Crash Team Racing

Crash Team Racing
Also known as: Crash Bandicoot Racing (JP) Developer: Naughty Dog Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Platform: PlayStation Released in JP: December 16, 1999 Released in US: September 30, 1999 Released in EU: October 20, 1999 This game has unused items. This game has unused sounds. This game has regional differences. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article

Crash Team Racing is Sony's answer to Mario Kart 64, in which characters of the Crash Bandicoot series are pitted against each other in a race to save the planet.

To do: Get higher quality rips of the Japanese and Western character icons, and the Japanese main menu. A review copy was leaked on the internet in 2012, and has numerous differences.

Removed Items

Three items that were removed still have their icon on the disc. Interestingly, two of these items were usable if the user used a cheat device in the playable demo released before the game.

File:CTRunuseditemSPRING.png The first item is a Spring, this spring allows the kart to jump extremely high, this was probably removed due to it having very limited use.

File:CTRunuseditemUNKNOWN.png The second item is a bit more confusing, the icon is very low-res, and when used it did nothing.

File:CTRunuseditemSHIELD.png The third item is an old icon for the bubble shield.

Unused Audio

To do: There are 2 unused Ripper Roo recordings involving him speaking to the player like in the japanese version. Also, there is another unused N. Oxide sound clip involving him saying: "I win! This planet is toasted!" meant to be used when the player lost his battle race.

Placeholder Dialogue

Early builds of the game contained a ton of placeholder dialogue used to fill in for character sounds which weren't implemented in the game yet. Whilst most samples were removed from the retail disc, two samples were particularly notable for not merely existing within the game's code, but actually playing in-game via a mistake and contrasting largely from the rest of the character's audio. Penta Penguin's audio bank contains voice samples from a male voice saying "Penguin yay one" and "Penguin yay two" in a deadpan tone, which by human error were left in the game to play alongside his other sounds. These mistakes were caught during the European localisation and consequently removed.

Penta Penguin "Yay" 1

Penta Penguin "Yay" 2

Title Announcement

A rather unusual sounding Clancy Brown announcing the title of the game, it was most likely to be used on the title screen. The enunciation in this clip is rather poor, and as a result the audio would be rather difficult to fully make out when combined with the music playing in the background. International releases have no announcement at the title screen, although Japanese copies make use of an entirely different audio clip.

Unused Adventure Voice Clips

There exist numerous audio clips by Aku Aku and Uka Uka which were intended for Adventure Mode but are rendered unused in the final game, the majority of them relating to hardware problems with the PlayStation.

No Controller Notice

No controllers are plugged into controller ports. Please insert a controller into a controller port.

No Memory Card

There are no memory cards in any of the memory card slots. Put a memory card in a memory card slot and try again.

No CTR Memory Card Data

There is no Crash Team Racing data on this memory card.

No Memory Card Space

The current memory card is full. Put in a different memory card, or erase files from the current memory card.

The latter 6 clips were likely intended to be used in conjunction with the Load-Save Screen, but these warnings are displayed by text as opposed to voice, rendering the recorded audio unused.

Boss Key Congratulations

Good job! You've earned a key!

A congratulatory message for obtaining a Boss Key. The message was likely removed as a result of being deemed redundant by Naughty Dog, as the bosses congratulate you themselves in an in-game cutscene after beating them in a race.

CTR Token Congratulations

Excellent work! You've collected a CTR Token!

A similar case occurs with the CTR Tokens: Although audio does exist of the masks congratulating you on obtaining them, they aren't used and after the race has concluded, you spawn outside of the level's Warp Vortex with no message from the masks.

Unused Nitros Oxide Dialogue

N. Oxide has unused voice recordings found in an early US version of the game. These recordings have a slightly different voice to the final Oxide, indicating that these were made during a different recording session.

Time is short, so find your best driver and get ready to race for the fate of your planet!

It may have been possible that Oxide was going to suggest the player to select a character of choice during Adventure Mode.

I'm sorry to interrupt this pitiful little party, but I am waiting, you know. What? No champion yet? So far, you slowpokes savages don't look like much of a challenge! You race so slow. I think it's more fun to watch [???] grass grow. Well, hurry up and bring me those trophies! I grow impatient!

Suggesting that there was going to be a cutscene where Oxide taunts the player.

Think you can save your planet? Believe me, it's doomed. No one has ever beaten Oxide in a race, ever! Still, you savages amuse me, so a fair chance is in order. Bring 16 trophies to my spaceship, proving you are the world champion. Then will we race for the fate of your planet.

Audio suggesting that Oxide was at one point going to taunt the player into bringing all 16 Gold Trophies to his ship.

You're the fastest racer so far? You're the best this planet can offer? This is going to be a bigger joke than that last civilization I challenged. What was it called... on that red planet so close to here... Oh, yes. I think you call it Mars. Now that was an easy win. What? You say there is no civilization on the planet Mars? [laughs] Not anymore! They lost the race!

This one has Oxide explaining that he was the main reason as to why there is no civilization on Mars.

Regional Differences

US and European

Hub World Names

In the European version, driving between the different areas would cause the name of the area to show at the bottom of the screen. No such feature is found in the US version.

Penta Penguin

Causing a bit of controversy amongst fans of the game at the time, Penta Penguin had different stats depending on the game's region. US gamers had a Penta Penguin who shared his stats with Polar and Pura, but soon found out that Penta Penguin was much, much faster in the European version.

In the US version, Penta had an odd glitch associated with him: when Penta got a wooden mask powerup, the icon would show up as Uka Uka, but when activated an Aku Aku would appear. This was fixed in the European release.

Scrapbook

The scrapbook in the European version was shortened considerably due to disc space limitations. The space that the larger US scrapbook originally took up was replaced with the text and sounds for the multiple languages that the PAL version supported.

Default High Scores

Every default best time for each track is 9:59:99 in the US version. They have all been changed to regular times in this version.

US/European and Japanese

Someone in charge of the Japanese localization apparently decided to have a field day and change just about everything in the game. As this version is based off the PAL version, improvements from that version have been retained.

Intro

The Japanese intro has an announcer reading out the messages before the start of the game, and the music is completely different.

Main Menu

The logo of the game featuring Crash holding a trophy has been changed to him sitting in his kart.

Characters

Ripper Roo now speaks in an actual language now, rather than his crazed laughing, which also means he no longer needs subtitles.

Some character icons were changed to a larger, different design, most likely to appeal more to the Japanese market.

Name	NTSC/PAL	NTSC-J
Crash Bandicoot
Coco Bandicoot
Dr. Neo Cortex
Fake Crash
Penta Penguin
Pura Tiger
N. Tropy

Bonus Video

Like with the Japanese versions of the previous two Crash games, a hidden video has been added and can be viewed by holding L1 + L2 + R1 + R2 at the PlayStation logo during startup. You have to reset your console after the video has finished playing.

(Source: Hacc)

Miscellaneous

• TNT crates no longer say TNT on them, instead sporting a lovely generic bomb picture on them.
• The theme song was completely changed, like most other Japanese localisations of the Crash Bandicoot series.
• When selecting a track in Arcade mode, there are stars indicating how difficult the track is. The western versions had no such feature.
• Due to the language change, the C, T and R items have been changed to C, B and R (Crash Bandicoot Racing).
• You need two boss keys to unlock the Skull Rock challenge as opposed to one in Adventure mode.
• There is a counter on the HUD that appears when you chain 3 or more turbos during a race, and displays your highest turbo chain at the end of a race. This can be activated in other versions via cheat code. An boost counter is used in Crash Nitro Kart.
• Isabella, the girl who appears in award ceremonies when Crash and Coco win a race, has brown eyes as opposed to light blue.
• The Scrapbook is also different in this version, featuring a few pieces of art not in the other versions.