Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fuelled

[one-armed dwarf]

The tracks are very snakey so you've got to know when and where to do that boost stuff. Sometimes even leaving off the accelerator on windier courses

 

Cortex castle is particularly vicious with the sharp bends. Somehow my memory is good enough to deal with most of it, except for those fucking spiders ?

 

It's also impossible to not finish last without boosting while online.

 

[Whiskey_chaser]

I've been playing this with the kids over the weekend and can see why it's held in such high regard. It seems a bit more of a 'purer' racing experience than some of the more recent Mario Karts, though I cannot get out of the Mario muscle memory for sliding. Kids absolutely love it as well.

[Maryokutai]

I started this today as it's currently free* on Switch. I never played it before so it took a race or two getting used to the boost mechanic but I think I now got the hang of it. It's more engaging than in the recent MK games (I also liked the manual boosts in MKDS and DD!!) for sure but the jump you do before drifting/boosting seems needlessly long.

 

Speaking of needlessly, I could have done without the difficulty spike in the fourth (?) area in adventure mode. I don't know how many times I had to restart that race in the sky but it was probably around 20 times or so and I came very close to strangling our poor cat out of frustration. Because it's not just difficult to simply get through the track perfectly, but you're also getting bombarded with random stuff left and right in good old "fun"racer fashion. This genre can switch from excellent to complete garbage from one second to the next.

 

I wonder how far I'll managed to get but I'm glad I didn't buy it to be honest. After the 7 days trial is over I'll probably be done with this as well. It's fun to play, but there's too much Nitro laying around for it to become a favourite of mine.

[Maryokutai]

Ok, I might have gone 180° on this but not because I learned anything new but rather for completely ignoring Adventure mode which I think is unfair and frustrating garbage mostly due to the boss races.

 

There's a lot of fun to be had in the other modes though, from classic GPs to the Ring events and CRT stuff that seems a bit weird at first but teaches you a thing or two about the tracks and some of the really well hidden shortcuts. 

 

I'm not a fan of the unlocking process though. Everything having to be purchased with coins and there's always just a limited number of items available per day. It's f2p BS that doesn't have a place in a full price release IMO.

[Maryokutai]

Played three online games today just to see how crazy it is. I got second the first game I played but didn't even finish the race since the first placed player was so far ahead that everyone else got bumped back to the menu as DNF. It's weird to have such a cutesy, colourful game with such a ridiculously high skill ceiling. Reminds me a bit of Smash Bros. which you can also kind of just play and have fun and then you see someone play it who really knows what he's doing and it's a completely different game. I did manage to complete the third race with a whopping 2 seconds left on the clock:

 

 

I do enjoy this quite a lot though to the point where I'm considering buying the game after this trial thing is over. I feel a bit forced to stay on Switch now since I have a bunch of unlocks on there but it's not so bad and I think the digital shoulder buttons actually help in this case. 

[DisturbedSwan]

Yeah, I felt much the same when I was playing it, the skill ceiling is just ridiculous. 
 

I never finished the Adventure mode either, I think I got past the 3rd (Egyptian?) section and bailed but I may be wrong. I never got 100% used to the boost system either.
 

To be a top player online you have to know the tracks like the back of your hands, know all the shortcuts and be able to use them flawlessly every time and be able to stay on the boost all the way round the course, it’s pretty bonkers. 

[Maryokutai]

The constant boosting is what makes sure I'll never even bother learning this properly. I like finding the perfect route and shortcut on a track but just like in Mario Kart DS I feel like straight roads should be driven in a straight way. I know the developers encourage the "snaking" and such but I'd rather play this casually. It's cool that the depth is there though for sure, even if that means I'll never place 1st in an online match (thankfully you get a truckload of coins per race no matter your placement).

[mfnick]

The skill level in this is why I love it so much! Always prefered it to MK as it feels like a proper racer and nailing a track is so much more satisfying.

 

I need to give this another go now I’ve got a Series X and I’m sure it’s been patched. When I first got it the loads were ridiculous. & you know how often you have to restart some tracks and that load inbetween retries just killed it for me. Hopefully that’s fixed and it’ll suck me back in like it did back in the day. 

[Maryokutai]

If retry is available the loading times are almost instantly, even on Switch. But going back to the Menu and choosing a different track takes over a minute.

 

I suspect that's not really on issue anymore on Series X though.

 

Edit: Still relatively long

 

 

[Maryokutai]

So, Trial week is over. I've been grinding this a lot, I wonder how many hours my Switch will show when the first ten days have passed.

 

Overall I really enjoyed it and also ordered the full game from amazon. I'm not sure if I'm going to play it much going forward but it seems like a cool game to have if you feel the urge to play a few rounds (and to drink a gallon coffee while waiting for everything to load).

I think there's only one aspect on the gameplay side of thing that I didn't like and that's those goddamn missiles. they are way too strong for how common they are, they seem heavily skewed towards the CPU (mine regularly flew straight into the next wall) and the indicators showing how close they are sometimes bugged out so you can't properly time your defense.

 

Other than that, pretty great. Wish I had bought this last year when it was still new and people of all skill levels were playing it. I did manage to get into a lobby full of noobs one time and win the following race by being the best noob but most of the time it was just a DNF.

[Maryokutai]

Alright, 100%ed Adventure Mode. I still think the bosses are extremely dumb but sometimes they just drive off the course and if you're in the lead they're rather easy thankfully. And the "collect 20 crystals with a time limit" arena maps were not fun at all.

 

Did rather enjoy doing the rest though. Too bad online is a wasteland. If anyone ever picks up the Switch version let me know so we can play a few rounds. I'm still playing this like Mario Kart, meaning I can get around the course just as well but I'm not snaking left and right constantly.

[mfnick]

Got around to trying this on the Series X. It’s so much better now. The initial load is still relatively long but once you’re in the game it loads really fast now. Jumped around a couple of tracks in adventure mode and they now load pretty much instantly and the restart race loads are actually instant. I may actually have the will to finish it now, it makes a huge difference. 
 

When the quick resume actually works the initial load is obviously not a issue either.