History VideoGame / CrashTeamRacing

* GoKartingWithBowser: [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] by way of EnemyMine. There are actually more bad guys than good guys as playable characters! You start with 4 bad guys and 4 good guys, then the unlockables are mostly the bosses in the Adventure Mode. In total, there are five good guys (the four Good defaults and one unlockable) nine bad guys (the four Bad defaults plus five unlockables), and [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor Fake Crash]].
** In the story, you take on the four bosses in the Purple Gem Cup. This time, they don't have the traits they have in the boss races and act like the competitors in regular races.

** DifficultButAwesome: Once power-sliding is mastered, however, those guys can remain on their top speed the whole race, trivialize turns, and even, thanks to the low handling stat, powerslide in straight lines without losing time.
* MovingTheGoalPosts: Zigzagged; When Oxide arrives, he says that he'll leave Earth alone if he's beaten in the big race. Once you do, he relents and says that Earth gets to stay "all gushy and green"... but then claims that he won't leave until you gather up all his Time Relics and beat him ''again'' to prove that you're "the fastest in the Universe". As it so happens, getting all 18 Time Relics basically means you have to 100% the game! This can be subverted by the player however if they go for 100% completion before taking Oxide on the first time.

* NotJustATournament: At the start, the cast just races for the fun of it, but then Oxide comes and threatens the whole planet to become slaves unless their racing champion can beat him at racing.

* SNKBoss: Nitros Oxide is deliberately designed to be as unfair of a boss as possible. It's one thing that he drops the items of every single boss character, but he also [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard crosses the starting line before the green light]], and datamining reveals that he's the only character in the game (besides Penta Penguin in the NTSC release) who has perfect stats in every category.

[[quoteright:282:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2592_front_5.jpg]]

* SlippySlideyIceWorld: Blizzard Bluff is a relatively innocent snow level, while the harder Polar Pass' green lights remind of a nuclear winter. The HubLevel Glacier Park and the battle map The North Bowl are a midpoint between it.

-->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!

* SlippySlideyIceWorld: Blizzard Bluff and Polar Pass, as well as the battle map The North Bowl and the hub world Glacier Park.

* WackyRacing

* '''Other secret characters''': [[OddballDoppelganger Fake Crash]], [[TimeMaster Dr. N. Tropy]], [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins Penta Penguin]].

* HomeStage[=/=]ThemeNaming: With only a few exceptions[[note]]Mystery Caves, Sewer Speedway, Blizzard Bluff, Slide Colosseum, and Turbo Track[[/note]], every stage in the game is named after one of the playable characters (Crash Cove, Roo's Tubes, Coco Park, etc) and serves as their home stage. An added MeaningfulBackgroundEvent is that if you are not playing said character, the AI racer who is put in first at the starting line will be said corresponding character. Hot Air Skyway and Dragon Mines are the two exceptions to be home stages that are not named after their characters (Pinstripe and Komodo Joe, respectively).

* {{Gainaxing}}: The trophy girls.

* CitadelCity: The [[TropeNamers name]] of one of the {{Hub Level}}s.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: [[https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/07/30/crash-team-racing-adds-real-money-microtransactions-with-next-update patched in]] {{microtransactions}} a few weeks after launch. This allowed them to sell a lot of copies without having to include the In-Game Purchases content warnings mandated by the [[https://www.esrb.org/ratings-guide/ ESRB]] and [[https://pegi.info/what-do-the-labels-mean PEGI]].

* BadassAdorable: Penta Penguin in the PAL version: he's a cute little penguin with maxed out stats across the board.

* BalancePowerSkillGimmick: Crash and Cortex are balanced[[note]]according to the in-game stats, though they actually have below-average speed[[/note]], Tiny and Dingodile are bad-handling high-speed racers, Coco and N. Gin are high-acceleration racers with below-average speed[[note]]according to the in-game stats, though they actually have above-average speed[[/note]] and turning, and Polar and Pura are slow-moving but excellent turners. Unlockable racers follow this pattern as well, with the exception of Penta Penguin in the PAL version where he's a MasterOfAll.

* CrutchCharacter: Polar, Pura, Ripper Roo, and NTSC!Penta Penguin. They have good handling, but have inadequate top speed. As such, they are extremely slow initially, and they are not the quickest accelerators either, but they can make turns without slowing down that require faster characters to powerslide or brake, and thus are the best options for learning how to handle the more complex maps.

** Penta Penguin is this in the PAL version of the game: he may have ''perfect stats'' all round, but MightyGlacier computers playing against them will have a slightly better top speed, making him fall into this trope by default.

* MasterOfAll: In the PAL version, the cheat-only character Penta Penguin has perfect scores in all stats. When it comes to the race itself, though, he's often tiered lower than the high-speed-low-handling characters, due to how power-sliding works.

* PurposelyOverpowered: Attempted with Penta Penguin in the [=PAL=] version. However, due to poor handling actually being an advantage, he's not actually top tiered.

* RegionalBonus: Penta Penguin, the most secret character, is a run-of-the-mill beginner character in the NTSC version, but, in the PAL version, has all stats maxed out.

** PAL Penta has souped up stats everywhere, making him quite the speed demon.

* OddballInTheSeries: A VehicularCombat game in a series of platformers.

** Penta Penguin in the PAL version of the game: he may have ''perfect stats'' all round, but {{Mighty Glacier}}s computers playing against them will have a slightly better top speed, which makes him fall into this trope by default.

* TheBadGuyWins: Oxide states that if he wins, he will turn Earth into a giant concrete parking lot. Obviously he doesn't, but Battle Mode provides a hypothetical "What If?" scenario by naming one of the unlockable areas Parking Lot.

** Penta Penguin in the PAL version of the game, having ''perfect stats'' all round.

* WakeUpCallBoss: Papu Papu, to racers who aren't Tiny or Dingodile. Top speed is his primary stat, and Papu's Pyramid does not offer much of a disadvantage for him as most of the turns needed are still wide enough for him (and Tiny/Dingodile) to make without much of an issue. The map is significantly more difficult than other levels within the same mini-hub. Papu Papu's traps are the N. Brio beakers, which provide more of a notorious hazard than any of the other bosses' traps as they are hard to dodge and cannot be shaken off once hit. After Papu Papu is defeated, the game's Adventure Mode begins to shape up.
* WarmUpBoss: Ripper Roo is a character with low top speed, a high handling that wouldn't do him any good in his challenge map, as said map (Roo's Tubes) is one of the simplest and most straightforward in the game, and his trademark TNT traps can be easily shaken off.
* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: PlayedForLaughs, of course. Like how Pinstripe becomes a used car salesman in New Jersey or how Cortex found a new element he calls (and patents as) "Cortexrulestheworldium".

* SacrificialPlanet: Unused audio found in the game's files reveals that [[BigBad Oxide]] is the cause of the barren wasteland on [[OnceGreenMars Mars]]: the inhabitants on the planet failed to defeat him at racing and thus got decimated. He threatens to do the same on Earth (by making the planet a parking lot and enslaving all its inhabitants) if they fail to defeat him at racing, too - setting up the story.

* PalmTreePanic: Crash Cove, the battle map Skull Rock and the hub world N. Sanity Beach.

* FragileSpeedster: Coco, N. Gin, and Pinstripe all are high-acceleration karts. Because of this, they reach their top speeds (which is only second to that of Tiny and Dingodile despite the game's stat display saying otherwise) more quickly and recover from hits more quickly as well. However, their karts handle worse than those of balanced characters.

* FragileSpeedster: Coco, N. Gin, and Pinstripe all are high-acceleration karts. Because of this, they reach their top speeds more quickly and recover from hits more quickly as well. However, said top speed is not very high, and their karts handle worse than those of balanced characters.

* EasyLevelTrick: In the form of shortcuts. Some are intentional (e.g Crash Cove, Tiger Temple, Cortex Castle), a few others are not (e.g Hot Air Skyway, Oxide Station).
** Hot Air Skyway, in fact, has four. The first is the obvious branching to the right of the normal track when you jump off the first ramp. The second (jumping the barrier midway through the level) is relatively simple. The third is almost Rainbow Road-esque, involving turning around and jumping to a lower layer. The fourth is just about impossible to non-competitive gamers, and involves jumping from the last ramp straight to the finish line. Demonstrated at full [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-H4KAyIK48 in this video]].

* CivilizationDestroyer: Unused dialogue shows that [[BigBad Nitrous Oxide]] was the reason there's no life in Mars: there ''was'', until Oxide came to them, challenged them to a racing competition, and won.
* ComebackMechanic: These weapons appear in more frequency if you're at the last (8th) place or close to it.
** Warp Orbs, which hits the player in first place (and all players ahead when it's juiced up).
** The "clock" weapon is also this; it slows down all other players when it's used.

** Oxide is also resistant to traps and missiles, merely spinning just like when hit with the chemicals rather than tumbling like with the TNT and Nitro; he would only tumble if you hit him twice.

* TheComputerIsALyingBastard: Contrary to what the in-game stats tell you, Balanced characters are ''not'' faster than Acceleration characters. As the datamined stats indicate ([[https://crashbandicoot.fandom.com/wiki/Crash_Team_Racing#Playable_Characters noted on the game's wiki]]), Acceleration characters actually have a higher speed value than Balanced characters, and thus have higher stats than the latter in all but turning.
* CoolGate: The way to enter race levels in Adventure Mode is by driving onto a shining pod on the ground, which sucks the racer into it. The "boss garages" are also cool in their own ways, especially Oxide's.
* CoolKey: The award for beating bosses is keys, that you'll need to open later areas of Adventure Mode and, in the end, the way to Oxide's boss race.

* DancingMookCredits: At the end characters dance next to the credit roll.
* DeadlyForceField: The powershield power-up can be either used as a forcefield to negate one attack or launched ahead to attack another player.

* DeflectorShields: The bubble shield weapon you can take from the crates. They can protect you once from any attacks, you can knock another racer off their wheels when you collide into one, and you can also launch them forward as an attack. Normally if nothing happens to the shields, they'll dissipate after a time passes, but when juiced up, they'll remain up indefinitely (unless, again, something happens to the shields). The Aku Aku/Uka Uka masks also function as this, on top of boosting your speed.

* CheatCode: There are codes that unlock all of the unlockable racers (including N. Tropy), gives unlimited Wumpa Fruit, automatic and unlimited turbo, automatic weapon gain (without breaking crates), unlocking the scrapbook (you need to 100% the Adventure mode normally), etc. Those that modify the gameplay can be used in Adventure too, however you will need to open the 'New/Load' screen before the codes will work.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* Trophies: For winning a vanilla race

* JackOfAllStats: [[SubventedTrope Despite what the games shows]], the "balanced" characters are closer to MasterOfNone. See the trope below for further explanations.

* JackOfAllStats: Penta Penguin in the PAL version of the game, having ''perfect stats'' all round.