Crash Bandicoot

[Son of Dark]

Yes I do, under the username "Sunny", it was when I first joined the forums because I was lost regarding downloading games successfully... Yeah

After a while I came back here and felt that I wanted to delve deeper into the forums, though it was then when I was unhappy with my username, thus Son of Dark was born.

[saerleiya]

You can ask to admins if you want to change your nickname. I don't think they would be to restrictive about this. However if you prefer to keep this account, there is no need to do so.

[Son of Dark]

That's not the problem, it's just that with this account it's linked to an email that I don't really use, so it's the change of email that's the issue

[Dark Lum Lord]

I love Crash Bandicoot. The first three games, and Twinsanity, were all really good. Pretty much all of the other ones - especially the most recent two - fucking suck.

[Son of Dark]

I agree, soon as I saw the trailer for wrath over titans, that just killed of the Crash series for me. Just like the raving rabbids, I don't get why everyone starts screwing over a memorable game series with modern day crap, just doesn't go whatsoever

[Rayfist]

My opinion on the PS2/GC/Xbox and GBA era (part 1):

So after having an absolutely phenomenal trilogy, things went downhill from there. Naughty Dog was forced to leave the Bandicoot behind, however he was still alive. Could you imagine seeing an absolute star of the Playstation end up on a platform such as Gamecube and Xbox? I sure as hell can't. But it happened. Another company picked up the Crash series and made a new platforming title for the next generation consoles PS2/Xbox/GC. Considering this was actually one of the first Crash games I played I still actually liked it. The game is called "Crash Bandicoot Wrath of Cortex" or "Crash 4" in Japan. As a kid, I loved this game. Looking at it now, I'm now seeing many problems with this game, MANY. It's not bad at all, but similar to Bash, this game makes me feel so empty. I can forgive a tad bit since this is the first time we see a new company picking up on the Crash series, so I'll go a little easy. I actually appreciate the effort that went into this game, the traditional fun Crash was still there. The first complaint many people said was that it was too similar to Warped... this wasn't a problem at all for me actually. I love the fact they kept the traditional Gem/Crystal collecting style, but that's the problem, it doesn't do a fantastic job at it. Every time I play Wrath of Cortex I feel empty, but I can't quite figure out what it is.

After somewhat playing some more I think I've found it. While this game tries to emulate what Warped did, in some cases it truly failed in it, for example the climbing sections Crash's speed while climbing has been significantly reduced much slower, it's such a pain seeing him climb so slowly, in Crash 2 and 3 his speed was top notch, I'm not sure what happened here. Another problem with it.... oh boy, the character models. The HORRIFYING character models, some of the worst I've seen in a Crash game, Cortex's HUGE head, and even the bosses are hilariously laughable the way they look. Even Crash, in 2 and 3 Crash showed so much emotion for being hit, idle, etc. Here, even though all those emotions are still existent, his creepy stare, it doesn't make the emotions fitting. Enough of the characters though. The concept totally rips off Warped, I don't mind the Crystal/Gem collecting for the 4th time like everyone else, what I mind is the fact that some of those historic themed levels are still there, I don't think we need to see this a 2nd time in the series. And now they have introduced few new characters. Crunch for one, ugh, in all honesty I totally have mixed opinions on him, his character on Wrath of Cortex, while he is under the influence of Cortex he has such a bland character on this game. I can't stress enough how bland the characters are in the game. Few of the levels feel totally bland an empty, but at the same time- they still look really nice. Even though I dislike the character models I can totally see the animation is extremely smooth on them and for PS2, the animations look pretty damn nice. I think I've talked enough about what I didn't like about Wrath of Cortex. Gameplay wise it just feels like a downgraded Crash 2/3, however, it's still fun at heart, heck I actually had quite a fun time completing it. And while I did say some of the level designs are rather bland, some of the others are very nice. I know a reviewer who said he thought Coco's levels were the worst (yes Coco is back in this game, now fully playable), in my opinion Coco had some of the nicest levels in the game, even though most of her levels are historical, they seem to have the most detail put on them, the chasing scene in that chinese level looks so amazing. Even some of the Crash levels still amaze me how incredible they look nearly 'HD', look at the level Crash 'n burn, so much going on at once, it looks truly nice.

So it's clear the positives of Wrath of Cortex kind of overshadow the negatives, the problem is how non-colorful a lot of the levels are, a lot of the levels while are nicely designed lost the colorful aspect of 2 and 3, and I don't understand why. I'm not kidding when I say, everything seems downgraded, even Crash's running move feels a lot slower! I guess all I can say good about Wrath of Cortex is that at heart, it's still Crash, and still fun but man I have totally mixed opinions on it, playing the game just makes you wish you were playing Crash 2 and 3. If I were to rate 6.5/10, it was a good effort and I'm truly happen this new company didn't change the formula completely, but overall the main problem is the game doesn't at all stand out like the Crash games on the PS1, it's just... there. I honestly was dissapointed, but if you're looking for a fun game to 100%, the fun collectathon spirit is still there.

I sadly only rented Nitro Kart once so I can't judge that...
I'll be giving my thoughts on Twinsanity when I can, and if I can I'll do my thoughts on the GBA era at some point.

[Son of Dark]

That was a great review!

Although I've never played Crash games on the playstation, I've seen playthroughs on them, I also have Crash Nitro Cart but for the GBA

I'm looking forward to your reviews on the Game Boy Advance Crash games

[Rayfist]

Well next I'm doing the rest of the PS2 era, then I'll head for GBA

[Master]

Wrath of Cortex was your first Crash game? Interesting, I believe mine was Warped, and I agree that WoC pretty much seems to be a retread of Warped, though of course, given that the formula of Warped worked well, and this was the first non-ND Crash game, I guess it is logical that they'd play it safe and test the waters, then come along with their own spin with Twinsanity. Funny bit of trivia, the devs for WoC and Twinsanity were Travellers Tales, who were also responsible for Sonic 3D Blast.

Right, so you feel empty playing it, and feel that it's because while it attempts to emulate Warped, if fails miserably in some aspects, such as the aforementioned climbing speed, hmm, I haven't played WoC to completion, so I'll take your word for it. The character models, yeah, I have to agree, they did look horrible, they either looked bland, or just bizarre, Aku Aku's design in this game is my second least favourite, after the Titans design. And you feel the animations don't show as much emotion despite there being more power to fuel said animations, hmm, I can't really remember most of it, but you're probably right, though you think the animations are smooth and despite not having the emotion of the originals, they still look decent.

The new characters, well, Crunch is meh, typical good creature under influence of bad guy, not really anything special, no wonder he only had a cameo in Twinsanity, I don't remember much of the elementals either, and seeing how this is the only game they appeared in, it seems that I'm not the only one.

You dislike how they've repeated the historical thematic of Warped, meh, I didn't really mind it too much in honesty, though I'll agree levels were rather bland in design, but looked pretty good (some almost HD like), though you believe Coco's levels were some of the nicest. Hmm, the lack of colour, well, I haven't played the game to completion, so I can't dispute that, I'm afraid.

Despite all these flaws, you still had fun completing it, which, fair enough, it is a Crash game still, nice effort, but not the same as the PS1 games, which fair enough, seems like a good way to sum it up, though I really hated the load times, they were off-putting.

Anyways, thanks for another good read, have another 100 tings.

[Rayfist]

Thanks Master, I think my thoughts on Twinsanity may end up to be a hefty one, we'll see.

[Rulez]

Funnily, Wrath of Cortex was my first Crash game as well, and I played it on my cousin's PS2, and I thought Crash was a fox. Nowadays I get annoyed when people call him that, or a kangaroo, or a dog, or a cat.

[OCG]

Why did you thought he was fox when the game is called "Crash Bandicoot"?

[Master]

Bandicoot isn't exactly a household animal name, add that to being a young child, and well, not everyone would be interested.

[OCG]

I guess you do have a point.

[Rulez]

And I didn't know English for fuck's sake, even less did I know what a fucking Australian bandicoot was.

[OCG]

How old were you when you learned English? Just asking.

[Snagglebee]

If you ask me OCG, I started to study english when I was in the 3rd class so I was 8 years old when I started.

[Rulez]

How old were you when you learned English? Just asking.

About 6, before school. In fact I learnt most of my English before we had pwoper (haha matt bellamy) English lessons.

[Rayfist]

My opinion on the PS2/GC/Xbox and GBA era (part 2): So we now had a few Crash games, 3 spin-offs, and 4 linear platforming games for the consoles. While Wrath of Cortex was a tad bit of a letdown, I still had quite a bit of hope for the Bandicoot, I still thought he was standing well, I mean one disappointing game truly wouldn't mean the end. As you can expect this new title completely changed the formula, in a much needed fashion. For the first time Crash was non-linear. This game many people consider to be the outright wackiest and craziest Crash game. Similar to Wrath of Cortex my thoughts on this are ridiculously mixed... but let's dive into it.

This new Crash game was Crash Twinsanity, however things really change this time around, not just the fact that it's no longer linear, you now team up with Cortex. It's not an absolutely incredible story in my opinion, just your typical team up with the villain to defeat a greater force kind of thing, you know. This game was only released on PS2/Xbox so no Gamecube sadly. As usual I want to start with the games major flaws as it sadly has quite a far amount of them... but I actually did like this game a tad bit more than Wrath of Cortex, I'll explain why eventually. I suppose I want to start with something positive, most of the problems I had with Wrath of Cortex are totally non-existant thank god, the extremely bland characters of Wrath of Cortex was totally fixed in this game, every character in this game as far as I remember (most of them at least) are very memorable and likeable, and the level design is truly colorful something Wrath of Cortex did not do.

The great animations actually return as well, and the character models look truly great. So as you can see, quite a lot of positive things to say about this game, however this doesn't escape the games many flaws, and there are far too many of them. The game truly had some very fun gameplay, it was a very fun open adventure, so why am I complaining? The game was FAR too short, FAR FAR too short, you can beat this game in quite possibly an hour or two, it's ridiculously short, it's such a shame because most moments in the game were truly enjoyable. However it wasn't always going to be like this- the game was totally rushed because of so much scrapped content that can be found on youtube, this is one of the games biggest flaws, they should have kept most this content because I think Twinsanity is quite possibly one of the most ridiculously shortest games I've played. Luckily, each individual world is very colorful and look very nice, does that make up for the games ridiculous shortness though, no. Even if you're going for 100% the game is just far too short. I must admit, the Crash fanbase has very odd tastes, as a lot of them often call Twinsanity the BEST Crash game, I can't stress the fact enough, Twinsanity had far too many flaws, can someone please explain to me how it's THE BEST?

As I said before, the characters show a lot of emotion, considering Crash and Cortex team up there is a lot of 'friendly fighting' you could say. And I must say, this game is full of creativity. I absolutely love how when Cortex and Crash fight over a crystal they form into a dust ball which you control in a Super Monkey Ball type way, very unique creative idea. However this game is split up to various types of gameplay. There is first Crash, which I can't deny is my favorite part of the game, Crash's parts are easy and fun honestly, and if you've played Crash before knowing what to do is a no brainer, except y'know, non-linear, but still very fluid to control, though I don't enjoy the fact the nitro crate is a 1 hit death, but it does make sense considering a lot of the obstacle courses in the game were thrown with nitro crates to get a gem, but to be fair I found that quite lazy, just throw a normal area there with a gem at the end and throw some nitro crates over there to make it difficult. Next there is Crash and Cortex which also have their own individual gameplay segments, like snowboarding (grinding Cortex's nutsack on a rail, yes really), fighting in a dust ball, or just your simple normal walking and throwing Cortex across a ledge .

Cortex and Crash were an alright combination but I did find some of there moments to be quite dull at times, the first boss fight with Crash and Cortex however was very well done. Next is Cortex which is undoubtedly the worst, luckily you barely have to play as him. Cortex's gameplay is far too repetitive for me to enjoy and reminds me of the Tails and Eggman mech levels from SA2 but worse, the combat is dull and boring, the strafing added in the combat as well I found pointless since I made it through barely even using it. I feel it would have been best to leave the Cortex gameplay out and make more Crash and Cortex levels instead. Last up is Nina, who is a new character. And surprisingly she is a VERY fun character, she can latch onto walls which is kind of cool, the only problem I have is she plays far too similar to Crash, she can just latch onto walls and has a boxing glove. I find Nina to be a much more interesting character than Crunch, though she is a mute on this game, she's a bit interesting. So that's all the characters. I'm leaving out most of the important parts it seems so here I go. The music in this game is a completely different direction than the other Crash games, completely, Acapella that is. Every single song in the game is acapella, I for one find it quite catchy in some levels, but I can easily see how other would be annoyed by it. It's a matter of preference, if you don't like acapella chances are you'll HATE the music in this game, simple as that. The CGI cutscenes used for this game look seriously amazing for a PS2 game, they are very well done CGI cutscenes. The big question is if this game succeeds in what it's mostlikely trying to do- make you laugh. For the most part, there were certainly parts in the game where I laughed, but it kind of depends on your humor, I do feel there were few moments that tried far too hard at times to be funny that it ended up a bit cringe-worthy, but parts that are funny are very well done, it's like Ren and Stimpy in videogame form, so I think the game did fine in attempting to be humorous.

I guess I may as well throw out the voice acting was quite well done as well. However back to the flaws, the game had some really annoying glitches, game-breaking glitches. However, there are some glitches in the game that are fun to fuck around with but there are FAR too many glitches, and glitches that can literally corrupt your save data. Another problem I have with this game is unlike the original Crash games on PS1... I honestly didn't have a fun time collecting the gems, collecting gems in this one is much different since the game is open world now, you just find them in hidden areas, but sometimes one of those hidden areas will throw a obstacle at you, like I mentioned I find the obstacles for the gems to be very bland at times, literally a straight pathway just with nitro crates surrounding you, very creative Travelers Tales. And while some of the areas in the game are filled with amazing detail (the forest worlds are probably the most detailed worlds and the best), some are truly empty and bland, the snow world for example, you'll find huge areas just once again, filled with nitro and TNT crates to fill in those empty areas which I found to be very lazy, luckily I can say this is barely found in many worlds.

Twinsanity did some things though that made it really good, the bosses are actually... maybe some of the best we've seen in a Crash game, yes really. I think the boss fights are actually the best part about this game, Dingodile for example was a truly epic boss battle, the music and awesome flames in the background is truly fitting. One thing I love about Twinsanity it's always action packed, always, one thing after the next. For example, the fight with N. Gin ends up being a huge run away from a Walrus to a battle on an ice berg with a giant monster N. Brio made himself into while fighting alongside with N. Tropy breaking the ice berg apart, it's truly epic. The boss battles undoubtedly are the golden moments of this game, and while the game isn't my favorite in terms of boss battles for Crash, it may land 2nd or 3rd. Two new villains are introduced in this game who are the threat of this game, who are some evil twin birds who I also kind of find a tad bit uninteresting personally, but better than Cortex in Wrath of Cortex. Back to the gameplay quickly, this game succeeds in being open world, it's literally the linear Crash we know just open world, and does this fantastic, I do think the fall damage though is a bit ridiculous at times. But as I said before this game could have been so much better if it weren't for the scrapped content, and while I do have more good things to say about it, the negative things are huge issues.

It's hard for me to rate Twinsanity I suppose a 7/10 in all honesty, overall this game similar to Wrath of Cortex I thought was a letdown in quite a lot of aspects, it's a game that has very mixed opinions. As I said before a lot of the Crash fanbase calls Twinsanity the best Crash game, I don't think it comes even slightly close, Twinsanity has far too many problems, it isn't bad, but it isn't great either, it's once again, mediocre, at heart still a fun game and has EXTREMELY detailed levels that look amazing. But again similar to Wrath of Cortex... it just makes you want to play a PS1 Crash game, Twinsanity was overall certainly had some memorable moments, was very fun, but was far too short and a glitchy mess at times. At this point the PS2 era was very mediocre, it was looking not too great for me very sadly.

My next opinion will be on Tag Team Racing, which I can't go FAR into but I can for the most part.

[Master]

I've never played Twinsanity to completion, though I've always wanted to, and I thoroughly enjoyed that which I played through and felt some aspects were comparable to the ND originals.

I didn't mind Cortex's personality change in this game too much, it fit the humour, and he still had some diabolical traits while also been granted some more unique traits to make the character stand out from all the other generic evil scientist villains, that being said, I think the personality change here is what cause some to believe Twinsanity started Crash's downfall, and though I think they were a little silly with the character at times, the toilet humour comes to mind, I feel they still kept him reasonably Cortex, the Titans onwards kindof took this change and ramped it up to an excessive degree, which, was OK, but I felt he completely lost his diabolical edge by then.

I love how the game looks, there's no denying that it is one of the better looking Crash games, and the music is some of the best in the series, I absolutely loved the Humiliskate theme, amongst others. The animation is certainly much better, and I know that while some revile the slight changes to the design of characters for this game, I didn't mind it all (though the change from four fingers to five was a bit odd). The characters also exhibit more of a personality in this game, and it's nice to see that most of the prominent villains get more of a role in this game as opposed to WoC, where Crunch took up all the boss fight roles, if I'm not mistaken.

The game has some clever platforming, and while some revile the change from linear to pseudo-free roam, I loved being able to mess around on N Sanity Isle, and it was nice to explore the place. I've never gotten as far as to play Cortex or Nina, so I can't comment there, but from what I played of Crash's segments, the Rollerbrawl segment and the Crash+Cortex segment, I enjoyed heavily, though my age of the time hindered my ability to progress as well, thus, I did die quite a bit, hindering my ability to see more.

The problem with Twinsanity is that it had potential, waaay more than WoC ever did, it truly pains me to see all the cut content, because, I think, had Twinsanity been given the time it deserved, Travellers Tales could've probably ironed out many of the glitches, and given us a marvellous, wacky game that could've been among the best of the franchise, and I think that it's this potential that some see moreso than the genuine fact, and thus make them see the final product as being much better than it is.