Friday, June 30, 2017

Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy hit us right in the high school

The Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy is finally out, and stays surprisingly true to the source despite Activision and Vicarious Visions be... thumbnail 1 summary


The Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy is finally out, and stays surprisingly true to the source despite Activision and Vicarious Visions being behind it instead of naughty dog.  It will transport you right back to the good old days, while still giving you overall smoother game play and beautiful visual upgrades.  It costs 39.99 which is about 13 dollars each game and for what it delivers, that feels like hitting the lottery.

The first game, Cortex Strikes Back, and Warped are included in the trilogy.  The difficulty is as hard as you remember, and many deaths should be expected, with the old platformer timing and well placed enemies making you earn your victories.  At least the funny death scenes have been left in so you can laugh with yourself at yourself.  The autosaving feature helps a bit though.  
The underwater controls and driving in races are still a bit loose on the controls, and a few of the 3d depth upgrades can mislead you, but overall the controls have actually improved.  They also tweaked some of the enemies to help indicate when they are vulnerable to attack which is a big help as well.

Crash's sister Coco has been added to the fray as a playable character, she is just a reskinned crash with her own animations, but its a nice bit of variety.  The level designs, music, and sound effects are largely the same as the original and bring you right back, but visually they seem to one up each other in terms of being pretty. 
Each level seems to shine a little bit more than the last, and the clunky controlled water levels are downright beautiful in 4k.  Anyone used to the original graphics will probably need a moment to take in how much it has improved from the days of blocky ps1 geometry and limited textures to the new highly detailed individual hairs showing glory of the ps4.



A few functions were added as well, the aforementioned autosave, a check point system, time trials, and online leader boards.  


Overall it is a remaster done right, it still feels like the game we all loved, but it has some edges smoothed out, a face lift, and a couple new bells and whistles.  For the price, its a great little trip down memory lane.