On a relaxing day for the Bandicoots, and in the middle of working out an Evil Plan on Dr. Neo Cortex's side, both wind up kidnapped and finding themselves in a galactic racing circuit hosted by Emperor Velo XXVII, alongside N. Trance and Nitros Oxide. Velo challenges them to a race, rewarding them with freedom if they win, and threatening The End of the World as We Know It if they refuse. With little choice, they accept the race.
It's followed by Crash Tag Team Racing in 2005, which had new developers and a more distinct feel than CNK.
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, which was released in 2019, features remade elements from this game, including all thirteen tracks and karts as well as making the entire roster playable from the start (Spyro and Velo were added in during Grand Prix events). Anti-gravity physics present in certain stages have been removed to better sync the content with that of Crash Team Racing.
The game's roster includes:
- Returning characters from CTR:
- Team Bandicoot: Crash Bandicoot, Coco Bandicoot, Fake Crash
- Team Cortex: Dr. Neo Cortex, Dr. N. Gin, Tiny Tiger, Dr. N. Tropy
- Team Trance: Polar, Dingodile, Puranote
- Team Oxide: Nitros Oxidenote
- Newcomers:
- Team Bandicoot: Crunch Bandicoot
- Team Trance: N. Trance, Spyro the Dragonnote
- Team Oxide: Zem, Zam, Real Velonote
- Bosses: Krunk, Nash, Norm, Big Norm, Geary, Emperor Velo XXVIInote
Tropes used in this game:
- 100% Completion: Get 13 relics (any color is fine) and beat Galaxy Championship 2. Note that each team is its own creature; if you want a complete 100%, do it with both teams. You know you have done it if you unlock Velo.
- Actually Pretty Funny: When Norm first arrives for his boss fight, both Team Bandicoot and Team Cortex end up laughing at him. Velo himself has a short burst of laughter before he snaps out of it, telling the teams to not underestimate the tiny mime.
- Adaptational Villainy: Oddly enough, Spyro the Dragon gets this treatment in the GBA version, as he is protected by Uka Uka, who protects villainous characters, instead of Aku Aku, who protects heroic characters, for no discernible reason. This might be because he's been brainwashed by N. Trance, since his vehicle is the same as Team Trance, but he doesn't have the same mind control helmet that Polar and Dingodile have.
- Adapted Out: The GBA version of the game omits Zem, Zam, Pura and the real Velo, and instead features the bosses as unlockable characters, and Pura is replaced by Spyro.
- Alien Sky: Thunder Struck and Assembly Line have green sky, while Android Alley and the Teknee hub have an orange sky.
- Aliens Speaking English: There is no language barrier between the racers of Earth and the various aliens.
- All-Loving Hero: The three bandicoots are pretty gracious winners for most of their boss fights. Crash has some particularly sweet moments towards Krunk and the real Velo.
- All Planets Are Earth-Like: All of the alien planets, for the sheer reason that the Earth champions are able to breathe and walk (and race!) around them without suffering ill effects. Other than that, however, this trope is specifically evoked with Terra, which is stated to be most similar to Earth (and leads to Krunk claiming that Earth is a poor man's copy of his planet).
- The Bad Guy Wins: If you win the adventure mode as Team Cortex, though things don't quite go according to plan for them.
- Battle in the Rain: Or rather, Race in the Rain. Thunder Struck is this.
- Big Bad: Emperor Velo XXVII is the main antagonist of the game.
- Big Brother Instinct: It's subtle, but in the intro when both teams are abducted, after taking in his location, Crash immediately wonders where Coco and Crunch are. Also when Velo reveals himself, Crash can be seen standing in front of a worried Coco and shooting the Emperor an uncharacteristic Death Glare. Big Norm also has this dynamic with his smaller self when fought.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Dingodile, Polar and Pura all suffer this on N. Trance's team — having been kidnapped and brainwashed with mind-control helmets prior to the events of the game, and forced to race against Earth under his command.
- Butt-Monkey: Some of the loading screens aren't generous to N. Gin, Oxide and N. Trance in particular.
- The Cameo: Statues of Komodo Joe and the Lab Assistants appear in Jungle Boogie and Tiny Temple, respectively.
- Canon Foreigner: Zam and Zem on Oxide's team make their only appearance to date in this game. At least until ''Nitro-Fueled''.
- Canon Immigrant: N. Trance makes his first appearance on a home console Crash title in this game, having previously appeared in Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced.
- Clockworks Area: Clockwork Wumpa.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Team Bandicoot is blue, Team Cortex is red, Team Trance is green, Team Oxide is yellow and the bosses are purplenote .
- Competitive Balance: There are three major character tiers in this game. First there are the acceleration types such as Crash who excel at acceleration but have weak turning and an average top speed, the slow ones such as Coco who have a low top speed but excel at turning, and the fast ones such as Crunch who have a high top speed but accelerate very slowly. All four of the teams have a character that falls under one of these tiers; the non-Velo teams all have a fourth character who is a duplicate of one of these tiers (though among those three there are still one of each), and Velo who is the Master of All.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
- The bosses with infinite items make a return in this game.
- In the races against Velo, he cheats to such an insane degree that the Hyper Spaceway minimap is unable to be viewed because of him: his Rubber-Band A.I. is so strong that he can almost instantly catch up given enough distance, and he can even teleport off-screen if trying to catch up normally wouldn't work for him.
- Continuity Snarl: A mild case with N. Trance, who was decisively defeated in his debut game, yet is back none the worse for wear. The Sequel Hook in that game isn't addressed either.
- Cosmetic Award: Getting sapphire relics is sufficient if you want to get 100% completion in Adventure Mode. Platinum relics merely tick it up to 101% and otherwise give you nothing.
- Crate Expectations: As a Crash game, it's nothing the least bit surprising. New to this game from CTR, however, are two additional crates — the multiplier crate which always gives you three of a single weapon (in CTR, this would happen randomly out of an item crate), and the action crate which causes something in the level to change (for example, there’s one in Clockwork Wumpa that opens a trap door ahead).
- Death Mountain: Out of Time is basically an alien Dingo Canyon with a giant clock in the center. Fenomena seems to be a dangerous planet in general.
- Demoted to Dragon: Nitros Oxide and N. Trance are demoted to supporting villains after their respective stints as the Big Bad in Crash Team Racing and Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced. The former is especially one, considering that CTR is what this game is a
Spiritual Successor of, and he leads Team Oxide, one of Velo's teams who's this game's Big Bad. - Demoted to Extra:
- Nitros Oxide plays almost no role in the game other than being a playable racer for the first time, and he plays like the other racers and doesn't use his spaceship.
- Dingodile and Polar also count, since while they're still playable (albeit unlockable) characters in all other modes, neither play any role in the story aside from being non-playable racers on N. Trance's team. Pura gets it even worse, as he doesn't appear in the story at all, won't appear in races unless someone's playing as him, and the only sign of his presence is Jungle Boogie's loading screen. He's also completely absent from the GBA version, being replaced by Spyro.
- After being a playable character in Crash Team Racing, Komodo Joe's presence in this game is reduced to a statue that resembles him in Jungle Boogie.
- Double Unlock: To challenge Velo for the second time, you have to get relics from all 13 tracks. That's a tall order, but at least you don't need the CNK tokens, right? Well, one of the Relic Races, Hyper Spaceway, happens to have a requirement of 4 gems, collected by winning the Gem Cups. To unlock all four challenges, collect all CNK tokens.
- Driving Up a Wall: The game's main distinguishing feature was the ability to drive on vertical and even upside-down sections of track. Those sections of the tracks were all removed when the tracks were remade for Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, however.
- Dual Boss: You race against Norm and Big Norm simultaneously. Geary and Velo's championships, meanwhile have Trial Boss, as both have two minions who may win the race for them even if they could not.
- Egocentric Team Naming: Teams Cortex, Trance and Oxide are all named after their respective leaders. Team Bandicoot is the only exception, as their team name fits all four members equally.
- End of an Era:
- This was the final game where Clancy Brown voiced Cortex. Starting with Crash Twinsanity, Lex Lang took over and has remained ever since.
- This was the last main console title to closely follow Naughty Dog's aesthetics and gameplay style as well, with Twinsanity onwards increasingly dabbling in reinventing the series with new concepts and taking a Denser and Wackier tone.
- Eternal Engine: Assembly Line.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Even Tiny and N. Gin are shocked when Cortex insults Big Norm after he congratulated them.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Emperor Velo XXVII is voiced by Steve Blum. Subverted when it turns out that it was just a regular alien in a large suit, and he has a high-pitched voice.
- Exact Words: The team you play as wins its freedom by beating Velo, just as promised, and can return to Earth. Velo never promised Earth would be safe if they beat him and stopped racing for him, however, essentially forcing a rematch with added rules.
- Even Velo's "added rules" fall under this: you can do a rematch after collecting all the relics...one of which is in Hyper Spaceway, which is only unlockable with all 4 gems collected, to collect which you need to win all Gem Cups, to unlock which you need to collect all CNK tokens...
- Face–Heel Turn: N. Trance brainwashes Polar, Pura and Dingodile to race for him. While the latter is one of Cortex's cronies, the priority is to save Earth, and he's forced to race against it.
- Fake Difficulty: The CNK challenges in this game seem pretty lazily put together compared to the previous game's CTR challenges, with the letters put in places that seem more of an inconvenience rather than a challenge. A good example of this is Meteor Gorge — one of the letters is placed on the dirt way off course, so it's not particularly difficult to get, it's just very out of the way and will probably set you incredibly far back.
- Fake Longevity: In order to unlock Velo, you have to beat him twice with both teams.
- Final-Exam Boss: Emperor Velo is raced on an excruciatingly long track that you haven't seen up to this point, with the same infinite item gimmick the other bosses have... plus two minions riding alongside him to help!
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Velo is beaten for the second time, his minions try to calm him down, one of them warning him that his suit is leaking. A few seconds later, the suit explodes, revealing the real Velo, a little green man controlling the suit from the inside all along.
- Foreshadowing:
- When Norm is first summoned, both teams will laugh at Norm's size. Velo stifles his laughter for a moment then follows suit, then assures the teams that despite his size, Norm is a demon on the race track. This is two-fold foreshadowing of Velo's true nature as a short alien who's The Napoleon - he laughs at short people despite his own height and is a demon on the race track even in his small form.
- Tiny Temple looks like a character themed track akin to CTR oddly misplaced on an alien world, then we find out during Team Cortex's ending, that Terra's inhabitants worship Tiny's likeness.
- Friendly Fireproof: In team races, characters on the same team are unable to hurt each other with items, as doing so simply results in the attacked teammate being protected by the team's mask.
- Gainax Ending: The Team Cortex true ending counts as this. Cortex steals Velo's scepter and attempts to bring themselves back to Earth, but instead get teleported to Terra where they are nearly attacked by natives. Tiny fixes the scepter just in time and ends up revered as king. Cortex, out of annoyance, does a Skyward Scream and... the end. It's never explained how they get back to Earth in future games.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: In Adventure Mode, if the player’s teammate comes in first, it will still count as winning the challenge.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Justified and subverted; both teams (Team Bandicoot and Team Cortex) obviously don't want Velo to win, but they also don't want each other to win either. Considering they are forced into the competition though, they don't really have much of a choice other than to casually go kart with each other.
- Gotta Catch Them All:
- The main objective of Adventure Mode is to collect 12 trophies and 4 keys, allowing you to challenge Velo. Upon being defeated, he changes the rules and has you collect 13 relics as a prerequisite for you to challenge him again. One of the relic races requires you to have 4 gems in the Gem Cups, which are unlocked by collecting 12 CNK tokens, essentially making you do absolutely everything in the mode.
- The purple CNK tokens are won by collecting all crystals in the battle arenas within a time limit.
- Graceful Loser: Krunk and Big Norm in both campaigns take their loss with dignity and congratulate the player. Team Bandicoot offer their friendship in return. Team Cortex however throw it back in both their faces.
- Gravity Screw: A major introduction to this game is the inclusion of anti-gravity parts of the track. Whenever you reach one of these parts, the kart switches so that the wheels face downward and emit electricity to stay on course.
- Guest Fighter: Spyro the Dragon appears as a secret racer in the Game Boy Advance version.
- Heel–Face Turn:
- Crunch is a good guy in this game, following his freedom from Cortex in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex.
- All the boss racers pull a downplayed case in Team Bandicoot's story, as they either befriend or get sympathy from the Bandicoots upon being defeated. Even Velo, surprisingly enough.
- Huge Holographic Head: Emphasis on huge, Velo communicates with racers by using a gigantic holographic head before appearing in person once you defeated his four champions.
- Interface Screw: If you drop a static orb on the track and you are juiced, it will temporarily reverse the controls of whoever comes in contact with it. Additionally, a juiced Ice Mine will cause anyone who runs into it to drive like they are on ice.
- Interface Spoiler: If you unlock any of Velo's ghosts in Time Trials before getting Adventure Mode's 100% ending, you'll notice that the Velo ghost is a lot shorter than the Velo you see in Adventure Mode...
- Invincibility Power-Up: Carried over from CTR, the mask power-up increases your character's speed and makes them invincible for several seconds. Aku Aku protects Team Bandicoot (Crash, Coco, Crunch, and Fake Crash), Uka Uka protects Team Cortex (Cortex, N. Gin, Tiny, and N. Tropy), and an unnamed Velo mask protects everyone else (N. Trance, Polar, Dingodile, Pura, Oxide, Zam, Zem, and Velo).
- Joke Character: Fake Crash, who has rock-bottom speed, acceleration and handling.
- Jungle Japes: Jungle Boogie. Terra in general has this aesthetic.
- Karma Houdini: In the Hero side final ending, Velo is Easily Forgiven after his disguise is revealed and he agrees to send the bandicoots back in return for them giving back the winner's prize (his empire). Subverted in the Villain side final ending, where Cortex and Tiny essentially mug him for his scepter.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Had you not seen the 100% ending to Wrath of Cortex prior to this game, this one would spoil Crunch's Heel–Face Turn and The Reveal of him being Brainwashed and Crazy. While it's never directly stated in the game, it is in the game's manual.
- Loads and Loads of Loading: Though nowhere near as bad as it was in The Wrath of Cortex, the PS2 version of this game still suffers from a pretty heavy amount of long load screens. Not helped by the fact that there's also a loading screen just for the podium, which CTR quite happily tried to avoid. Meaning if you don't want to see the podium sequence, you still have to wait for it to load. The GameCube and Xbox versions are a bit better about it.
- The Man Behind the Curtain: Velo, after he is revealed to be a tiny gremlin who was controlling a giant robot all along.
- Marathon Level:
- Electron Avenue is a very long track which starts by a leap of faith before a corridor with boost pads, a long anti-gravity section, a loop with two electric barriers, a shorter but still extreme anti-gravity section, then a long zigzagging area which ends on a third electric barrier before reaching the finish line.
- Hyper Spaceway is even longer, to the point it doesn't even show a map when racing! After starting your engine, you go for a portal which gets you upper on the colosseum, where you do a long jump before another portal which leads you to a long and tricky anti-gravity section. That finished, you cross a portal to go on a long section where you can either go down and take sharp turns or use your momentum to go for the shortcut and skip this portion, but you still have to face the lasers. Then the next portal leads you to a floating space station with two corridors before another long anti-gravity section on a tube you can cross 360 degrees from the outside and have to dodge electric barriers. Then the final portal leads you to the colosseum where you make a leap of faith before the finish line.
- Master of All: Velo has maxed out stats across the board. This also applies to the bosses, who are unlockable in the GBA version.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: This game could effectively be considered a glorified track pack to CTR.
- Mistaken for Clown: After defeating Small and Big Norm with Team Cortex, Big Norm congratulates the trio. Doctor Cortex dismisses this, however, saying "go away, you filthy clown". Doctor N. Gin corrects Cortex's mistake, to which Cortex says, "mime, clown, it's close enough!"Big Norm: Who are you calling a clown? With ya big head and ya stupid springy hair!
- Mobile-Suit Human: The 100% endings reveal that Velo actually is a small alien using a giant suit to make himself bigger.
- Moving the Goalposts: You win Velo's challenge if you beat him twice, and to deem you worthy of challenging him twice, you have to collect absolutely everything in your team's campaign (trophies, tokens, gems, and relics). That is all good if he is honest from the beginning, but Velo only says about collecting the relics and the second challenge after you beat him for the first time. Crash, Cortex, and co. naturally assume that their business in space is done after they beat Velo once and are not amused by the sudden rule change.
- Morton's Fork: Velo will not let any of his competitors return to Earth unless they race the cup: they can technically leave, but he'll destroy Earth if they don't commit to his challenge. However, Velo also happens to be a Sore Loser, leading to him Moving the Goalposts when either team does win all the races and defeat him. The only reason either team gets to return to Earth in the end is because beating Velo the second time causes such a tantrum that he short circuits.
- Multi-Stage Battle: Invoked in the GBA version's final race with Velo, which sees you warping between all four hub worlds during the course of each lap.
- Nerf:
- The Wumpa crates are heavily nerfed in this game compared to CTR. In CTR, they would often net you five to as many as eight wumpa fruits per box, but here, they often only give you three or four. This does make the wumpas that are sitting out in the open on the track a lot more meaningful, however.
- The Tornado Top, this game's equivalent of the Warp Orb from CTR, now only has a higher chance of hitting others in front of you rather than guaranteeing a hit to every racer in front of you.
- Homing Missiles are also much more prone to hitting walls in this game than they were in CTR, making them a lot less viable as a weapon.
- Non-Player Character: In the console versions, all of the boss characters except Velo are unplayable, and they are also not seen outside of their respective championship races in the Adventure Mode. Even Velo is technically unplayable, despite being a part of the character roster, since the one whom you are given the option to play as is the tiny alien controlling him. The handheld editions make them all playable, albeit removing Real Velo in the process.
- Not Me This Time: It is apparent that Tiny has a reputation as The Klutz within the villain roster, so N Gin's first reaction when they are engulfed in a beam of light?N Gin: *turns angrily at Tiny* What did you break now???*Tiny shrugs innocently*
- Obvious Rule Patch: In CTR, you had the ability to fire bubble shields as a weapon against other racers. Not only was this a fairly useless feature since it was near impossible to aim, it also meant you couldn't fire a weapon while still holding onto the shield. This game remedies this issue by removing the whole firing feature altogether.
- Over 100% Completion: Getting all platinum relics adds 1% to the completion percentage, so when you beat Galaxy Championship 2, it goes to 101%.
- Palmtree Panic: Inferno Island.
- Planet of Hats: All the four planets seem to revolve around one theme (Terra is a Mayincatec Jungle Japes world, Barin is a Slippy-Slidey Ice World with an important resource extraction industry, Fenomena is a wacky clock planet, and Teknee is a Tomorrowland planet).
- Planet Terra: Averted. There is actually a separate Earth-like planet called Terra. Its champion racer, Krunk, claims that Earth was created as a copy of his planet. Upon his defeat to Team Bandicoot, he admits that the truth is the other way around.
- Promoted to Playable: Nitros Oxide is finally playable for the first time in this game (although you could technically play as him in CTR by using GameShark codes). In addition, N. Trance makes his first playable appearance in the series.
- Recycled In Space: It's Crash Team Racing IN SPACE! Well, subverted in that CTR did feature an alien as the main antagonist, but his track was the only one that took place in space, where in this game every track takes place on one of Velo's planets.
- Regional Bonus: The Japanese release of the Game Boy Advance version remixes all the race track themes from short ten second jingles to proper minute long tracks. The extended themes are also used in all region versions of the N Gage release.
- Remember the New Guy?: Oxide has two cohorts racing on his team named Zem and Zam who were never seen or mentioned in CTR, and they're given no proper introduction here.
- Remixed Level: Virtually all tracks in the game are inspired by the tracks in CTR. Tiny Temple, for example, is a direct throwback to Tiger Temple down to the architecture and obstacles featured, albeit with a new anti-gravity section.
- Robot Republic: Teknee is a planet populated entirely by robots.
- Ruins for Ruins' Sake: Barin Ruins.
- Robotic Reveal: In the 100% ending for both teams, Velo turns out to have just been a robot all along after he gets so angry that he blows up.
- Secret Character: Dingodile, Fake Crash, N. Tropy, Polar, Pura, Velo, Zam, and Zem. Dingodile, Polar, Zam, and Zem are unlocked by getting the gems (red, blue, purple, and green, respectively). Fake Crash and Pura are unlocked by obtaining at least 50 power slide boosts in an Adventure Mode race (with Team Cortex and Team Bandicoot, respectively). N. Tropy is unlocked by beating all 13 of his ghosts in Time Trial. Finally, Velo is unlocked by getting 100% completion in Adventure Mode with both teams.
- Secret Level: Two of them. The first, Hyper Spaceway, is where you race against Velo in both Galaxy Championships and unlocked for other modes after you beat him for the first time. The second, Terra Drome, is a battle arena unlocked after you get all purple CNK tokens. It is completely optional and is not visited in Adventure Mode.
- Shark Tunnel: Deep Sea Driving is located in the depths of the sea, and has one large section where you can drive 360 degrees inside a glass tunnel.
- Shifting Sand Land: Out of Time and Thunder Struck. Fenomena in general seems to be a desert planet.
- Scenery Porn: Many of the tracks, especially the late game ones, are pretty clearly designed to be as eye-popping as possible, particularly with the electricity aesthetic.
- Screen Crunch: The N-Gage port would have been equal in quality with the GBA version... if it wasn't for the screen size. Its nearly impossible to see anything to the side of you, including the race track. In a misguided attempt to fix this, the camera is much more jumpy which only makes things worse.
- Shout-Out: Dingodile has a few among his soundbites, including to The Crocodile Hunter ("Cuh-RI-key!") and to "Crocodile" Dundee."You call that racing? This is racing!"
- Sissy Fight: In Team Cortex's ending, when Cortex makes a grab for Velo's sceptre, the real Velo pounces him, leading to a short not-so-climatic scuffle between the two weeds before Tiny breaks them up.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Meteor Gorge and Barin Ruins. Barin in general seems to be a cold planet.
- Sorting Algorithm of Threatening Geography: The four worlds' progression fits this, especially if you measure it by how much it implements the anti-gravity mechanic.
- The first, Terra, is a tropical forest/beach that bears resemblance to N. Sanity Island and by far the least scary-looking one. There is only one level (Tiny Temple) that features an anti-gravity section, and it is a short one.
- Moving up to the second, Barin, while still believably Earthlike, is a frozen wasteland with resource extraction engines, and it properly introduces anti-gravity in Deep Sea Driving through it's long Shark Tunnel.
- The third world, Fenomena, is where things start to get threatening, what with desert looks like The Wild West mixed with Medieval European Fantasy and Ancient Grome, mythological creatures, and weird clockwork motifs abounding and liberally uses anti-gravity (e.g. a large chunk of Thunder Struck).
- The final world, Teknee, is a technologically advanced, robot-populated city where every level has an anti-gravity section.
- Spelling Bonus: The objective of the CNK Challenges, other than winning first place, is to find the letters C, N, and K within the race. Doing so awards you either a blue, green, or red CNK token; getting three same-colored tokens unlocks its corresponding Gem Cup.
- Squashed Flat: Can occasionally happen due to track obstacles; for instance, the train on Android Alley.
- Team-Based Tournament: The plot of the game is that Team Bandicoot or Team Cortex are competing in a racing tournament where they will be enslaved if they lose. During the story mode, having one of your teammates get first place counts as a victory for the player.
- Temple of Doom: Tiny Temple.
- Terrible Trio: Both Team Cortex and Team Oxide, although the former are clearly anti-heroes.
- Time Trial: Relic races make a return in this game.
- Title Scream: "Brace yourself... for CRAAAAASH NITRO KAAAAAAART!"
- Tomorrowland: Teknee is a futuristic planet with big skyscrapers, automated factories, and where antigravity is omnipresent.
- Under the Sea: Deep Sea Driving.
- The Unreveal: Neither of the truncated endings in the Game Boy Advance version make reference to Velo being a robot controlled by a dwarfish alien inside.
- Version-Exclusive Content:
- The Game Boy Advance version contains playable boss characters as well as the ability to unlock and play as Spyro.
- In the Gamecube version, connecting the aforementioned GBA version via Link Cable allows you to instantly unlock Hyper Spaceway, Terra Dome, Polar, Dingodile, Zem, Zam, Pura, and Fake Crash (you still have to complete the Ghost challenges and Adventure modes to unlock N. Tropy and Velo.
- The Xbox version has support for 16:9 widescreen and up to 720p resolution, but at the cost of impacting game performance.
- Villain Protagonist: Team Cortex in their Adventure Mode.
- Villainous Breakdown: Emperor Velo become angry the first time he gets defeated, but calm down when he offered the Earth racers for a rematch. The second time he loses, he become so furious that he exploded, reveal that he's actually a tiny alien piloting a robot.
- Wackyland: Fenomena has a bizarre aesthetic that cannot be shoehorned into a single theme. The planet has desert, clockwork machinery (including an enormous free-standing clock), medieval architecture, legendary creatures (e.g. gargoyles and giant bird eggs), and mesh platforms all rolled up into one. Its champion is a humanoid mime who can separate himself into two beings.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Of N. Trance's brainwashed victims, only Polar is actually freed from his control, and only in Team Bandicoot's ending. Dingodile and Pura don't get to be freed at any point.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Like CTR, the game is only halfway there when you collect all trophies and beat Velo for the first time. Velo states that he will only deem you a victor if you beat him in a second challenge, and to do that you need to collect all the relics and the other collectibles in the game.
