I have never before seen Muppet Race Mania and I can't stop laughing, it just looks so incredibly bizarre from visuals to camera, like a fake game from a movie or tv show
As someone who has played it before, I A. Didnt think anyone else knew it existed, and B. Have to say that all things considered, it was pretty fun (despite controlling like shit). The music and theming just worked. That might be the nostgia talking though.
It's honestly not too bad - it's a very strange feeling game, and there are some aspects of it that genuinely are just awful (the stunt race tracks are miserable and really feel like they were way too confident in these mechanics being able to pull off platforming), but it's really not that bad and pretty fun. Been playing it recently as part of a big kart racer deep-dive I've been doing off the back of diving into Ring Racers - there is much better, but it's hardly the worst kart racer you could play. (Just *try* enjoying anything about Shrek Swamp Kart GBA, I dare you.)
CTR Nitro-Fueled did make a small but impactful evolution on the base mechanics in that "blue fire" (a sort of mega turbo from certain boost pads designed to give you the extra speed to make big jumps) was now extended by additional boost reserves rather than overwritten. This gives the high momentum state of playing CTR well an even higher ceiling that is even harder to hold on to but extremely rewarding.
To complement the new Blue Fire mechanic, they also reworkd U-turning. For the uniciated: To U-urn you have to hold a diagonal down and break for a sharper turn, but this would spend your reserves super fast, not in Nitro Fueled though! First time I kept my Blue Fire through all of Cortex Castle I felt like a speed demon king lol.
They also did an amazing job with structuring tracks around the bluefire. While most of the new tracks were ok at best, the Big Top and Gas Station tracks in particular always blow me away in how fun and unique they feel. The new kart class is also such a fun and inventive one. If only they tweaked All-around so it wasn't Worst at Everything...
When it comes to indie kart racers, nothing comes close to KartKrew's Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers for me, it's a remarkably intricate game that greatly rewards the player for learning tech and feels immensely smooth once it clicks. Also it's free!
This has probably been beaten to death, but Sonic All-Star racing making Sonic drive a race car never fails to puzzle me. At least Sonic R had them actually hoof it.
You touched on this a bit, but I think kart racers have a similar problem a lot of platform fighters do in that part of the original success of these games was seeing your favorite characters in a fun new context, and while many of them have been able to evolve on the gameplay of their inspirations, they're weirdly rooted in this idea of needing an established IP or character base to work off of, which is then compounded on with every new game until it's seen as this explicit requirement It's part of what makes something like Rivals of Aether so interesting to me in that it's one of the few platform fighters to feature a (mostly) original cast, but it feels like kart racers haven't hit that realization yet outside of Nighmare Kart (which ironically in itself started out as Bloodborne Mario Kart)
nor The Karters 2. sad times. granted TK2 hasnt launched so fair enough, but that game is going to be the future of kart racing with its online mod support and incredibly controls
Hey, amazing video! ❤ We’re hoping to become that indie game that brings back everything great from past kart racers: Crash Team Racing for skill and boosting, Mario Kart for fun for everyone, and ModNation Racers for community-made tracks. 🔥 With extensive mod support and an amazing community, we’re on the right track! 💪 Check out our latest video on modding support to see how our community made over 500 mods already 😊
I was a QA tester on CTR Nitro Fueled, and you are so right about how great and creative drifting was. I don't know if it was in the OG, but I loved how drifting let you preserve speed boosts from boost panels. Getting the boost from the start of Electron Avenue and carrying that speed through the entire stage by drifting was such a thrill. It really is a shame it never came to PC, and likely never will.
It wasn't in the original. It's why NF is much faster paced than CTR, because of blue fire. That to me is the biggest reason why to me NF was by far the best kart racer ever made, insanely tight controls and you can infinitely keep a boost forever. The fact it never got a pc port is genuinely heartbreaking...
@@gabrielstrong7322 Yeah don't blame you for that, it was such a bad blemish on an otherwise flawless game, it's just unfortunate it happened to begin with
@@gabrielstrong7322 I enjoyed testing it less when those were added. Winning our online tests stopped being about self-improvement and started being about affording self-expression. (Also testing shop functionality is dull).
Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers is definitely pushing the envelope alongside nightmare kart for indie devs and deserves a mention as many others have pointed out! SRB2K on its own was great but ring racers has the unique mechanics and depth on top of it to really make it scratch the itch of mastery and enjoyment. Beyond the cheeky tutorial is hours of playing with friends, grinding through an insane amount of grand prix cups in single player, a break the targets style side content for what is essentially the single mode for battle with time trials, and the chaos emerald chases which are satisfying to master and make me want to throw my controller at a wall if the music wasn't so unbelievably phenomenal. Highly recommend anyone to give it a shot, it's one of the most slept on games this year!
Personally can't recommend despite how much I love it, it's simply that it can be really hard for peers to wrap their head around. Some people I know already call SRB2Kart really hard and I can't say that's wrong in the base game, let alone the vastly different experiences top servers provide with the mods that add new mechanics. If you are willing to learn a bit more instead of play MK8DX, then you are in for a wild ride.
I get that it wasn’t that important to the overall point of the video, but Double Dash definitely deserved more than a footnote for how unique the handling model was.
"Diddy Kong Racing is more than shovelware because of the narrative fulfillment of unlocking levels in a hub world instead of a menu, but also Majora's Mask belongs in the trash" is a pretty absurd opinion.
stopping at the 21 minute mark to say play ring racers. im sure i wont be alone and i dont think it quite hits the highs of CTR mechanically but its definitely something special in its own right and will scratch that itch in a similar way
Some other comments have stated such, but you should DEFINITELY look into Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers. The game is a massive blend of F-Zero GX, Mario Kart, CTR, Sonic Riders, and even some fighting games. There is an argument that the game is maybe a little TOO mechanically dense as a kart racer, but once you get the hang of things it really is a fun time. The game also has a pretty notorious tutorial that is somehow both too long and yet it doesn't teach you everything you actually need to know. Quite a few mechanics are in the online manual for the game. Despite this, still highly recommend checking it out! Its also a fan game so its completely free and has a pretty active modding community.
def woulda been mentioned if it was but i can see it being divisive, but to me just as a viewer of it its one of the coolest things ive ever seen in fangames as a whole
Ring racers is so good! (I personally don’t like srb2k bc it’s too slow 4 me but that’s besides the point) I really wish Leon talked about ring racers but sadly it’s p niche
@@PowerHungryFool the devs sped up the kart speed. The devs gave peeps more options to catch up. The only thing “slower” about ring racers is that its maps are bigger, other than that i can accel p easily by using the ring mechanic or other items that let me speed up.
"Fun is just a buzzword when you can't actually think of any real reasons as to why the game is good, don't use it" - Leon Massey (2011, 2024) Thanks for the video champ
The original CTR was before my time but man Nitro Fuelled is so incredible. While it's mechanical depth has turned away some of my friends (and I still have All Stars Racing Transformed if I want that middle ground), learning the mechanics and the courses was so satisfying, carrying blue fire throughout an entire course was awesome. Chaining together combos felt really rewarding, especially when it let you incorporate really really clever shortcuts. My mind was blown when the Papu Pyramid N. Tropy ghost used the air controls to completely skip the last U-Turn. What an incredible game. Racing Transformed may not be as mechanically deep but it still has a lot of what I like (action combos for boost, carrying boost through an entire lap), being able to break it out with friends is awesome, the idea of the courses transforming between laps is incredibly cool, and it has my favourite item set out of any kart racer.
So the beauty of Jak X and its genre mixing is that it’s one of few racing games with weapons where the lack of mario kart-esq mid drift control means you actually have to be concerned about the guy behind you lobbing grenades who can tell exactly where your cornering line is going to end or the guy with a machine gun intersecting your immediate path on more than a reactive level.
I would add one to the list - Beetle Adventure Racing. It doesn't have carts and the drifting is quite basic, but it has a plethora of power ups and really interesting tracks full of tricks and unlockables. It's one of the most strangely great tie in games. The different routes in the tracks are awesome to explore. It also has a surprisingly good competitive mode. I think it holds up - just a shame about the frame rate.
YES SOMEONE GETS IT WITH CTR. also as someone also annoyed CTR didn't get a PC release, there's this game in the works called The Karters 2 that's heavily inspired by it coming out some time idk lol
What about The Karters 2: Turbo Charged? its a good alternative to CTR since it has the same mechanics as CTR but it innovates it with its reserve system and it includes Modded support 👍 its a really good game to look into. and yes. the game does have almost all CTR99 tracks. and characters.
i had the mystery bracket run of my life brutally killed by muppets racing and i could tell it was gonna happen 5 seconds into playing it. seeing it randomly pop up here and noticing how i looked away from my screen when it did just cemented it as a traumatic experience
Absolutely banger video. And since it didn't come up, special shoutout to Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart for being one more kart racing uh....entity. I'm so bad at it but i feel like it's a fun (fan) mario kart clone
Sleeping on Sonic ASR Transofmed is such a shame, the game is, imo, the one with the most insane skill ceiling in the genre, but most people probably never got to that part of the game where you need to learn how to actually trick correctly
the seventh gen is probably the peak of kart racing to me (if not racers in general): MKWii, Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, ModNation... the holy trinity
Shout outs to 200cc mario kart 8 giving us mario kart gameplay thats challenging and having and insane sense of speed I am almost glad that mk8 very hard handedly forces you to go the intended way because on one hand without the obvious hand of the developer forcing you down to the ground would make some tracks comically and frustratingly unplayable but on the other there's a lot of cool shortcuts and the like that we're missing because of it
Mario Kart Wii was just so ahead of its time that is pretty much the equivalent to what is Smash Bros Melee with Smash : - Can use multiple different controllers , from wii motes to Game Cube controllers and wii classic controller - The game was a beautiful broken mess that beyond that it rewards a lot of skills - Insane and very rewarding short cuts that rewards you with "skill" - First Mario Kart that upgraded from 8 racers to 12 racers - The introduction of bikes that give a layer of depth and while "they were better" , it was a nice addition to have from just karts - The online was insane , either you were in a lobby with sweaty try hards , or in a lobby with full random items going out - It even has a community long after nintendo stop supporting it , and it was pretty active - Back on the Mario Kart wii , a lot of people would still do Mario Kart Wii content even when Mario Kart 8 was around because of how depth the game was and how many intereactions you could still have - Game is from 2008 and to this day "2024" , more things are still being discovered , being improved , and a lot more without any patches - Just to put more emphasis into Mario Kart wii , its the Mario Kart used the most for "mods" and the one where the community would build and create custom tracks and more
True it was a nice addition for bikes and a trick system and we would never had bikes if it was for one of the developers that asked if bikes could be added in MKDS but it didn’t happen till the entry of Wii
I feel like everytime I try to explain Mario Kart Wii to a Melee player they have a hard time understanding everything, esp if they also casually play MK8D. However if I just say, "MKWii is the Melee of the series" they suddenly now understand everything. I have had that same opinion of the game for years now and I give this same, brief summary of the game like once a month at this point.
@@Latias38 to its I feel like the to 8dx player who never played Wii would have a bad experience since the game is unbalanced and not enjoyable since that Danm thundercloud always ruins experience.
This was a great watch, going to bring up The Karters 2: Turbo Charged as the Crash Team Racing improvement that you're looking for based on the footage and playtests that have come out so far, and as one of those indies that may help revitalize the genre as well.
As somebody who's a huge CTR head, if Nitro-Fueled ever gets ported to PC with 60fps enabled, it'll completely wipe the floor with any other kart racer. Beenox did an incredible job, all the little changes (like how the blueflame/superboost mechanics were mildly tweaked, the new kart class, the extra items from CNK) and the love put into the game with the, like, 30 extra tracks and all the bonus racers (shout-out to the Beenox themed costumes), add up to something that's so amazing.... if it didn't take 20 seconds to load every race on my switch.... Well, at least we have online CTR and SRB2kart now!
I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS MUPPET RACEMANIA SLANDER!!! Am I blinded by nostalgia? Undoubtedly. The wonky physics take a bit to get used to, but they end up adding to the whimsical nature of the game. There's no drifting or technical movement mechanics to master, but what it lacks in depth of technique it makes up for with a vast array of gamemodes you continue to unlock as you play. You even unlock a whole set of top-down view racing tracks only after you've 100% completed everything else there is, which is no simple task. It was the first game I fully completed as a child and I beat it again as an adult, and I really think it holds up. Not as a competitive and technical racer, like many of the other games in this video, but as a fun and silly adventure stuffed with a mountain of content.
Ive just started playing CTR for the first time and i agree with the points that you are making. But i think you should give DKR another chance. Theres such a high amount of speed and depth that can be reached on every track that the game never tells you about, or only tells you once. For example letting go of A when boosting or barrel rolling gives you such a big speed boost making the game unweildy and challenging. Not to mention the unintended A tapping giving you a flat out speed bonus. You could also take a look at some speedruns or time trials
Thank you! When he poo-poo’d DKR, I immediately was thinking about some of the emergent gameplay mechanics and was hoping he’d touch on them, but he never did. The speed you can gain, when tapping gas, and letting up on the pedal when going over boosts rivals CTR; especially, when you’ve got the track down and you’re connecting boost to boost. Feels great, and which is generally why I felt that Mario kart is 3rd best out of the big 3.
@@X2011racer trucks is entirely performance based, you do good in the truck, or you doom. if I had to describe trucks in a word, it would be, "HELP!" as, in every way, shape and form, you need to be faster at speed, faster at dodging trees, longer at staying in the sky, and faster at slamming other trucks then they slam you, along with finding the mountain spawn triggers. bots meanwhile, the actual RACING of trick racing is nowhere near as important as the TRICKS of trick racing. again, getting first place? not important, finding which road contains the clown that you need to pie? TOP PRIORITY, along with the butterfly flower, the bowling pins, the running shoes, every single spin bar, the baseball, the field goal, and of course, playing the tamborine. trucks is about doing as many things WITH your truck as possible. bots is about GETTING your bot to as many things as possible.
You should give Star Wars Episode 1 Racer a shot when you find the time. Genius boost mechanic, part building as a key part and great inventive stage designs topped with a great sense of speed.
The amount of effort and passion you pour into these videos never fails to impress me. Every time I see a new video, I know that I'll be invested in something I'm at least familiar with or something I didn't know about. Give this man a round of applause! He deserves it for his hard work.
Yeah when it comes to Super Mario Kart I could only tolerate playing as Koopa or Toad since they aren't in danger of spinning out on normal turns. So you don't have to worry about the drifting mechanic and you only ever have to slow down if you go into the slippery areas.
Peter Jackson's King Kong is the greatest movie tie-in game ever. The creativeness of the Jack sections are just unbelievably good, from the fact that he calls out how many bullets you have (rather than an onscreen ui), to the ways you can interact with the enviornment, to the intensity of some of the dinosaur encounters. The king kong side is much more 'generic beat-em-up', but also pretty short so whatever. Also god I swear Muppets Racemania was better than that but jesus christ how fucking jumpy is it.
Modnation Racers had a crazy amount of customization from your characters to the tracks people could make I feel like if they made a second one with not much changed but more content and released it on PC it would extremely successful.
Would've wanted to see Blur mentioned. One of the most fun kart (or at least kart-like) games on PS3, which just got shafted for no reason by Activision Another shoutout to Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers as well though for also being fun, especially considering it's a mod of a mod of Doom
Small pro tip that you didn't mention for Crash Team Racing: If you hold the down direction while braking you will not lose your boost/reserves. This allows you to make insanely tight U turns while keeping your fire, such as the one in Dragon Mines or the ones in Turbo Track!
I've noticed that a lot of videos that cover kart racing games seem to disregard Kartrider. Its one of my favorite Kart Racing games of all time. The game was unfortunately made by Nexon so you know it was full of microtransactions and was super pay to win, but despite that I still found it more fun then any other Kart Racer. Its just a shame it was only in America for a year from 2007-2008.
That's probably the biggest hurdle it has - there's no easily accessible version of the original KartRider internationally [i think there IS a custom client to play offline? But is untranslated iirc], and I think the only current version of KartRider available internationally is the mobile version, as the one that was on consoles and PC was set to shut down this year [if it hasn't already]...so tragically, it makes sense that KartRider isn't well known when the few times it has legal international versions end up relatively short lived as they are always tied to online services.
@@ArcadeStrikerReplays Dang, its really shutting down? Again... I spent $50 on Kartrider Drift too 😭.. RIP me I guess, lol. I Wonder why the game struggles so much outside of Korea. Even the original failed most places. I've heard heard that even the Korean Player base dislikes Kartrider Drift compared to the original game, not sure why though.
You know, if one could argue that the "core essence" of a kart racer is mascot appeal (branding), drifting (controls), and items (gimmicks), I would be remissed to say that I don't think this video gave enough attention to the items, or gimmicks / fun twists of kart racers. That aside, another good, well worded video. You make sure the thesarus on your bookshelf keeps the dust off, lol Cheers 🏎💨
DUDE THE MOD NATION RACERS SHOUTOUT GOT ME SO HYPE THAT GAME WAS FUCKIN FANTASTIC!! ESPECIALLY THE TRACK CREATOR WAS SICK also yes CTR is bordering on masterpiece and I've never clicked with Mario kart because CTR was my introduction to the genre
Once again, the editing and refined, orangutan-like humor make this video an absolute banger. As someone who never played Crash Team Racing (but always heard it was great from fans that did) I loved hearing you talk about why it's goated. It reminds me of my feelings towards the Soulcalibur series (a series that's better in MANY ways to it's contemporaries but unfairly ignored due to capitalism).
Diddy Kong Racing suffers from a very easy-to-exploit means of increasing speed, at least in a car. If you tap the accelerator rather than holding it, you'll go a lot faster because (I thiiiiink?) of the way the game handles velocity. Hovercrafts and planes aren't affected, but they don't tend to get nearly as much love. (Also I don't care how good Mario Kart Wii is, the POW Block is absurd and twelve racers is too many.)
kart racing my love I also wanna give a shoutout to the very obscure and straight up Not Released In Europe game Excitebots: Trick Racing. If ever Ninty felt like saving Monster Games from the F2P content mines (seriously, co-developing DKCR Tropical Freeze AND helping to port the original DKCR and XENOBLADE CHRONICLES to the 3DS somehow wasn't good enough reason to keep them around!?), I would love if they iterated on this super finicky, fun, and goofy racer.
![ประสบการณ์ จ้าง Developer ที่ผมจะไม่มีวันลืม [ภาค1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bzivN4KDg-k/mqdefault.jpg)
I have never before seen Muppet Race Mania and I can't stop laughing, it just looks so incredibly bizarre from visuals to camera, like a fake game from a movie or tv show
As someone who has played it before, I A. Didnt think anyone else knew it existed, and B. Have to say that all things considered, it was pretty fun (despite controlling like shit). The music and theming just worked. That might be the nostgia talking though.
It's because it's a different kind of racing game like Toy Story Racer.
It's also really good.
It's honestly not too bad - it's a very strange feeling game, and there are some aspects of it that genuinely are just awful (the stunt race tracks are miserable and really feel like they were way too confident in these mechanics being able to pull off platforming), but it's really not that bad and pretty fun. Been playing it recently as part of a big kart racer deep-dive I've been doing off the back of diving into Ring Racers - there is much better, but it's hardly the worst kart racer you could play. (Just *try* enjoying anything about Shrek Swamp Kart GBA, I dare you.)
It also has one of the funniest loading screens on the PS1
CTR Nitro-Fueled did make a small but impactful evolution on the base mechanics in that "blue fire" (a sort of mega turbo from certain boost pads designed to give you the extra speed to make big jumps) was now extended by additional boost reserves rather than overwritten. This gives the high momentum state of playing CTR well an even higher ceiling that is even harder to hold on to but extremely rewarding.
To complement the new Blue Fire mechanic, they also reworkd U-turning. For the uniciated: To U-urn you have to hold a diagonal down and break for a sharper turn, but this would spend your reserves super fast, not in Nitro Fueled though!
First time I kept my Blue Fire through all of Cortex Castle I felt like a speed demon king lol.
They also did an amazing job with structuring tracks around the bluefire. While most of the new tracks were ok at best, the Big Top and Gas Station tracks in particular always blow me away in how fun and unique they feel. The new kart class is also such a fun and inventive one. If only they tweaked All-around so it wasn't Worst at Everything...
Dr. Robotniks Ring Racers? PLEASE?????
shocked and appalled SRB2K or Ring Racers didn't get a shout out
@@uallandme my day is ruined!!! xD
When it comes to indie kart racers, nothing comes close to KartKrew's Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers for me, it's a remarkably intricate game that greatly rewards the player for learning tech and feels immensely smooth once it clicks.
Also it's free!
That game humble so many people, it’s hilarious. So many people crying in social media because “game too hard”
never touched ring racers but i did play srb2kart and it's really good
@@sbebular It’s the V2 of Kart but it’s own thing,just SRB2 Kart players unable to adapt.
This has probably been beaten to death, but Sonic All-Star racing making Sonic drive a race car never fails to puzzle me. At least Sonic R had them actually hoof it.
I mean you got to give it to him, he is giving a fair challenge
by the time sonic all star racing came out, Sonic had had become too fast on foot in his own games to credibly be challenged by a car.
You don't bring a car to a bicycle race, do you?
I'm gonna hit you Sonic speed
It made more sense than Sonic and his friends driving cars in Team Sonic Racing.
You touched on this a bit, but I think kart racers have a similar problem a lot of platform fighters do in that part of the original success of these games was seeing your favorite characters in a fun new context, and while many of them have been able to evolve on the gameplay of their inspirations, they're weirdly rooted in this idea of needing an established IP or character base to work off of, which is then compounded on with every new game until it's seen as this explicit requirement
It's part of what makes something like Rivals of Aether so interesting to me in that it's one of the few platform fighters to feature a (mostly) original cast, but it feels like kart racers haven't hit that realization yet outside of Nighmare Kart (which ironically in itself started out as Bloodborne Mario Kart)
no mention of Ring Racers.... heartbreaking...
IK RIGHT????
nor The Karters 2. sad times. granted TK2 hasnt launched so fair enough, but that game is going to be the future of kart racing with its online mod support and incredibly controls
Well if it did get mentioned it would’ve been in the same way as Nightmare Kart right?
Hey, amazing video! ❤ We’re hoping to become that indie game that brings back everything great from past kart racers: Crash Team Racing for skill and boosting, Mario Kart for fun for everyone, and ModNation Racers for community-made tracks. 🔥 With extensive mod support and an amazing community, we’re on the right track! 💪
Check out our latest video on modding support to see how our community made over 500 mods already 😊
I was a QA tester on CTR Nitro Fueled, and you are so right about how great and creative drifting was. I don't know if it was in the OG, but I loved how drifting let you preserve speed boosts from boost panels. Getting the boost from the start of Electron Avenue and carrying that speed through the entire stage by drifting was such a thrill. It really is a shame it never came to PC, and likely never will.
It wasn't in the original. It's why NF is much faster paced than CTR, because of blue fire. That to me is the biggest reason why to me NF was by far the best kart racer ever made, insanely tight controls and you can infinitely keep a boost forever. The fact it never got a pc port is genuinely heartbreaking...
@arkaua i despise the micro transactions, that's why I never picked it up
@@gabrielstrong7322 Yeah don't blame you for that, it was such a bad blemish on an otherwise flawless game, it's just unfortunate it happened to begin with
@@gabrielstrong7322 I enjoyed testing it less when those were added. Winning our online tests stopped being about self-improvement and started being about affording self-expression. (Also testing shop functionality is dull).
You should check out The Karters 2, an upcoming indie kart racing game that builds off of what CTR established
Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers is definitely pushing the envelope alongside nightmare kart for indie devs and deserves a mention as many others have pointed out! SRB2K on its own was great but ring racers has the unique mechanics and depth on top of it to really make it scratch the itch of mastery and enjoyment. Beyond the cheeky tutorial is hours of playing with friends, grinding through an insane amount of grand prix cups in single player, a break the targets style side content for what is essentially the single mode for battle with time trials, and the chaos emerald chases which are satisfying to master and make me want to throw my controller at a wall if the music wasn't so unbelievably phenomenal. Highly recommend anyone to give it a shot, it's one of the most slept on games this year!
Personally can't recommend despite how much I love it, it's simply that it can be really hard for peers to wrap their head around. Some people I know already call SRB2Kart really hard and I can't say that's wrong in the base game, let alone the vastly different experiences top servers provide with the mods that add new mechanics. If you are willing to learn a bit more instead of play MK8DX, then you are in for a wild ride.
Damn, even Blur was forgotten by Leon. Feels bad man
0:13 How did he get there in the top right
I get that it wasn’t that important to the overall point of the video, but Double Dash definitely deserved more than a footnote for how unique the handling model was.
"Diddy Kong Racing is more than shovelware because of the narrative fulfillment of unlocking levels in a hub world instead of a menu, but also Majora's Mask belongs in the trash" is a pretty absurd opinion.
stopping at the 21 minute mark to say play ring racers. im sure i wont be alone and i dont think it quite hits the highs of CTR mechanically but its definitely something special in its own right and will scratch that itch in a similar way
Can't wait for The Karters 2 Turbo Charged full release
Some other comments have stated such, but you should DEFINITELY look into Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers. The game is a massive blend of F-Zero GX, Mario Kart, CTR, Sonic Riders, and even some fighting games. There is an argument that the game is maybe a little TOO mechanically dense as a kart racer, but once you get the hang of things it really is a fun time. The game also has a pretty notorious tutorial that is somehow both too long and yet it doesn't teach you everything you actually need to know. Quite a few mechanics are in the online manual for the game. Despite this, still highly recommend checking it out!
Its also a fan game so its completely free and has a pretty active modding community.
Speaking of indie devs and kart racers...
Leon Massey, may me please talk about SRB2K and its successor, Robotniks Ring Racers. Thank you.
def woulda been mentioned if it was but i can see it being divisive, but to me just as a viewer of it its one of the coolest things ive ever seen in fangames as a whole
Ring racers is so good! (I personally don’t like srb2k bc it’s too slow 4 me but that’s besides the point) I really wish Leon talked about ring racers but sadly it’s p niche
@@timelesscatastrophe Ring racers is literally the slower game
@@timelesscatastrophe fuck ring racers all my homies hate ring racers. SRB2K is the better game undisputed
@@PowerHungryFool the devs sped up the kart speed. The devs gave peeps more options to catch up. The only thing “slower” about ring racers is that its maps are bigger, other than that i can accel p easily by using the ring mechanic or other items that let me speed up.
"Fun is just a buzzword when you can't actually think of any real reasons as to why the game is good, don't use it" - Leon Massey (2011, 2024)
Thanks for the video champ
No Ring Racers mention??? I'm heartbroken
Man crash team racing fucks so hard. My childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Truly my beloved
Yes dude
The original CTR was before my time but man Nitro Fuelled is so incredible. While it's mechanical depth has turned away some of my friends (and I still have All Stars Racing Transformed if I want that middle ground), learning the mechanics and the courses was so satisfying, carrying blue fire throughout an entire course was awesome. Chaining together combos felt really rewarding, especially when it let you incorporate really really clever shortcuts. My mind was blown when the Papu Pyramid N. Tropy ghost used the air controls to completely skip the last U-Turn. What an incredible game.
Racing Transformed may not be as mechanically deep but it still has a lot of what I like (action combos for boost, carrying boost through an entire lap), being able to break it out with friends is awesome, the idea of the courses transforming between laps is incredibly cool, and it has my favourite item set out of any kart racer.
So the beauty of Jak X and its genre mixing is that it’s one of few racing games with weapons where the lack of mario kart-esq mid drift control means you actually have to be concerned about the guy behind you lobbing grenades who can tell exactly where your cornering line is going to end or the guy with a machine gun intersecting your immediate path on more than a reactive level.
I would add one to the list - Beetle Adventure Racing. It doesn't have carts and the drifting is quite basic, but it has a plethora of power ups and really interesting tracks full of tricks and unlockables. It's one of the most strangely great tie in games. The different routes in the tracks are awesome to explore. It also has a surprisingly good competitive mode. I think it holds up - just a shame about the frame rate.
YES SOMEONE GETS IT WITH CTR. also as someone also annoyed CTR didn't get a PC release, there's this game in the works called The Karters 2 that's heavily inspired by it coming out some time idk lol
Percy Jackson's King Kong 26:01
I desperately want to see that mash up now, haha
Percy Jackson and the King Kong of Leon Massey
What about The Karters 2: Turbo Charged?
its a good alternative to CTR since it has the same mechanics as CTR but it innovates it with its reserve system and it includes Modded support 👍 its a really good game to look into.
and yes. the game does have almost all CTR99 tracks. and characters.
Bro you got me all excited but the game's not even out >:(
@@Hytheter Coming out before the end of 2024 but we already have a very active discord server :)
i had the mystery bracket run of my life brutally killed by muppets racing and i could tell it was gonna happen 5 seconds into playing it. seeing it randomly pop up here and noticing how i looked away from my screen when it did just cemented it as a traumatic experience
Absolutely banger video. And since it didn't come up, special shoutout to Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart for being one more kart racing uh....entity. I'm so bad at it but i feel like it's a fun (fan) mario kart clone
The Speed Racer video game is so good, but nobody ever talks about it
Sleeping on Sonic ASR Transofmed is such a shame, the game is, imo, the one with the most insane skill ceiling in the genre, but most people probably never got to that part of the game where you need to learn how to actually trick correctly
the seventh gen is probably the peak of kart racing to me (if not racers in general): MKWii, Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, ModNation... the holy trinity
Sonic R hate has always been a skill issue, and nothing more.
I have no idea why I sat through this video thinking "Oh, he's obviously going to talk about Snowboard Kids 2"
Shout outs to 200cc mario kart 8 giving us mario kart gameplay thats challenging and having and insane sense of speed
I am almost glad that mk8 very hard handedly forces you to go the intended way because on one hand without the obvious hand of the developer forcing you down to the ground would make some tracks comically and frustratingly unplayable but on the other there's a lot of cool shortcuts and the like that we're missing because of it
"Sega has ever produced games that are above an 8/10" Boy, that aged fast.
I am still mad that Blur flopped. It did everything kart racers did, except better and with more style.
Mario Kart Wii was just so ahead of its time that is pretty much the equivalent to what is Smash Bros Melee with Smash :
- Can use multiple different controllers , from wii motes to Game Cube controllers and wii classic controller
- The game was a beautiful broken mess that beyond that it rewards a lot of skills
- Insane and very rewarding short cuts that rewards you with "skill"
- First Mario Kart that upgraded from 8 racers to 12 racers
- The introduction of bikes that give a layer of depth and while "they were better" , it was a nice addition to have from just karts
- The online was insane , either you were in a lobby with sweaty try hards , or in a lobby with full random items going out
- It even has a community long after nintendo stop supporting it , and it was pretty active
- Back on the Mario Kart wii , a lot of people would still do Mario Kart Wii content even when Mario Kart 8 was around because of how depth the game was and how many intereactions you could still have
- Game is from 2008 and to this day "2024" , more things are still being discovered , being improved , and a lot more without any patches
- Just to put more emphasis into Mario Kart wii , its the Mario Kart used the most for "mods" and the one where the community would build and create custom tracks and more
It also introduced tricks, which add a layer of depth and interactivity, and have been a staple of the series ever since
True it was a nice addition for bikes and a trick system and we would never had bikes if it was for one of the developers that asked if bikes could be added in MKDS but it didn’t happen till the entry of Wii
I feel like everytime I try to explain Mario Kart Wii to a Melee player they have a hard time understanding everything, esp if they also casually play MK8D.
However if I just say, "MKWii is the Melee of the series" they suddenly now understand everything.
I have had that same opinion of the game for years now and I give this same, brief summary of the game like once a month at this point.
@@Latias38 to its I feel like the to 8dx player who never played Wii would have a bad experience since the game is unbalanced and not enjoyable since that Danm thundercloud always ruins experience.
Mario Kart 8 and Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed are the best fight me
People dismissing transformed is such a crime, once you know how the tricks actually work changes EVERYTHING
This was a great watch, going to bring up The Karters 2: Turbo Charged as the Crash Team Racing improvement that you're looking for based on the footage and playtests that have come out so far, and as one of those indies that may help revitalize the genre as well.
31:09 I'm sorry is this a horror kart racer
Yeah
It was called Bloodborne Kart up until like the day before it released because Sony
@@notpearl3590 What the fuuuuuck that's incredible - not from Sony, from the fan or team who made it
Thank you for setting the record straight on Mario Kart DS, truly the best Mario Kart when you've not played any of the other ones
Leon, your skill of captivating regardless of what you're talking about is truly not lost on me
Penguin Yay 1!
1:52 "words like fun, fun, and *fun* where used by magazines in desperate need of a thesaurus."
This is S tier writing.
I love Mario Kart, but ModNation Racing is the most satisfying toon racer I ever played
Just taking a moment to appreciate the production - wow! This video could genuinely be on TV as a very well produced documentary.
As somebody who's a huge CTR head, if Nitro-Fueled ever gets ported to PC with 60fps enabled, it'll completely wipe the floor with any other kart racer. Beenox did an incredible job, all the little changes (like how the blueflame/superboost mechanics were mildly tweaked, the new kart class, the extra items from CNK) and the love put into the game with the, like, 30 extra tracks and all the bonus racers (shout-out to the Beenox themed costumes), add up to something that's so amazing.... if it didn't take 20 seconds to load every race on my switch....
Well, at least we have online CTR and SRB2kart now!
CTR is also very visually clear, I noticed. Everything is sharp and easily distinguishable.
Diddy Kong Racing is still my favrorite Kart racing game on the N64. But CTR is the best kart racer of all time
Melee has its way of changing your life in the most unexpected ways
I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS MUPPET RACEMANIA SLANDER!!!
Am I blinded by nostalgia? Undoubtedly. The wonky physics take a bit to get used to, but they end up adding to the whimsical nature of the game. There's no drifting or technical movement mechanics to master, but what it lacks in depth of technique it makes up for with a vast array of gamemodes you continue to unlock as you play. You even unlock a whole set of top-down view racing tracks only after you've 100% completed everything else there is, which is no simple task.
It was the first game I fully completed as a child and I beat it again as an adult, and I really think it holds up. Not as a competitive and technical racer, like many of the other games in this video, but as a fun and silly adventure stuffed with a mountain of content.
CTR (ps1) handles better than mario kart ever has
Excellent editing and pacing as always. Fantastic video!
Ive just started playing CTR for the first time and i agree with the points that you are making. But i think you should give DKR another chance. Theres such a high amount of speed and depth that can be reached on every track that the game never tells you about, or only tells you once. For example letting go of A when boosting or barrel rolling gives you such a big speed boost making the game unweildy and challenging. Not to mention the unintended A tapping giving you a flat out speed bonus.
You could also take a look at some speedruns or time trials
Thank you! When he poo-poo’d DKR, I immediately was thinking about some of the emergent gameplay mechanics and was hoping he’d touch on them, but he never did. The speed you can gain, when tapping gas, and letting up on the pedal when going over boosts rivals CTR; especially, when you’ve got the track down and you’re connecting boost to boost.
Feels great, and which is generally why I felt that Mario kart is 3rd best out of the big 3.
Not accepting Muppet Racemania slander mate that game is incredible
footage is suggesting otherwise champ but hey all our parents made mistakes y'know.
You failed to mention the ACTUAL best kart racer on the wii: EXCITE TRUCK
Wouldn't that be Excite Bots?
@@X2011racer No!
@@X2011racer trucks is entirely performance based, you do good in the truck, or you doom. if I had to describe trucks in a word, it would be, "HELP!" as, in every way, shape and form, you need to be faster at speed, faster at dodging trees, longer at staying in the sky, and faster at slamming other trucks then they slam you, along with finding the mountain spawn triggers.
bots meanwhile, the actual RACING of trick racing is nowhere near as important as the TRICKS of trick racing. again, getting first place? not important, finding which road contains the clown that you need to pie? TOP PRIORITY, along with the butterfly flower, the bowling pins, the running shoes, every single spin bar, the baseball, the field goal, and of course, playing the tamborine.
trucks is about doing as many things WITH your truck as possible. bots is about GETTING your bot to as many things as possible.
please... play ring racers...
You should give Star Wars Episode 1 Racer a shot when you find the time.
Genius boost mechanic, part building as a key part and great inventive stage designs topped with a great sense of speed.
The amount of effort and passion you pour into these videos never fails to impress me. Every time I see a new video, I know that I'll be invested in something I'm at least familiar with or something I didn't know about. Give this man a round of applause! He deserves it for his hard work.
24:43 took me off guard so well, glad someone remembers Jak X tho
Ring racers bruv...
Excellent choice of music for the end credits. Thanks for this video!
Don't stop making fighting game content. Love this one as well, just missing the obscure fighting game essays.
Just finished the video and I think it's the best video about exclusively the Mario Kart franchise and no other video game
Yeah when it comes to Super Mario Kart I could only tolerate playing as Koopa or Toad since they aren't in danger of spinning out on normal turns. So you don't have to worry about the drifting mechanic and you only ever have to slow down if you go into the slippery areas.
Peter Jackson's King Kong is the greatest movie tie-in game ever. The creativeness of the Jack sections are just unbelievably good, from the fact that he calls out how many bullets you have (rather than an onscreen ui), to the ways you can interact with the enviornment, to the intensity of some of the dinosaur encounters.
The king kong side is much more 'generic beat-em-up', but also pretty short so whatever.
Also god I swear Muppets Racemania was better than that but jesus christ how fucking jumpy is it.
Underrated, I wish you had more recognition.
This video shouting out CTR and ModNation made me pop off so hard
continuing to make some of the most high quality content on youtube.
Excellent, as always. Thanks for this!
Modnation Racers had a crazy amount of customization from your characters to the tracks people could make I feel like if they made a second one with not much changed but more content and released it on PC it would extremely successful.
Would've wanted to see Blur mentioned. One of the most fun kart (or at least kart-like) games on PS3, which just got shafted for no reason by Activision
Another shoutout to Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers as well though for also being fun, especially considering it's a mod of a mod of Doom
Small pro tip that you didn't mention for Crash Team Racing: If you hold the down direction while braking you will not lose your boost/reserves. This allows you to make insanely tight U turns while keeping your fire, such as the one in Dragon Mines or the ones in Turbo Track!
garfield cart not being mentioned 😩
I've noticed that a lot of videos that cover kart racing games seem to disregard Kartrider. Its one of my favorite Kart Racing games of all time. The game was unfortunately made by Nexon so you know it was full of microtransactions and was super pay to win, but despite that I still found it more fun then any other Kart Racer. Its just a shame it was only in America for a year from 2007-2008.
That's probably the biggest hurdle it has - there's no easily accessible version of the original KartRider internationally [i think there IS a custom client to play offline? But is untranslated iirc], and I think the only current version of KartRider available internationally is the mobile version, as the one that was on consoles and PC was set to shut down this year [if it hasn't already]...so tragically, it makes sense that KartRider isn't well known when the few times it has legal international versions end up relatively short lived as they are always tied to online services.
@@ArcadeStrikerReplays Dang, its really shutting down? Again... I spent $50 on Kartrider Drift too 😭.. RIP me I guess, lol.
I Wonder why the game struggles so much outside of Korea. Even the original failed most places. I've heard heard that even the Korean Player base dislikes Kartrider Drift compared to the original game, not sure why though.
Thank you for validating once again that Crash Team Racing is the GOAT.
You know, if one could argue that the "core essence" of a kart racer is mascot appeal (branding), drifting (controls), and items (gimmicks), I would be remissed to say that I don't think this video gave enough attention to the items, or gimmicks / fun twists of kart racers.
That aside, another good, well worded video. You make sure the thesarus on your bookshelf keeps the dust off, lol
Cheers 🏎💨
Remember to pour one out for Bloodborne Cart and never forget what Sony took from us
an extremely kart racer
How dare you make me remember Cocto Racing.
DUDE THE MOD NATION RACERS SHOUTOUT GOT ME SO HYPE THAT GAME WAS FUCKIN FANTASTIC!! ESPECIALLY THE TRACK CREATOR WAS SICK
also yes CTR is bordering on masterpiece and I've never clicked with Mario kart because CTR was my introduction to the genre
Goated documentaries. No way around it
I love kart racers , thank you for this video !!
I think you should finish Symphony of the Night it’s still my favorite Castlevania and it doesn’t feel like it’s aged a day :)
SoTN feels surprisingly modern. The fact that the game has a built-in speedrun timer option is wild to me.
23:24 Bro just pissed off every Yakuza fan on planet earth.
nice seeing analysis of a new genre :)
Crash Team Racing my absolute beloved
Once again, the editing and refined, orangutan-like humor make this video an absolute banger. As someone who never played Crash Team Racing (but always heard it was great from fans that did) I loved hearing you talk about why it's goated. It reminds me of my feelings towards the Soulcalibur series (a series that's better in MANY ways to it's contemporaries but unfairly ignored due to capitalism).
wtf diddy kong racing is so much better than mario kart 64, youre insane
Leon seems extra snarky in this one and i'm all for it
yo im only a minute and the editting slaps as well as the script, nice one!
I'm glad you got to the wii one because it's the best. Idk why I'm not playing it every single day. May have to try ctr.
22:51 *FINALLY SOMEONE MENTIONS ONE OF THE GREATS OF THE PS3 AND EFFECTIVELY ITS SEQUEL, THANK YOU!*
I managed to crack the top ten in MKWii's in-game leaderboards for about a week way back when, but I will always prefer DoubleDash. Peak game.
when modding mario kart wii on dolphin emulator, turning off bloom makes the game look so much better.
Thank you for existing Leon.
Diddy Kong Racing suffers from a very easy-to-exploit means of increasing speed, at least in a car. If you tap the accelerator rather than holding it, you'll go a lot faster because (I thiiiiink?) of the way the game handles velocity. Hovercrafts and planes aren't affected, but they don't tend to get nearly as much love.
(Also I don't care how good Mario Kart Wii is, the POW Block is absurd and twelve racers is too many.)
I know it was just an aside for this video, but Majora's Mask holds up and I will fight you lmao
kart racing my love
I also wanna give a shoutout to the very obscure and straight up Not Released In Europe game Excitebots: Trick Racing. If ever Ninty felt like saving Monster Games from the F2P content mines (seriously, co-developing DKCR Tropical Freeze AND helping to port the original DKCR and XENOBLADE CHRONICLES to the 3DS somehow wasn't good enough reason to keep them around!?), I would love if they iterated on this super finicky, fun, and goofy racer.