Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled

[Cayde]

Let me just go right ahead and say it: This is better than Mario Kart.
Anyway, discuss the game and share moments and funny things about it.
I downloaded this game for the Game Trials on Switch, and I freaking love this game so much.

 

[mistery juice]

Let me just go right ahead and say it: This is better than Mario Kart

This game is good, but in my opinion, Mario Kart's the best

 

[Cayde]

I just beat Komodo Joe in the Adventure.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

There are some aspects of Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled that are better than Mario Kart, but the moment they have a grindy, unrewarding economy for the sake of trying to pressure people to spend on microtransactions on a daily rotating storefront, that just automatically makes it less enjoyable than Mario Kart. That being said, Penta Penguin's the best and you can't convince me otherwise.

 

[Cayde]

There are some aspects of Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled that are better than Mario Kart, but the moment they have a grindy, unrewarding economy for the sake of trying to pressure people to spend on microtransactions on a daily rotating storefront, that just automatically makes it less enjoyable than Mario Kart. That being said, Penta Penguin's the best and you can't convince me otherwise.

Megamix: Four awesome characters combined into one.
EDIT: oh yeah Tiny, Dingodile, and Geary too.

 

[MnSG]

CTR: Nitro-Fueled is more hardcore than Mario Kart. Maybe a little too hardcore, especially if you were to look at the Time Trials game mode. If you thought that Nitros Oxide's ghosts were tough, they're nothing when compared to Emperor Velo XXVII's ghosts.

In the Mario Kart series, most staff ghosts aren't too difficult to beat on any track. However, Emperor Velo XXVII's ghosts can be an absolute nightmare to beat on some tracks, and it gets even more insane when you unlock the staff ghosts; they make the Mario Kart series staff ghosts look pathetic.

 

[Ray Trace]

My biggest bugbear with CTR is the microtransactions and how painful the grind was to unlock anything of value at the pit stop. I don't know if it had improved since I last played it but Activision patching in microtransactions post-launch is complete and utter bullshit.

 

[fantanoice]

I still have it shrink wrapped and will play it eventually

 

[Revin]

i too have been playing the free NSO game trail, and i have... mixed feelings. it's definitely a lot harder than mario kart, which i would attribute to the more skill-based controls and item pool, and i often find myself falling off edges, bumping into walls and having to retry every race several times because man am i really bad at this game (and i havent raced through these courses 100s of times so i dont know them like the back of my hand yet). but by the same measure, the more i play, the more i find the gameplay to be more fulfilling than mario kart, because theres a lot more room for skill and frantic, high speed action. while the same mechanics are in place in both games, like getting a boost by drifting or jumping off a ramp, ctr just feels much more "loose" than mario kart, which can create a real exhilirating feeling of movement and chaining tricks together to go as fast as possible (and then promptly fail miserably due to lack of skill). the closest comparison i can make would be to liken it to the difference between SM64 and SMS Mario controls and SMG1/2 and later controls. There's a lot of overlap between them, and in general the moveset gets refined as it goes on and on, until it works like a polished, well-oiled and reliable machine. In contrast, the first two 3D entries Mario controls quite slippery, and its honestly pretty rough around the edges... but the way you can move at high speeds and cheese your way through levels by chaining together long jumps or dives and slides brings it's own wonderful brand of fun, and thats the kind of fun i find in CTR:NF's gameplay.

but while the gameplay is really, really good, theres unfortunately a few other significant areas where i feel that it kind of falls short, particularly in the performance department and, yes, the unlock system. while it's understandable that the switch version is probably the worst performance wise, and while i can live with the 30fps and low resolution compared to other games like mario kart, i still find it an absolute slog to wait through the long load times between each different area you go to, and i find it rather detrimental to making me want to continue hitting that retry button again and again. even simple things like choosing a character takes a good 5-10 seconds for the character to load in after you hover over them, and it makes the whole experience a really big slog. i considered buying it on pc after this just to have a better looking and performing version... but, apparently, they never released it on pc! how rude. and of course, the in-game shop system is absolute garbage, particularly in terms of how much money they give you. i've played races through several times in adventure mode, and it seems that, without any bonuses, the amount you get averages around 50 coins, which is absolutely useless when it comes to buying anything meaningful, since the cheapest stuff seems to always be at least 1000 coins or so (new characters, in particular, are 1500). i played an online match just now (which i've heard are supposed to give you more money), and after having someone suddenly teleport in front of me right as the race ended, i came in third place (out of 3 real players, mind you) and got a whopping 35 coins. the slow drip feed of coins when theres such an abundance of overpriced, almost entirely cosmetic garbage to pick up is just dumb and frustrating, and i've come to accept that if i ever do buy this game for real i'd only end up with the base roster of the original and maybe 4 or 5 other characters (and absolutely no alternate skins, because for some stupid reason they cost more than actual new characters!!), which is a real shame considering how much care and attention has been put into bringing to life all these characters from across the series history. thankfully, none of them really play differently than any of the base roster, so i'm not missing out gameplay-wise, but it still stings a bit even still - a sting which gets a little bit worse the more and more i fall in love with the gameplay itself.

overall i'd say its a very good, well-made game... but, i'll probably just stick to mario kart and sonic and all stars transformed, even if i think that the gameplay of ctr is even more fun than those. maybe if it was on pc i'd get it on a sale, but no such luck it seems, and im not sure if the console versions fare a whole lot better than the switch...

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

the slow drip feed of coins when theres such an abundance of overpriced, almost entirely cosmetic garbage to pick up is just dumb and frustrating, and i've come to accept that if i ever do buy this game for real i'd only end up with the base roster of the original and maybe 4 or 5 other characters (and absolutely no alternate skins, because for some stupid reason they cost more than actual new characters!!)

I'm quite sure it's to make microtransactions seem like a good option so you don't have to grind. The real nasty thing about this game was that it was released without microtransactions and they patched those things in a later update, after the reviews were out and glowing and saying how there is no monetization. This kind of manipulation into spending more than the asking price of 40 dollars puts me off this game so much and also tarnishes my trust in wanting to buy anything else published by Activision, lest they try to underhandedly sneak in microtransactions after release (Nitro Fueled isn't even the first time they did this).

It's a real shame that's what sticks to me the most because I know the gameplay is solid and more difficult than Mario Kart, where Mario Kart at times, is just drift and not get hit by items. I can't say if the gameplay of CTR, at points, is all that much better than Mario Kart because in skilled competitions, you're reliant on maintaining that blue nitrous boosts and the moment you stop, including hitting a wall or an item, you're not going to win the race. Not sure if there are any updates that address that or it's just a central component of the game, but it has much potential to be far more frustrating than Mario Kart.

 

[zel]

i woulda liked to play it someday since it sounds fun but oh yeah. tihs thread did make me realise that with me only having a switch, which has stinky performance, and a pc, which doesnt even have the game, i dont really have any options

 

[MnSG]

It's a real shame that's what sticks to me the most because I know the gameplay is solid and more difficult than Mario Kart, where Mario Kart at times, is just drift and not get hit by items. I can't say if the gameplay of CTR, at points, is all that much better than Mario Kart because in skilled competitions, you're reliant on maintaining that blue nitrous boosts and the moment you stop, including hitting a wall or an item, you're not going to win the race. Not sure if there are any updates that address that or it's just a central component of the game, but it has much potential to be far more frustrating than Mario Kart.

The blue fire is definitely among the things that make CTR much more hardcore than Mario Kart. CTR's items are pretty much useless for comebacks, and losing the blue fire at any point is pretty much a guaranteed loss when racing against other players.

In fact, CTR's online racing is just flat out terrible, as amateurs can end up being paired alongside hardcore players, and the lag is atrocious as well. Mario Kart at least has a way to separate the newbies from the pros, and is less laggy overall.