Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled: Ranking Every Character From Worst To Best
Does Crash come out on top in his own game?
Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled dropped this week, and after the character’s recent revival with the N. Sane Trilogy, the game continues the nostalgia train that keeps Crash’s momentum building. The racer combines the classic Crash Team Racing with elements of Nitro Kart and Tag Team Racing mixed in too.
The characters are split into four categories: speedsters, accelerators, handlers and more balanced folk. They’re judged here on design, personality, how well they fit their categories, and generally how much fun they are to play as.
Recently, the original PS1 game was subject to a ranking, but this isn’t just that one with that newbies crammed in. Their skins, place in Crash history, and how the updated version treats them comes into play here too.
The Pit Stop store adds more complication; several characters have to be bought, which hurts their ranking somewhat as they’re lesser known characters anyway. Earning them doesn’t always feel that worthwhile when all of your favourites are already unlocked either automatically or through regular gameplay.
Sometimes though, the Pit Stop characters are worth the grind, and unlocking them feels all the sweeter.
Since the Grand Prix hasn’t started yet, those characters (Tawna, Spyro etc.) are obviously not included here.
26. Zam
Someone has to be last, but Zam makes it pretty easy to choose who. All the post Naughty Dog characters struggle to get much traction with fans, but of those Zam has the blandest design.
Splashing out on the Nitrous Oxide Edition gets you Zam for free, although everyone else has get him from the Pit Stop. He won’t cost much, but still isn’t really worth it.
He comes in the easy to play Handling category, but by the time you’ve unlocked him, you’re probably decent enough at the game to play with more advanced categories. Some experts favour handlers to harvest blue flames, but for most part they’re too slow.
It’s tempting to say you should spend those coins on Zem instead, but let’s just say he’s not troubling the top ten here either.
The N. Sane Trilogy is essentially a hard reboot back to the beginning for Crash, so Zam doesn’t yet exist in the continuity. There’s a chance that Activision and Vicarious Visions (who’ll be handling main series games) will include him moving forward, but he hasn’t helped his chances here.
For now, he feels like a character you’ll grab just for completion, but rarely (if ever) actually use.