My opinion on the whole Crash Bandicoot series.
Ah yes Crash Bandicoot, a marsupial with class and in the PS1 Era was a well worthy competitor of titles like Mario 64 and such.
Here are my thoughts on each era.
PS1 Era: Crash started out a little bumpy, to be honest I found the first Crash Bandicoot game to not particularly age well. But lets go back to the 90's, back then it was awesome, and it still does have some awesomeness today, the problem being it hasn't particularly aged well, however, I beat the game in one sitting few months ago and loved it. But I do think Crash was a bit off to a bumpy start the 3D model for Crash looked kind of strange. Crash 1 nonetheless was an amazing game, it truly has a place in history, but for me it doesn't reach an amazement. However, this can easily be forgived, it's the first game in the series.
A year later we got a much better engine alongside Crash Bandicoot 2 which is to this day my favorite Crash game, what a huge fucking leap, Crash 2 DOMINATED Crash 1, it literally did everything Crash 1 did better, it improved upon EVERY single thing, music, gameplay, and even Crash looks great! This is undoubtedly my favorite Crash game, it truly pushes the PS1 to it's limits for a linear 3D game, the detail on everything looks amazing and extremely nice, a better hub world as well and a better save system (Crash 1's save system was shit). Crash 2 dominated Crash 1, the controls were a lot more smooth and responsive as well, and the voice acting on the characters and the mouth movement on characters like Cortex just looks damn incredible for a PS1 game. Crash 2 is when I totally thought Crash had a huge advantage against Mario 64. If I were to rate Crash 2, it'd be around 9.5/10, I seriously can't think of anything bad about it, it got rid of all the problems in Crash 1, and has aged EXTREMELY well.
Crash 2 was only the start of where this marsupial was going, Crash 3 got released, and wow, some people consider this to be one of the best Crash games of all time, I'm not one of those as Crash 3 is my 2nd favorite, but I won't deny the fact that Crash 3 is absolutely fucking phenomenal. The reason why Crash 3 wasn't my favorite was because I liked the level design for Crash 2 better, but in the end, that's just a matter of preference, so I can totally understand why some people call Crash 3 the best Crash game. The game introduces some new really awesome bosses, and my personal favorite Dingodile, alongside amazing gameplay. However the game adds something different, new gameplay types, now you can play as Coco. This game has much more different themed levels from Crash 2, historical levels, Egypt, China, etc., so if historical themed levels are your thing, Crash 3 will not disappoint. Again, I can't find any problems with Crash 3, it seriously gets the exact same rating as Crash 2 9.5/10.
Crash 2 and 3 were an epic combination, Crash 1 was okay, but in the end you had yourself an epic trilogy. Crash 2 and 3 I liked much more than Mario 64, I think they looked freaking amazing, Crash was a well worthy rival, Nintendo had reason to be afraid at that point

. Crash 2 and 3 are some of my favorite platforming games on the PS1 (alongside Rayman, duh) and they both did extremely well and really maxed out the PS1's 3D capabilities. Of course since this trilogy were completed, a kart racing spin-off was in order, so we got Crash Team Racing. Funny enough, this spin-off introduced a story and a new villain, and did this well. However gameplay-wise I liked this more than Mario Kart 64, CTR was a well worthy competitor against that. The tracks truly live up to the trilogy, and all your favorite characters are there. Not only do they live up to the original trilogy but they also look absolutely incredible, enough about the tracks though. Gameplay-wise this game nailed it, quite possibly what I think to be my favorite kart racing game, the grinds and turns are all extremely smooth and responsive, it all works so well. This game offered something that Crash 2 and 3 did so greatly as well, great replay value. That's the thing about the PS1 Crash games, a lot of them truly had fantastic replay value. Crash Team Racing is a racing spin-off done right, since this is a spin-off I can't comment much longer on that.
So we had not only an epic trilogy, but an awesome spin-off. So it seems they needed to do a party game... Crash Bash was made... now the biggest problem off the bat, this game wasn't being developed by Naughty Dog. So many people enjoyed this game, sadly I am not one of them. I honestly think it's mediocre. CTR was a well done spin off, the problem with this games is various things, it's missing a LOT of the enjoyable characters which right off the bat disappoints me. Now I must say for a party game, there are quite a few selection of party games, but here is the problem: they recycle the same fucking minigame! That right off the bat annoyed me, the pogo-stick minigame which I personally didn't enjoy was BACK only in a different themed level with more dangers, that was just being lazy, if CTR had completely different levels each time why did Bash have to recycle the same levels only with a different objective or danger? I just never understood why people praised Bash so much, it wasn't BAD by all means, but I found it to be just a quick cash-in. However, I will be one to confess some of the minigames are actually kind of fun, the tank minigame is very enjoyable. Overall, this game is more fun to play multiplayer, your single player experience if going for 100% is mostlikely to be a VERY boring one. Crash Bash wasn't all that great in my opinion it just felt like a quick cash-in, with far too many recycled minigames and it has a LOT of missing good characters! Seriously, where is Pinstripe!? Instead they use Koala Kong, that boss from Crash 1 nobody cared about, and a newcomer only on this game Rilla Roo who is extremely uninteresting and bland. This is the kind of game you'll only find fun if playing with 2 players, it just wasn't a fun experience for me and very stale. But still a decent title in the Crash collection overall.
Wow, turned out longer than I expected, I'll make my thoughts on the PS2 Era next time
