Not quite the Nitro Kart sequel I was hoping for, but does introduce some neat new gameplay with the loopy Crash series.
(-) most of the characters from past Crash racers are absent in this game; the racing itself relies mostly on clashing rather than actual competition;
Crash Tag Team Racing is the next Crash Bandicoot racing game ahead of Crash Nitro Kart. This game introduces a good wealth of new ideas and quirks that are mostly enjoyable, but to do so they had to sacrifice some of the core classic offerings that made Crash Nitro Kart so great.
The story mode is actually pretty unique. Crash is able to roam around in an open world design, collecting wompas and doing small jobs for other characters. By doing these things you can earn stuff like costumes for Crash, which there are a lot of them like a school-boy, skeleton, and more, as well as one more costume for the other characters. You can also enter races. But it can also be fun just messing around the map, because the game offers some hysterical short scenes like gags, one where evil demented Crash inexplicable smashes N-Gin while he's tuning up his car, and Die-o-Rama, which is basically different funny ways that Crash dies. You can view all the videos at your own pace in the game's menu.
In addition to the little extras, you have the classic racing style of Crash but with some added tweaks. The first thing you'll notice is the clashing technology, where you merge with another racer or either drive or attack the enemy cars, which helps the both of you especially if you are both players. However, the core racing element just doesn't seem as straightforward in this game. The items you pick up don't make much of a difference, and winning the race depends more on how many time you clash rather than how fast you can go. That takes the already easy difficulty of Crash Nitro Kart and it brings it down even further.
The graphics are bright and colorful and really make the game inviting to pick up and play. The characters are animated well and the levels are highly detailed. The music however isn't very interesting and it can be hard to concentrate on. But one thing that was really improved in this game is the dialogue of the characters. Although there were some hit or miss sayings, like Coco's "www.youstink.com", I have found some pretty hilarious cracks and jokes, mostly from Dr. Cortex because he says things like "Attention gamer: are you just trying to make me lose?" and "When I hit you, I didn't mean you could hit me back!" The game has a lot of unexpected and random quirks that will certainly add some funny Crash Bandicoot atmosphere to the game.
But other than the core racing, something I felt was lacking was the variety of characters. You mostly have just the basic Crash, Coco, Cortex, Crunch, and N-Gin are the only ones you will recognize immediately. There are also some new and nearly anonymous characters like Nina, Pasadena, and Von Clutch. There just isn't nearly as much variety as there was back in Crash Nitro Kart. I really miss characters like Tiny, N-Trance and Fake Crash. Even though there are many different costumes and also cars that these characters can drive, for the most part you must get used to seeing the same drivers over and over again.
Overall, Crash Tag Team Racing boasts a free roam adventure mode, more funny dialogue, a unique clashing concept, and also some options of character appearance as well as vehicle, but ultimately the racing component as a whole and character variety takes a hit because of it. This game is okay if you haven't played Nitro Kart, and it must be treated as a totally different game rather than a possible sequel, because it really isn't.