Somehow this game ignores the last decades, pretends that the previous 10 games didn’t happen and takes directly after the third entry. It isn’t just called Crash Bandicoot 4, it is actually one story-wise. Yet somehow it ignores all the upgrades you got last time — no bazooka, no tornado, no motorbike. Even some of the platforming mechanics aren’t present.
I was afraid that it will be too hard and will waste your time in >>the current year with lives and continues. After all, the remakes of the first games did that, and even made platforming worse. But thankfully this is a modern game and it offers a modern mode — no matter how many times you die you just respawn at the checkpoint. There is a classic mode with lives, but this thing was designed around infinite tries and i pity the fool who wants to go classic. Still, for the sad people who have only one game to play and are ready to become Crash Bandicoot 4 sportsmen — there are extremely hard optional levels, unlockable costumes and 106% completion goal. I actually wanted to hunt the crates at first — it’s fun to solve puzzle-like arrangements. But this game doesn’t have quicksaves and one single mistake (not even player’s) will mean that the last hour of work is lost. It was fun smashing the boxes in the second and third games on the original hardware, at least in the early levels, and in the first game when i was emulating it. But then i remembered the running levels, the timed challenges and i saw just how bad the boxes are placed in this game. So, pretty fast i decided that i will just play it through for fun, without wasting my time on any collectables and that was the right choice.
The thing is, the whole of the mechanics and platforming in this game is like only 85% there. The levels are often assembled in such a way that small jumps undershoot and double jumps overshoot. There is no jumping inertia at all, but there is momentum loss on a double jump. It’s really hard to estimate the distances and understand where you spatially are. I dunno, is this because of lighting or art-style? I played at max settings. The hitboxes are pretty bad too, you are often killed by something that obviously didn’t touch you. The combination of the camera and controls is reminiscent of the 90s. It’s never that bad, but there are moments when everything is aligned off-axis and you die for no reason. Sometimes when you press the up button your character movies diagonally instead. And when you inverse the gravity and run on the ceiling, the camera angle doesn’t adjust so you are stuck with pretty bad visibility. 0-HP games are already harsh, even sanik has his rings, yet this game is very stingy on masks. Playing it with any advanced goal in mind is torture.
And i think they knew they didn’t hit the bullseye. After some amount of deaths the game just gives you one mask, then two (no triple mask bonus here). And on the levels that are really wrong, they start to place additional checkpoints. Also, there is a high-contrast outline for your shadow. It is still rarely visible when you need it the most, but the idea is good in general.
The game has four new masks, which basically represent some of the platforming-related mechanics. State-switch, slowdown, gravity control. They aren’t used absolutely everywhere, but the last stage requires you to master them all. Them and all the not entirely working design elements.
Some of the existing checkpoints are placed before the cutscene-like events and waste your time. The new fire crates are unnecessary and uncool.
Unlike the first game, which used the newfound 3D environment capabilities to the fullest, here there are invisible walls, assuring you will participate in festivities and not deviate from the chosen path. Level-designers were just too lazy to draw an obstacle instead.
Running on the global map with a gamepad is a bit tiresome. Especially when you unlock a side mission on the island before the previous one. Meanwhile, a mouse allows you to go directly to the node at least inside the same map, or hover over nodes to see your stats.
The game has a lot of cool designs and cool art. It looks fantastic outside of one particular eyesore. I just love the animations. The new Coco is brilliant. She is a perfect combination of 80s cartoons boring good girl design and 90s cartoons equality behaviour. In the first game i played as Crash, but here it’s not even a choice. Coco is equally fun, but also she is less moronic than Crash. She has a fitting personality and is an improvement over “Make yourself useful, big brother, and bring an extra battery for me!”. I don’t remember her even having a lot of lines previously. While i didn’t play any game past the fifth, i didn’t really like what they did with her design in those years.
Besides the main characters, you can also play with three side-characters with their own mechanics, but only on their designated missions. That could be cool, but those segments are pretty short and once you finish the new parts they transition into the second half of the associated main level. With increased difficulty. Yes, including the last level. Now that’s just cheap. And story-wise these segments are inserted like The Pinky Protocol or Forest Gump photoshops. There’s no motivation and the transition scenes are pointless or confusing both times around.
Your first sidekick is evil-dimension Tawna and she sucks. She is the writer’s imaginary weeaboo overdesigned lesbian waifu and she spews only tryhard nonsense. Besides looking terrible, her whole animation set is terrible — she doesn’t spin, she doesn’ belly\butt flop, she only kicks and does a superhero landing. What game is she from? Uncharted? What did she forget in this cartoony universe? Her whole character doesn’t fit at all here. And her model… No, it’s not even a furry-bait, those prefer a more cartoony design. She looks exactly like lazy anthro-pony porn models assembled from pre-existing assets. She is not a cartoon and is not an animal, she is just inappropriate here. Her mechanics and her levels are barely functioning. Her scripted auto-aimed grappling hook misses its own scripts half of the time and you just die. Even her voice-acting sucks. Damn, i hate her so much.
Old Tawna was more like furniture, yet in the secret ending, she freed herself and even procured the means to escape and took Crash with her. I’d love her to be a playable character, to have a personality, to spin and be fun. I even know a fitting flop move for her. It won’t fly in modern times, though.
I don’t know Dingodile in other games, but unlike someone, he is on point and fits perfectly. He waddles around with his vacuum and his jumping is quite different. He looks cool and the character is fine.
And so is the N. Cortex. He barely jumps, but he can dash, shoot and turn enemies into blocks or bouncy blocks. His character is also entirely on point. Why Tawna couldn’t be good?
On his levels, the misalignment of the camera is the most noticeable. There’s no auto-aim so he can’t hit anything, he often shoots the sidewalls on the 2D sections when you need to hit the box on the right or left. His dash is fixed so you can’t compensate for the camera movements or misalignments on the fly.
The graphics look pretty, but the graphics options are very limited. I would like to turn off more of the cinematic filtres. And this is the first game that rewarded me for running 10900K + GF3080Ti. The benchmark gave me the average of 170 FPS. I doubt i could reach that on these settings on GF1080.
The modern mode turns almost every problem present into an annoyance instead of a game-breaking issue. Playing this for fun with no collectables is enjoyable and the difficulty is nicely average. You die and raise the stakes, but you don’t waste too much time. Even the hardest parts didn’t become frustrating despite the jankines and a third of the deaths not even being my fault.
Inside my shell i milk and hate 