August 14th, 1999 build

This is a sub-page of Proto:Crash Team Racing.

Level DifferencesMinor changes to the tracks and battle arenas. Unused AudioUnused sound effects, voice lines, and music present within the files.

Codes#

Some tracks cannot be played in certain game modes, as they exceed the default 2 MB heap allocation. Use the following GameShark code to increase the game's heap size. Additionally, the console or emulator must have an 8 MB RAM expansion.

8003914C 0080

To unlock all of the characters and tracks, use the following GameShark code:

8008FBEC FFFF
8008FBF0 FFFF

General Differences#

Startup and Menus#

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• There are no startup screens. Instead, the game boots straight to the main menu.
• The checkered flag background is set up slightly to the left. A black gap is visible in the top right corner of the screen.
• The animated title screen sequence makes no sound effects, and Crash's model has bigger pupils and his eyes have a darker tone.
  • Crash does not blink while in the idle pose.
  • The trademark symbol next to the game's logo is missing.
• No sound effects play in the menus (aside from the Enter Your Name screen when creating a save profile).
• The menu screens pop up instantly when navigating around, rather than having an animated transition.
• Only X and Square buttons are used to confirm and go back, respectively. In the final game, Circle and Triangle are also mapped for such actions.
• The green outline around the menu borders has a stronger shade.
  • The outline around the level thumbnails also lacks transparency.
• Cup tournaments in Arcade and Vs. modes did not exist at this time.
• Two, three and four-player options are always available, regardless of whether the controllers are plugged in or not.
• The autodemos and the intro cutscene are absent, so nothing will play when you are idle in the main menu.
• Cheat codes were not implemented yet, so holding L1 and R1 does not lock the inputs. Thus, it is impossible to unlock certain characters such as Penta Penguin without hacking. Consequently, the secret demo for Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! is not present either.
• There is no unlockable Scrapbook menu option. The TEST.STR video file is also entirely missing from the game.
• No "LOADING..." text appears during the loading screens.

Adventure#

• The New/Load sub-menu is positioned higher.
• The character select screen is just a basic list containing the eight starter characters instead of the 3D garage.
• Character names are written in a shortened form:
  • Crash instead of Crash Bandicoot
  • Cortex instead of Dr. Neo Cortex
  • Tiny instead of Tiny Tiger
  • Coco instead of Coco Bandicoot
  • Ngin instead of N. Gin
  • Dingo instead of Dingodile
• The Enter Your Name screen is the only part of the menus that actually has sound effects. Still, it lacks proper sounds for entering or deleting a character (even though these are already present in the sound banks).
• The background box of the character icons in the save files lack transparency.

Character Select#

• The character select screen is defaulted to the four-player setup featuring four display slots, regardless of how many human players are in the game.
• There are no rotating character models. Instead, character names are simply displayed in the center of the blank squares when selected.
• Icons do not turn black after choosing a character. Rather, the colored outlines will stop flashing.

Aug 14	Final

• Most of the character icons are now starting to get closer to their final counterparts, but there are still some noticeable differences:
  • Crash has more detailed pupils, his shading is mostly missing, his teeth and nose are peachy, and part of his body is drawn.
  • Tiny Tiger is based on his boss portrait from Cortex Strikes Back, although the muzzle color has been changed to yellow to match his in-game appearance.
  • Coco uses a very similar version of her warp room portrait from Warped.
  • Polar's icon has an overall cyan tone to it, and uses an earlier design. His final icon was changed to his Japanese icon, which was based on his 3D render.
  • Pinstripe retains the same pose, although his face has been redrawn and he has pink ears.
  • Dr. N. Tropy's headgear textures were simplified, and his eyebrows were altered.
  • Papu Papu's facial textures were redrawn, his mask cloth is lighter, his hair is black and his blue collar is present.
  • Penta Penguin's icon was fully redrawn to remove the small part of his body showing. The new icon also has shading around his eyes and beak.
• Most character names are abbreviated.
  • Crash instead of Crash Bandicoot
  • Cortex instead of Dr. Neo Cortex
  • Tiny instead of Tiny Tiger
  • Coco instead of Coco Bandicoot
  • Ngin instead of N. Gin
  • Dingo instead of Dingodile
  • NTropy instead of Dr. N. Tropy
  • Penguin instead of Penta Penguin
• The small font is used for both character names and the "Select Character" title string. This string is also always onscreen, unlike in the final game where it is removed from the four-player screen once all characters are unlocked.
• Penta Penguin and Fake Crash have swapped places.

Level Select#

• There are no track preview videos.
• Thumbnails were taken from earlier revisions of the levels, causing many of them to have differences no longer present at this point in development.
• Slide Coliseum was originally an unlockable track along with Turbo Track.
• In the Time Trial menu, the ghost select screen will be available only if there is an existing ghost data for the selected track.
  • The "Insert any memory card with ghost data in memory card slot 1" bottom text is missing.

Racetracks#

Aug 14	Final	Notes
		The checkered line pattern is smaller and thinner.
		It features a unique arc-shaped banner for the track. The checkered line pattern is smaller and thinner. The glass ceiling has different structures.
		The checkered line pattern is smaller and thinner. The vegetation is darker and the dirt textures are grey.
		The first large curve in the distance has "COCO" written with purple flowers.
		The fence next to the start line uses an incorrect texture. The tiki head statue lacks glowing eyes.
		The checkered line pattern is smaller and thinner.
		The checkered line texture does not cover the off-road sides.
		The checkered line pattern is smaller and thinner.
		The checkered line texture does not cover the off-road side.
		There are four single Wumpa fruit that were replaced by Wumpa crates. The wall on the left after the finish line is more open and has a snowy off-road.
		The checkered line seems to be missing. Some extra directional arrows are present in the left side.
		The textures of the track are heavily unfinished.
		There seems to be a screen with green text in the distance, and the wall textures on the right are less detailed.
		The stadium model lacks walls reaching the track's ground. The asphault road is larger, lacking the grassy off-road.

Arenas#

• Parking Lot, Lab Basement, and The North Bowl are already available from the start, while Skull Rock was originally an unlockable arena.

Aug 14	Final

• The arena thumbnails do not seem to feature any notable differences other than the camera angle.

Setup Battle#

Aug 14	Final

• The "TYPE:" and "LENGTH:" strings were moved further down in the final game.
• Warning messages use the small font.

High Score#

Aug 14	Final

• The small font is used for the character names.
• Drop shadows are much larger.
• Directional arrows next to the track names are missing.
• Only the eight starter characters are shown in the default rankings. In the final game, Ripper Roo, Papu Papu, Komodo Joe, Pinstripe, and N. Tropy are also present.
• Default scores are set to 3:00:00, whereas in the final North American release it is 9:59:00.
• Best Lap Time names use the standard font color, rather than the character's unique color.
  • The top character in the Best Track Time rankings is also featured in the default Best Lap Time scores.
• There is no sub-menu featuring selectable Time Trial and Relic Race options. Instead, pressing Up/Down will switch between Time Trial (referred to as "Standard Mode" here) and Relic Race.
• Best Lap Time scores are also present in the Relic Race screen. These were removed in the final game since there is no lap score in this mode.
• The default character names share the same string array used in the character select screens. In the final game, a separate array of characters names was made for this menu, featuring proper name abbreviations for the rankings.
• Slide Coliseum and Turbo Track score screens are accessible even if the tracks are not unlocked.
• Pressing X will return to the main menu.
• Komodo Joe's color is blue, which is the same as Crash's. It was later changed to mustard.

Gameplay#

• At this point in development, voice clips were not implemented into the gameplay yet, so the characters are completely silent throughout the game.
• The start banner is slightly different - the yellow and black checkered pattern is thinner in the edges. This design can still be seen in the final game in the track preview videos for Coco Park, Blizzard Bluff, Sewer Speedway, Dingo Canyon, Dragon Mines, Polar Pass, Tiny Arena, and Slide Coliseum.
  • The flip side lacks the green edges and has a hole where the inverted 'R' is drawn.
• Pressing Triangle to skip the race intro will also switch between track map and speedometer.
• Navigating the menu options makes no sound effect.
• There is no checkered flag transition when a level is replayed, so the map will reload instantly.
• The weapon fire function is also mapped to the R2 button, in addition to the Circle button. Therefore, there is no rear view camera.

Aug 14	Final

• The starting lights are smaller and less detailed.
• The lap counter is separated by a hyphen instead of a slash.
• Lap times are recorded once the lap is completed, whereas in the final game, the time of the current lap is displayed in real time.
• There is no chime sound effect after crossing the finish line on each lap.
• Aku Aku's mouth is closed.
• Uka Uka's eyes lacks a red contour around the edges.

• The "FINAL LAP!" notice is absent, and the jingle is very different.
• The victory fanfare is always used, regardless of the player's position at the end of the race.
  • The level music does not continue after the fanfare ends.
• The X button symbol has a golden color due to the orange gradient mistakenly applied to it.
• The game does not take a monochrome screenshot when paused.
  • You can switch between the track map and speedometer while the game is paused.
  • The FX slider does not play the humming sound effect while the player is in a hub world.
  • In the Voice slider, developers' voice impressions can be heard for Crash, Cortex and Coco used as a placeholder. Tiny Tiger, N. Gin, Ripper Roo and Pinstripe already have their own voices present, but Tiny's has a different pitch. N. Tropy only has one voice implemented in the menu, which is also never heard in the final game. All other characters are simply silent.
  • The Controller option lacks the "VIBRATE" text.
  • Selecting the "QUIT" option will make you immediately exit the level. In the final, the game will offer the player an extra prompt with "YES" and "NO" options to ensure the option had not been selected accidentally.
• If you pause the game and select "RESTART" while the race intro fanfare is playing, the level will restart without the fanfare.
• Super Turbo Pads allow the player to maintain maximum speed throughout the race, similar to the Blue Fire mechanic in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. This happens because you do not lose your accumulated turbos when getting any kind of boost. A piece of code that limits this action was added in the final game.
• When backtracking 25% or more of the track in a single jump after already completing more than 50% of the track, the game simply does not count as a valid region and resets your position when you fall off the track. In the final game, the mask will immediately rescue you upon touching the ground instead.
• No controller messages are displayed when a controller is unplugged.
• The game does not yet support Namco's neGcon or JOGCON controllers. As such, the respective controller setup menus are missing.
• The checkered flag transition is buggy:
  • You are able to pause the game while the checkered flag is still uncovering the screen.
  • When you restart the level, the menu confirmation sound effect will play once the level resumes.
  • Restarting or exiting the level while the traffic lights are onscreen will make them disappear.
  • Restarting or exiting the level while collecting Wumpa fruit will make them still count.
  • After a race is over and you leave the game, everything will freeze while the checkered flag covers the screen.

Race#

• There are no exhaust fumes coming out of CPU karts.
  • The same applies to the players on each other's screen.

• A different sound effect is heard when a power-up is obtained or the player is juiced up.
• Bumping into a TNT while spinning out or squashed does not instantly blow it up in the player's head.
• The Warp Orb path is broken in this build and has a tendency to get stuck in many sections of the tracks.
• CPU racers are not affected by crushing hazards, such as rolling barrels, boulders, and minecarts.
• Getting blasted while being squashed will result in the kart flipping in the squashed state. In the final game, the character immediately pops back to normal once the kart starts to flip.

Aug 14	Final

• The position numbers after finishing an Arcade race are colored red.
  • The menu placement is further down the screen.
  • The character icons in the race results appear very quickly after the second race onwards.
  • During the icons transitions, pressing a button to skip the HUD animation before they all appear will cause the remaining icons to pop up on the screen one by one.

Time Trial#

• Since there is no voice acting in this build, N. Tropy's end-of-race quotes do not play, even though they are already present in the files.
• Some characters ghosts have textures that show brighter than intended, along with having portions of black filling sections of the texture. These are textures that usually have transparency when not displayed as a ghost. In the final game, these black parts are still present when the characters show as ghosts, but the rest of the texture is the correct brightness. These differences are visible on:
  • Tiny Tiger's spikes.
  • The tips of Polar's ears.
  • The top of Papu Papu's hair.
  • Komodo Joe's paws.
  • Fake Crash's eyebrows and eyes.
  • Dr. N. Tropy's skinny beard and the tuning fork on his helmet.
  • Nitros Oxide's eyebrows.
• All of the tracks have a default time requirement of 3:00:00 to open the Speed Champion's ghost. In the final, each track has an appropriate time required.
• Beating ghosts does not add any gold or platinum stars next to the track names.
• Skipping the race intro while the checkered flag is still uncovering the screen will break the pace and cause the ghosts to start moving before the green light. The sooner the player skips it, the sooner they will move.
• Results screens pop up instantly, rather than having a smooth transition.
  • The Total Time screen does not have a transition between menus.
  • End-of-race messages lack an exclamation mark - notably, the British English text in the European version removes it as well.
  • The confirm button on the Enter Your Name screen reads "SAVE" instead of "SAVE HIGH SCORE".
    • The menu can be also skipped using the Square button.
  • Character names in the Best Times ranking use the small font as well, such as the High Score menu.
    • The position numbers are also colored red.
• Pressing X repeatedly while the ranking and total time score boxes are transitioning off the screen will keep them repeating the transition cycle.
• The ghost save screen reads "Choose a slot to save to" instead of "Choose a memory card slot to save to".
  • Attempting to save a ghost without a memory card will display an error message saying to press X to continue without saving. However, the button is not programmed to do anything, thus the player is forced to use Square to return instead.
• When you leave the track, the timer will reappear onscreen for a brief second while the checkered flag appears to cover the screen.
• N. Tropy cannot be unlocked without hacking, since the game was not yet programmed to make him available after beating his ghosts.
  • Beating the Speed Champion ghosts does not provide any reward either.
• Mystery Caves, N. Gin Labs, Hot Air Skyway, and Turbo Track crash in this mode due to attempting to allocate over 2 MB of RAM.

Speed Champion Ghosts#

In this version, Dr. N. Tropy takes the role of the second challenge ghost tier. The first tier is instead occupied by the "Speed Champions" - a group mentioned by him in one of his unused Time Trial quotes that consists of each track's respective champion. While Nitros Oxide's ghosts are absent after beating Dr. N. Tropy in this build, his line about challenging Nitros Oxide is already present, suggesting that the original idea was for there to feature three ghost tiers: beating the Speed Champions would award the sapphire star, Dr. N. Tropy would award the gold star, and Nitros Oxide would award the platinum star.

Notably, Dr. N. Tropy served as the first ghost tier in earlier builds. However, in this version, he was moved to the second tier, although only his ghost skin was changed. Everything else related to the Speed Champion still refers to him, such as the post-race message continuing to display "N. TROPY OPENED" or "YOU BEAT N. TROPY" after they are beaten, and their dots on the track map still matching the color of Dr. N. Tropy's kart. This change was ultimately reverted, and he once again became the first ghost tier in the final game.

The Speed Champions of each track are:

• Nitros Oxide's ghost runs out of bounds in Oxide Station. Therefore, it is impossible to beat him on this track by normal means.
• It is near impossible to unlock Tiny's ghost in Tiny Arena due to the low time requirement.
• There is no difference when comparing the Speed Champion ghosts and Dr. N. Tropy's ghosts, as they all feature the same inputs.

Multiplayer#

• The start banner has waving animations in 3+ players mode. In the final game, they were disabled.
• When the first player crosses the finish line, the victory fanfare will not play until the race is officially over for everyone.
• The race intro jingle is enabled during the countdown in the Battle mode.
• Losing all lives in Life Limit Mode turns the player into a tombstone. This object remains on the track during the entire battle, but it could disturb other players since you can crash against it. This feature was disabled in the final game.
• Killing a player while they are invisible will make them reappear even after the death.
• There is no limit to how many Tracking Missiles can be on screen at once, which impacts the frame rate. In the final game, there is a restriction in Vs. mode to prevent too many rockets from being on screen by setting that only 2 players out of 4 can receive Triple Missiles at the same time, while if the weapon roulette RNG wants to give more players the Triple Missiles, it gets changed to a single missile instead.
• The end of race comments used for Battle and Vs. has some strings changed, some missing, and others removed altogether. Most of the changed comments have been shortened to fit the screen, as the final game uses the standard large font, whereas the prototype uses the small font for both comments and "YOUT HIT/HIT YOU" strings.
  • The strings are also stored somewhere else, rather than along with the rest of the game text in the en.lng file.

• The winning character stops moving and freezes in place during the transition to the Versus Standings screen.
  • The camera will continue moving around the track depending on the level.

Characters#

• Komodo Joe's minimap dot is blue - which is the same as Crash's - instead of mustard.
• The windshield frame of Nitros Oxide's hovercraft is silver colored. In the final game, it was changed to black.
  • Regular kart wheels can be seen under the hovercraft.

Weapons#

• Activating another Invincibility Mask power-up while the current one is almost going away will make them reappear without the trail effect.
• The Red Beaker can inflict six different effects to the player by default:
  • • Randomize item roulette (if holding an item) / Cannot pick up weapons from crates (if holding no items)
    • Slippery wheels
    • Unable to hop
    • Wobble kart
    • Wobble kart when hopping
    • Drain Wumpa fruit (removed effect)
  • In the final game, only three status effects can affect the player under normal circumstances: if no items are being held, the victim may have the wobble kart or wobble kart when hopping effects applied randomly. But if an item is being held, the victim will always have their item roulette randomized. The remaining effects can only be chosen if the victim hits another Red Beaker while the effect of the current one is still active.
• Colliding with an opponent does not cause the screen to flash.
• Super Engine works in a different way: rather than providing a constant turbo boost for a short period of time, it makes your kart permanently faster for the rest of the round. Each time the power-up is used, your top speed will increase slightly - you can upgrade it up to five times if you are not juiced up, otherwise you can get up to three times.
  • It also makes a sound when activated - which is still present in the final game, but unused.
  • The sound of the kart's engine becomes higher pitched as it is upgraded.

Memory Card Notices#

• There is no background box surrounding the warning messages screens.

• All warning instances call the memory card as just "card".
• There is no proper message for when you delete a save slot. Instead, the generic "Writing to card" message is used.
• Most of the text is written with lowercase letters, while in the final game all letters are capitalized. This does not affect how the text is displayed in-game, though.
• In order to format the memory card, you have to press X instead of Circle.
• The format and read error messages do not inform you about using Triangle to go back - which in this case, you have to press Square.
• Messages use the letter X to represent the button instead of the actual icon.

Adventure Mode#

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• The start point is located in Gem Stone Valley, meaning that the player was originally going to be able to navigate between areas in order to collect trophies, aiming for a more open exploration.
  • The player can initially access both N. Sanity Beach and The Lost Ruins areas, each one with two available tracks from the beginning (Crash Cove, Roo's Tubes, Coco Park, and Tiger Temple).
    • If the player starts in N. Sanity Beach, four trophies are required to unlock Sewer Speedway, however you can only get three in this area, forcing the player to access The Lost Ruins to continue progressing.
    • If the player starts in The Lost Ruins, three trophies are required to unlock Dingo Canyon, however you can only get two in this area, forcing the player to access N. Sanity Beach.
• There are no cutscenes throughout the game.
• Aku Aku's animations are recycled from the previous games where he gives hints to the player when he is freed in the Japanese releases.
  • The wooden mask textures are darker.
  • His teeth are not drawn properly.
  • He does not swing up and down while speaking.
• When Aku Aku is showing up, a blurry effect appears onscreen.
  • The smoke that appears when he shows up or goes away is multicolored.
• Uka Uka is not present at this point. Instead, Aku Aku will also guide the player whenever an evil character is selected, although the pause menu will read "Uka Uka Hints" instead.
• The minimap lacks a few details, such as the Load-Save Screen and the blinking waves from active warp pads and boss stars.
• You can immediately access the side challenges of the race tracks after earning the trophy for them. In the final game, boss keys will be required once the trophy has been earned, which will only open the side challenges once the current area's boss has been defeated.
• Aku Aku explains the "Hang Time Hint" after the second race, and the "TNT Hint" after the third one. The order was switched in the final game.
  • The CTR Challenge and Relic Race hints are also not explained throughout the game, despite these already existing in the files.
  • The "Using a Warp Pad" and "Map Information" are missing from the hints menu section.
• The bottom notice that appears while Aku Aku is speaking is absent.
• Spinning out on the World Maps will crash the game.
• The Gem Stone Valley emblem has a trail of fire on the rocket.

Aug 14	Sep 3	Final

• Some warp pads are surrounded by a checkered pattern. This pattern was later updated in the September 3rd, 1999 build before being completely scrapped. According to former Naughty Dog developer Rob Titus, this was scrapped because they did not like the way it looked.
  • Track pads that feature checkered patterns are Crash Cove, Sewer Speedway, Coco Park, Dingo Canyon, Dragon Mines, Blizzard Bluff (Polar Pass in the final), and Tiny Arena.
• Warp pads have a straight shape with a bunch of sparkles coming out of it.
  • The sound effect when the player is close to it is absent.
  • No sound effect is made when the player enters the vortex either.
  • The floor has a lighter tone of blue.
  • Entering in mid-air will cause the characters to perform the big air jump animation.
  • The prizes floating inside do not shrink as the player moves away.
• The checkered flag transition after entering a vortex or boss garage will freeze the screen.
• Items floating above inactive warp pads flash black.

Aug 14	Final

• Warping particles emit a blue smoke that emerges out of the vortex. The final game changed it to a shining light.
• The blue CTR Token has a cyan tone, just like its gem counterpart.
• The music will turn off when accessing the Load-Save Screen.
  • There is no scanline sound effect.
  • The file save title reads "Choose a slot to save to" instead of "Choose a memory card slot to save to".
  • The cursor does not automatically highlight the Exit option when returning to the main screen.
• The controls are unlocked during the item inventory animation. The inventory also automatically adds up the earned prize after the race, rather than increasing the value after the prize goes to the HUD.
  • Similar to the other prizes, boss keys are also added to the key counter after a boss race. This was likely removed as a result of being deemed redundant, as the bosses congratulate you themselves in an in-game cutscene in the final game.
• Percentage values are mostly different:

• The map has flickering issues when pausing the game at certain spots.
• No sound effect is made for opening and closing a boss garage.
• There is also no proper sound effects when opening a new door.
• Pinstripe's garage uses his full name.
• You get up to five keys due to N. Oxide's Challenge giving you another key, rather than just displaying a unique star graphic in your inventory. This turns out to be meaningless, since there are no doors or boss garages left that require more than four keys.
• Pressing Square in the Choose Race Type sub-menu will always load Trophy Race, regardless of the highlighted option. In the final game, this button has no effect.
  • After completing the game, whenever you enter a warp pad, the Trophy Race will remain highlighted by default, whereas in the final game the Relic Race is highlighted.
• The maximum completion percentage you can achieve is 94%. Getting all the Gold or Platinum relics will not increase the percentage by 1%, and there is no Nitros Oxide rematch after collecting all 18 relics (although the title string and the code to detect if he was beaten twice are already present).
  • Hot Air Skyway normally crashes in Relic Race mode due to attempting to allocate over 2 MB of RAM.
• Starting or loading an Adventure profile after having accessed it once will cause the map and powerslide bar to disappear. This can be fixed by pausing and resuming the game, or after Aku Aku goes away.
• If you load a 0% save, quit before Aku Aku appears to greet you, then re-enter the save file, the player will be softlocked by not being able to pause the game, access the Load-Save Screen, and Aku Aku will no longer show up.
  • Alternatively, re-entering a more complete save file may have different side effects. If the player has enough keys to open a door and does so while this glitch is triggered, the low poly version of Aku Aku will show up during the door cutscene to greet you. While this is happening, you will be able to control the character while Aku Aku is talking, and you will be able to pause the game again after Aku Aku goes away. Entering a new area while Aku Aku is present will despawn him.
• Beating the Gem Cups does not unlock characters permanently. To make them available permanently, you must save a Relic Race or Time Trial record while they are unlocked, otherwise you will have to replay the Gem Cups every time you boot the game in order to unlock them.
  • However, if you save the Adventure mode data after beating the Gem Cups without saving a record, you will no longer be able to unlock the characters again unless you start a new save file.
• There is no credits sequence at this stage, so beating Nitros Oxide will simply return to the World Map instead.
• It is impossible to unlock Skull Rock, Slide Coliseum and Turbo Track without hacking, as the game was not programmed to make them available after collecting the level prizes.
  • Therefore, the unlock requirement for Skull Rock is unknown.
• The game will crash if you go out of bounds in the World Maps.
• Loading a save file in N. Sanity Beach, The Lost Ruins, and Glacier Park can spawn the player at different placements every time the file is loaded. In the final game, the spawn point is always fixed in one spot.

Progression#

The number of trophies required to unlock the racetracks throughout the game was vastly different due to the unrestricted exploration across the hubs. This setup allowed the player to collect trophies without following a specific order, where you could even unlock other areas earlier and collect enough trophies to defeat the boss before even beating the previous hubs.

• Glacier Park requires 1 key to open, instead of 2.
• Citadel City requires 2 keys to open, instead of 3.
• The requirement to unlock Turbo Track is 15 relics, instead of 5 gems.

Inventory Menu#

Aug 14	Final

• The "PAUSED" text is present here.
• Pressing Up while hovering over the Resume option will take you to the Quit option, rather than Options.
• The menu box and the gems are bigger in the final game. Level names also use the small font instead of the default one.
• Gems are placed one after the other, instead of being in a zigzag.
• Uncollected relics, tokens, and gems models are displayed in the "default" non-shaded forms.
• It does not change automatically according to the current area you are.
• The directional arrows next to the titles are missing.
• There is no transition between screens.
• CTR Tokens are still called "CTR Coins" here, despite "token" already being referenced in-game by Aku Aku.
• Switching too quickly between the hints can freeze Aku Aku's expressions.
• The highlighted Aku Aku hint option will be memorized even after you leave Adventure mode and re-enter it again.
• Bonus Round arenas have wrong token slots assigned in the menu. Earning the purple token in Nitro Court will erroneously fill the Rocky Road slot, which fills the Rampage Ruins slot, which fills the Skull Rock slot, which fills nothing. That causes the Nitro Court slot to always be empty.
• When beating a boss, the earned key will be added in the wrong key slots: defeating Ripper Roo will add the key to Nitros Oxide's key slot, Papu Papu will add to Ripper Roo's, Komodo Joe will add to Papu Papu's, Pinstripe will add to Komodo Joe's, and Nitros Oxide will add to Pinstripe's.

World Maps#

In the area transition segments, there is no back-face culling, so you can see the other sides of walls.

Gem Stone Valley#

• The rocky scenery on the right side of Nitros Oxide's spaceship is taller.
• The wall around the map is more retracted, making the area more open.
• The sky background behind the spaceship has clouds like the rest of the map. These were removed in the final game.
• The spaceship is less detailed around the boss garage area and has a light-green tone.
• There are no invisible barriers over the walls of the boss garage entrance. Therefore, it is possible to go out of bounds by jumping with enough speed and height.

Aug 14	Final

• There is no door locking the Gem Cups cave.

Aug 14	Final

• The entrance for The Lost Ruins was completely reworked.

Aug 14	Final

• The textures inside Nitros Oxide's garage are heavily unfinished.
• The floor textures have brown vertex coloring on the ramp leading to the garage door.
• The emblem for N. Sanity Beach is represented by a 3D model of a Sun in a silver frame, rather than a drawing of palm tree with a Sun.

N. Sanity Beach#

Aug 14	Final

• There is no door connecting Gem Stone Valley to N. Sanity Beach.
• The rocket emblem has fire coming out of the booster.
• A tiki head statue was removed from the sea background next to the Crash Cove warp pad.

Aug 14	Final

• There is an additional extension on the dock leading to Roo's Tubes. This remained on the map in the final game.
• There are two palm trees instead of one next to the dock.
• The pipes around the Sewer Speedway warp pad have a darker tone.

The Lost Ruins#

• Some grass textures over the stone walls are missing.
• Shadows under the trees are missing.
• A direction sign pointing to Papu's Pyramid is missing.
• It is possible to go out of bounds by jumping with enough speed on the right side of the scenery, located in the right ramp, next to the Load-Save Screen.

Glacier Park#

• Polar Pass and Blizzard Bluff warp pads are swapped.
• The color of the Dragon Mines warp pad is red instead of blue.
• The podium scene and the player spawn are both facing in the opposite direction of the boss garage.

Citadel City#

• Pinstripe's garage uses his full name.
• The chandeliers in the Cortex Castle area have different textures.

Aug 14	Final

• Floor textures are used to cover the area around the Nitro Court warp pad.
  • The ceiling above the warp pad was removed in the final game.
• There is no invisible barrier over the walls of the N. Gin Labs area and the spiral ramp, making it possible to get out of bounds by jumping with enough speed.

Podium#

Watch on YouTube

• There are no voice lines or sound effects during the podium celebration.
• The defeat poses are just a copy of the first frame of the victory animations.
• There are no victory fanfares. Instead, the current area theme plays all the time.
• Ami does the wagging finger animation instead of the hand-waving one.
• Megumi lacks her umbrella.
• Liz's color scheme is purple and white, instead of purple and green.
• Cortex uses his model from Crash 3. His face textures lack shading and are less detailed, his hair is brown instead of dark blue, and the "N" on his head is larger.
  • He is the only character to feature a unique defeat animation at this point.
  • He does not sob during his defeat animation, he only shakes his head.
• N. Gin's model is unfinished.
• Dingodile's paws are red.
• Dr. N. Tropy is not holding his giant tuning fork.
• Penta Penguin lacks a podium model for both his victory and defeat animations.
• Nitros Oxide's defeat animation was not started at this point, his model is in its default A-pose.

Boss Challenges#

• There is no boss race theme.
• The player and the boss start at 2nd and 3rd positions, respectively. That was probably a design choice that didn't work properly, as the character icons start at the wrong positions, and the race results adds two more P1 icons to the rankings.
  • Replaying a boss race does not show extra icons in the race results.
• Bosses do not drop their arsenal of infinite weapons. Instead, they act as a regular opponent, using random items.
• The Invincibility Mask, Warp Orb and N. Tropy Clock power-ups are available by default during the boss races. In the final game, these weapons will only appear as part of the dynamic difficulty adjustment system when the player loses the race multiple times.
• After beating Ripper Roo, the player will spawn outside his garage, rather than at the gate to Gem Stone Valley.
• After beating Pinstripe, the player will spawn outside his garage, rather than in front of Nitros Oxide's garage.
• Nitros Oxide does not start before the green light.
  • Attacking him using any weapons will cause him to bounce up and down like a regular opponent. In the final game, he will always spin around in circles when hit by most types of weapons - with the exception of Power Shields and Invincibility Masks.

CTR Challenge#

• Picking up a letter shares the same "slurp" sound effect when collecting a Wumpa fruit.

Aug 14	Final

• The token message is shown along with the race results.
• When pressing X to continue, the letters and the token will reappear onscreen for a brief second while the checkered flag appears to cover the screen.

Relic Race#

Time Crates LocationsSome crates are placed in very hard locations.

• Gold and Platinum times are placeholders, usually 5 and 10 seconds less than Sapphire times, respectively.
  • Coco Park and Tiny Arena, however, are still using older relic time placeholders.
• There is no time crate counter during the race.
• You cannot save your score if the clock passes 3:00:00, even if subtracting the final time by 10 seconds with a Perfect bonus.

Aug 14	Final

• Platinum relic has been changed from grey to white.
  • The Platinum font has white shading on the left side of the characters.
• The relic obtained at the end of the race appears very small in the top right corner next to the relic time requirement and will enlarge once the time is beaten.
  • There is no sound effect during the time subtraction.
  • "RELIC AWARDED" and "NEW HIGH SCORE" lack an exclamation mark - notably, the British English text in the European version removes it as well.
  • The time crate counter is slightly off-center.
• The results screen displays the same relic time as the in-race HUD, rather than using the actual time of the relic tier you earned, resulting in the requirement being displayed incorrectly onscreen if the tiers are different.
• The confirm button on the Enter Your Name screen reads "SAVE" instead of "SAVE HIGH SCORE". The menu can be also skipped using the Square button.
• Regardless of the relic you get, the podium and inventory add up animation always display the Sapphire relic.
• When pressing X to continue, the relic and total times will reappear onscreen for a brief second while the checkered flag appears to cover the screen.

• In Coco Park, the box counter says there are 40 boxes on the track, however only 38 are possible to collect due to two misplaced invisible crate pointers at the beginning of the track that can be triggered when passing through - which will break two existing time crates further behind.
• In Blizzard Bluff, the box counter says there are 36 boxes on the track, however only 34 are possible to collect. Two time crates are misplaced under the floor before the hut.
• In Oxide Station, the box counter says there are 47 boxes on the track, however only 45 are possible to collect. Two time crates are misplaced under the floor in the first ramp section, which is a leftover of an earlier level layout that originally featured a split-path leading to four tubes.
• In Turbo Track, the box counter says there are 52 boxes on the track, however only 51 are possible to collect. A time crate is misplaced under the floor in the final set of time crates.

Bonus Round#

• The race intro jingle is enabled during the countdown.
• The kart does not brake instantly after the challenge ends.
• The time limits are different in some arenas.

• In Rocky Road, there are two regular boxes inside two specific Nitro crates in the bottom edges, so using a Bowling Bomb to explode it, you can receive free crystals ranging from 5 to 8, acting just like Wumpa crates.

Gem Cups#

• The position number suffix and total time will reappear onscreen for a brief second while the checkered flag appears to cover the screen.
• The podium shows the winners of the final race, instead of the total cup standings. This means that even if you lose the final race but still have the highest score, the character who won that race will appear in first place on the podium instead, but you will still earn the gem.
• Leaving a cup before finishing it and then re-entering the same cup or another one will keep the points accumulated.
• Leaving a cup while the race intro is present will make the track name change to a different string for a brief second. The result will vary depending on the cup.
  • Red Gem Cup - Slide Coliseum
  • Green Gem Cup - Paused
  • Blue Gem Cup - Blank string
  • Yellow Gem Cup - Paused
  • Purple Gem Cup - Paused
• In Purple Gem Cup, the RNG percentage is not set properly, as you can receive Invincibility Masks, Warp Orbs, Triple Bowling Bombs and Tracking Missiles, and Clocks even if in first or second place.

• The track order is based on the old trophy requirements order, which also applies to the level select menu order. In the final game, it is based on the area order.

Soundtrack Differences#

The following themes have a cut extension at the end of the track. These segments were present in the original pre-console versions.

Unused Content#

Unused Text#

CONTROLLER 1 IS UNPLUGGED!
CONTROLLER 2 IS UNPLUGGED!
CONTROLLER 3 IS UNPLUGGED!
CONTROLLER 4 IS UNPLUGGED!
PLEASE INSERT A CONTROLLER

As there are no controller messages when a controller is unplugged, they went unused in this build. The numeration is also different, as in the final game the controllers are called 1A, 1B, 1C and 1D when plugged into the multitap.

UNLIMITED MODE

A High Score menu title related to a scrapped mode.

N.OXIDE'S FINAL CHALLENGE

Even though there was no Final Challenge at this point, the title string was already present - albeit missing a space on Nitros Oxide's name.

CTR CHALLENGE
Collect the letters C, T, and R on each track and come in first place to win a CTR Token.  Beware, some letters are hard to find!

RELIC RACE
Get the lowest time you can by racing fast and breaking time crates.  Each time crate you break will freeze the clock.  If you achieve a low enough time, you will be awarded a relic.

These Adventure mode strings are stored along with other hint texts, but are not used along with their audio counterparts. Both are used in the final game. The texts are also using lowercase letters, while in the final game all letters are capitalized. This does not affect how the strings are displayed in-game, though.

Early Japanese Translation#

A primitive Japanese localization is present in the files. It contains only a few translated strings related to race HUD, pause menu, and controller port messages, which are leftovers strings used in the old Japanese demo version.

Coco's Hologram Head#

Coco Park features a hidden model of Coco Bandicoot's head, which is her hologram model from Crash 2. It is placed floating in the sky just before the final corner with her face posed as an open smile. Its purpose is currently unknown, but it is possible that it would have displayed as a hologram in the sky when the track had an even more Coco focused theme early on, such as when her name was written in purple flowers on the first large corner.

It appeared only once in officially released gameplay during a Japanese pre-release trailer. The model and textures of the head still exist in the track data of the final game for all three regions, but the head is no longer placed in the sky.

It cannot normally be seen due to a thread that makes it invisible, but it can be drawn again by using the following GameShark codes:

800B3078 0000
800B3080 0000

After the code is activated, the track needs to be restarted for the head to appear.

Early Intro Cutscene#

Watch on YouTubeEven though there are no cutscenes throughout this build, unused data for a primitive version of the intro cutscene exists and reveals plenty of changes. The sceneries and tracks are mostly unfinished:

• The scene in Coco Park lacks the alien speakers from Nitros Oxide. Pura, N. Gin, and Penta are not racing around the track. The road is missing its stripes and lines. The water is missing. The turbo pad is still present, and many textures are unfinished.
• Nitros Oxide's spaceship features a different camera angle, which flies over his spaceship. In the interior scene, he is missing.
• Coco's scene features a different camera angle. The scenery lacks Pura and many details, such as the vegetation, trees, and jungle background.
• A very long unique road using Dingo Canyon's assets can be seen where the actual level would take place in the final game.
• Tiny and his kart are absent, and his scenery is completely empty, lacking details like the vines, dumbbells, his trident, and the crates.
• Another unique road using Coco Park's assets can be seen where Polar Pass would take place in the final game.
• Polar appears over his kart due to an incorrect draw order, and the scene features a different camera angle. The scenery lacks some details like icicles, more crystal clusters, the reflection in the ice, and Penta Penguin's easter egg of him sitting behind Polar.
• Dingodile lacks animations, and his scenery is completely empty and smaller, with simpler shading, lacking the rail, minecart, lamps, and gas tanks.
• There is no Hot Air Skyway scene, it shows a black screen instead.
• Cortex's scene lacks himself, and the scenery is completely empty, except for the different ray gun model and the kart.
• There is no Sewer Speedway scene.
• Crash's scene is mostly the same, except for some rendering issues.

Oddities#

Internal Track Names#

Internal names for Coco Park and Tiny Arena are called coco1 and arena2, respectively. Oddly, these names were eventually reverted back to asphalt1 and asphalt2, which sound less accurate to the themes of the tracks, especially for Tiny Arena.

Game Version#

The memory card header contains a version number, which is set to 10.

Save Information#

The information stored on a memory card when saving the game differs in this version compared to the final release.

• The hand icon is a sample memory card icon from an Psy-Q library.
• The title of the ghost replay data contains an additional period before the track's name.
• Character names share the same string array used in the character select screens. In the final game, the separate array of characters names for High Score is also used for the ghost data, featuring proper name abbreviations.

Info	Aug 14	Final
Save icon
Title	CTR Saved Games and Scores	CTR:Saved Games and Scores
Product Code	SCUS-12345	SCUS-94426

Dongle's Internal Name#

This build is dongle protected with the use of a memory card dongle, so attempting to run it via normal means will not boot the game. It seems this dongle was made specifically for the E3 demo, but was later reused in subsequent builds.

E3 dongle Copyright 1999 Naughty Dog, Inc.