Topic: CTR Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled

@TestudoVilis I have the Switch version. Oh, yeah, look at all those Tarta times. Man...you think you're special just because you can keep blue flame for 1-3 laps? Wait, that's exactly how it works😉. Impressive! I might have to dive back into CTR to see if I can match those Velo times.

@ralphdibny Oh, wow, I didn't catch that part where a commentator said they wanted to patch out shortcuts. Do you know if that was early or late in the video? I ripped the video to mp4, and have only seen the first 25 minutes so far.

@WoomyNNYes I just don't think he was familiar with the game, despite him being the head of the team (I think?). I can't remember exactly what bit, but later on he clarifies about them patching out exploits and says something like "we see the players do that and we are like NO!". So every time he says "NO!" in this video it makes me think a patch is going through his mind because he obviously doesn't have a clue what's supposed to be in the game and what isnt 😂

I think he gets funny about the shortcut through the clouds on that yellowish coloured cloudy track, can't remember what it's called now. And also about a kart going up some rocks in Coco park which seemed like an accident anyway tbh, it's not going to take anything off the lap time. Just seemed a bit anal to want to patch that out. Oh yeah and I think(?) on Papus Pyramid, the kart was literally flying over that short cut near the middle of the track. It's all legitimate if you can do it with blue flame but because it looked like the kart was going through the cliff edge at the top of the stage the guy was talking about adding obstructions there.

The only thing that it's really acceptable to patch out are the ultra glitch shortcuts or whatever people call them. The ones where you can skip like half the track or the whole track. But if a racer is more or less following the whole track around taking the designed shortcuts then just let them be for goodness sake! 😂

I duno he just sounded really dumb and uninformed about his own game. He was even saying stuff like, "why did we even bother with all the graphical details when people are zipping around with blue flame like the tracks are in fast forward?" Haha I'd hate to work for somebody like that who just can't see the bigger picture

@WoomyNNYes Yeah man, I was always told that I'm special, haha!

Jokes aside, good luck with those Velo times! Spend some more time getting the hang of keeping fire and they'll fall before you notice.

@ralphdibny When I rewatched it, I heard the beenox guy mention blocking exploits, but the context wasn't about blocking shortcuts in general, it was more about blocking some weird exploits found in the PS1 version of CTR.

The part about "why did we bother with all the details" part, I got totally different impression. The beenox guy was joking. Earlier in the video, around Coco Park, he mentioned how they told the designers/devs to put as many flowers in to the Coco Park environment as they could, then we'll trim them back as-needed, to get the performance needed. They talked about how the design team was fleshing out the track environments to tell a story in Tiny Arena, adding things that weren't in the origitnal CTR. Then, while watching the speedrunner flying through Cortex Castle, he was impressed at how fast the track was wizzing by, "like it's in fast forward", he then jokingly said, "Gee, why did we even bother with the details guys?"🤪. I never thought he meant it literally.😉

@WoomyNNYes that's fair enough, maybe I did read it wrong. I think I interpreted it that way because he didn't seem to know his own product. He kept referring to "expert techniques" as a catch all term which seemed like a dead giveaway that he was unfamiliar with it.

I think I've just been in too many business meetings with young passive aggressive project managers where they say something deadly serious but know what they are saying is ridiculous so they kind of laugh while they say it or make a joke as if it makes it better. Normally unrealistic expectations come from a birds eye view of processes without knowing the specifics. I pegged him as that sort of person. Maybe I've just become too jaded as an adult 😅

But yeah apart from me taking an immediate dislike to this person, it was interesting to find out some of the thought that went into the game design. I was just on edge throughout the video because it seemed like he was taking the wrong lessons from this speed run as if it was indicative of how everybody plays the game. Which obviously I care about in case they make a CTR 2! CTR is an excellent game and is a sum of all its parts so I'd hate for a sequel to double down on a particular aspect without any care for the rest of the game that completes the package

@WoomyNNYes hey I didn't mean to be overly negative about the vid so I'm sorry if I came across as unbearably critical. I know you are just posting it to spark conversation so I really do apologise for coming across so poorly. It really isn't a reflection on you posting the video, I just watched most of the video so I could discuss it with you and I guess I can be a little too honest sometimes. Maybe you understood that anyway but I just wanted to say something for the avoidance of any doubt.

Are you still playing CTR? I really need to get back into it at some point but I've been unusually productive this past year in playing and finishing other games during our various lockdowns. I think I've finished around 80 different games since march last year! 😅 Sometimes I play CTR with a friend who now lives in another country just so we can keep in touch, I really need to hit him up for another game/catch up soon!

@ralphdibny You're totally fine I mostly stopped playing CTR around the last two Grand Prixs. But lately, I've picked it up again to play a few online races here and there. I'd love it if they make a CTR sequel. I really think they need to add a boosts-only or weapons-free racing mode to online. That...and obviously, shorter load screen times. If Mario Kart 8 had a boosts-only or weapons-free racing mode, I'd play that some. I know there are tournaments in MK8 online for that kind of racing, but they are usually empty, no-body racing them. So, I gave up checking.

Since last winter I've mainly been playing Rocket League. Lately, it seems like the only new games that could grab & hold my attention would be a new AAA Nintendo game sequel like Splatoon, Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, or a new Mario Kart. .....Mario 3D World is new to me, and I just started playing that.

@WoomyNNYes 👍 what's your favourite Mario kart by the way? Mine was MKWii, I think like CTR it just had buckets of stuff to unlock and you had to be really skilled to unlock it. I did 100% MK8 but it wasn't nearly as long or as satisfying as my experience with Wii.

I think one of the things that was so good about CTR is that it's almost like a platformer in how tight and responsive your button presses have to be. Platformers have long been my favourite genre (though I tend to gravitate toward the familiar franchises like Donkey Kong country due to lack of time) so I quite like the tight controls and the mechanics of CTR. I just got finished playing Ori and the Blind Forest on the Xbox and I thought it was excellent. I don't normally go in for Metroidvanias but that aspect of Ori is quite simple to understand, it really shines in its complicated but hugely fun platforming.

Good luck with 3D World! I have the Wii U version, for some reason it didn't really grab me and I never finished it. I should really revisit it soon seeing as there is a renewed hype due to the rerelease.

I'm not sure what I could ask for in a CTR sequel, just more of the same I guess! New tracks would obviously be the main thing. Less of a grind for Wumpa coins for sure. I'd really like it if they didn't tie certain unlocks behind time limited events and they were clear and upfront about it too - I believe there are some champion kart decals that are locked forever now for people who didn't participate in those events. I think what killed me most on CTR 1 was staying up til 3/4am on Sunday Nights before work so I could get the Wumpa coin bonuses.

@ralphdibny I guess I'd say I like MK7/MK8 best. Keep in mind, I've only played Mario Kart 64, MK7, MK8. I recall trying Mario Kart Wii once around 2018, but with my MK7/MK8 knowledge & drift boosting, I couldn't win against the AI. I believe you, that it's good, but I'm not sure what the Mario Kart Wii system is all about.

@WoomyNNYes I've gone back to try Mario kart Wii after a long while and having played MK8 and CTR in the interim, the handling felt totally alien to me. I'm sure I could get back into it if I tried properly though. I should really give MK7 and DS for that matter, more of a go. I think I got a bit overwhelmed with the customisation options in those games, not sure why though seeing as I'm fine with the other games. I have played through all the tracks on them, I just never gave as much time to them as the console games.

I actually had an idea like a decade a go for a new Mario Kart game called Mario Kart World. I guess it would be like a side game but it was basically Mario Kart but it played a bit like an RPG. You'd start off with a party of 4 racers, maybe some of the good guys from Super Mario Kart like Mario, DK jr, Peach and Toad. You'd like level them up as you race and it would have every single track from every game up until now. I'm not sure if the areas you travel around would be themed by game or by area. Probably the former as it might be a bit boring to race around ten versions of Bowser's Castle in a row. Obviously it would have a plethora of new tracks too and side areas where you would unlock new racers for your party. I guess it would have every single racer from past games available too. I'm not really sure how the levelling up would work, maybe you could spend XP on different aspects of the racer or different karts and stuff. I guess the AI would start off really easy and get ridiculously hard with your racers starting off very slow and underpowered. Maybe scrap the levelling system altogether and just present it this way so we can have a definitive collection of all Mario Kart racers, tracks and kart options! Maybe I thought the game would advance through the graphical eras as you progressed too, like you would start off SNES style, then N64, then GBA and so forth.

@ralphdibny You can apply much of your MK8 knowledge to MK7. The characters class is about the same. And the parts are similar too. I'm tempted to say MK8 is essentially a reskinned MK7, that's how they feel to me, anyway.

Oof. I used to really struggle with how the karts turn if I changed games Mario Kart vs CTR. It was comical, sometimes frustrating. If I changed games, I often would hit the inside of turns or the outer walls for a few runs. It's not as big a problem these days, though.

What!!?? I thought I needed 3, or at least 2, drift boosts to do the Sewer Speedway shortcut. The whole time I'm watching this, I'm thinking, "there's no way they're going to do the shortcut".
(I've been wanting to replay the story mode. The only reason I haven't is because, I dread driving around the hub maps. I really wish I could skip that stuff. It's fine, I just want to race without wandering/driving around the hub.)

I'm so bored of MK8 (300+ hours) and waiting for the next wave of MK8 booster pass tracks, revisiting CTR is looking more, and more attractive. XD

@ralphdibny or anybody else,

Does beating all oxide's time trial times unlock anything? I can't find any info (perhaps because nothing unlocks). Thinking about trying to complete beating all oxide's times. I may already have half or two thirds of his times beat. Working on Megamix Mania track yesterday. I finally started keeping blue flame long enough (still challenging) but got tired & sloppy, and kept blowing it in the third lap in that minefield canyon straightaway (with multiple paths through it) near the end of the track.

@WoomyNNYes ahhh it's been so long I couldn't remember! Had to do a little digging but I found an old gamefaqs post that says beating Oxide times unlocks the digital N.Tropy skin.

I think everything that is quite hard/long to do has some sort of unlock associated with it, relics, each set of time trials, the golden eggs, the crate thing etc.

I think digital N.Tropy skin was before the DLC/seasons too so maybe you only have to beat the Oxide times on the base game tracks to get it

Please forgive me if I am wrong, it's been a few years!