Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy

Crash Bandicoot is a brutally, mercilessly and unforgivably hard game that has made me want to throw my controller at the tv more times than I think any other video game has done in a very long time.

I never played the original Crash trilogy back in the day when I was younger because my parents bought me a Nintendo 64 instead of a Playstation. But Crash Bandicoot was always that game (along with Spiro the Dragon) that I would go over to my friends house to play and feel jealous that I didn't have that for myself as well.

Upon my first play of the original Crash game things felt pretty easy and boy was the game lulling me into a false sense of security. As soon as I hit Native Fortress things took a turn for the worst and everything after that has been next level challenging and at the time of writing I am still stuck on Road To Nowhere. R.I.P.

Visually, all three titles included in the N-Sane Trilogy look stunning when compared to the original games.

Side by side comparison of the remaster and the original.

It's the simple changes to Crash's character model that really make it stand out from the original. New animations have been added and the existing idle and death animations have been smoothed out and animated more clearly.

And it's not just Crash himself who looks defined and refreshed. The environment in which you play the game in is simply beautiful to look at. All of the colours look lush and vibrant. The game is just so good to look at.

My only issue with Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy is the mechanics of how the game plays. Landing precise jumps can sometimes be a real issue and just being a millimeter off can mean the difference between success and failure. I have done some further investigating to see if other players have experienced the same problem and I am not alone with many people feeling as though Crash's jump was not the same as the original Playstation 1 title.

Developer Vicarious Visions have made a statement stating that Crash's jumping arc is indeed faster than the original (more on that can be read here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-07-18-dev-confirms-crash-bandicoot-is-harder-you-arent-imagining-it) and for someone who never played the game when it was first released it wasn't something I noticed immediately but something that became a gradual issue as levels became harder. 

Even with this one small issue, overall Crash Bandicoot is an extremely nostalgic and fun game with many hours of replay that will continue to have me come back to it again and again to see if I can get that little bit better.

4.5/5

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