Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled recently released, and it's more than just a nostalgia trip: it's a truly great game. Sure, it brings back memories of playing the original from back in the day, but there's enough new content (along with the online racing features that we've come to expect) to bring the game into the modern day spectacularly.
But you can't mention a kart racing game without mentioning the metric against which all are judged: Mario Kart. The most recent console release of Mario Kart, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, is a great game as well. As opposed to trying to recreate the Mario Kart formula, Crash Team Racing spices things up a bit in multiple departments, to make it feel like its own beast as opposed to a reflection of its Nintendo counterpart. Let's take a look at ten major differences between Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
10 EIGHT RACERS
The most immediate and obvious difference between the two is the number of players/CPU in each race. Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled cuts the number from later Mario Kart entries' twelve down to eight.
This definitely changes things up quite a bit, entirely changing the nature of the game. Less competition means you get to focus a bit more on your own driving, as opposed to worrying about everybody else. It also fills any empty slots in an online lobby with CPU.
9 IT'S MORE ABOUT DRIVING SKILL
Along those same lines, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is built more around your individual performance and driving skill than it is about your item use, and that of the other drivers. This is partially due to the number of racers being cut down, but it's also because of the nature of the items themselves and because getting hit with an item in CTR is (usually) a bit less debilitating than it is in Mario Kart.
You don't always lose all of your momentum in CTR when you get hit; mostly, the only way to lose all of your momentum is driving off of the course or slamming headfirst into a wall. This makes for an experience more about technical driving skill and learning the map than it does relying on not being dog-piled by every other driver on the course.
8 DRIFTING
Drifting in CTR is entirely different than it is in Mario Kart. In Mario Kart, you can drift for as long as you want around a corner, and you only get a boost once you've let go of the drift. In CTR, drifting for too long is going to cause you to spin out. Not only that, but letting go of a drift doesn't give you a boost at all. Instead, while drifting, the Nitro-Meter fills up.
Once the meter fills up a bit, you press the opposite drift button (while still drifting) to get a boost. The quality of boost depends on how full the meter was, and you can chain three of these boosts together to make a significant speed difference. Getting that timing down, executing the boosts, all while maintaining good racing lines is quite the challenge, and makes for a pretty serious and fun learning curve.
7 BIG AIR
Drift-boosting isn't the only way to get a boost in CTR. Similar to Mario Kart, jumping off of ramps or any significant jump can result in a boost upon landing. But, differently from Mario Kart where you simply need to push a button to do a trick in midair, in CTR, it all comes down to hang time.
Timing your jump off the ramp or drop is going to net you more air-time, and the longer you're in the air, the bigger the boost you're getting to get upon landing.
6 COURSE LENGTH
Baby Park aside, most courses are typically around the same length in Mario Kart 8. In CTR, course length can vary drastically. some courses have laps that take upwards of a minute and a half to complete a lap, other courses have laps that come in well under a minute.
Typically, those shorter courses also come with significantly easier layouts, while the longer courses have tougher turns and obstacles along the way. This adds for some nice map variety and means some courses feel like they have quite a bit of weight to them, even though, at the end of the day, it's just another race.
5 ADVENTURE MODE
CTR has an entire mode that Mario Kart 8 doesn't: Adventure Mode. In Adventure Mode, you play through a short campaign, racing normally on courses, completing challenges, defeating bosses in races, until you finally race against the alien overlord threatening to turn Earth into a great concrete parking lot.
While the campaign isn't very long, it's still a very fun mode that adds a bit more to the experience than simply racing against AI opponents in normal races.
4 WUMPA FRUIT
Wumpa fruit in CTR has a bit more use than coins do in Mario Kart. In CTR, getting ten Wumpa Fruit means items are going to be an upgraded version. Instead of a green potion that simply spins other racers out, for instance, you'll get a red potion that spins them out and creates a rain-cloud over their head making them drive slower for a while.
It also affects the shield item; instead of a green shield that will disappear after a while, you'll get a blue shield that won't expire until you either hit an item or fire it away.
3 NO EASY PROTECTION
In Mario Kart 8, you can hold certain items behind you, protecting yourself from items fired at you from behind. In CTR, you can't do that.
Any item that's going to hit you from behind, like a missile or a shield that's been fired ahead, you'll need to stop manually. You do this by laying a potion backward at the right moment or rolling a Bowling Bomb backwards at it.
2 UNLOCK SYSTEM
Unlocking items in CTR is a much different experience, too. Here, every race you complete nets you a certain amount of coins, based on both the mode and your placement in the race. Those coins can be spent in the Pit Stop, which has a rotating selection of items available that changes pretty regularly.
Other items are only unlocked by beating in-game goals, like beating a boss race in Adventure Mode, collecting a certain number of CTR tokens, winning a particular amount of races with a character, and so on.
1 STATS
The only thing affecting the stats of your driver is... well, just that: your driver. The kart, the wheels, and the rest of the cosmetics have nothing to do with it. If you're having trouble with a certain setup, changing your driver is the only thing that's going to help.
However, on the bright side, it means if you have a sweet-looking cart you've built, you can use it whenever you want without fear of it hurting your driving ability!