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agoodplanb · 6 years ago

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Crash Bandicoot: The N. Sane Trilogy - for PS4

“Through the Eye of the Vortex: A Study of Rapid Evolution and Its Consequences”

For my first review, I wanted to start with something I know a lot about, and so here we are.

My soul is split into seven pieces: Harry Potter, Charmed, Doctor Who, Scooby Doo, The Parent Trap (1998), the fre sh a voca do Vine, and, quite possibly the largest, Crash Bandicoot.

Crash Bandicoot is the first video game I remember playing; my dad bought me a PlayStation when I was still probably a bit young to become invested in video games, and along with it came Crash Bandicoot. Over the years, I have spent countless hours of my life, and not a single one wasted, playing the Crash Bandicoot games. In particular, I have always favoured the original trilogy, as well as Crash Team Racing, and Crash Twinsanity. Outside of those, my opinions get a bit battered and in places caustic, quite frankly. Crash has not had a faultless history.

But we aren't dealing with his darker days today (I still have war flashbacks over those goddamn tribal tattoos...), no, today, we are discussing Crash’s triumphant resuscitation: the N. Sane Trilogy, developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Activision.

This review could possibly be summed up in one simple statement: since its release on June 30th, 2017, I have played the Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy for over 440 hours. This is not a bad game.

But, while it is not a bad game, the N. Sane Trilogy is neither a perfect game, but it comes damn close to it.

There were two target demographics for the N. Sane Trilogy; the die hard returning fans that needed asthma inhalers at the games announcement (here, sir), and the dirty casuals that had played spots of Crash in the past and were interested to see where this new attack of 90s Nostalgia hit. Being a member of the former category, the N. Sane Trilogy had an almost impossible amount of pressure bearing down upon it, and I am glad to say that Crash has been working on his triceps.

So, to begin with, what the N. Sane Trilogy got right.

The N. Sane Trilogy is quite possibly the pioneer of the new genre of remaster that has crept up in recent years, surpassing the confines of a remaster, but not quite hitting the mark of a remake. Affectionately termed “remaster-plus” by some, this tradition has been continued on recently with the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Crash’s long-time best bud, and the upcoming Medieval game - as well as Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled, which is just 139 days away and I am READY.

Aaaanyway.

As a remaster-plus, the N. Sane Trilogy required colossal updates to the graphics of the PS1 originals, but also had the freedom of liberty; enough time had passed, and players, myself included, wanted the developer, Vicarious Visions, to do something new with the game, and fix some of the glaring issues the originals had, too. It was a mammoth task, but one Vicarious Visions was ready for.

The most immediate change with the trilogy, as mentioned, comes in the form of the graphical updates. Upon seeing the initial trailer and subsequent gameplay of the game, I was immediately elated. I showed the trailer to my parents; I had spent many, many hours playing the games with my dad when I was little, my mum often watching and actually having a go whenever there was a purple moon in the sky. My dad was equally impressed with how the game looked. My mother, however, ignorantly remarked, “It looks the same.” My mother is incorrect, reader. Ignore her.

With the N. Sane Trilogy, the games were shot through with atmosphere, ambience and life. The originals weren’t barren and lifeless, of course not, but they felt more functional than alive; you could tell that the levels were glorified corridors for this roughly bandicoot-shaped collection of polygons to bound down. The N. Sane Trilogy changed that: now, the levels composite together in the players mind, clearly locations that exist beyond the reach of the camera. We saw the lighting of the game develop as the game was being made in promotional materials provided by Vicarious Visions, because they listened to the fans, they valued our opinions, and so the game reached a point upon release where the sun will sheet through bending trees overhead with warm rays, will linger lowly in dangerous corners dim and cold, will shatter across the skin of oceans. Every single asset in the game has been remade, not just remastered, and so a uniformity slides across all three games in the trilogy, a unique art style that maintains in places it theoretically shouldn’t. The Crash games, particularly the third one, find themselves in strange and incoherent locations; Crash - and now Coco, which I will mention again later - will jump from a Mayan-inspired jungle to the rooftops in ancient Arabia and then ride polar bear-back through the static Arctic before landing in prehistoric swampland. In the originals, the charming functionality in the approximations of these locations made the leaps passable, but the N. Sane Trilogy unifies these locations in the same world with threaded architecture and marriage to the cartoonish art style the trilogy adopts in faultless, pristine adherence.

The music was also remixed and essentially redone for the trilogy, reworked from Josh Mancell’s original productions, and essentially what the soundtrack comes down to is more. Not more content, but more in the production of the songs; the heart of the original songs is there, though recreated, but it’s obscured somewhat by extra instrumentation that in some places has no place being there, really. The original soundtracks of the games are excellent - even now, songs often find their way breezing through my brain while I’m idling. The remastered versions, though, vary from absolutely fine to just a bit too much for me. Unlike the recent Spyro Reignited Trilogy, the N. Sane Trilogy did not come with the option to toggle between the original soundtrack and the remastered ones. This is unfortunate, I would have loved to have the option, because the new soundtrack isn’t terrible. Some parts aren’t great, but several other parts are. I’m holding out hope for the toggle option in Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled, though.

Another of the big changes to the game I’ll briefly mention just because there isn’t really much to say on it is the inclusion of Coco, Crash’s sister, as a playable character. I love this. I really love it, it’s such a perfect idea, though not perfectly implemented. Vicarious Visions did actually think of an in-story reason to explain why Coco is now playable, which was really cool, but sadly she still isn’t playable in every single level. Coco was originally playable in a selection of levels in the third original Crash Bandicoot game, Warped, but she was locked into specific vehicle levels, she was never freely playable. In the N. Sane Trilogy, she is playable in all levels except Crash’s vehicle levels - and the boss levels. I don’t really understand this, honestly, and I can neither defend nor comprehend why Vicarious Visions went with this. It would have been really fun to play as Coco across the entirety of the three games. Maybe, I’m just now realising, locking Coco out of those few levels and making Crash compulsory was a way of keeping the games still to be Crash’s games. If that were the reasoning behind it, then sure, I guess I get that. But if not, then no, I don’t understand it.

Crash’s - and by extension Coco’s - controls in the N. Sane Trilogy are ever so slightly off, when compared to the original games. In the N. Sane Trilogy, Crash is notably heavier and not quite as nimble. Now, for those people who played Crash in their childhood a reasonable amount of time and are returning to the N. Sane Trilogy relatively fresh, I don’t think these tweaks to the control system are all that detrimental or annoying. But for me, who was regularly playing the original games several times a week and had been since he was three years old right up until the N. Sane Trilogy was released, it took a bit of getting used to. But by the time I was about a third of the way through the first Crash game in the N. Sane Trilogy, I had got a pretty good feel for his new weight, and by the time I had finished the first game was very comfortable with it all. I don’t think the controls are an issue, really. Sure, there are still sometimes jumps that feel off and as a result I don’t quite make sometimes, but I think I am a large part to blame there, with the old controls so atomically fused to my being. Vicarious Visions did mention that they intended for the N. Sane Trilogy to be more difficult than the original games, so I think these adjustments to the controls were a conscious choice, and it did seem to pay off for most players.

I am not sure, however, whether the change to Crash’s hit box was intentional or not, but regardless, it is not okay. There are more in-depth analyses of how Crash’s hit box has changed in the N. Sane Trilogy that explain it a lot better than I can, but for the purposes of this review, I’ll leave it at the hit box is wrong and was the cause of several deaths I shouldn’t have suffered. Again, this might be because of how used to Crash’s old hit box I am, but that aside, I still think his new hit box is a bit too unforgiving and at times broken. It’s not a deal breaker by any means, you can learn to account for it. But it’s definitely an annoyance I had.

And lastly just some smaller changes and issues with the game. Firstly, the Nitro crates - Jesus, the Nitro crates. So, these crates are compositions of some sort of unstable chemicals, which causes the crates to judder and bounce a little. In the originals, this was never a problem and was a fun little quirk. In the N. Sane Trilogy, though, it has been a problem several times. The crates can jump wayyy too highly now, and do so unpredictably, unprompted and with no tell-tale sign that they’re about to leap into the air. If there were some lead-up animation signifying they were about to reach for the stars and climb every mountain higher, it wouldn’t be as bad, but it seems totally random. I did develop a sort of sixth sense and at times could tell a crate was about to come at me, but I can explain these instances as nothing more than divine intervention, there was nothing at all the game did to illustrate it. I lost several lives to these chaotic little crates, lives I shouldn’t have lost, and anyone who’s played Crash knows that sometimes the game is quite unforgiving with its checkpoint system and frequency, so being killed for reasons outside of your control is not enjoyable.

Additionally, I have experienced an assortment of glitches. None gamebreaking, though, and all interesting. One glitch has Crash just not die when he falls into a pit and lets him carry on running beneath the level until something unseen kills him. I’ve also had glitches with lighting elements clipping out and the camera coming free from its rail a little bit. Again, these have never actively interfered with my gameplay or caused me to die unjustly, they’re just interesting and could easily be dealt with in a quick patch.

And lastly is something that really makes me quite annoyed, more annoyed than it should. The original version of the third game, Warped, introduced time trials to Crash Bandicoot. In a further attempt at unification, the N. Sane Trilogy has introduced them to the first two games, as well. Whoever at Vicarious Visions made this decision needs to be fired. The first two Crash games were not designed with time trials and speed running in mind, there are far too many instances of high required levels of precision in jumps and dodges for these time trials. I’m never a fan of time trials, I find them boring, but in the instance of the first Crash game specifically, it just doesn’t work, the levels can’t handle them. This is my one major issue with the trilogy. But it’s a big one.

Oh! Yeah. Almost forgot. There were two additional DLC levels released for the trilogy, one for the first game and one for the third. Since the second game is my favourite, I feel a bit stiffed. But anyway. The level for the first game is the inclusion of a level that was developed for the original but was ultimately cut due to both time constraints to get it finished and because it was believed to be too difficult. Named Stormy Ascent, the level is indeed quite the challenge, even for Crash Bandicoot. I’m sure we all recall the seemingly unending articles surfacing shouting “Oh my god, Crash is the new Dark Soulsssssss!!!!!!!!!1!!” Stormy Ascent slots right in aesthetically and functionally with the rest of the game - if it hadn’t been indicated as an extra level in the world map, I think newcomers after its release would have thought it was just another level. It was good, and I really appreciated the gesture of it from Vicarious Visions. But a lot more interesting to talk about is the second additional level, Future Tense. Future Tense is a wholly original level created by Vicarious Visions themselves to celebrate the N. Sane Trilogy releasing on Xbox One and Nintendo Switch a year after its premiere on PS4. This level is excellent. After playing Crash for so many years, I only ever really die if I’m tired or just not really in the mood or if a stupid Nitro crate won’t behave itself. Future Tense made me feel the frustration of Crash Bandicoot for the first time in years, and I fucking loved it. The level is so clever with the obstacles it presents, including some really interesting new ones and even paying homage to existing ones. Future Tense made me die. Several times. That’s how you know a Crash level did its job. The level also incorporated its own secrets, secret areas, secret paths, perfect additions to the Crash Bandicoot history. I have hopes that this new level was a test run for Vicarious Visions to properly prove themselves, prove that they could actually do something new with Crash and that they could handle a new full game. If it were indeed a test, then they absolutely passed it.

Well, there we go. The Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy. On the whole, it’s a really good game. I guess I’ll just stick to the standard 1-10 rating system, at least for now. And with that in mind, the Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy gets an 8.5 from me. It’s just as much fun as the originals, that dash harder which is always fun, and includes a perfect new level.

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