Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
PlayStation 4
If you’ve been paying even the slightest bit of attention to this blog, you have probably noticed that I’m big on gaming nostalgia. The era of the original PlayStation is one of my favorite eras of gaming EVER. Logically, you’d probably think I was a giant Crash Bandicoot fan. It was a popular series at the time, Crash was the PS1’s mascot, I had a love for 3D platformers, etc. But what if I told you I actually didn’t care much for Crash Bandicoot? It’s true. I never owned a Crash game. In fact, I barely even touched any of them. I remember renting the first and second game in the series for one weekend and coming away unimpressed. I never bothered with the third Crash Bandicoot game, and I haven’t touched a game in the series since then.
Recently I played and reviewed the remastered Spyro trilogy and I had a decent time with the game. I noticed that the Crash trilogy had also been remastered, and I made it a point to check the game out. Sure, I didn’t care much for the series back in the 90s, but a lot of time had passed. Maybe my opinion would change and I’d come away pleasantly surprised.
Well, not really. Despite the graphical upgrades, the series is still pretty much the same as I remember it. Challenging, linear, and – to be honest – really not that fun. Let’s break things down, shall we?
Story:
Each game in the series has its own separate storyline, but honestly these storylines don’t matter. They’re generic and horribly boring. What they boil down to is: you are the hero, Crash Bandicoot. Doctor Neo Cortex is the bad guy. It’s Crash’s job to fight through a bunch of levels and defeat Neo Cortex at the end of the game. The end.
Sure, there are some random story elements thrown into the mix involving energy crystals, evil masks, and (another) evil scientist, but these are secondary. No one plays these games for their stories. No one.
Gameplay:
These games are pretty easy to pick up and play, but at the same time very challenging to master. You control Crash from a behind-the-back 3D perspective. You run through a series of levels, collecting fruit, smashing boxes, and damaging enemies by either jumping on them or using your spin attack. There are multiple branching paths to take and a lot of stuff to collect. Despite this, things are pretty linear. This isn’t Super Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie where you have big, open stages to explore. You are mainly limited to hallways in this game where your only option is to run forward.
Every once in a while the game mixes things up with a stage that is different from your usual stage. You may find yourself riding an animal, flying an airship, or controlling an underwater submersible. These stages can be fun, but they are few and far between. The meat and potatoes of Crash Bandicoot are its traditional platforming stages. As luck would have it, these are the stages I have the biggest problem with.
When the game is clicking and everything is working, some of these stages are pretty fun. Run up to an enemy, hit him with your spin attack, jump over a pit while collecting some fruit mid-air. Smash some boxes. Kill some enemies. Jump on a series of lily pads over a pond. Kill some more enemies, collect some more fruit. Break some boxes. Sounds fun, right? Just wait until things start to get difficult.
Now, I am okay with games that offer a stiff challenge. I’m a child of the NES era. I have no problem handling a difficult game. But Crash Bandicoot can get absolutely ridiculous and at times unfair with its difficulty level. Timing jumps and measuring distance is very problematic, especially given the game’s behind-the-back perspective. I suffered so many cheap deaths falling to my doom on routine jumps that should not have given me any problems whatsoever. If I fell so many times on easy jumps, imagine how many times I fell on difficult jumps with moving/disappearing platforms and enemies attacking me at the same time. There are levels where I died 20, 30 times trying to complete them. No joke. As I played I constantly wanted to throw my controller out the window.
No level epitomizes this frustration more than The Road to Nowhere. In this stage, you have to cross a rickety wooden bridge that is falling apart. Red planks will fall if you stand on them for more than a half second. Planks with cracks in them will send you falling to your death if you even do so much as step on them. You have to take your time as you cross this bridge, making sure every single jump is aligned perfectly, down to the very pixel. Mess up even slightly and you die and go back to your last checkpoint. I made it to The Road to Nowhere armed with nearly 30 lives, and I lost ALL of them trying to pass this stage. I have never been more frustrated playing a game in recent memory.
If you can make it through this stage, the rest of this collection isn’t that bad – particularly Crash Bandicoots 2 and 3. The original is definitely the most difficult. People must have complained about this when the games first came out, because 2 and 3 are noticeably less challenging. It wasn’t until I started playing the second and third games that I started to have a good time. I was miserable playing the original Crash Bandicoot. It’s sequels aren’t too bad. I wouldn’t say they are amazing or anything, but I wouldn’t say I hated them either. They definitely saved this trilogy from getting a really low score.
Graphics:
The N-Sane Trilogy definitely shines in the graphical department. The animations are great. The characters are like Saturday morning cartoons brought to life. The stages are beautiful. Everything looks really amazing.
It’s crazy going back and looking at old clips of the original PS1 versions of these games and then looking at them now. The difference is night and day. The 90s games have their own charms, sure, but this updated version looks breathtaking.
Sound:
Crash Bandicoot is definitely no Sonic or Mario when it comes to the music department, but it still sounds really good. A lot of the stages have some really catchy tunes that you’ll catch yourself vibing along with. I don’t think there are any big, iconic musical tracks to be found in this series like there are with the other games I mentioned, but it is what it is. Everything still sounds really good.
The sound effects are great too. I love the twirl sound Crash makes when he does his spin attack. The sound of breaking boxes, the sound when you collect a piece of fruit, the countdown of the TNT boxes, the “oogabagga!” noise when you collect a new mask – it all sounds fantastic. If there is anything iconic about the sound of Crash Bandicoot, it is not in its music but its sound effects.
Overall:
If I was going through and grading this trilogy by each individual game on the disc, the original game would get a very low score while I would have looked upon the other games more favorably. I have to find a way to balance this out, though. I did not have any fun with the original Crash Bandicoot. It made me question whether I even wanted to keep playing this collection. Luckily, I did. Crashes 2 and 3 are much better games. Did I love them, though? I can’t say that I did. They offered me an occasional fun time, but overall I found them to be overall pretty lackluster. I guess that sums up my thoughts on the Crash series as a whole: lackluster. They are missing that special something that make other games of its era (Sonic, Mario, Gex, Banjo-Kazooie, etc) so memorable.
I didn’t like Crash back in the 90s, and even today I’m finding my reaction to this N-Sane trilogy to be very lukewarm. I just could not ever find the energy to get excited about playing these games. I recognize their importance in the history of the original PlayStation console. I understand that there are a lot of people out there that grew up on these games and probably really love them. I’m just not one of those people. Did I hate the N-Sane Trilogy? No. Did I think it was a blast to play? No. I’m right smack-dab in the middle with my opinion on these games, so I guess the score should accurately reflect that. I’d give it a normal C, but the first game in the series is just so frustrating I feel I have to knock my overall score down ever so slightly to reflect that. So that’s what I’m doing. And I don’t feel bad about it one tiny bit.
Final Score:
C-
If you liked this review, check out some of my other game reviews:
No comments:
Post a Comment