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Crash Team Racing - Dark Jaguar - 19th October 2021
Shortly before Naughty Dog lost the rights of their seminal series and Playstation's first "mascot", they had one last go with the character. Yes, at the time Crash and the gang were simply "yet another" mascot platformer, but in retrospect the series was one of the best of it's genre and a unique solution to the question "how do we make these games 3D?".
In the spirit of "me too", they followed up an amazing trilogy with a cart racer. By this time, Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing had both been out for a few years. This was nearing the end of the Playstation's life cycle. What could Naughty Dog bring to the genre that those other two didn't already accomplish? Was this merely a way to offer Playstation owners an alternative and cash in on the emerging genre's popularity?
(Note that this is exclusively a review of the Naughty Dog created original game, and NOT a review of any of the sequels made by other studios after Naughty Dog sold the IP. Personally, I'm not a fan of the later games and consider them inferior in many ways to what the original offered, right down to basic controls. If you prefer the sequels, there's some good news. The remake added in fan favorite levels and characters from the later games which I think brings in the best of both worlds, superior controls and overall design mixed with a greater set of tracks.)
As it turns out, Naughty Dog would prove they understood what made cart racing work. They didn't just toss it out, they gave it their all. The Mario Party inspired "Crash Bash" (not made by Naughty Dog) truly was a dull and by the numbers experience, but Crash Team Racing managed to set itself apart. Note that to get the most out of this game, you'll need an accessory. The Playstation 1, after all, only had two controller ports. Buy a multitap to bring out the most for this title. That unfortunately will have to be a mark against it, but a minor mark at best.
I'll be considering both the extensive single player mode and the multiplayer aspects, and try to consider the game both in comparison to it's contemporaries and on it's own merits. With any luck, I'll succeed. If not, god help us all. Signing out.
Visuals (Henceforth replacing the category "graphics" in my reviews): Compared to Mario Kart 64 and it's prerendered sprites, this game goes for in-engine renders much closer to Diddy Kong Racing, but without even that game's billboarded cart sprites. As a result, the visuals end up blockier, but their movement is smoother and more varied. Generally, as is often the case between these two consoles, models look a lot more "angular" and sharp than they do on N64. There's none of that smoothing the N64 used, but if you're used to that, it's a rather nostalgic look. Artistically, characters and tracks hold up well. All the model designs went for an unrealistic cartoony look with flashy colors. Games with such a style have aged far better, and so it is here. Colors are "brighter" than in Diddy Kong Racing, closer to the palette used in Mario Kart 64. The game's level design hews closer to Diddy Kong Racing however, with a higher focus on "island" locales than others, but not to their exclusive use. Visually, the game holds up. However, there's no arguing against the dramatic improvement seen in the PS4 era remake. That game even allows for a skin using "retro angular" Crash and that cart.
The game runs mostly smooth. Some of the cut scenes have lower FPS, but the racing itself manages a usually smooth 30 FPS. Considering the quality of the visuals and the limitations of the Playstation compared to N64, this is very impressive and more importantly, makes the game a joy to play. Consistent frame rates are critical for a game like this, and this one delivers. It isn't F-Zero X's 60FPS, but it's still smooth.
Sound Design: The game's sounds are clear and stand apart from each other, which makes it easy to make out just what's happening around and behind you. The sounds themselves are high quality, higher quality than what N64 sound samples tend to be which one would expect due to the higher capacity available to the game. Sounds are satisfying or crushing in just the right measure. A turbo boost is clear and powerful, though Mario Kart 64's mushroom boosts still make the most satisfying sound of the three games. Character voices are fitting, well acted, but don't overstay their welcome. There's no need to fiddle with options to disable commentary ala Mickey's Speedway USA. The game's music is exciting and energetic as fits a racing game. Every track has appropriate music fitting to the theme of the racetrack. However, outside of a few tracks, not as many "stand out" to me compared to Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing. It's perhaps unfair to compare directly to those, since rare few composers in the industry compare to the legends behind those soundtracks, but the fact is in spite of that CTR's music holds up competitively with it. (Hilariously, one of the hidden characters, a penguin, has two voice samples that are clear developer placeholders delivered by an adult in dead pan. It's- it's just wonderful when they get triggered.) One added note for story mode. Diddy Kong Racing had voice samples, but limited it to typical race responses and that "brief sample" style of talking to characters. CTR has full voice acting for the entire story mode. This is hardly a requirement and in some cases I'd consider it a negative (Symphony of the Night is probably better without voice acting during dialog, and King's Quest V is absolutely superior in it's floppy disk text based version), but the voice acting is solid enough here that it pulls ahead thanks to that.
Gameplay Design: This game has taken some very clear inspiration from Diddy Kong Racing. Rather than merely having "cups" to race for, there's an overworld island setting with numerous challenges behind massive doors. There's places to explore, secrets on each track to find, and boss encounters finishing up each new zone. If I could offer a criticism, story mode doesn't allow you to change racers. Once you pick someone, you're stuck with them. This is partly justified in that the tiki mask aiding you through the campaign changes depending on whether you are playing a villain or a hero (and in one case, that same penguin, apparently there's a dark heart of evil behind that cute face because the dark tiki helps him out). However, story shouldn't get in the way of something like this I feel, and it holds back on experimentation when all you're trying to do is see if a different class of racer would help you win a particular challenge better. The game offers three difficulty levels at the start, affecting the standard cup speed. This does provide something over Diddy Kong Racing. You can accomplish all of story mode with a lower skill requirement if you just want to see it all, or you can really challenge yourself.
Diddy Kong Racing offered three vehicle types, and as a result it's going to have superior gameplay variety right out the gate. CTR makes up for this by expanding the number of additional challenges the game offers. Just like DKR, you'll have basic victory conditions, time trial races, and "collect all of X item around the level" challenges. Where it goes above and beyond is working in "cup challenges" similar to more traditional racers within the single player story mode and numerous additional mechanics. For example, it's time trial mode adds an extra wrinkle with "time crates". Break one and you get extra time added to your countdown. In a normal track, this presents interesting choices like whether it's better to make a sharper turn, or to go out of your way to break a crate and get a better time that way. The higher level time trials often require breaking every single box which sadly removes that strategic choice. But then, there's the "battle arena" time trials. They require breaking every box within a certain period of time and ignore "laps" since well, they're battle arenas. This presents a very unique sort of challenge where the goal is simply finding the most ideal and fastest way to break each crate. The freedom to tackle each one in the order you so choose really makes those levels stand out.
The game's maps are an interesting set. The very first map they ever made for that game was a beach level from Diddy Kong Racing ported directly to the engine just to test if the Playstation hardware could handle such design. This informs the guiding design elements you'll see often through the game, with basic concepts for tracks lifted right out of the N64 games. However, it's the execution where they really shine. Many tracks are large sprawling webs of alternative pathways and skill based shortcuts. It's far more than Mario Kart 64 and even improves upon what Diddy Kong Racing managed. You can race the same track a dozen times and not take the same pathway twice. Of course, variety isn't everything. The tracks are also honed to perfection around the specific capabilities of the racers, so that whatever speed or inertia your character may have, every turn is possible to make without breaking (outside of turbo boosting at the wrong time). This game is a copy of what Nintendo and Rare did, but it's a copy that learned and expanded on those ideas and the track layouts show this.
The powerups are the same set we all know. You've got rolling bombs which are basically green shells, homing missiles as red shells, a protective force bubble, splatty chemical beakers to set traps, a "turbo boost" item, and of course those "last place" power items which, this time around, aren't a guaranteed hit. Much like Super Mario Kart's coins and DKR's bananas, this game uses the Crash serie's staple "Wumpa fruit" as a minor speed booster, with a very interesting plus tied into it. Gather 10 fruit and not only do you max out your speed, you "power up" your powerup. In Diddy Kong Racing, you had to collect the exact same powerup twice to accomplish this. This could often be challenging or even impossible depending on circumstances outside your control, and one missed touch would reset the level of your powerup completely. Tying in item powerups to the fruit makes it far more reliable to pull off while still tying it to player skill. Again, it shows a mastery and knowledge of what they're imitating that they're able to improve upon existing ideas like this. When it comes to speed trials, every trial has three rankings of trophy, but 100% completion (by the game's reckoning) only requires the lowest level trophy.
So many of these things unlock new tracks, characters, and a few other things. There are also cheat codes you can input to unlock all of those things wihout even bothering with those challenges if you'd just prefer to jump into multiplayer and ignore single player entirely. Options like this are always appreciated, as I did when I found out F-Zero X offered such codes as an option. One character in particular, again the penguin, is unlocked exclusively by a button code. Go for it, it's not cheating in that specific case.
Controls: Here's where a racing game can completely fall to pieces. Controls in this game are sharp, smooth, and responsive. Now, I need to add a caveat. You will want to play this game with a duel shock controller. Racing games simply provide far more control with an analog stick than a d-pad. This is what I played mine with, and it's what I'm reviewing. Fortunately, they're rather easy to come by and when Sony made that transition to their revised controller, they invested heavily in getting as many out there and outright replacing the purely digital model as they could.
The game controls essentially like any other cart racer. Turning, breaking, accelerating, item usage, and "sliding". Like Mario Kart 64, the drift button is also a "hop" button, which allows for a brief moment to re-aim your cart just before the slide starts. It's something missing from DKR and Mickey's Speedway USA, but frankly it's a matter of personal taste which style you might prefer. The bigger difference comes from how drift turbos are accomplished. At the highest levels, you absolutely will need to master drifting and turbos in this game. This is a pretty standard requirement of both MK64 and DKR so many will be used to this skill requirement. Drift turbos now are activated on a button press rather than on letting go of the drift button. There is a bar on the bottom of the screen indicating how much "boost" you have. The game also indicates it with smoke and engine sounds much like the others, but this little bar is useful for a new reason. You can now prematurely trigger a boost. It won't last as long as a fully charged one, but for turns that involve much more shallow adjustments it can be hard to build it up all the way. It'll often be faster in those situations to trigger numerous smaller boosts rather than charging up a longer one. Further, drifting is no longer the only way to build turbo charge. You also get them off of jumps. This is also true in newer Mario Kart games, but this was the first I'm aware of to add this trick. Since the drift and jump turbos both tie into the same meter, you can forgo a drift in favor of hitting a small jump instead to get a turbo built up with a combination. This allows a lot of flexibility in how you approach challenges. Combined with how flexible track layouts are in this game, that all adds up to a high skill ceiling, and you'll need to work pretty high up there when it comes to the greatest challenges. The controls honestly manage to exceed both MK64 and DKR. While Mickey's Speedway USA manages to eek out a win in overall smoothness and responsiveness (especially in drifting), the expansive available tricks and the revised and what I consider an improved way to trigger those tricks nets CTR the gold.
Story: A kart racer doesn't typically need a story at all, but with the focus on an exploratory overworld, a bit of story helps as "connective tissue" to tie everything you're doing together. The basic plot of this game is Space Jam. An evil super competitive alien has invaded and challenged the entire world (using a giant megaphone of course) to a race. He wants to race and defeat the greatest racers on the planet, and if he wins or no one shows up, he'll turn the planet into a giant parking lot. It actually manages to make MORE sense than Space Jam because world domination isn't the alien's goal, the thrill of being the best racer is. So, the challenge and the threat follow naturally from the character in a way that Space Jam's doesn't. Like Space Jam though, the characters have the same reason to "go along" with the challenge, they're powerless to resist the alien's power otherwise. They have no choice. It's not like Naughty Dog needed to think it through. Heck, Mickey's Speedway USA has one of those most nonsensical plots I've ever seen. However, they did and I appreciate that little extra effort. For the record, yes this is essentially the plot of Diddy Kong Racing as well. There, Wizpig is motivated by just wanting to cause general "chaos", and the race element stems from the nature of the island's strange magics. It still works, but in a less direct and more abstract way. In any case, by the end they manage to uncover ancient power that lets them ultimately defeat the alien when he, naturally, refuses to accept his defeat and decides to end the world anyway. Fitting kid stuff that works well and serves as a lesson about being a sore loser and having good sportsmanship. All in all, while not needed at all and hardly deep or meaningful, for a game with this design it fits and helps connect the overall world design.
Multiplayer: Once again, this game requires a purchase that the N64 racers don't, and multitaps are harder to come by than controllers, but not prohibitively so. If you just want to buy it on the PS3 store, there's a trick apparently to getting that to work in 4 player mode. I'd recommend looking it up in that case, but I played it on original hardware. Still, the best way is probably to just get the remake on a modern console.
The game offers 4 player split screen, you and your friends racing with the same controls and on those same tracks from solo. As tight as the controls are combined with how expansive the tracks are, this can result in some very fun nights. Sadly, I didn't have this game at the height of it's popularity, but thanks to the remake I've enjoyed a number of online races. I can safely say this can eat up afternoons just as well as MK64 did back then. I'd say the multiplayer actually manages to give that vaunted old game a run for it's money, but since I'm talking about the remake it's more fair to compare it to Mario Kart 8, and in THAT case MK8 easily laps CTR.
Battle mode's tracks are well designed arenas with a focus on aerial advantage. There's so many ways to gain air and fly over your enemies that it's pretty much a requirement to think in 3D when competing with your opposition. Beyond that, it's standard fare battle mode. To this day, I still consider Super Mario Kart to have the best battle mode, but this one's no slouch.
Completion: There are so many extra tracks, challenge modes, characters and "cheats" to find that full completion will take some time. It'll also depend on what you consider full completion. The lowest time trials for each track (plus every other trophy and win in the game) are all that's needed for 100%. To get 101%, you need the "silver" trophy for every time trial. Getting the equivalent of "gold" (purple) doesn't net you an extra percentage at all, but it's still recognized so for true completion, it seems that will be needed. Even ignoring that though, the game offers so much that like Diddy Kong Racing you'll be busy for a while. There's FAR more to keep you coming back than any Mario Kart game will offer, at least for solo play. However, there's the issue of no character switching in story mode. This is still a problem, partly mitigated by an unlocked version of the time trials on the game's main menu. In this way, you can get those trophies with different characters rather than being stuck with the same one on every single track. This game is a completionist's dream.
Challenge: Hard. This game is hard, Rareware hard. You'll need a high degree of mastery to stand a chance at the highest challenges the game offers. However, as I mentioned earlier, there is so much flexibility both in controls and in how you approach most stages that it results in a rather high skill ceiling. This should allow you to clear challenges like they're a breeze once you reach a certain level of skill. It will just take a while to reach it. I know I have lots of room for growth myself in the game. It's a rewarding and "fair" sort of challenge for much of the game's trials, but the cup races are something else. There is a high degree of rubber banding the AI demonstrates in this game, and that's going to bite you in some rather unfair ways from time to time there.
Overall, my opinion of this game has only gone up over the years. From solid controls to excellent track design, this game felt like a natural evolution of what MK64 and DKR had started. I only wish cart racers had continued in this vein, but sadly most challengers would fade away leaving only Mario Kart, and Nintendo never felt the need to develop unique challenges and story modes in the way Rare and Naughty Dog did. It's a shame, since certain things like how powerups and boosting were handled were done both uniquely and in ways that better added to a player's flexibility in this one. (Maybe one day I'll finally sit down with Sonic All Star Racing and give that a try.) I highly recommend this game to anyone who passed over it as "just another Mario Kart clone". It's that, yes, but so much more.
RE: Crash Team Racing - A Black Falcon - 15th April 2022
Sorry, my opinion on this game hasn't changed one bit since it was new -- it's a decent-ish but extremely forgettable Mario Kart/DKR knockoff that Sony fans somehow managed to delude themselves into thinking was far, far better than it is. There's nothing original or interesting here and subjectively I have always hated it. I mean, it's okay-ish, it's a bit above average, but comparing the forgettably barely-above-mediocre actual title to the insane things PS1 fans said about it? Yeah, no. It's not in the same timezone as either of those games, not even remotely close. It's very similar to Crash Bandicoot itself, a barely decent game that somehow totally is just as good as Mario 64, yeah! (Good marketing brought that game far beyond what it deserved based on its quality...)
When I covered this game in my PS1 game opinion summaries list some years back I doubt I gave it more than a paragraph, and that's all it deserves. CTR is a top poster child for the fact that sometimes marketing works. The idea that it's anywhere near DKR or MK64's quality, like its diehard fans say, is ludicrous. Obviously I like Mickey's Speedway USA a lot more than this thing too.
RE: Crash Team Racing - Dark Jaguar - 18th April 2022
(15th April 2022, 6:21 PM)A Black Falcon Wrote: Sorry, my opinion on this game hasn't changed one bit since it was new -- it's a decent-ish but extremely forgettable Mario Kart/DKR knockoff that Sony fans somehow managed to delude themselves into thinking was far, far better than it is. There's nothing original or interesting here and subjectively I have always hated it. I mean, it's okay-ish, it's a bit above average, but comparing the forgettably barely-above-mediocre actual title to the insane things PS1 fans said about it? Yeah, no. It's not in the same timezone as either of those games, not even remotely close. It's very similar to Crash Bandicoot itself, a barely decent game that somehow totally is just as good as Mario 64, yeah! (Good marketing brought that game far beyond what it deserved based on its quality...)
When I covered this game in my PS1 game opinion summaries list some years back I doubt I gave it more than a paragraph, and that's all it deserves. CTR is a top poster child for the fact that sometimes marketing works. The idea that it's anywhere near DKR or MK64's quality, like its diehard fans say, is ludicrous. Obviously I like Mickey's Speedway USA a lot more than this thing too.
Interesting! Care to expand on that a little say in the noted distinctions I made regarding what I think makes CTR stand out?
RE: Crash Team Racing - A Black Falcon - 23rd April 2022
As much as I've always quite disliked CTR, I do have one positive-ish thing to say about the game: as with many PS1 racing games, it supports the neGcon controller for increased analog precision. Sony's horrible, super loose analog sticks are awful for racing games, or any other game which requires actual precision, so it's fortunate that a better option exists. All PS1 racing wheels are neGcon compatible, so you don't need an actual negcon; I don';t have one. There are also a few third party PS1 controllers which have a wheel (neGcon) mode for their analog stick. You need to get specific models (I did a review of one years ago on my site and since have found a second, I'll look up the name) but it's really cool. Even though you're using the same analog stick in wheel-emulation mode that you use in the regular dual shock mode, analog precision is noticeably improved. It makes controls in this game feel a lot better, and closer to the quality of control you'd get from an N64 controller.
RE: Crash Team Racing - Dark Jaguar - 3rd May 2022
Honestly I love all three controllers from that particular generation. I love the N64, so long as it's a brand new analog stick. I love the PS1 Analog controller, and to me they never felt too loose, and I love the Saturn for providing a lot of physical range and how free flowing it feels (though you might hate it since it's loosest of all).
But, I'm still curious about what specifically you don't like about the game. The most I can get is that you don't like that it "copied" Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing. I mean... it did, that's beyond a doubt, but it's been over 20 years at this point and I think it's about time to get over that old history. It's like still being bitter about Aqua Man being a total rip off of The Submariner or still being upset that King of Fighters copied Street Fighter, or Friday the 13th copying Halloween.
Putting that aside, and I urge you to do that, what do you think of the game on it's own terms?