Crash Bandicoot

My first Crash Bandicoot game was The Wrath of Cortex. I chiefly played it with my dad, as I was not nearly good enough to get past more than the first few levels on my own, but it was always fun to watch him play. With the N-Sane Trilogy, I wanted to relive those memories a little bit, but hopefully have an easier time actually beating the games. Although the nostalgia did come back somewhat while playing this first game, I was surprised by how difficult and frustrating I found the whole experience to be. While there were a few stages that only took one or two attempts and werw a lot of fun, the more memorable ones either had VVVVVV-level platforming without the abundant checkpoints, or janky 3D jumps that just don't work for the bandicoot, making this a hard game for me to look back on positively.

Crash Bandicoot has you playing as the titular anthropomorphic marsupial as he attempts to save his girlfriend from the mad scientist, Dr. Neo Cortex. This quest will take you from jungles and cliffs to ruins and factories, punctuated throughout by boss fights with Cortex's minions. The stages all have a fixed camera, but offer both 2D or 3D platforming. While this variety was nice, and it made each level feel separate from those adjacent, controlling anything but the plainest 2D platforming often felt rough around the edges. Breaking boxes, reaching checkpoints, and taking out enemies all felt amazing to pull off, but I had to battle so much with poor portrayals of depth that I had a hard time focusing on the good.

I wouldn't call Crash Bandicoot a bad game. It definitely has its audience, and the graphical polish in this remake is outstanding, but the approach to difficulty just didn't jive with me. Precision platforming inherently has some issues in 3D spaces since the player can't fully read every direction that they are traveling, but Crash Bandicoot doesn't do enough to account for it, leading to gameplay that can truly feel unfair, rather than just difficult. The limited variety of locales, while making sense in context, also makes this game seem a little bland or repetitive at times. I hear the sequels improve on both of these issues, so I look forward to trying them, but I definitely don't think I'll be returning to the series progenitor.

The game can be purchased for Switch here (as of 8/2/20): https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/crash-bandicoot-n-sane-trilogy-switch/
The game can be purchased for PS4 and PS5 here (as of 8/2/20): https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0002-CUSA07402_00-CRASHNSANETRLOGY
The game can be purchased for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S here (as of 8/2/20): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/crash-bandicoot-n-sane-trilogy/c27xpr5xdmft?activetab=pivot:overviewtab
The game can be purchased for Steam here (as of 8/2/20): https://store.steampowered.com/app/731490/Crash_Bandicoot_N_Sane_Trilogy/

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