#Crash Bandicoot comparison

[faragonreblogs]

I have a feeling I'm the only human being on this entire planet who unironically loves the male Au Ra running animation. I hate when people say the devs should change it cause I legitimately don't want them to.

Like, I dunno mang, with every other race I feel like I'm doing a light lil baby jog through the park, but with my au ra I'm RUNNIN!! I'M GOIN PLACES!! I'M ON A MISSION!!! HELP IS ON THA WAY DEAR!!!

Anyways this corner is lonely but idfc I like how my boy runs. rant over.

[skeletalheartattack]

Who was your favourite mario character as a kid, and who is it now?

honestly? that's a pretty tough question for me to answer, because i played a lot of mario games growing up, and i don't know if younger me would've been able to choose a favourite. in terms of established characters, i think a safe option would likely be bowser; he was always my pick in Mario Kart 64, Melee, and Brawl. though in terms of the entire series as a whole, i liked the luigis mansion ghost designs a lot.

a favourite nowadays? i'm not quite sure. if i had to pick an established character, it'd probably be wario or waluigi. in terms of the entire series, i like the Mario Sunshine boos design a lot... but that's narrowing it down too small because i like a whole lot of designs from the franchise, so it's really hard to pinpoint.

[fyeahspyroandcrash]

[nebulacritter]

crayzar's design change in rubicon is so funny to me

It reminds me of how they changed Crash Bandicoot's design in Japan.

[ms--galactic]

Welp, I'm obsessed...again...

[thedestinysunknown]

Crash Bandicoot: Warped - Toad Village:

"We are back in the world of mister Bandicoot and let's talk about the most nostalgic game for me. As a kid, I had a copy of Crash Bandicoot 3, so I played it a lot, unlike the previous two games. For the longest time, I claimed that this was my favorite game of the franchise, but that's because I experienced this game the most, unlike the 2nd game (which I've played very little in comparison at that time). Either way, we are starting with such an iconic level. It's a very pretty tutorial level for you to get used to Crash moves."

PS: the gameplay used for this gifset is not mine. The original video belongs to the user: Thegamerwalkthroughs, on Youtube.

[yonpote]

Hi it’s phurry anon! I don’t have any well put opinions myself; I’ve just been thinking about how for a long while the jokes just went into an unnecessarily sour/mean territory at least in my ears and definitely in the phandom (exactly what you mentioned in the tags of your previous reply!). It does seem like the tone has mellowed out (especially since coming out and the dapg revival) and that they’ve started leaning into it for real. I don’t think they were ever purposefully mean-mean abt it though, like I’d draw a comparison between the overly mean tone abt furries & 2012 Being Straight-business; not that they’re exactly the same, but it feels like being in the same vein to me (and phandom meanness is obviously its own thing). Anyway I love the development I’m a dnp furry truther 4ever <3

Sorry about the wall of text. I’m not really into furry stuff myself so I’ve wondered if it’s just me being too sensitive/etc, I’d love to hear your (/other peoples) thoughts!

anon you are absolutely correct, as someone who was kind of on the short end of the stick wrt phannies being weirdly mean about furries. like it was always in a Just Kidding tone but like, you can tell when people are arent actually just kidding and just straight up think youre weird :) i highly doubt dnp were ever trying to be actually mean about it, but also the bullying of furries was just kind of a universally accepted thing in internet culture for a while as like, people only saw it as a weird sexual thing. and while i'm not gonna deny that sex and nsfw content is a part of some people's enjoyment of it 1) it's anthropomorphic which means HUMANIZED and not actual animals and 2) that's not all there is to enjoying furry stuff or being a furry or whatever. ultimately, it's just self expression. it's being able to imagine a version of yourself that doesn't have to have anything to do with what you are like in real life, it's not a coincidence that furries tend to be queer and neurodivergent. idk if dnp are "Actually Furries" whatever that means, but there isnt just one way to Be A Furry. for example there are so many different art styles, some closer to western disney cartoons, some more anime, some that look like realistic animals and some that are just Symbols or Suggestions of animals. theres also levels of anthro LMAO like, human boy with cat ears and tail to straight up warrior cat, and plenty of places to fall in between. so i think dnp just land closer to the human boy with cat ears side of the scale (which tbh i dont consider "furry" but i do think is like, when you keep joking about it theres a point where its not a joke..... and i think that point is when ur putting crash bandicoot and robin hood in ur crushes tier lists)

[lesbianchemicalplant]

[Andy Gavin:] Sensing opportunity, we turned to our own favorite genre, the character platform action game (CAG for short). In the 80s and early 90s the best sellers on home systems were dominated by CAGs and their cousins (like “walk to the right and punch” or “walk to the right and shoot”). Top examples were Mario, Sonic, and our personal recent favorite, Donkey Kong Country. [...] We called it the “Sonic’s Ass” game. And it was born from the question: what would a 3D CAG be like? Well, we thought, you’d spend a lot of time looking at “Sonic’s Ass.” Aside from the difficulties of identifying with a character only viewed in posterior, it seemed cool. But we worried about the camera, dizziness, and the player’s ability to judge depth – more on that later. [...]

[Jason Rubin:] The “Sonic’s ass” nomenclature was more than a casual reference to the blue mascot turned 90 degrees into the screen. It defined the key problem in moving a 2d game into the third dimension: You would always be looking at the character's ass. This might play well (it had never been tried) but it certainly would not be the best way to present a character. Our solution, which evolved over the next 2 years, was multi-fold. First, the character would start the game facing the screen (more on this later). Second there would be 2d levels that guaranteed quality of gameplay and a chance to see the character in a familiar pose allowing comparison against old 2d games. And third, we would attempt the reverse of a Sonic ass level – the run INTO the screen – which became the legendary boulder levels. [ NOTE from Andy, more on that in part 4 ] It may have been this very Sonic’s ass problem that caused Naka-san to “cop out” of making a true 3D game called Nights for Saturn. I also believe, but have no proof, that he felt so unsure of the move to 3D that Sega didn’t want to risk Sonic on that first experimental title. Instead they created a new character. This lost Sega the goodwill that Sonic would have brought to the three way game comparison that eventually ensued. That ended up working to our favor. Of course Miyamoto-san did not have this problem. He created a truly new type of character action game with Mario 64. The controls and open world allowed you to see the character from all sides. Eventually this proved to be the future of 3d Character games. But at the time it had disadvantages. More on that later.

Making Crash Bandicoot – part 1

[crusherthedoctor]

I say yes* to Mario talking cuz I enjoyed Charles talking a lot late N64-GC era for a lot of supplemental material or spinoff games (Mario vs DK especially). The 2007 convention having him diss Sony was the funniest fucking thing

Though writing him in char is super precise, and ignoring text driven RPGs, Mario is commonly mistaken to be "basic" compared to say, Wario and Luigi, as most ignore dynamics in spinoffs. Heck, Charles was super in tune for Mario and Wario for conversing cuz he's done them since 1991/3, but Luigi awkwardly was super one note in comparison cuz he never got the chance to do him in conventions till *2013*. And 2011 was when he was more limited for interactivity for conventions until 2021 replaced him with prerecorded lines, then the retirement 2023 in general

I feel like if you want Mario mute, you need it to be visual. In purely writing, the char actions need to be highlighted. It boils down to execution

Though if he's talking in text, the choice of dialogue ticks can make or break things. I notice Looney Tunes ignores writing down char ticks in the comics, even if the char notably has a lisp, so there's that. On the other hand, Eng localizations of Luigi in Paper Mario retains it

Overall, your choice

Don't worry, I know better than to add an -a at the end of every word Mario says. :P I've also defended Mario's character before it was cool, so there's no chance that I'd purposefully portray him as vapid either.

At this point, I'm leaning more towards letting him speak. Not that I believe mute characters are doomed to be empty husks with no character of their own - Crash Bandicoot has a lot of personality, after all - but in this case, and taking into account that Mario speaks fully in other games and media, I think some dialogue and insight from him will be required for what I have in mind with his battle against Eggman... and certain other developments.

[spoonbenders]

tge problem with new crash bandicoot is that the soundtracks suck butt and ass. i hav other problems wiht it but they pale in comparison to th fact that the OSTs suck butt and ass. theyre hiring guys named david in suits and shit to make the music for these games and my condolances to the quirked up white boys at activision blizzard but jt cant continue. crash bandicoot soundteacks were thw best when they were hiring random ass extremely talented musicians with nothinh better to do. first it was mark mothersbaugh then some dudes named andy and martin who only did jazz but somehow made cybergoth club bangers and then spiralmouth who then promptly dropped off the face of the earth. CotT and MoM both had fun soundtracks but not stuff i'd listen to in my free time. now its all just mid beach rock. the next mainline crash bandicoot game has to have mike patton of mr bungle workjng on it in order to break thr cycle and fix the timeline.

[spinningbuster98]

Mega Man X5 Part 1

And we’re back!

Mega Man X5 marks the beginning of the dark times for the X series. Not in the sense that this game is...bad per se, especially in comparison to what comes right afterwards, it’s just....

I like to call X5 the Sonic Forces of Mega Man, not in regards to its fan reception but moreso in regards to how much it hypes itself up despite not...really being all that special. Not bad (for the most part), but certainly not worthy of being the big finale of the X series that it was originally meant to be.

You feel this right as you boot up the game: instead of the amazingly animated anime cutscenes of MM8 and X4, X5 just has static slide shows of artworks that even look kinda blurry, certainly not befitting of a game that wants to present its story as the big, climactic ending of the series. Also no voice acting (which ok not necessarily a bad thing here)

The same goes for the in-game graphics: lots of sprites taken from X4 still look great, but most of the backgrounds look...flatter, more static, blurrier and not as detailed as before. The boss sprites also look less fluidly animated than before. The whole game just looks cheaper, like there were clear budget cuts alla round (well except for the music, this is actually one of the best OSTs in the X lineup, Squid Adler’s theme here especially is a fave of mine)

But above all else the game has plenty of....weird design decisions

First of all: Alia. She’s your navigator, constantly stopping you throughout the levels to inform you of obvious shit a la Navi from Ocarina of Time. She kinda sucks. Yeah you can skip her dialogues by button mashing but c’mon, this breaks the pace constantly

Most levels in this game are...fine, competent but also offer nothing truly special

Grizzly Slash feels like a watered down version of Slash Beast’s from X4

Squid Adler’s....I actually don’t have too many issues with the Ride Chaser section specifically because it’s short and it’s at the start of the stage, meaning you can practice it as often as you want (and I guess the animal riding levels from Crash Bandicoot have sort of trained me at collecting stuff during auto scrollers), but the rest of the stage is kinda claustrophobic and its main gimmick with switches, while functional, isn’t really interesting nor does it fit a normally fast paced series like X.

(Let’s not get into how the power up system works here, I don’t have a degree quantum physics so i wouldn’t know how to explain it to you)

Still the game does introduce one cool idea: you can now choose between X or Zero before each stage!

The first half of the game does a nice job balancing between the two, as there may be some levels or bosses which are more comfortably handled with Zero while others may be more suited for X (like Squid Adler’s) but every level can be completed by either character

This balance is gonna break by the time we reach the final stages but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves

However, for everyone wanting to play this game: ALWAYS choose X for the intro stage! Why? Because if you do he starts the game with a nerfed, but still pretty powerful, version of his X4 armor. If you pick Zero X will start with no armor and Zero will just have a dinky buster that does jack shit. And like I’ll explain next time some stages in this game were....probably not fully balanced for an unarmored X...

Also shoutout to Zero having a conversation with the Dr.Light AI, while X never once speaks to him throughout the whole series. The favoritism is still running quite high

I may really like Zero as a character (mostly his Zero series incarnation) but that won’t stop me from pointing this out. I don’t hold said favoritism against him as a character, as at least the games never once have had him, or other characters, claim that he’s better than X or anything rather it’s just the narrative always giving him the the most important moments, so I like to seperate the character from the way they are handled in these cases, much like Shadow and how obviously he was the writer’s pet in 06.

[nbstevonnie]

final bingo card of the year... much less filled in than last years, but I rather expected that given the two sets of exams I had to take this year. frankly, I'm surprised it's as filled as it is.

for zany: yakuza kiwami

my first tiny cheat in filling this card out is previously i've only marked something off when i consider it "done". in yakuza's case, i am literally *this* close to 100% that i would really quite like to do it, but it also requires a LOT of grinding (and i hate grinding). but. i'm not sure i consider it "done", as i normally might. i have finished the story though, so this cheat isn't too dire.

i really enjoyed this game - it was good to see where the characters ended up after i saw them in yakuza 0, although my understanding is that a lot of stuff is only in kiwami (i.e., was not in the original game and was only put in after yakuza 0, so they would "marry up"). my one comment would be that, in many ways, it felt like a slightly less full yakuza 0 - there was more to do in yakuza 0, and i liked being able to play both kiryu and majima. i also liked that money was easier to come by in 0, even if only for getting to 100% completion 😔 this is all not exactly yakuza kiwami's fault, and i think i "got" the combat system more in kiwami than 0 (in 0, i understood that i was supposed to feel superpowered by the end -- and i saw people showing off how well you could game the system -- but it never seemed that way to me; in kiwami, i 1000% could knock back small enemies like the flies they were in seconds by the end). nevertheless, kiwami does by its nature beg for comparison to 0. i'm curious to see how kiwami 2 stacks up next.

overall, 8/10. good game, looking forward to kiwami 2.

for 2020s: crash bandicoot 4

i generally avoid letting my opinions on a video game be coloured by other people's opinions, so i went into this game with an open mind and i think i came out with some affection for it, albeit by re-assessing how i would normally play the game. to wit, i am generally a completionist, but that stops the minute completing something becomes more chore than challenge, and this game would undoubtedly have it as a chore.

as a casual to slightly challenge-seeking game, the game is enjoyable. it has its flaws (i complained about the long levels in 2 and 3 -- this game spits on the 2 and 3 level lengths) but i did enjoy some of its challenges. i think i would -- in contrast to how i normally play games -- dip in and out to tidy up and get closer to 100% completion, but i won't go nuts with it.

my one slight disappointment is i LOVE the video tape levels, but you can only get them all by not dying to increasingly further points on increasingly harder levels. i think i've scooped up all the tapes reasonably doable, and will have to think about the rest as and when i return to the game. incidentally, i think one of the things i like about the tape levels is because they remind me more of the things that i liked about the original crash games than the rest of the game: tight platforming, challenging but ultimately not requiring perfection from you for long, and instantly replayable.

overall, 7/10 i think -- under the proviso of playing essentially casually. if it were a completionist thing (as i had done for the other games), it would dip much lower.

for uplifting: stardew valley

my other slight cheat game - i haven't "completed" it, but i've put 150 hours in over the last year (hey, maybe that's why i haven't completed bingo this year, not the exams -- two huge time sink games!), so i think maybe i can be forgiven.

i really love this game - it's very calming for me to play when i have nothing else to do, and i've also got a farm with my friend, so we can play together. i don't have much more to say bc i think everyone knows why this game is great and i really look forward to getting those last few things i need to complete everything :)

for black: the cat lady

yet ANOTHER slightly cheat game -- albeit in a different way. i have generally made a point of not including games i've played before, and i haven't played this game before -- but i had watched a let's play. it was many years ago now and i no longer watch the let's player for reasons, and i wanted to show this game some love, since i used to really enjoy the let's player's playthrough. so again, i hope my slight cheat can be forgiven! especially since i had been hoping that this might fill in my bittersweet box to get me bingo, but i ended up with the "golden" ending, so while the game itself may have been overall, i didn't quite feel i could tick off bittersweet, since the ending was so positive.

the game really makes a great atmosphere with its visuals and it really nails the horror -- chapter 2 (i think it is) is particularly good for this -- i genuinely felt creeped out. it's also interesting how the horror parts are often the parts that are the most colourful in the game. the game really does make you think a lot with very little.

8/10

[em2dplatformer]

Animations In Videogames

These are all videos of the different types of animations used in videogames.

Death Animations:

Crash Bandicoot was one of the first games to have a wide variety of death animations. This comparison shows all of the death animations from the original compared to the remake.

Idle Animations:

Idle animations are a key part to most games as its a chance to give the character more personality. Some common animations are juggling and sleeping while more rare ones include Banjo-Kazooie's bickering and Sonic jumping off to end the level.

Jump Animations:

Depending on the character, jumping animations can vary a lot. Sonic is a good example of a unique jump animation.

[kingncp]

I’ve also been doing some brainstorming.

Since you suggested it at some point.

I think the best way to bring back the Sly Cooper series would be to start with a ground-up remaster of the first three games.

(With an option to change between old and new graphics/music on a whim, Halo 2 anniversary handled this perfectly)

An apt comparison would be the anniversary remasters of the first two Halo games, the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Crash Bandicoot’s N-Sane Trilogy, Alan Wake remastered and the recent Resident Evil remakes.

Keep the bare bones of the story and gameplay.

But add any necessary tweaks where it’s warranted.

And include a whole bunch of new features.

Just a thought I had.

What do you think?

I think making them similar in terms of comparison to the Spyro + Crash remasters would work great. As far as the Alan Wake and Resident Evil influences idea, not too sure. The series hits dark topics but never goes TOO deep into them, considering at most, the series hit the "T for Teens" rating only once if I remember correctly.

[thedestinysunknown]

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex - Knight Time:

"Time to talk about the extra levels, and we are starting with a familiar one. We've played a very similar level before, but with Crash, now we play as my girl, Coco. It's a pretty generic platforming level, with a very pointless light gimmick, if you are playing the Gamecube version, which is a way lighter and colorful version, in comparison to the PS2 one."

PS: the gameplay used for this gifset is not mine. The original video belongs to the user: JokerAlex21, on Youtube.