Reception of Crash Team Racing (CTR)

Crash Team Racing received critical acclaim. Official PlayStation Magazine described Crash Team Racing as "the game that made kart racing cool" and proclaimed that "nothing has ever matched its quality." Electronic Gaming Month noted that the game was "heavily inspired by Mario Kart, but still an amazing multiplayer racer." Doug Perry of IGN stated that the game was "rock solid" in playability and graphics, but was critical of "the insanely capitalistic smile of Crash." Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot called the game "a great Mario Kart clone", and that it succeeded where similar games like Mega Man Battle & Chase, Bomberman Fantasy Race, Diddy Kong Racing, Chocobo Racing and Mario Kart had failed. Johnny Liu of Game Revolution concluded that despite the fact that the game "doesn't add much to the tired genre, it manages to do everything well."

The game's controls were well received. The D-Pad Destroyer of Gamepro praised the controls as "nearly-perfect" and explained that "the transparent controls allow you to concentrate on racing and blasting your opponents, and so the races are faster, more fluid and more fun." Johnny Liu of Game Revolution concluded that the controls "feel very natural, with an emphasis on maintaining speed rather than fighting lousy controls." However, Joe Ottoson of Allgame ("All Game Guide" at the time) said that the inability to reconfigure the controls was "the only real drawback to Crash's presentation."

The graphics of the game were positively received. The D-Pad Destroyer of GamePro, while noting that the graphics were not too complex, cited the "cartoony look and the ingenious use of textures and colors" as high points in the graphics department. Doug Perry of IGN commended the "sharp looking" environments as "clean and fully formed" and the characters are "full of funny animations and cleanly designed". Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot said that the environments "are reasonably large, and they convey the cartoon-like attitude of the game very nicely." Johnny Liu of Game Revolution stated that the graphics were "smooth and seem to push the PlayStation's limits."

Critics expressed mixed opinions of the game's audio. The D-Pad Destroyer of GamePro said that the "whimsical" background music is "quite enjoyable" and the character sound bites are "varied enough to avoid becoming annoying." Doug Perry of IGN had a more mixed take, saying that the "classic bouncy, xylophone-heavy beat" is "not necessarily great", and that after a few courses, "you either stop hearing it, or the incessant simplicity of it makes you want to cry or pull your hair out". On the subject of the voice acting, he concluded that there is "nothing really that cute, clever or memorable" in the game, and noted that Crash's voice in the game is extremely similar to that of Luigi from the Mario Kart series. Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot wrote that while the music and sound effects "push the game's cartoon theme," the themes were not too "over the top" or incessant. Johnny Liu of Game Revolution passed the music off as "standard kitschy fare" and added that while the sound effects "add to the cartoon quality of the game", some of the character voices were unsatisfactory. Joe Ottoson of Allgame noted that the characters "are all quite vocal", and the music "sets off the whimsical mood nicely".

Crash Team Racing has sold over 1.71 million units in Europe, 2.64 million units in the United States and just under 500,000 units in Japan. As a result of its success, the game was re-released for the Sony Greatest Hits line-up in 2000 and for the Platinum Range on January 12, 2001. An indirect sequel titled Crash Nitro Kart was released in 2003 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube, GameBoy Advance and N-Gage and was the first game in the Crash Bandicoot series to feature full motion video.