Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (2017)

I only got to play the Crash Bandicoot demo from the Playstation magazine when it first comes out, and was excited to finally play the full game with the remaster. I've only played the first one so far. It looks, sounds, and plays exactly as I hoped

...but man, I was not expecting it to be this difficult. It kind of ruins the game for me. I have yet to decide if it's because of my poor skill or poor game design. Either way, I don't really enjoy playing levels over and over again to master them.

Finished Crash 1 + stormy ascent with all jewels obtained. I don't know why, but this has my ideal difficulty for a challenging platformer, never too easy, but also I never got stuck in a single screen for more than an hour, unlike Celeste or Super Meat Boy, for example.

That said, I'm not doing the time trials, that's for the insane people. Luckily they are optional, even more optional than the jewels, since you don't get any sort of reward.

100%ed Crash: Warped. 23/31 platinum relics.

It's not 105%, but hey! It's over 100!

I shouldn't be enjoying this as much as I do. I think that Crash 2 is the best game in the trilogy, but I don't know which game I love more. Crash 2 or Warped?

Let's start with the bad. I must repeat because Crash 1 & 2 didn't have these,and neither does Warped, but these games REALLY NEEDED a restart button for normal levels. The lack of one really hurts Warped more than its predecessors since it has more on rails vehicle levels. A main complaint towards Crash: Warped was an overabundance of variety levels. They tend to stray from the core of breaking boxes through hallway level designs. I found most of them to be from fine like the motorcycle levels to Coco's really good tiger levels, but the jet ski levels and the air fighter levels sucked. The controls for the jet ski were tweaked in the remake, and comparing them to the PS1 version, which came out 19 years before the N. Sane Trilogy, they're even worse; the turning is so loose and really doesn't work well for tight mine/Nitro box placements like in Hot Coco. Secrets aren't as often as there are only 2. One is subtle, the other is not. I don't get why Vicarious Visions didn't fix stuff that was criticized in this collection. Too bad we can't get anymore patches now that Vicarious Visions has been folded into Blizzard. Backtracking from Future Frenzy sucked. Still, at least none of the backtracking was as bad as Crash 2.

For the good, the platforming levels are the best in the trilogy. Replaying them after getting new moves makes cutting corners a lot more fun. And that is where the time relics appear. They were first introduced in Crash: Warped, but in the N. Sane Trilogy, time relics are in every game and they work best with Crash 2 & 3. Levels are larger in scale while still maintaining that hallway design and have more going on with little details like in the motorcycle levels. Environments have more interesting theming than in 2; there is Ancient Egypt, Arabian nights, Medieval times, 1950's, the future, China before Winnie the Pooh took over. And the bosses here are a thousand times better than both Crash 1 & 2. They're not incredible, they're good, but they're a lot better. A lot more charm here is present with more dialogue than in 2. Each boss that you face against will be taunting you often whenever you enter a level. And I have to mention Lex Lang as Cortex because I absolutely love him. His performance is worth playing through the game, or Crash 4, or Twinsanity(maybe I'll play that sometime). HOT TAKE: I prefer Lex Lang over Clancy Brown aka Mr. Krabs.

It's not the most polished Crash game, but it's the riskiest one, the the most experimental one, the most charming one, it's neck and neck between Crash 2 as my favorite game in the trilogy.

CRASH 3 RATING: 8-8.5/10

100%ed Crash 2 (except for the relics. I'll play some Spyro for a break before I play Crash 3 and get the relics).

Oh my god. I loved Crash 2. I've said many of my points before, but in short, the level design is less about patience and more about Crash's moveset, which I absolutely loved. The slide jump is so much fun to pull off. 100%ing the game really makes sure you know everything about your moves. For instance, in the level, Piston it Away, you backtrack to the Death route, with jumps back that may seem hard at first, but if you know about the slide spin jump, you don't have to struggle all that much. There is also some variety like the surfboard, Polar, and the jetpack which feel true to the core of Crash's level design of corridors and box breaking. There are subtle secrets to get the colored gems which I much preferred over Crash 1. Like in Air Crash where there are these oddly placed boxes and a platform that make you think, maybe I can get there, or in Unbearable, why, when one of the giant polar bears fall off, is this bridge partly broken?

If I had some problems, I wish that there was a restart button. If the relics can have it, then why can't the normal levels? It'd be time saving for those levels with death routes since if you die, you could restart the level and try to reach it instead of quitting the level and going back in. Although I got a little bit used to the jetpack, it's controls are odd. Depth perception is still an issue with its forked levels. And the hit detection for the electro bots is all over the place. And Cold Hard Crash gave me the middle finger so I'm going to cry to my mommy because of Naughty Dog being a group of naughty dogs. ;(

CRASH 2 RATING: 8.5 WUMPA FRUIT/10 WUMPA FRUIT

41% completion in Crash 2.

So far, I'm loving this game. This is so much better than Crash 1. The slide jump is my favorite move to pull off so far in these games with benefits in both height and speed. The game is also a hell of a lot easier to get gems than in Crash 1. With some secret way to get gems instead of an artificial "get every box without dying". Level design is a lot less about waiting for the platform to be reachable. Depth perception is still an issue, but some boulder levels have been streamlined with Wumpa fruit guiding you in the right direction. Haven't had any hit detection problems so far, but we'll see. Definitely going to 100% this game. I'm really enjoying it.

Beat Crash 1 and started Crash 2.

Even if it's a game that's remade from the ground up, Crash 1 is precise at best and spotty and frustrating at worst. My least favorite thing about the game is the colored gems. I was willing to 100% every game in the Crash + Spyro bundle, but the requirement to get the gems is too much: get every box in these long levels without dying. In the original game, every gem had to be done without dying so at least that's an improvement. Slippery Climb is said to be one of the hardest levels in the game, so to put a colored gem in there is just a fuck you. I'm not doing those, especially when you need them to complete other levels.

The strength over Crash 2 & 3 is a cohesive world. In those games, you go through portals to enter different themed levels. In Crash 1, it's a world map like Donkey Kong Country. The level designs are mostly solid with interesting box placements blending well with the platforming.

Some problems could be due to problems of old. Depth perception is an issue here because it's hard to judge my jumps, and when running forward is off so you can't see what's ahead. Hit detection is really wonky. Especially with Cortex's bullets. The hitboxes are so big. There are these bouncing lizards that push you instead of damage you and I swear every time. I was supposed to kill them with my spin.

I got 6 gems and 8 platinum relics so I feel like that's enough for now until I come back and want to 100% the game. It's a solid game, but I'm sure that the other games will be better as I play these games for the first time.

CRASH 1 RATING: 6.5/10