Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, henceforth known as CTR, was added to Game Pass on the 4th of December, which gave me an itch to replay it. I originally got the game for Nintendo Switch back when it launched in 2019, and I played it regularly during its live service period until that ended about 8 or 9 months later. Having played it for a bit again, I felt like writing down my thoughts, and here we are.

CTR is a remake of the original CTR, ostensibly a kart racing game which was released on the Playstation 1 way back when, that also adds all stages and characters from Crash Nitro Kart, the sequel to the original CTR which I played a lot of on the Gamecube back when I was a wee lad. In addition to that, the game received updates for close to a year, which added new tracks to the game, one or two new game modes, and about 30 characters and tons of other cosmetics. In short, it’s packed with content, having almost 40 tracks and almost 60 characters in total. Now, content means nothing if the game isn’t fun, so… is it? Yes, but it depends. There’s a reason I said it’s ostensibly a kart racer.

You see, CTR has items, just like Mario Kart or any other similar games. There’s homing missiles that chase after racers, bombs you roll towards other players, stationary beakers (potions) that hurt you when touched, speed boost items, a “hit first place” item, an invincibility item, a shield item, and some I may have missed. The typical arsenal. They usually work about as well as you’d expect, except the missiles which seem to crash very easily if their target is behind a corner or further. However, it’s very hard to say which positions you get what item at. I’ve been in last place and never gotten a good item, and I’ve been in first place and gotten the invincibility item, so the item selection feels unpredictable. That said, items feel mostly useless, for CTR is unlike any other kart racer I’ve played. In general, the gameplay is pretty straightforward. Race to win, drift to gain boost, throw items at opponents to slow them down. If you don’t engage with the boost system, it’s a pretty boring game. However, the way the boost mechanics work completely changes the feel of the game, from a boring kart racer to something I’d almost call a fighting game.

The key to winning is to maintain your boost for as long as possible. You do this by constantly drifting, with each successful drift granting you a small amount of boost meter, which is constantly being drained until it’s empty. Maintaining your boost meter allows you to keep the highest level of boost you’ve gotten from driving over a boost pad, for yes, there are levels to that. The various levels grant you different max speeds, and what the highest level of boost is depends on the track. Most boost pads only make you slightly faster, but some tracks have pads that give you blue boost, which is faster than the regular red boost. Even blue boost has different top speeds assigned, with N. Gin Labs having one that’s almost no faster than regular driving speed, and Tiny Temple has one that’s maybe twice as fast as normal. Maintaining your boost ranges from being relatively trivial to extremely advanced depending on the track. Tiny Temple, for example, has a lot of straight roads and not too many corners. Electron Avenue on the other hand, the longest track in the game, has a lot of tight corners that force you to use an advanced “hand brake in the air to make an extremely quick turn” if you want to keep your meter full. This maneuver is the primary cause for me saying the game shares design philosophy with fighting games. 

I’d say I’m good at this game, I was able to hold my own during the prime days of playing this on the Switch, often coming in first place, or at least top 3 (of 8). But that maneuver… every time someone was using it in a race online, they’d be so far ahead that there was no way anything I did would get me closer. If you’re able to pull it off, you basically have 10/10 handling, no matter your speed. This is definitely a “low barrier of entry, high level of mastery” type of game. That said, it’s a very fun mechanic once you get the hang of it, and definitely makes the game stand out, plus it’s fun to go fast. Returning to Mario Kart after playing this will make you feel like you’re driving through mud. But speed isn’t everything to me, and it definitely ruins some of the “kart racer” aspects of the game. 

With the gameplay explained, let’s go over some of the content in the game. There are about 38 tracks in the game: 18 from the original CTR, 12 from CNK, and 8 completely original “bonus” tracks that were added after release. You can feel the difference between the track as you play on them: CTR tracks generally have flat designs and very angular corners, CNK tracks are wider with lots of variance in height across any map, and the bonus tracks are a mix of the two (leaning more towards CTR track design than CNK) that seem to be on the more difficult end of the spectrum, having more frequent tight corners than others. Most tracks are good, but to me the CNK tracks are the best ones as they better fit the game’s gameplay, with the others having either very narrow courses and/or too many corners for you to effectively maintain your boost. There are no CNK tracks I wouldn’t want to race on, and that’s not just the nostalgia talking.

Aside from regular races, there are various other modes you can play. Various time trial adjacent modes that really require you to master the boost mechanic, plus an assortment of typical “battle” modes that are played in arenas. The arenas are all ok at the very least, but there aren’t many standouts to me, and the battle modes themselves make better use of items than racing does, so that’s good. You can also play both races and battles online if you want, though I remember online racing being somewhat iffy at times, many disconnects and the like, but it’s an option at least. 

As for customization, that’s the one thing I can confidently say outshines Mario Kart in every way. There are 56(!) characters in the game, with only about 5 of them being clones of others. You have all characters from the original game, plus all characters that were in CNK, PLUS every other important character from the N.Sane Trilogy and the other racing games, PLUS most of the important characters from the rest of the franchise. Instead of having clone characters, they make use of skins, so you select Crash and can choose between like 5 different skins, as opposed to Tanooki Mario and Metal Mario being their own characters separate from Mario in Mario Kart 8. The character selection may be the best out of any single-franchise game I can think of… though there are 3 characters from Spyro here, too. Car customization is great as well, you can select your wheels, body, livery, color scheme, and a sticker, and after an update the stats are separate from any car or character as well! You can truly customize your kart, character, and playstyle any way you want. The only downside to all of this is that most items are connected to a store. You can earn the in-game currency to buy things with, but there is a LOT of stuff, including tons of recolored items that pad the store, so of course they want you to purchase the currency for real money. So, with the exception of the store, I hope Nintendo takes inspiration for this game when it comes to the next Mario Kart. No, Mario Kart Tour’s customization isn’t good enough.

Oh, before I forget, I should also mention that the music and sounds fit the game well, very fun and playful. Graphics are good too, though I’m not the biggest fan of the artstyle used for both this and the Crash N.Sane Trilogy.

In short, play this game! It becomes more fun the better you become, and you can enjoy the game fully without interacting with the store. Is it better overall than Mario Kart? I wouldn’t say so, but then again I almost don’t call CTR a kart racer to begin with. They’re different beasts that can coexist.