Twenty One long years since Naughty Dog’s original release, Crash Is Back!
Vicarious Visions took the long task of remastering the original trilogy of games, but have they managed to stand the test of time? Is the beloved Bandicoot still likely to keep his old fans and win new ones?
Since interviews in 2013 started to lead to rumours of Crash being rebooted to his former glory, possibly in an open-world game, there has always been whispers of the orange marsupial’s return. The world had forgotten he was once cool due to later releases near the end of the noughties. In 2016, the internet rumour mill went into overdrive. In Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Naughty Dog had protagonist Nathan Drake playing a level from the original trilogy within the game. As such, forums blew up and people believe Crash’s return was imminent. This was further cemented when it was confirmed the Crash and his main adversary Dr Neo Cortex would both be playable characters in Skylanders: Imaginators (the sad mockery that another beloved childhood gaming figure, Spyro The Dragon, eventually became) and that Vicarious Visions had produced a level based on the original Crash trilogy for the aforementioned title.
To finally lay the rumour mill to rest, the full remastered trilogy from Vicarious Visions was released at the end of June.
I can’t lie, I booked the day off of the main day job, politely requested that my other half not work at home that day, and then tore into the packaging like my inner crazed ten-year old as soon as the game package arrived through the letter box. I was twitching with anticipation at the opening titles screen as the former pixelated, polygon heavy Crash was fed into a machine and spat back out in what the company have dubbed ‘FUR-K’. The completionist in me insisted I start with the original Crash Bandicoot, not my personal favourite Warped, so that I could finally play through them all in the canonical order.
I was of course, hooked immediately, the decline of platforming games on more modern consoles is a symptom of many games being based more on spectacle and epic storylines and a want for lack of loading screens and seamless gameplay. The anticipation on waiting for a level to load up, and see where exactly you’ve landed in the Wumpa Islands, or via a Cortex Portal are still here, but all of the previous polygon textures have been beautifully remastered, but without changing a single element of what was there before, only gently elevating it to a modern quality.
The art, remastering and sensitivity however, are not enough of a distraction to take away from the main point (of the original game of the trilogy at least) that myself, and the Crash community at large seem to have realised.
THEY DIDN’T SEEM THIS HARD AS A KID! It must’ve happened somewhere in the noughties, games got easier as they got bigger, less challenge and more gratification across the board, and with the room for more sprawling stories as disc space and processing power across the board increased and platformers declined. The jumping mechanisms on the simpler gameplay of the original game was always a little tricky, you’d miss by a millimetre and plunge to your doom on many an occasion, but it never evoked the same controller stress-testing fury it has this time round. There are already many schools of thought across the internet as to why it’s so much harder. For those with higher blood pressure, steer clear of Slipperly Climb and Native Village…they will test your limits.
Outside of the original game however, the games still retain their old quality. They’re still infuriatingly hard, and gamers will hit MANY a Game Over before fighting the giant yellow-headed adversary, and are already showing that old and new fans alike will be replaying these games for a long time to come. Another final touch that’s been added, is the ability to play as Coco Bandicoot, Crash’s genius little sister. Her moveset is exactly the same as Crash’s, with slides, spins and slams; it just adds that touch of variety. Truth be told, I’ve spent more time playing as Coco than the main man himself.
All that needs to happen now is for Vicarious to take on Crash Team Racing and then get rights to the original Spyro series from Insomniac, then all will be right with the world.
Author: Steve, Southgate store
