins. Now that it's dropped back to 3000 coins per day, which means after getting 3000 coins online, you'll drop back to the awful standard coin rate.

[Meta77]

Game is much harder my goditems do noting to players you almost stay at same speed after a 1 second tumble.i had to use the shortcut everytime for papu he was so fast

[Sonicka]

Have they ‘fixed’ the bosses now then? Because I’ve heard multiple issues with them being broken and tough to beat, or is it just a design hangover from the PS1 era.

It’s just on medium I’ve had no issues so far. Ripper took me a 3 attempts, Papu once, and then Komodo... well I was ahead of him the ENTIRE time - and I seriously worried about playing him on such as tight course. Pinstripe was always a b***** even on PS1 so I’m expecting that to be difficult.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 minute ago, Son-icka said:

Have they ‘fixed’ the bosses now then? Because I’ve heard multiple issues with them being broken and tough to beat, or is it just a design hangover from the PS1 era.

It’s just on medium I’ve had no issues so far. Ripper took me a 3 attempts, Papu once, and then Komodo... well I was ahead of him the ENTIRE time - and I seriously worried about playing him on such as tight course. Pinstripe was always a b***** even on PS1 so I’m expecting that to be difficult.

No, bosses are still as godawful as they were on PS1.

[Jango]

1 hour ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

The coin boost you get with Online (I.E - getting 600 coins in a race for example) only lasts up to a certain limit. Before, it was if you got 5000 coins, you would drop back to the godawful single player rates for coins. Now that it's dropped back to 3000 coins per day, which means after getting 3000 coins online, you'll drop back to the awful standard coin rate.

Oh, I get it now. Welp, that sucks. I was going to farm coins online on Tiny Arena because it gives you 600 coins.

57 minutes ago, Son-icka said:

Have they ‘fixed’ the bosses now then? Because I’ve heard multiple issues with them being broken and tough to beat, or is it just a design hangover from the PS1 era.

It’s just on medium I’ve had no issues so far. Ripper took me a 3 attempts, Papu once, and then Komodo... well I was ahead of him the ENTIRE time - and I seriously worried about playing him on such as tight course. Pinstripe was always a b***** even on PS1 so I’m expecting that to be difficult.

I only played Classic Mode so far up to Komodo Joe. I don't mean to brag, but I beat all three bosses with ease, first try on each... Once I've passed them, they would never catch up, especially Joe. I actually found it rather odd TBH. Maybe Nitro-Fueled Mode is harder?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Right, having finished the adventure mode twice now, including a 100% run, and having put a good amount of hours into the game, I think I'm ready to give my thoughts on it.

Now first things first, I want to comment on this because it was being brought up so many times before launch. Is CTR better than TSR? In my honest opinion, no. Not in it's current state. Right now, I want to say it is, because I am beginning to enjoy the gameplay a lot more than TSR, but good god there are so many things in this game holding it back that is frustrating to absolutely no end that it makes the game feel like a chore half the time. 

Let's talk about the elephant in the room - this game is totally broken. Is it Sonic 06 broken? No, it isn't. But I cannot sit here and say that Crash Team Racing is a perfectly functional game with no issues, it is utterly fucked and frankly should not have been released in it's current state. I am legitimately shocked right now that it has released like this, because I'm on the verge of calling it worse than even Reignited Trilogy was at release. Let's run through the list of bugs right now. 

-The online is still broken. The game was utterly broken at launch with online, with either A - lobbies constantly shutting down, or B. People getting into matches only for the game to literally lag like utter fuck and make everyone not only run at a powerpoint pace, but this makes all of the obstacles broken. You'll get hit by invisible rockets, you'll have invisible TNT crates on your head out of nowhere, despite being sure you avoided them. You'll see objects hanging around in mid air, it is broken beyond belief, and it's disgusting how broken it is even after a patch released designed to "solve" these issues. 

-There's pieces of collision that just flat out aren't working correctly. There's times you'll be near a wall and be completely stopped as if you hit it. There's times where you will land on the ground and suddenly have Aku Aku appear to lift you back up, as if you've jumped into a pit. The best example of this is there's one specific spot on Oxide Station where if you land on the right side of one of the roads after one of the gravity jumps, the game will act as if you fell through the terrain, having Aku Aku appear to lift you back up. I've also heard reports of boxes, crystals and other items' collision being far too small.

-The weight and physics are messed up. I can't explain it accurately enough because I don't have enough experience with the original, but someone on Reddit did a very good post showing the problem. Best example is the shortcut jump on Sewer Speedway, which is now incredibly inconsistent.

-Some trophies are bugged, with reports of the shortcut trophies in particular being buggy - especially the trophy "I know the Way", which is unlocked for finding all shortcuts. I can also speak from experience that the trophy for Blizzard Peaks is also a bit buggy, and required running one of the shortcuts twice before it would pop.

-The biggest one - a MAJOR game-breaking bug, that is utterly baffling that it got through QA testing - at any point in the game, but especially with online play, and time trials - as well as the purple gem cup - the game has a high tendency to crash. If the game crashes, there's about a 95% chance that it will completely corrupt your save and cause you to lose ALL progress and unlockables. Better yet - backing up your save does little to help as well, because while you will get your progress back, it will cause the game to begin glitching even more - with higher chances of freezing and corruption occurring. Better yet - if you download a save as well, it will glitch again - locking away all unlocked costumes earned via in-game progression (I,E - win 10 races with Crash), all kart parts, customisation options - and most important of all - characters and costumes unlocked through Adventure Mode will also be locked again, and will require a full story run again to unlock them (Unconfirmed if that even fixes it, they might be permanently locked again). There's been many topics on Reddit pointing this out - for example: 

I'm in total disbelief that this game hasn't been fixed yet, despite having so many bugs like this, better yet - so many major bugs like this. I'd get the collision and the physics - I'd wish they would be fixed, but I would get them, but a literal save corrupter that not even back-ups can fully restore, plus  locks a ton of your characters and other prizes with likely no way to recover them, it's insane.

But then there's just the general game issues that hold it back for me. I love the gameplay of CTR, a lot more than TSR in fact, but the gameplay just doesn't feel good a lot of the time, especially with Adventure Mode. There's constant and extreme rubber-banding at play, it's just blatantly unfair that the CPU gets to be ""difficult" via just literally having far higher stats than you at all times as opposed to actually being smartly designed CPU meant to give you a legit challenge. The bosses still absolutely suck and should've been redesigned from the ground up, remake or not. CNK doesn't get tons of representation, despite the effort that went into remaking it's cast and it's tracks, etc.

But the coin shop is just utter shit as well. It reeks of microtransactions. It's a nightmare to try grind it offline, to the point where two full Adventure Runs with online sprinkled in only got me four CNK characters and a new paint job. The online is the only way to get it at a reasonable level, and the online is currently broken, and Activision has shoved in a forced limit for how many coins you can get at a boosted rate per day before dropping down to the normally awful rate. It all stinks of a game being designed to drain you of patience so it can wave those microtransactions between your eyes and tempt you with the idea of "why force yourself to waste all that time playing when you can just buy 10k coins for a small fee?".

But then there's the fact that the pit stop also heavily resembles (from what people are saying at least) - Fortnite's store, where everything is randomised. Add into the fact that these Grand Prixes sound suspiciously a lot like your typical Fortnite, or even Black Ops 4 "content" season, and it begins to dawn on you how frightened you should be of Activision ruining this game. 

Everything stinks of Activision trying to kill the game's enjoyment to give incentive for paying as a live service. A forced rate of coin grinding per day, a randomised shop that forces you to buy packs and characters one at a time before getting to the stuff you actually might want (Especially for the likes of N Trance, who's locked behind a 7k pack). Seasonal content that already sounds like it's going to have a bunch of tiers that will allow Activision to slip in with a "Well buy these coins and pay to skip a few tiers *wink wink, nudge nudge*. 

I'm worried because I've been down this road before with Black Ops 4, and how that game was utterly murdered with rampant microtransaction bullshit. I frankly do not trust Activision enough not to pull this shit. It's very easy to see where they could not add the microtransactions at first to try win some good will, only to then later add them back in, much like was done with Black Ops 4, and Modern Warfare Remastered. 

What sucks the most is that there is just so much to like about Nitro-Fuelled. The gameplay is as good as ever, the music is fantastic, the graphics are crisp, lush, and lovely. The worst thing about this game is it has the potential. It has the potential to stomp TSR into the fucking ground. It has the potential to rival Mario Kart 8 frankly. It has the potential to be this great love-letter to the fans of Crash, especially with so many references to Twinsanity, Crash of the Titans, Wrath of Cortex, and tons of other Crash games.

It has potential to keep the game alive for many years via the Grand Prixes, and making the game constantly fun. But there's just so many cynical money-grubbing bullshit things in this game that makes it feel like it's ready to be blown apart by Activision for as much money as possible. There's already tons of hints that the game was rushed to launch, much like how Reignited was rushed to utter hell and released with Spyro 3 near broken at launch. There's already very evident and utterly frustrating grinding mechanics being used that scream of being a sneaky way for Activision to make the game into a live service. The online is still utterly broken so soon after launch, and the other aspect of the game - I.E the single player has the chance to completely wipe away all of your progress due to a game-breaking bug. 

I legitimately do not know how this game released in the state it is in, but for the love of God, it needs to be fixed. Because frankly, I cannot say with a straight face that CTR is better than TSR in it's current state. On a fundamental gameplay and content standpoint, it's superior, but on a technical standpoint, it falls apart. The gameplay is ruined by so many aspects that it's kind of insane, just due to bad rubber-banding A.I, or even just because of the fact that you need to keep backing out to back-up saves on the off chance your progress will be totally wiped. 

All I can say is - I really hope Beenox pull themselves together now. I want to love this game, hell - having played through Adventure Mode twice now and gotten used to the mechanics and tracks, I know for a fact I will love this game if the issues are cleaned up. Right now, I just can't because it feels like every aspect of the game is getting hit by some massive bug, or some huge flaw. Right now, I want Beenox to look at three major areas and improve it - online, single player bugs, and the coin system. If they fix all three, then I think this will stomp TSR into the ground, and have a high chance to even take on MK8. Otherwise, it's going to remain as an example of another game with such massive potential ruined by Activision's rushing and money-grubbing.

[Sonicka]

Quick Query: What Platform? I’m playing this on PS4 Pro and have not run into any of these troubles thus far (apart from obvious grievances with having to grind at the shop as I don’t have online).

Just wondering if it’s console specific or something I should be wary of because nothing I’ve played would have me Class it Broken... yet.

I will say in addition to my playthough of the bosses above - these are definitely easier than I remember (playing medium - in nitro fuelled mode). I had previously heard that they were all so difficult that if you ever got ahead the game has them overtake you by default after a while. Well, Komodo, Pinstripe and even bloody Oxide bit my dust for three full laps!! Only Ripper gave me trouble, and I think that’s just because I was getting used to the game (and Coco instead of my usual choices of Polar or Crash).

But yeah, from what I have played so far I’d Class this game on equal footing with TSR... but for completely different reasons. Both feel polished and unpolished in different areas, both have varying degrees of charm, but both are just plain freaking fun.

TSR has the USP of the surprisingly fun team gameplay, a smooth 60FPS tracks to glide around, and controls are silky smooth with a damn freaking amazing soundtrack. Meanwhile CTR has an unashamedly gorgeous visual quality with a tough as nails yet rewarding motorcross style karting experience. Gameplay might initially feel really rough round the edges, but when it clicks and you get how to play, it really CLICKS and you FLY round the courses (plus the sheer content on offer, my god!!).

SIDE NOTE: Beenox, I consider myself very fluent and fast with subtitles considering the amount of foreign language films and anime I have seen in my time... but those end credit epilogue sections went by WAAAAY too quick for me to digest. The amount of text was too much for some characters, and 5 seconds per transition is not long enough. Not to mention I want to enjoy watching the characters prance and dance around.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, Son-icka said:

Quick Query: What Platform? I’m playing this on PS4 Pro and have not run into any of these troubles thus far (apart from obvious grievances with having to grind at the shop as I don’t have online).

Just wondering if it’s console specific or something I should be wary of because nothing I’ve played would have me Class it Broken... yet.

I will say in addition to my playthough of the bosses above - these are definitely easier than I remember (playing medium - in nitro fuelled mode). I had previously heard that they were all so difficult that if you ever got ahead the game has them overtake you by default after a while. Well, Komodo, Pinstripe and even bloody Oxide bit my dust for three full laps!! Only Ripper gave me trouble, and I think that’s just because I was getting used to the game (and Coco instead of my usual choices of Polar or Crash).

But yeah, from what I have played so far I’d Class this game on equal footing with TSR... but for completely different reasons. Both feel polished and unpolished in different areas, both have varying degrees of charm, but both are just plain freaking fun.

TSR has the USP of the surprisingly fun team gameplay, a smooth 60FPS tracks to glide around, and controls are silky smooth with a damn freaking amazing soundtrack. Meanwhile CTR has an unashamedly gorgeous visual quality with a tough as nails yet rewarding motorcross style karting experience. Gameplay might initially feel really rough round the edges, but when it clicks and you get how to play, it really CLICKS and you FLY round the courses (plus the sheer content on offer, my god!!).

SIDE NOTE: Beenox, I consider myself very fluent and fast with subtitles considering the amount of foreign language films and anime I have seen in my time... but those end credit epilogue sections went by WAAAAY too quick for me to digest. The amount of text was too much for some characters, and 5 seconds per transition is not long enough. Not to mention I want to enjoy watching the characters prance and dance around.

PS4 is the one platform being reported a ton. @Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice has had his data wiped too, but idk if he has the Switch or PS4 version.

[SonicWind]

I'm probably still gonna get this game sometime this week, despite all these problems. I can only really get the PS4 version, but I have a USB stick, so hopefully it has enough storage for the game's save data in case anything happens.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

9 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

PS4 is the one platform being reported a ton. @Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice has had his data wiped too, but idk if he has the Switch or PS4 version.

I have both versions. It happened with the PS4 version.

[Balding Spider]

Yeeesh. I'm a gonna wait until this shit is sorted out or something. What the hell happened here and who thought it was a good idea to put out something so buggy?

[Jango]

I'mma wait too. I've played this game the whole weekend and nothing happened. It's proly random, but I don't wanna risk loosing my shit, even if I haven't unlocked much yet. This sucks balls. Well, it's classic Activision rushing the game as usual. At least this time, they went ahead and opened a bug report page on their official website and they're even responding to issues directly on Reddit if it wasn't crazy enough.

So I guess it will be fixed quickly.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Oh, and playing the hard mode - yeah, fuck that. I played through on both Easy and Normal to completion, but I mean the rubberbanding is utterly awful here. Playing as Crunch (I.E - top speed character) - I would regularly be overtaken by Coco, Cortex and fucking Puma of all characters.

I don't know who on earth playtested it and thought it was a good idea, but it wasn't. It is utterly awful, and cheap. Literally bog-lazy A.I too. They don't play better, they don't use shortcuts, it's literally their stats are maxed and they recover almost immediately from items.

Oh and also don't go in front because you'll get hit with a missile almost immediately.

[Jango]

Yeah, that's pretty much how Transformed was when it first released. The AI had maxed out stats and would rubberband and spam weapons just as bad as CTR right now. They toned down the difficulty a bit with a patch, but it's still harsh as heck. You gotta know the game front and back, boost constantly, take the shortcuts and also have lucky pick-ups too, otherwise you won't win.

Man, the thing I hate most about the Pit Stop is the randomizing system. All I want is to unlock N. Trance solo, not the whole summer pack that costs 7000+ coins  I don't care for Beach Dingodile.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

13 minutes ago, Jango said:

Man, the thing I hate most about the Pit Stop is the randomizing system. All I want is to unlock N. Trance solo, not the whole summer pack that costs 7000+ coins  I don't care for Beach Dingodile.

You can't unlock him solo. Literally the only way to get N Trance is via the pack.

[Jango]

Haven't found this on Reddit or Twitter, but Instagram of all places. It's gameplay from Prehistoric Playground, the brand new track that will be released with the Back N. Time Grand Prix.

[Plasme]

I'm not personally bothered by the Pit Stop because I don't care about the CNK characters, but I do find it staggering how key unlocks are locked behind a dreadful microtransaction type system.

It's doubly baffling because there are loads of challenges that do basically fuck all. The Gems could have each unlocked a character (like the original) but at the moment they do nothing but unlock Turbo Track. The CTR and Relic challenges in the CNK courses could have unlocked the characters too, but they do absolutely nothing. Why did they even make them?

I cannot comprehend how this decision was made. I'm almost convinced they wanted to put microtransactions in and chickened out.