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| Crash Bandicoot: Warped (1998) |
Picking up from where the previous game left off, the falling pieces of the Cortex Vortex crash-land on one of the N. Sanity Islands, coincidentally landing on the prison ruins containing Uka Uka, Aku Aku's evil twin brother. It is revealed that Cortex has been working for Uka Uka the entire time, and while Uka Uka is furious at Cortex for losing the crystals, he forgives him since it was Cortex's actions that set Uka Uka free. Together, they come up with a new plan: using a Time Twister Machine created by Dr. Nefarious Tropy to retrieve the crystals in their original places in time before Crash has a chance to collect them in Crash 2. They send minions into the past to collect them, while Crash and Coco arrive at the Time Twister to recover the crystals before the minions have a chance to. Yes, the game is one giant paradox, but once again, the plot of a cartoon platformer doesn't mean s***. The gameplay is what's important, and the bulk of the game remains virtually unchanged from Cortex Strikes Back. You progress through the levels, collect crystals and break every crate in a level to earn its gem. A lot of levels still have more than one gem, but... I'll get to that later.
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| Dr. Neo Cortex and Uka Uka |
Despite the fact that the visuals all look remarkably similar to Crash 2, the one thing that makes this game stand out is the level variety. Due to the time travel gimmick to the game, there are a lot of diverse levels to explore: prehistory, Ancient Egypt, Medieval England, Arabia and even the future (which makes no sense since the whole point of the game is fetching the crystals in their original places in time meaning there shouldn't be any in the future but the levels are fun so who cares). Maybe it's also just because there are more things on screen at any given time, but this is possibly the best looking Crash game so far. The music is also sensational, although the fact that every Bonus Round or Death Route theme is just a variation of the one track is a little annoying, especially since in Crash 2 every theme was completely unique to the stage, but it's not so bad that it ruins the soundtrack, just bad enough that it doesn't raise the soundtrack above the 2nd game's one for me. The boss battles are better than they've ever been, and I have no qualms about saying that these are the best Crash Bandicoot bosses in the entire series. The new bosses' designs are also outstanding, and Dingodile is my favourite Crash boss ever for obvious reasons. The bosses also do more for you than just letting you advance to the rest of the game. For every boss you defeat you unlock a new power-up for Crash to use in every platforming level, which sounds great, but the level design never really does anything to justify them, which probably isn't the best way to phrase that. Yes, the double-jump and death tornado spin are tremendously useful for taking shortcuts through levels, but there are never any levels that are built around mandatory use of the power-ups, which would have helped this game stand out from Crash 2 just that little bit more. If they'd made levels like what Future Tense for the N. Sane Trilogy ended up being, it could have been not just a great game, but a revolutionary one, but they played it safe. There's actually one other grievance I have with the level design, but I'll get to that later.
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| Toad Village |
Although Crash has had his fair share of vehicle stages in the past, this time they're here in spades, and in fact, there are 2 per warp room. Crash's sister, Coco, even gets a chance to play her own levels for the first time, as she gets to ride a tiger along the Great Wall of China, ride a jetski in pirate waters and fly a biplane in one of the wars, while Crash gets to swim through what I think is Atlantis, ride a motorcycle in a 1950s road race, and he gets his own plane levels too. While I've heard some people complain about these levels before, I don't understand it, I think these levels are a great change of pace from the regular platforming, especially for a 3rd instalment of a series. The tiger levels are a personal favourite of mine, and though these are the only ones I actually prefer to the regular platforming, nothing else is what I'd call 'bad' or even 'unenjoyable'. At the very least, they're all about half the length of a regular platforming level, so if you don't like them, it's not the biggest deal in the world. What also isn't technically the biggest deal in the world but really annoys me is the other issue I have with the level design. In my opinion, this level design is far from clever, and is far too easy for my liking, especially when compared to the previous games. There are some levels with no bottomless pits whatsoever, which effectively turns the levels into long corridors which just enemies and ledges to block your path. The only problem with this, is that despite the wider variety of moves available to Crash, 99% of the enemies in your path can be dispatched with any attack you choose, which not only continues to cheapen the inclusion of the power-ups themselves, but is actually really boring. Remember how the 2nd game had a lot of varied enemies that needed spinning or body-slamming or sliding or jumping or sometimes a combination of two of the above but switching the hitboxes so you could only do one at any given time? Yeah, that's gone, and now a simple spin attack will dispatch pretty much everything in the game. See what I mean when I say this game just doesn't have as good a level-design as Crash 2? If you take the level design of Crash 2 and the level variety of Crash 3, you would create the perfect cartoon platformer, and I do not exaggerate when I say that.
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| Orient Express |
In terms of 100% completion, I'm a little torn. On one hand, on top of the usual crystals and gems, this game adds a whole new collectible called Relics, which you obtain by speeding through each level to get the fastest time possible, while breaking crates along the way which stop the clock, and I really enjoy these. It's not enough to just run from start to finish, you have to know which crates to break or leave to save time, and where to sacrifice Aku Aku masks for the sake of the run, or if you should save them to take advantage of invincibility later in the level. There are three tiers of relic: Sapphire, Gold and Platinum. Another thing I love about this system is though a Sapphire is all you need to get the percentage, you need a Gold or better to get the final gem needed to actually complete the game, which is genius. This keeps the players pushing themselves to get better and better times, adding replay value to the game, which is a great thing for a platformer. However, the thing that clinches it for me that this game just wasn't designed nearly as well as the previous is another thing that relates to 100% completion. Whereas in the previous game you obtained the coloured gems by exploring the levels for something that doesn't look quite right and feeling like a genius for figuring it out, now they're all obtained through the death routes, which previously just gave you extra regular gems. There are still secrets in this game, but there are just two, and they are so completely out there and innocuous that it's honestly baffling. There are no clues, nothing that makes them stand out, just random things that are different, but not visually. Not only that, but whereas in the previous game the majority of levels had 2 gems, here it's the minority, meaning that 80% of the levels can be fully completed on their first pass through. Actually, I did the maths on this, and there are exactly 2 levels that you have to revisit at a later point to get the box gem. Just 2. Do you see what I mean when I say I don't think this game is as well-designed as the second? Don't get me wrong, it's still tremendously fun to play, and I love revisiting this game, but it just doesn't get it quite as right as Cortex Strikes Back did.
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| Dr. Neo Cortex boss fight |
Crash Bandicoot: Warped (1998) is a great game that isn't quite as good as the previous instalment. Give me this game over Crash 1 any day of the week, and there's certainly no shame in a silver medal, especially when that gold medal was as good as it was. I honestly feel bad for saying so many bad things about this game. This is my childhood. This was that game I played the most as a kid. Eh. Whatever. I'm a 'professional' critic now. I calls 'em like I sees 'em. 8.5/10.
And so ends the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy, but I'm not done yet. Every game I've reviewed so far has been positive, so I think it's time for something negative. My next review will be... Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. I don't think you're ready for how much I hate that game. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Especially if you are Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. Then you should be the most afraid.
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