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| Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (2001) |
Cortex has come up with a new plan to take over the world and destroy Crash: a... new bandicoot warrior. However, he has no way to... power his new creation... um... okay, look, for as paper thin as the previous games' plots were, this one is really stretching it. It's cool that we get to see the bandicoot warrior that Cortex always envisioned, but the game treats it as some epic tale that the story really doesn't deserve. The intro cutscene goes for 10 minutes. Jesus. Anyway, they decide to unearth ancient masks known as the Elementals, another neat concept that is kind of mishandled if you ask me, and they work together with Crunch Bandicoot to try and destroy Crash. Luckily, Aku Aku realises that the Elemental masks can be returned to hibernation with the use of crystals and for the love of GOD! Crystals? Again? Despite the fact that the previous games went out of their way to say there were no more power sources left on the planet; that's why time travel was the gimmick of the previous game. So, the game essentially becomes exactly what we've seen in the previous titles: make your way from one end of the level to the other and pick up the crystal. Nothing new or innovative to show off the power of the new console, just the same ol' stuff. Well... actually, no, I'll get to that later, because we first learn that we're collecting these crystals with a portal chamber that Coco built because of course she'd be able to do that from the middle of a remote island far from civilisation. See, 10 minutes in and already I'm angry. This is gonna be fun. Well, not really, but... no, there's nothing else to say. I shouldn't have lied and said this would be fun.
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| Coco and Crash |
Even the visuals are a distinct downgrade, which is really weird for a new console, but exactly 0% of the character models look anywhere near as good as they did in Warped. The textures just aren't there. They all just look like balls of play-doh with no detailing that actually makes them look... good. I'm sorry, but it's a big deal that this game looks worse than even the first Crash Bandicoot game from 5 years earlier. It's a new console! Anyway, the levels themselves look fine enough, but something you'll quickly discover is that rather than there being 7 or 8 different environments with varying obstacles in each one that get more and more difficult as the level types return in future warp rooms, in this game you'll be lucky to see the same environment return even once. Every level is a different location, which would be fine if every level was good, but few are. The problem is that since no level type makes a return, every level has unique enemies to fight, the result of which is that every enemy can be killed by the same attack. With repeating levels from previous games, the enemies could be more varied within the levels themselves, but since each level in this game introduces a new set of enemies, if they changed up how you attack them there would be too many enemies to learn how to kill. I know it seems weird to harp on about this, but it makes the level design really lazy and boring, which is another big deal considering the levels in this game are so much bigger than the previous, and not in a good way. You'll find yourself reaching checkpoint after checkpoint and wondering why the level's still going on. The beauty of the previous games were that every level was pretty much finished in no more than 5 minutes once you got good with them, but here the longest level is around 5 minutes on its own. There is a level that contains over 200 boxes. That is simply overkill. It also doesn't help that the camera is a nightmare. One of the things they've done in this game is make the turns sharper, for some reason. In the previous games, even though there were corners to turn, it was all pretty much the one corridor, and you could see where you were going at all times. Here, when you're turning a corner, visibility becomes zero, and sometimes you'll die because of it. I'm sorry, but when a game is actively working against you, that's a problem. And, you know how some levels in the previous games were climbing up things or functioned more like side-scrollers? Yeah, here side-scrollers are pretty much reserved for bonus rounds, and all platforming levels consist of long corridors with barely any bottomless pits and enemies you can easily jump around that do barely anything to actually hinder you. They made the visuals more varied, but the game itself is pretty much the exact same thing the whole way through.
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| Compactor Reactor |
The same cannot be said for the vehicle segments. You thought they were too common in Warped? You haven't seen anything yet. There are exactly 2 'vehicle' levels that repeat in this game: the swimming levels which are utter garbage since they made it so much slower, especially when you get the submarine, which is a vehicle section within a vehicle section, which is just overkill, and the Atlasphere, which is honestly the only good thing this game has going for it. Basically, Crash is stuck in a ball, and must roll himself around the level, and the physics are perfect, the controls are tight and the corridors are actually fun to roll through. Pretty much every other vehicle level is a bust, and sometimes there are vehicle segments within platforming levels, just in case this game wasn't varied enough. Whereas Warped had 2 vehicle levels every warp room, here you'll be lucky to get 1 level in a warp room that is just a platformer. Here, we get flying a plane, riding a mine cart, driving a jeep, flying a dragonfly, riding a scooter, operating a jetpack, riding a snowboard, hanging off monkeybars, flying a spaceship, operating a mech suit... it's just too much. And, rant incoming, but the level where you race the other characters in a jeep is the single worst Crash level I've ever played. Everything about this level is wrong. The turning arc is non existent, the camera is worse than it is in the other levels, and being fast in this thing is almost a death sentence. Getting the gem on this level was the worst thing I've ever done in any Crash game, and I will go to my grave defending this stance. Another almost cool thing this game does is give Coco her own platforming levels, but whereas in the N. Sane Trilogy it was an aesthetic thing and the two operated exactly the same, in this game, Coco is just plain worse. Not only does she not get any of Crash's power-ups from defeating bosses, but Crash's slide which can lead into a slide-jump which is honestly the most fun part of controlling Crash has been replaced with a leg kick that stops Coco dead in her tracks and slowly sweeps in front of her with her leg. You will never need to use this button. It's the worst.
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| Bamboozled |
Not even the Elemental masks, for how cool a concept they are, can save this game. While you might think that boss fights about the elements themselves would make for some cool encounters, these are far from exciting. Only the final boss fight really felt like a fun challenge, and the others just ranged from easy to boring. And the struggle for 100% completion? No, no, no. Every single level's box gem can be obtained on the first pass through the level. Seriously. Every single one. There are no puzzles to work out to gain access to new paths through levels, no secret exits to find new areas or new levels entirely, nothing original, nothing to test you, nothing to make you explore, just f***ing NOTHING! Not even the time trials were a decent challenge half the time, since the level design is so nothing that you can just run past the majority of enemies without a second thought. It's pathetic. It's honestly pathetic, and that's probably the best word I can use to describe this game. Alright, alright, I need to talk about some positives, well, Crash is still fun to control, I'll say that. The physics are still fine, jumping still works, slide-jumping is still the most fun thing to do, and the swimming levels are made slightly more bearable when you gain access to the death tornado spin which allows you to speed through the water in record time, that's fun at least. If this game has one saving grace, however, it's the soundtrack. Holy crap, this soundtrack is exquisite. One of the pros to having every level be a different environment is that we get a new track for every level, and they're all top-notch. Honestly, look up the soundtrack online. That way you'll get to listen to a fantastic score, and you won't have to play the game to do it. I can even forgive that the Cortex boss fight music doesn't incorporate the same motif that was in every other Cortex theme, since then music they use is wonderful on its own. This might just be my favourite Crash Bandicoot OST yet: it's multi-genre, it's varied, it's orchestrated wonderfully, it just ticks all my boxes.
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| Crunch Time |
Alas, some great music and the fact that Crash still controls the same doesn't redeem Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (2001) of all its flaws. I haven't played the other Crash games in a while, but I think I can call it here. This is the worst one. At least, of the main series games, this Crash is the worst Crash, and no one will be able to change my mind. 3/10.
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