I couldn't find the option and I have gotten use to it however its a shame its not played similar to Mario Kart or Sonic Team Racing as those game controls are basically the standard for Kart Racing games.

The only way to change the difficulty is by starting a new file. I don't believe you can change the difficulty once selected. 

You will breeze through Easy mode.

Just played a few cups with my girlfriend. It has a great feel to it, but 2 major complaints so far:

#1 is the fact that no points are awarded for places 5-8 (and only one is given for 4th!). This is baffling to me. So if I get 5th and the person I’m playing against gets 8th every race, we end up with the same score? What a stupid decision. Honestly kind of ruined the experience for me. Mario Kart’s point rewards are done far smarter.

Second biggest issue was with drifting. This could be something I need to learn yet, but I found that by the time my drift bar filled and I activated it, the boost would just slide me into a wall and I’d lose the boost and slow down. If I’m doing something wrong, tips are welcome. :)

It is weird to explain because my hands just do it.    

When you are in in a left turn => I jump, I press left dpad + left bumper to iniate the powerslide => When I start powersliding, I immediatly press right dpad to counter my powersliding a bit.      Well like I said hard to explain =p

Best place to learn is Coco's Park. Also the best place to do the 5 times triple boost in a row trophy :).  Just choose local arcade/time trial so you don't get annoyed by the A.I.

2nd day now and still no copy from my local store, maybe tomorrow.

Fantastic, a highly skill based kart racer with super tough AI (on hard) and no rubber banding or catch-up. Ai won't speed up if they're behind or slow down of you're too far back. It's all about driving fast.

In some areas it's too faithful (point system in cups) but for the most part it's fantastic. Beaten oxide on hard, now I'm going back and getting the ctr tokens, now that is difficult. Ai is much better then original. The dark souls of kart racers.

Scratch that, just got the game and played for a little over an hour, felt like how it did on the PS1 so that's a good thing for me, enjoying it quite a lot. Only gripe I have is the Wumpa Coins, can't understand how the rate of coins differ, it says in-game, coins you get depends on your position? But I've been first quite a lot and only got 40 coins 2 times while most of the time I get 20 coins, and also I don't like the always online thing especially that it's a grind for the Pit Stop unlocks.

Not so sure about this one on the boss, I've played for a little over an hour and only beaten Ripper Roo, and I've noticed he's almost always near me and only lost by 1 second, while on group race(Adventure mode) I've beaten them by around 5-6 seconds, given I've been hit a couple of times while boosting like crazy too(on both occasion).

This game made me fire up the original CTR on my Vita just to see if it felt the same. Aside from the original running like hot poop and looking horrible (waaay worse than I remember), I'd say the AI is way more forgiving and accurately powersliding is much easier. The new one requires a bit more precision and I still find myself sliding in the wrong direction sometimes.

Yeah the bosses work differently to regular ai. They seem to have some form of catchup.

I remember as a kid trying to beat N oxide's time on a level and it took me almost two days, was the worst rage I ever felt and now the times are even harder ^^'.

18 tracks + 13 Nitro karts and have to beat all his times for a trophy holy XD;