Proto:Crash Nitro Kart (PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox)/US Demo Disc

This is a sub-page of Proto:Crash Nitro Kart (PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox).

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A standalone demo disc was released on GameStop stores. It's a very unfinished build and contains numerous differences from the final game. According to the modification dates of the files, the demo is dated around July 8th, 2003.

The demo features two playable race tracks: Jungle Boogie and Out of Mime.

Audio Differences

Early Voice Clips
Early/scrapped voice clips.

Menu Differences

Demo	Final

The startup sequences use static images. There is no music, narration or animated screens.
The game's logo is a static image on a dull background. It says Press Start Button to Begin! using the game's font, instead of Press Start Button in a white font.
Three options are available in the main menu: 1 Player Race, 2 Player Race, and Control Setup. The CNK's logo is missing, and there are no other game modes.
The background is much lighter than the final game.
A meteor would orbit Velo's Coliseum in the background of the selection menus.
The planet on the left has an orange tone in the demo, as opposed to the purple color from the final.
"Accept" and "Back" button hints are always on-screen, regardless the menu you are.
Vicarious Visions's logo is also present in the bottom right corner.

Control Setup

Demo	Final

There are some control layout differences: the Rear View button is set to R2 instead of L2, and Toggle View is set to L2 instead of Select.

Character Selection

Demo	Final

The characters are static and have no animations.
Cortex's menu model is smaller and his head is bigger.
The unlockable characters icons are invisible and their shadows don't appear.
There is a 1 number in the left corner of the highlighted P1 icon outline. In the final game, it's used only in multiplayer modes.

Level Select

Demo	Final

Two levels can be selected. There is no preview thumbnail, track minimaps, or even the number of laps.
Out of Time is called "Out of Mime", likely a typo (or a reference to Norm's planet where everyone is mimic).

Loading Screen

There are no unique loading screens for each track. Instead, the letters in "LOADING" fly from the right, just like in CTR, but in front of a plain, black background.

Gameplay Differences

The lighting is much simpler.
The shading of the characters was very unfinished. The models aren't affected by the shadow of the environment, keeping the same shade of color, regardless of where they are.
The characters are static and lack all animations except the idle ones.
The characters' models have very blurry, low poly textures.
The idle animations are activated much more quickly than in the final game.
A few smoke comes out from the exhaust pipes when the kart is idle.
The smokes suddenly change to black when powersliding, rather than fading smoothly.
There is a height meter that pops up every time the kart is lifted from the ground.
The powerslide bar has the colors inverted.
The boost counter is placed on the right corner of the screen and appears from the right, similar to Crash Team Racing.
The tire tracks are etched on the ground for a long time.
The boost counter appears on the right and over the minimap.
It's much more complicated to skid karts.
There are many unused voice lines which were removed or reduced in the final game.
The CPU racers have a louder voice in-race.
The item roulette gives an item too early.
Wumpa crates give to the player a few Wumpas, usually between 2-3 fruits.
Pressing X to resume the game will reset the level's theme.
The speedometer won't glow when 10 Wumpas are collected.

Race

Single Race is called Arcade.

Demo	Final

The characters spawn much further ahead of the start line.
The minimap is larger and is placed higher on the HUD.
- Because of this, the minimap is overlapped by the boost counter.
Start lights have a different texture than the final game.
The symbol that represents the player on the minimap is the same size as the CPU ones and doesn't blink.
Start banners weren't implemented yet.
The position number is placed too close to the character icons.

Demo	Final

The results screen was very simple at this time and there wasn't any commemoration for achieving first place.
The demo features Crash with a deeper voice. All of his voice effects were sped up for the final game, but the original ones were still kept for the Game Boy Advance.
The races are based on Team Mode. However, it works very differently from the final game, since the Team Frenzy feature didn't exist at the time. If the player receives an Aku Aku, Shield or Voodoo Doll, the CPU racer of the same team will also receive it if the player is next to that character.
The CPU racers have a high difficulty in the demo and throw a variety of items such as TNTs and Freezing Mines, which doesn't happen in the final game.
Some power-up explosions, such as the bowling bombs, are purple.
The Velo mask wasn't implemented yet. Instead, all characters who are protected by it in the final game are protected by Aku Aku mask with Uka Uka's voice and music as placeholder.
A lot of voice clips are missing in the demo.
The characters have an extra voice clip for when they are hit.
Some falling voice clips are much longer, causing it to continue playing even after the character respawns.
- Most of them also have longer voice clips for other actions, which were shortened in the final game.
The mask makes its sound effect and its invincibility theme plays when the character falls.
- The mask comes down to rescue the character way faster.
- There is no black screen transition before the respawn.
- The characters respawn way faster.

Multiplayer

It isn't possible to access 3 or 4 player modes, as the demo only grants access for one and two players.

Demo	Final

In general, multiplayer mode was heavily unfinished at this point.
The HUD layout is based on Crash Team Racing with many similarities and much larger.
The characters' icons are bigger.
The camera is much closer to the players.
There are two colored lines in the screen division.
The karts are emitting smoke, which was disabled in the final game for multiplayer modes.
The height meter was also present in multiplayer.
There are no sound effects on player 2's screen.
The ordinal suffix for the players' position is missing from the HUD when you play 2P Jungle Boogie for the first time. Restarting the race will fix it.

Power-Ups

Voodoo Doll

The Voodoo Doll is an item that was removed from the final game which surrounds the player in a bright aura (complete with a heavenly choir) while supplying a short Team Frenzy-like effect with unlimited power-ups for a short amount of time. It also shrinks down whoever's in 1st place, generates a rain cloud over their head (similar to what happens in Crash Team Racing with the Red Beakers), slows them down, and makes their kart slippery. The icon for the voodoo doll is still present in the final game, and you can see it flashing among the other power-ups when you break a crate.

TNT

The "Jump!" message warning is missing.

Freezing Mine

The freezing mine used to have a different icon that is still used in the Game Boy Advance version.
The old model was a small crystal surrounded by a blue fog.
The effect of the freezing mine is shorter in the demo.

Static Orb

The thunder bolt is the Static Orb's original form. It was only different in appearance and icon.
It uses the missile tracking sound effect when following the player, in the juiced up form.
- The target icon is also of the same color.

Power Shield

Power Shield's icon is the exact same icon used in Crash Team Racing.
The shield has a different appearance.
If your teammate activates the shield as well, a small sphere of energy will emerge from the bubble and automatically fly to the nearest racers, causing a shock to the opponents.

Aku Aku/Uka Uka

The masks have a very different theme.
If you hit someone while invincible, they will spin.

Super Engine

Super Engine's icon is the exact same icon used in Crash Team Racing.

Track Differences

Jungle Boogie

Jungle Boogie uses Tiny Temple theme.
Some crates have a different placement.

Out of Time

The fence shortcut that you can jump over is different. You can drive through it, but there is an invisible wall after that and there is no way past it.
There are no eagles flying around the stage's background.
The windmills have a different sound effect.

Demo	Final

The ramps have a different texture and don't give a dash.
There is a removed giant hourglass floating up above. It flips constantly in mid-air.
The ! crate is misplaced on mid-air.

Demo	Final

There are three worms instead of four.
The worms have different holes, which are just patches of dirt. They're still visible when hiding.
If one of the worms eats you, the camera doesn't change angles like in the final game.
The X crate is absent.

Unused Content

Unlockable Characters

The demo allows you to choose between the eight starter characters. Despite this, using hacking tools and modifying the characters addresses, it's also possible to access Zem, Zam, Polar, Dingodile, Pura, Fake Crash, N. Tropy, and Velo.

Early Strings

FROZEN FRENZY
HEAD N. CLOUDS
ELECTRIC AVENUE

Meteor Gorge, Thunder Struck, and Electron Avenue originally had different names. Frozen Frenzy was later reused on a snowy battle arena. It's also worth noticing that there are no strings related to Hyper Spaceway.

CRASH CUP
CRYSTAL CUP

Originally, all four cups would have the same names used in CTR, but these two were eventually renamed to Aku Cup and Uka Cup.

LOST EARTH

Terra's original name was Lost Earth.

Relic Times

The relic times for all tracks are different, though only times for Inferno Island and Jungle Boogie seem to be properly set.

Level	Relic Times (Demo)	Relic Times (Final)
Inferno Island	2:04:00 2:00:00 1:58:00	1:35:00 1:15:00 0:55:00
Jungle Boogie	2:07:80 2:02:20 1:58:50	1:40:00 1:18:00 0:55:00
Tiny Temple	2:31:50 2:17:20 2:07:50	2:05:00 2:00:00 1:40:00
Meteor Gorge		2:00:00 1:53:00 1:25:00
Barin Ruins		2:10:00 1:58:00 1:45:00
Deep Sea Driving		2:20:00 2:05:00 1:50:00
Out of Time		2:35:00 2:15:00 1:55:00
Clockwork Wumpa		2:30:00 2:15:00 2:20:00
Thunder Struck		3:00:00 2:38:00 2:15:00
Assembly Lane		2:35:00 2:10:00 1:45:00
Android Alley		2:35:00 2:23:00 2:10:00
Electron Avenue		3:15:00 3:03:00 2:50:00
Terra		1666:40:00 166:40:00 16:40:00
Barin
Fenomena
Teknee
Velo's Vault
Velo's Citadel
Hyper Spaceway		4:00:00 3:45:00 3:30:00
Arena1	2:35:00 2:17:00 2:07:50	1666:40:00 166:40:00 16:40:00
Arena2
Arena3
Arena4
Arena5
Arena6
Arena7
Lobby	Not present.

Crystal Challenge Time Limits

They are all set to 60 seconds, most likely a placeholder.

Difficulty Level

The difficulty factor for "Easy", "Medium" and "Hard" difficulties on Arcade Mode was lowered to 0, 0.45 and 0.9 respectively on the final game from 0, 0.5 and 1 in the demo.

Gem Cups

The tracks for the gem cups are different in the demo, with all three Fenomena tracks missing from them.

Cup	Tracks (Demo)	Tracks (Final)
Red Gem Cup	Inferno Island Barin Ruins Electron Avenue	Inferno Island Meteor Gorge Assembly Lane
Green Gem Cup	Jungle Boogie Meteor Gorge Assembly Lane	Jungle Boogie Deep Sea Driving Out of Time
Blue Gem Cup	Tiny Temple Deep Sea Driving Android Alley	Android Alley Tiny Temple Thunder Struck
Purple Gem Cup	Assembly Lane Meteor Gorge Tiny Temple	Meteor Gorge Clockwork Wumpa Electron Avenue

Velo's Vault

It requires 3 keys to access as opposed to 4 in the final game, and the warp pad to Hyper Spaceway's relic race is not present.