Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled – Switch Review

After the Bandicoot’s first outing on the Switch in the fantastically recreated N-Sane Trilogy, Crash is back for more! This time, developer Bennox remastered his three kart games, 1999’s Crash Team Racing (CTR), 2003’s Crash Nitro Kart and 2005’s Crash Tag Team Racing, to create Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled (CTRNF). Nitro-Fueled has its faults – many of them returning from the original games – and it can be painfully unforgiving at times, but it is a challenging and incredibly fun game that’ll put your karting skills to the test.

I will start with the obvious – CTRNF is stunning. This game is not just a simple remaster – rather, it has been rebuilt from the ground up. Every track has been remade to be full of personality and loads of little details that are really worth looking out for. The new character models are also beautiful too and, if you are in single player mode, you are likely to see a lot of the characters. It is well known that the AI characters in racing games are dirty rotten cheats and these ones really are spamming attacks to an extent that takes the fun out of the racing.

AI characters in racing games are dirty rotten cheats

If you are a Mario Kart pro and expect that you will just be able to pick up this game and be guaranteed podiums (much as I did), you are going to be disappointed. But then, you never really expected a Crash game to be easy, did you? Much of the issues are linked to the game’s drifting system and, when you master it, you will be a force to be reckoned with. Here is how it works – you initiate a drift, and then tap a second button as your turbo meter fills. It is intuitive enough, but getting used to it does take a while, and may render it difficult for newcomers to appreciate.

Unusually for kart racers, there is an “Adventure mode”, which is that of the original CTR – you are trying to stop the villainous Nitros Oxide from turning the Earth into a parking lot via racing. This game offers a new Nitro-Fueled version, which allows you to swap between characters, making races easier as you can choose those with stats that will suit the challenges a bit more (although “Classic” is still an option if you are a one-racer player and proud). This new mode also lets you play around with the cosmetics, which is a nice little touch. Sadly, the Adventure only boasts 17 of the 31 tracks – those from the original game – and rubber-banded bosses as cheap as they always were, which can render the experience really frustrating.

I would recommend the Relic Race

There are many other modes – some good, some bad. There is an underwhelming battle mode and a generic time trial, which you could tackle if you were so inclined, but there is not much to them. However, I would recommend the Relic Race – a race against time, with boxes scattered throughout the track which freeze the clock. I would also recommend the CTR Challenge – find the letters C, T, and R as well as coming first in the race. It is a genuine challenge and is really fun.

I played the game on Switch, and there are a number of Switch-specific issues are worth highlighting. Nitro-Fueled is a beautiful game, but the loading times before each race are painful (sometimes nearing a minute). I can see a lot of people not having the patience for that, especially in a four-race Grand Prix, and I would not blame them. The bigger issue is the Wumpa Coins, which you use to buy customization options and many of the game’s characters. You typically amass them in online and single-player matches, but you have to be connected to the game’s servers to earn any. A lack of internet connectivity can prevent you from accessing a large chunk of the game, and it is not fair to expect that of the player.

It is a beautiful and fun experience to play through

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is a challenging game and certainly not without its faults, but they are not the kind of issues that completely ruin the experience. It is a beautiful and fun experience to play through, and a masterful upgrade on the original two games, and (particularly) if you want to 100% it, it is more than worth your money.