>>16710736
>CTR
My Basketball American, it truly is a better version of Diddy Kong Racing (which in turn is a superior version of MK 64)
I really don't get how people still like Mario Kart titles over CTR. Even nu-CTR for all its flaws still retains a lot of what made the original special. Unrelated but the CTR community is to this day active in finding out faster and faster strats for all courses, in the past two months alone they found a shitton of exploits and tech.
>>16710781
I find it THE kart-racer, but I can see why people prefer MK Double Dash, MK Wii, Diddy Kong Racing and SEGA All-Star Racing as much or better than it.
>I never played it and always wondered what exactly made it better than the competition?
The physics were some of the most satisfying shit ever, playing it on an emulator cheapens the experience (all competitive runners use original hardware) but still retains a lot of what made the game click, despite it being locked at 30 fps (actually it may be lower) the devs still managed to make it feel like every single action you performed was replicated 1:1
The items were extremely balanced compared to other kart racers, even the most OP ones still needed some strategy to be used right, i.e. the Warp Orb will hit the person in first and anyone in its way, but if you don't stack up on Wumpa fruits (think MK coins) too it would skip more than half the contestant in front of you, plus the moment you use the item the player in first knows that he's been targeted and has all the time in the world to prepare for it, sometimes it's better to take a dive instead of getting hit as you get invincibility frames when coming back unlike MK, plus the devs had the foresight of not letting the AI use the best items in the game when playing against one or more human players, meaning that you can't be sniped by an AI without knowing they would do that - nuCTR forgot how bothersome having multiple unblockable items target you and suffers a lot because of it on multi, anyhow you don't even need to use items at all to be first and using the best items in the game still won't make you an instant first.
The devs do slow you down when you're in the air, but understood that jumping is an essential part of kart games, so they made sure that every single jump felt great (unlike MK Wii where it's almost a chore) and filled the tracks with a lot of vantage points from which you can do some crazy shit, Sewer Speedway and Oxide Station (though the latter is unavailable in multi) are the most fun you'll ever have in a racing game solely for that.
While the differences in karts are noticeable when playing competitively or against really good humans, you never feel that you're that much disadvantaged compared to others, the only kart that is objectively the best is Penta on PAL and JP because of a devs' supposed oversight, but even then time trials don't always favor him.
The color palette and aesthetic for the game is insanely good, high contrast and low saturation, the models look a bit like shit but there's tons of little details like particle effects that aren't intrusive and overall highly readable map design, compare it with shit from nu-kart racers where they just fill the world with as much shit as possible.
The Adventure mode is probably the greatest tutorial in all of gaming, basically you don't just go through competitions but are dropped onto a hub world where you're free to train your drifting and jumping skills while picking and choosing individual challenges, to progress you need to also defeat bosses (the last one of which outright cheats at the start) with unique quirks.
Finally, the controls are phenomenal, analog is fine but the d-pad gets you some insanely good results, you always feel in control and you never get thrown around for something that isn't your fault (except in one specific instance of Sewer Speedway that was bugged).
It's a real fun game, pick it up and play it.
Anyhow my pick is Inazuma Eleven for being a better ripoff of Captain Tsubasa and forgetting in its subsequent titles.
