If I asked you out of the blue to name the best video game remake of all time, you’d probably come up with something like Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2 Remake, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, or Bluepoint Games’ take on One of the best remakes of Shadow of Wanda and Demon’s Souls.
Gosh, that title might remind you of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 – which is definitely up there – but no, in my opinion, Beenox’s Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled ” must be part of the discussion.
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Now, for those of us who were lucky enough to grow up with a PS1 instead of an N64, Crash Team Racing is a sacred game. It may not be as infamous as Mario Kart 64, but those who experienced its elegance in 1999 know which is the best kart game around. Instead of Frappe Snowland, we chose a super awesome game like Polar Pass.
But it’s not just “Mario Kart and Clancy Brown” that makes Crash Team Racing so special. The core gameplay and unique drift-boosting mechanics make it a faster game than its contemporaries, paired perfectly with the fantastic track design full of tight turns and smart shortcuts. Not to mention, it also utilizes one of the best elements of Diddy Kong Racing – the full Adventure Mode. It ended up being one of Naughty Dog’s greatest games – which is ironic considering the team allegedly turned the villains into aliens in an attempt to kill the series.
In 2017, Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy successfully and faithfully revived three of Naughty Dog’s classic games, and was a natural follow-up to a fourth PS1 game. Two years later, Beenox – previously known for its Spider-Man games (and later falling into the Call of Duty landmine) – stepped up with Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled.
At first glance, this is a solid remake that has everything you could want. Everything has a new look, Adventure Mode is back with new voice acting, Dingodile is there, combine that with some online play and you’re onto something. However, Beenox wasn’t content with just remaking Crash Team Racing; it decided to go further.
The most important update for Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled is that the tracklist is more detailed than ever, as Beenox has decided to remaster and include the full tracklist from the game’s follow-up, Crash Nitro Kart, which nearly doubles the number of tracks Racing and combat tracks are available in the remake.
Additionally, nearly every new character in Nitro Kart returns, along with CTR actors. This works in conjunction with a host of new character and kart customization options, and you can complete Adventure Mode in a new nitro-fueled mode (but the original eight classics in standard karts are still available for purists).
That’s good, right? Sounds like a great remake. So when Beenox decided to keep updating the game, things got even crazier. Over the next eight months, the game gained new classes, characters, and features. The classes themselves are adequate, as they all fit in perfectly with the existing roster – Twilight Journey in particular feels like it could be in the original game, with all of its inspiration coming from Crash Bandicoot 3》.
New characters come from all aspects of Crash Bandicoot. Added glaring omissions from the original (such as N. Brio, Tawna and Koala Kong). Plus, there are some beloved faces from later in the series, like Nina Cortex and some Spyro characters (sorry to remind you of Crash Fusion). But the real highlight is how well it performs.
You get Yaya Panda from the Crash Nitro Kart 2 mobile game, the Cr ash villain chimera MegaMix that only appears in the GBA exclusive Crash XS, a Crate, and Crash Bash reject Rilla Roo. But the biggest cut has to be Donkey the Moose, who is not a character from Crash Bandicoot but is based on the design of the Hippo pilot that former Naughty Dog artist Bob Rafei mistakenly left in his work for A collection of artwork done for Crash Bandicoot Racing. the 90s. It’s safe to say Beenox found this strange.
This love has carried through to the rest of the game’s development as well, with Beenox adding new features such as the ability to swap classes – so you can play as any character you like with your preferred driving style – a new driving style called Drifting and a new time trial challenge with the arrival of Emperor Velo 27 in Crash Nitro Kart.
Additionally, Rilla Roo was originally introduced with a weird Jack Black-esque face, and was eventually updated with a version that matched his original design called “Fixed Rilla” Roo) as a separate playable character.
So why doesn’t Team Rush: Nitro Fueled get the reputation it deserves? Activision’s choice to add microtransactions post-launch (even though the developers said the game wouldn’t include them) was a hit, and Beenox quickly became a Call of Duty supporting studio – like many of Activision’s talented It doesn’t help that the studio is the same – months after release.
But the biggest problem is that while N. Sane Trilogy and Crash Bandicoot 4 have launched on the platform, the remasters have never been released on PC for some unknown reason. Thanks to the PC community, many games have long since passed their expected demise without ever being released on the platform, and the latest multiplayer version of the series, the doomed Crash Bandicoot , follows this trend. A trend, and has now been discontinued less than a year after launch.
If Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy was a way to bring the series back into the mainstream, then Crash Bandicoot Racing Nitro-Fueled was written for the fans who waited for Crash Bandicoot from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s. love letter. . Binnox’s love for the series and the original Team Racing shines through, resulting in one of the greatest remakes I’ve ever played in my life.
And now, we’re holed up in Activision’s Call of Duty salt mines, likely never to see Beenox’s commitment to everyone’s favorite orange marsupial.
