Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is essentially a recreation of the first Crash Team Racing game, but also includes tracks from the other PlayStation 1 & 2 era games.
Mario Kart is seen as a very accessible karting game, where Crash Team Racing is regarded for the more skilled gamers. There's multiple difficulties, but Easy is very easy, and Medium is really difficult, so it can be frustrating if you want a competitive race until you really master the intricacies.
Even in the game's other modes, it seems erratic. I love playing Time Trials, and some tracks I found it hard to even chart on the game's default leaderboard, whereas others I was taking the top spot with ease. I refuse to believe I'm that inconsistent across the tracks.
I initially played the Adventure mode which I thought would be a great place to get used to the tracks. You play individual races but have to finish in 1st place to progress. This is really challenging, but then there's the variations like Relic race and CTR Challenge which are even harder. Relic race is where you smash crates to freeze the timer, with the aim of completing 3 laps under the target time. Ring Rally starts you off with 5 seconds and then the rings give you an instant turbo and more time. In CTR Challenge, not only do you need to know where these collectables are, but then you have to finish 1st to actually be successful. You can play these race types outside of Adventure mode, but the menus don't make it clear which tracks you have completed successfully. Another frustrating aspect of Adventure mode is that when you finish a race, you are brought back to the entrance, so have to tediously drive to the location.
When you complete races, which takes great skill (unless you play on easy), Aku Aku will then be like "do you know you can boost by power-sliding?". "Erm, how do you think I won the race? I have to know that, and way more."
There's 42 karts, and 53 characters, with loads of colour palette swaps for each character. There's loads of unique characters, then many characters that are basically copy-and-paste, then some baby variants. Spyro also makes an appearance. Some of these are unlocked via Adventure mode. The rest are bought by coins. You earn coins by racing, and for some reason, you get double when you play at the weekend. I was generally getting around 60-90 coins per race if played at the weekend, but you are generally buying characters at 2500, vehicles for 3200 so it’s a huge grind. You spend your coins in the Pit Stop which has a limited selection which is switched out after a period of time. Unless you gain loads more coins by playing online (I played this game late and I don't have Xbox Live), it seems like a money grabbing scheme to make you purchase coin packs from the store.
The graphics are brilliant, with vibrant colours, detailed textures, lots of background objects. However, maybe you pay for that with the fairly long load times.
I initially found the power-slide angle hard to get used to. The boost mechanic is different too. You initiate with one of the slide buttons but then tap the other when the gauge fills (your tires also flash) - which fills up to 3 times for a more powerful boost. You also gain boosts from air-time, so you are constantly leaping off any kind of ramp, or bump. I believe by chaining boosts, your boosts are stronger, indicated by the constant blue flames.
When racing, you collect Wumpa fruit which increases the power of weapons, so TNT crates become Nitro Crates. The weapons were fine, but since the emphasis is on racing, I didn't often feel I was using weapons with much benefit. There's usually one or more shortcuts on the tracks; some are more obvious than others. I wasn't a fan of the points system since there's no incentive to fight for positions in the bottom four:
1st: 9
2nd: 6
3rd: 3
4th: 1
5th: 0
6th: 0
7th: 0
8th: 0
Once you get used to the handling, the racing is excellent. The track designs are great, and there's a great number of them. The character roster is also huge, and I do love having lots to unlock. However, the emphasis on microtransactions, and the erratic difficulty let this down.