The original CTR is my favorite game of all time. I was super hyped (yet somewhat cautious) to learn that it was going to be remade with the addition of the CNK tracks and characters, new tracks and characters, and online multiplayer. For the most part, Beenox did a fantastic job making this game and keeping it faithful to the original and adding improvements across the board.
I always praised the original for having tight controls and the developers somehow found a way to improve upon them and make the original’s controls feel outdated. The visuals of the karts’ exhaust give you a better indication of how fast you’re going and how well you’re chaining drift boosts. Almost every Crash Bandicoot character ever made is playable (supposedly there were going to be even more before Covid threw the development time off). The amount of tracks will keep you busy for quite a long time. Any kart parts you pick are purely cosmetic and you can swap engines, meaning all of your favorite characters are competitively viable. There are multiple levels of time trial ghosts for you to beat and train with. You can play the story mode with any character and swap out at any time. There’s a new Ring Rally Mode that’ll add additional hours of fun to your experience. There were Grand Prix Cups with daily challenges that were fun to just check out everyday. Suffice to say, the improvements and additions to this game will you keep you playing much longer than the original. However, you’re going to be playing longer for a number of negative reasons, as well.
The loading times on this game are absolutely abysmal. It can take around 30 to 45 seconds to load a track and maybe about 15 to 20 seconds to go back to the menus. This might not sound too bad but keep in mind, this is a racing game. There are some races that are going to take like 1 minute and 30 seconds. You’re going to be loading for about one third of that. If I remember correctly, someone actually measured play time vs loading time and if they’re correct, you are going to be spending quite literally 30% of your time with this game loading assets. I’ve clocked in 220 hours on this game. That means I’ve spent roughly 66 hours just sitting there, loading. That’s insane.
Additionally, this game has a Fortnite-esque shop along with a virtual currency, Wumpa Coins. Depending on the track you play, you get a set number of Wumpa Coins, with longer tracks giving you more and shorter tracks giving you less. On weekends, you get double the coins. If you play online, you get 1 hour a day of 5 times the amount of coins. If you play online on the weekend, you can stack both multipliers for 7 times the amount of Wumpa Coins. You can also play daily and monthly challenges to get more coins. You also must be connected to the internet at all times to collect any at all.
I do not like this system.
The items in the shop are expensive. It’s going to take you several, several hours of playing to unlock everything you even want, let alone getting everything. While they Grand Prix Cups were the equivalent of Fortnite “Seasons,” they didn’t go for the “Fear of Missing Out” route, as all of the items you got from doing challenges in the Grand Prix are available in the shop. Either way though, it’s just a gigantic time sink designed to make you buy Wumpa Coins via microtransactions. When this game released, there were no microtransactions. People kept asking Activision up and down “will there be microtransctions?” to which they’d respond “no, there will not be microtransactions.”
After the game released and all the major reviewers scored the game, they immediately put in microtransactions.
Thankfully as I’ve said, everything in the shop is purely cosmetic. Still, that doesn’t forgive these lousy, predatory additions to the game. I’d much prefer to be unlocking things just by completing time trials, CTR challenges, Relic Races, Ring Rallies, and even daily challenges, but I suppose that wouldn’t be as profitable. That’s just the Activision way.
As for the online, it works well enough. There is one caveat though: trying to race with your friends is a fucking nightmare. I don’t know how it is on other consoles, but playing with friends on the Switch version just doesn’t work. Your friends will be online and waiting for an invite and the game will say they’re either offline or just “not joinable.” Don’t even bother trying. Just give up and pretend it’s not even a feature in the game.
Like the original game, if you’re new to CTR and are just coming from Mario Kart, you’ll probably struggle with this game. The weapons don’t work like how they do in Mario Kart and they will not save you if you are losing. Instead, you need to drift boost as much as possible. The tracks are wide enough for the most part and are fully designed for you to be drifting and snaking as much as possible. If you’re in first, you don’t have to constantly worry about getting pelted with items from all directions. As a result, this makes it more based around skill than RNG. I kind of like it this way, personally; it makes for a different experience than Mario Kart. This becomes a major issue online though, because players are not separated by skill level like Mario Kart. If you’re a new player, chances are there’s going to be a veteran in your race who’s going to break away in the first 15 seconds and be a lap ahead of everyone by the time the race is over.
I suppose maybe it’s unfair to give this game 4 and a half stars. Especially with all the complaining I just did. My issue is that, if you look at just the game itself, it’s almost flawless. Unfortunately, it falls victim to a (to say the least) greedy corporation gluing crappy, predatory, mundane, anti-consumer businesses practices onto an otherwise great game. As much as I like this game, I think my time with it might be over. I’m tired of waiting for the game to load, I’m tired of grinding coins for dumb little decals of Crash’s face, I’m tired of not being able to play with friends online, and I’m tired of Activision. With people cracking open and beginning to mod the original CTR, it’s possible the original might catch up with the amount of features this remake has.
I always praised the original for having tight controls and the developers somehow found a way to improve upon them and make the original’s controls feel outdated. The visuals of the karts’ exhaust give you a better indication of how fast you’re going and how well you’re chaining drift boosts. Almost every Crash Bandicoot character ever made is playable (supposedly there were going to be even more before Covid threw the development time off). The amount of tracks will keep you busy for quite a long time. Any kart parts you pick are purely cosmetic and you can swap engines, meaning all of your favorite characters are competitively viable. There are multiple levels of time trial ghosts for you to beat and train with. You can play the story mode with any character and swap out at any time. There’s a new Ring Rally Mode that’ll add additional hours of fun to your experience. There were Grand Prix Cups with daily challenges that were fun to just check out everyday. Suffice to say, the improvements and additions to this game will you keep you playing much longer than the original. However, you’re going to be playing longer for a number of negative reasons, as well.
The loading times on this game are absolutely abysmal. It can take around 30 to 45 seconds to load a track and maybe about 15 to 20 seconds to go back to the menus. This might not sound too bad but keep in mind, this is a racing game. There are some races that are going to take like 1 minute and 30 seconds. You’re going to be loading for about one third of that. If I remember correctly, someone actually measured play time vs loading time and if they’re correct, you are going to be spending quite literally 30% of your time with this game loading assets. I’ve clocked in 220 hours on this game. That means I’ve spent roughly 66 hours just sitting there, loading. That’s insane.
Additionally, this game has a Fortnite-esque shop along with a virtual currency, Wumpa Coins. Depending on the track you play, you get a set number of Wumpa Coins, with longer tracks giving you more and shorter tracks giving you less. On weekends, you get double the coins. If you play online, you get 1 hour a day of 5 times the amount of coins. If you play online on the weekend, you can stack both multipliers for 7 times the amount of Wumpa Coins. You can also play daily and monthly challenges to get more coins. You also must be connected to the internet at all times to collect any at all.
I do not like this system.
The items in the shop are expensive. It’s going to take you several, several hours of playing to unlock everything you even want, let alone getting everything. While they Grand Prix Cups were the equivalent of Fortnite “Seasons,” they didn’t go for the “Fear of Missing Out” route, as all of the items you got from doing challenges in the Grand Prix are available in the shop. Either way though, it’s just a gigantic time sink designed to make you buy Wumpa Coins via microtransactions. When this game released, there were no microtransactions. People kept asking Activision up and down “will there be microtransctions?” to which they’d respond “no, there will not be microtransactions.”
After the game released and all the major reviewers scored the game, they immediately put in microtransactions.
Thankfully as I’ve said, everything in the shop is purely cosmetic. Still, that doesn’t forgive these lousy, predatory additions to the game. I’d much prefer to be unlocking things just by completing time trials, CTR challenges, Relic Races, Ring Rallies, and even daily challenges, but I suppose that wouldn’t be as profitable. That’s just the Activision way.
As for the online, it works well enough. There is one caveat though: trying to race with your friends is a fucking nightmare. I don’t know how it is on other consoles, but playing with friends on the Switch version just doesn’t work. Your friends will be online and waiting for an invite and the game will say they’re either offline or just “not joinable.” Don’t even bother trying. Just give up and pretend it’s not even a feature in the game.
Like the original game, if you’re new to CTR and are just coming from Mario Kart, you’ll probably struggle with this game. The weapons don’t work like how they do in Mario Kart and they will not save you if you are losing. Instead, you need to drift boost as much as possible. The tracks are wide enough for the most part and are fully designed for you to be drifting and snaking as much as possible. If you’re in first, you don’t have to constantly worry about getting pelted with items from all directions. As a result, this makes it more based around skill than RNG. I kind of like it this way, personally; it makes for a different experience than Mario Kart. This becomes a major issue online though, because players are not separated by skill level like Mario Kart. If you’re a new player, chances are there’s going to be a veteran in your race who’s going to break away in the first 15 seconds and be a lap ahead of everyone by the time the race is over.
I suppose maybe it’s unfair to give this game 4 and a half stars. Especially with all the complaining I just did. My issue is that, if you look at just the game itself, it’s almost flawless. Unfortunately, it falls victim to a (to say the least) greedy corporation gluing crappy, predatory, mundane, anti-consumer businesses practices onto an otherwise great game. As much as I like this game, I think my time with it might be over. I’m tired of waiting for the game to load, I’m tired of grinding coins for dumb little decals of Crash’s face, I’m tired of not being able to play with friends online, and I’m tired of Activision. With people cracking open and beginning to mod the original CTR, it’s possible the original might catch up with the amount of features this remake has.