The best thing about the Switch port of Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled on Switch is that it’s often easy to forget you’re even playing on a handheld. Switch delivers a genuine contender in the search for a definitive release of this remake: you get a 30fps kart racer with every track included – just like PS4 and Xbox One – along with the option to play on the go. Of course, there are cutbacks in current-gen comparisons – most noticeable when playing docked – but this is an accomplished port nonetheless.
First, off cramming the entire game into a 6GB install is no small feat. Next to the 16GB used on PlayStation 4, it’s not the most extreme case of downsizing we’ve seen, but it’s worth touching on why there’s a difference at all. As always, movie files within the install are a prime area of compromise. To trim the install size down, the quality of pre-encoded videos are dropped on Switch, mainly affecting the campaign mode with more obvious compression artefacts. Generally speaking, the port gets away with it – if partly due to the fact that the mobile screen hides most of the compromise. It’s a different ballgame on the big screen of course, but these scenes are rare enough it doesn’t hamper the experience too greatly.
First impressions are great otherwise and feature-wise everything’s included from PS4 and Xbox One. Every track is accounted for, including the remakes of the PS2-era Crash tracks. The menus are slick and everything flows beautifully, plus you get a choice between the original and remastered soundtrack in the options, with similar quality to the other console builds. Certainly, the music doesn’t show heavy signs of low bitrate encoding, unlike recent Switch ports like Assassin’s Creed 3. The only weak point that sticks out is the sound effects quality on selecting an option, but elsewhere Switch delivers the goods.
The 1080p/720p docked/mobile configuration of Mario Kart 8 is sadly beyond the remit of Crash Team Racing on Switch, and the game instead runs at native 720p when docked. Target frame-rate is 30fps too, which is another major knock when compared to MK8’s 60fps. Then again, Nitro-Fueled has different priorities, with a focus on visual extras. Per object and full motion blur, plus ambient occlusion, feature on Switch – neither of which make the cut in Mario Kart. In terms of presentation, Crash has a more CG film-like appearance with these layered on, but there’s no overlooking the fact that, as a trade against 60fps, playback simply isn’t as smooth.
There is a twist on the 720p30 set-up. The bedrock of any great kart racer is its multiplayer, and Nitro-Fueled channels the spirit of the PlayStation original with some excellent split-screen support. Even on Switch, we have parity with every other console: it’s 30 frames per second all round, but to achieve this, further tweaks are made to resolution. The two player split-screen keeps the game rendering at 720p, but four-player gaming while docked incurs a res hit, at 1024×576 – which does stick out somewhat. That only gives each player a 512×288 window to work with, and the action starts to become harder to process. It’s bearable, but it’s also the biggest cutback I can see next to the PS4 or Xbox One versions of the game.