CRASH BANDICOOT: THE THREAD

There are just some people who automatically hate Skylanders because AGH IT REDESIGNED SPYRO MA CHILDHOOD IS RUINED! Nevermind the fact that Spyro's moveset is clearly based on his classic self and his personality is based on his classic version's and his backstory takes elements from Legend of Spyro and Sparx and the fan-favorite Cynder also got toys and Malefor from Legend of Spyro got his own story arc in the comics and Spyro's gonna be a major reoccurring character in the upcoming TV show. Nooooooo. Spyro looks slightly different, so obviously Activision hates him and now they're doing the same thing to Crash OMG NOOOOOOO NOW THERE WILL NEVAR BE A NEW CRASH GAME!!!!!!1!

edited 14th Jun '16 5:46:56 AM by thebandragoness

i kinda liked the skylanders designs, even if skylanders itself isn't my cup of tea

The Skylanders design for Crash looks pretty good.

Maybe good sales of this and the remastered collection will encourage them to move ahead with a new game.

That's pretty much my thoughts on this. Heck, I even pointed that out to some really salty guys blubbering about Crash being in Skylanders. (Not that they listened to me.)

I didn't even really play Crash Bandicoot that much when I was little, but I'm still excited to see him come back. It's been too long.

I don't really care about Skylanders, but I wouldn't call it hell incarnate.

I am definitely gonna get the Crash figure for collecting reasons, though. Also, the Trilogy remasters, definitely getting 'em too.

To be fair, those that hate skylanders for their treatment of Spyro is acceptable considering what people expect out of a spyro game.

Honestly Skylanders is pretty damn fine on it's own if a bit kiddy in nature.

So, no new Crash game from E3 then...

...ho hum. Skylanders or not, Crash needs a comeback.

HD Remakes a la FFVII is new enough to call new games for me.

You realize it's been over half a decade since we've seen any activity from the Crash Bandicoot franchise, right? This news is hardly "ho hum."

If the games are being remade from the ground up with modern technology, it's essentially a de facto new game. And if they sell well, they'd be fools not to follow up with more games.

This might be the tipping point for me to cave in and get a PS 4. Crash is a character who's very dear to my heart, and I'd hate to see this reboot stillborn because of bad sales.

Hey, remember back when I made the observation that calling the version of Skylanders with Crash the "Crash Edition" was kind of overselling it if it only came with one Crash toy, and then I made the following prediction?

This "Crash Edition" of Skylanders will come with a Crash toy AND a Cortex toy, and maybe also Aku Aku as a magic item. Heck, maybe it even comes with an N. Sanity / Wumpa Island toy that unlocks a Crash Bandicoot-themed level. That'd definitely justify calling it a "Crash Edition" of Skylanders. And all of this would tie-in to the hypothetical upcoming Crash Bandicoot PS 4 game, of course.

Well, looks like I was kinda right. They don't get physical toys, but Aku Aku shows up as part of Crash's abilities (sort of like Diddy Kong does for the Donkey Kong Skylander or the Koopa Troopas do for the Bowser one), and the Crash Edition comes with an extra level set on Wumpa Island.

The only part of my prediction that hasn't really come true is Cortex getting a Skylander toy, but I believe there's still an unknown eleventh villain toy besides the ten that correspond to the ten elements, so it's still possible (It's probably just Kaos, though...).

edited 15th Jun '16 7:16:39 PM by thebandragoness

What would you like to see from the remakes? Here's my list:

• Adaptation Expansion: I read something a while back where Naughty Dog said they had a more in depth plot planned for Crash, but had to cut a lot of it due to console limitations. Maybe Vicarious Visions could ask Naughty Dog what they had in mind, or come up with their own ideas based on what we know from later games? My example was to have more foreshadowing of Uka Uka. Uka Uka's temple is shown being destroyed at the start of Crash 3, and the same temple is also seen on the map screen for the third island in Crash 1, as the map path goes around it. Maybe when you reach this point in the first remake, Aku Aku could say something to the effect of "I sense a dark and evil energy here. We should go around." Another option would be the end credits of Crash 2. In the original's 100% credits, the Cortex Vortex is destroyed and Cortex laughs at the end. Maybe for the remake, Cortex could laugh over the normal credits where the Cortex Vortex is intact, but his laugh is replaced by Uka Uka's at the end of the 100% credits.

• Bring Crash 1 in line with the sequels: Crash 1 has a fair bit of Early Instalment Weirdness. Gems require no deaths in addition to all the boxes, there's a gold gem, Crash doesn't have his slide, crouch or belly flop, there's no box counter and so on. A remake could add some or all of these things. Possibly a warp room too, but that would need the island system to be changed. On the same note, time trials could be added to the first two games, although Crash 2 would need to come up with a new way of getting the yellow gem, as it originally required a time trial run through one of the swamp levels.

• Character tweaking: Crash Bandicoot is a franchise where most of the recurring characters were introduced in the sequels. In terms of major characters, the first game has only Crash, Cortex and maybe Aku Aku if you want to count him (I personally don't count him until Crash 3 made him an Ascended Extra, as he's a power-up and backstory character until then.) remakes could introduce some characters earlier than before, like the Ratchet And Clank remake introduced Dr Nefarious early. For example, Aku Aku could be added to the first game's plot pretty easily as all they'd need to do would be to put his manual backstory about him helping Crash because he wants to stop Cortex's pollution in the game, Coco and Tiny could be introduced a game early and replace the redundant Tawna and Koala Kong since they both disappeared after the first game anyway. If they did this, maybe Coco could have her own levels inside Cortex Castle to try and stop her from coming off as a damsel in distress, ending with boss battles against N. Gin, Dingodile, Nina Cortex and/or the Komodo Brothers. However, I would still save Uka Uka and N. Tropy for the Crash 3 remake, albeit with foreshadowing for the former, and I wouldn't introduce Crunch in these games, though I would bring him back later.

One more thing, I would include Stormy Ascent in the Crash 1 remake as a Brutal Bonus Level.

edited 19th Jun '16 4:34:14 AM by GavsEvans123

I wonder if they could also make a HD version of CTR? I bring that up in no small part because they could introduce online multiplayer to that fine game, along with additional unlockable characters.

I don't want them to completely rewrite the games altogether, but I would like a fair amount of bonuses. As mentioned before backwards expansion like adding Crash's later abilities and Time Trial mode to 1 and 2 would be neat (though the former should probably be optional due to potentially breaking the game). Fixing Crash 1's save function is probably the first priority, just add a pause and save option like with N Tranced's map.

In terms of characterising Aku Aku in the first two games, they could do what the Japanese versions did and have him give tips to Crash when you first collect him.

Adding stuff like extra skins/characters or even a multiplayer mode would be more extravagant but very welcome (Coco should have been properly playable in Warped anyway, even if just as a skin for Crash like in MOM, think like how they added Metal Sonic in Sonic Adventure DX).

In terms of adding story stuff, I'd like it to remain loyal to the originals, though I admit Crash 1 has potential for expansion since it had barely any cutscenes. What about some scenes characterising Tawna, or what chemistry Cortex or Brio had? Where the hell did Coco come from anyway?

CTR seems like a possibility if they keep up the remakes. After all VV have experience with the racing series from CNK.

edited 19th Jun '16 6:42:01 AM by Psi001

I'd be down for this BUT only on the condition that the characters don't retrain their Denser and Wackier Radical Entertainment personalities. The Naughty Dog games always derived humor from a more Looney Tunes style of wit and slapstick. No excessive pop culture references, please.

NO. Those characters already don't get enough love, and we don't need to replace them with characters who've shown up in pretty much every other Crash game ever. I'd rather have more variety instead of seeing the same cast of characters over and over and over again. If anything, I'd be okay with Coco appearing alongside Tawna in the final level, just so she doesn't appear out of nowhere in Crash 2. Heck, they could add Tawna back in to Crash 2 and 3 as a background character if they wanted. Just show her lounging around the jungle in the opening of Crash 2 and the house in Crash 3. I think we're past the point as a society where moral guardians are gonna throw a fit at her character design anymore. Heck, Coco's design pretty much turned into Tawna 2.0 by Mind Over Mutant.

I actually don't want them to change too much. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and all that. Just make the graphics prettier, bring the first game in line with the other two, add some extra challenge modes and time trials to the first two games, throw in some new bonus levels, and maybe expand on the cutscenes a bit. They should at least make the intro of the first game play when you start a new game and not when you wait on the title screen for a while.

Tawna didn't make Coco redundant...they serve different Bandicoot roles...they can exist at the same time.

Are you tired of waiting for a new Crash Bandicoot game? Well, here's a veritable gold rush of new games that have cartoon bandicoots in them!

But.....

We could have had Crash, Spyro, DK and Bowser together...

edited 14th Jul '16 7:32:33 AM by TechPowah

Dear god, it's as if someones sole exposure of Crash was one of those mine cart sections in Wrath Of Cortex and then they had their self proclaimed game designer friend who only has some shitty demo trial of a terrible game making kit make it for them.

Hmm, the Crash Bandicoot HD remake is a bit darker than I'd been expecting...

I had completely forgotten about this thread. All I can say is that if the remakes are good I am totally getting a PS 4, and also:

YES.

Anyway, yeah, I wouldn't want them to change too much. Maybe fix the first game's save system to be less of a pain in the butt and add some bonus levels. I wouldn't replace any characters either. It would be interesting to have Tawna as a playable CTR character or something if that ever happened.

Some Crash Bandicoot fan games. The Crash Bash remake looks great!

Yeah, the Crash Bash one was definitely the best of the bunch.

So I was bored at work the other day and thinking about the Crash Bandicoot games way too hard, and I came up with a crazy fan theory that's just stupid enough to sound plausible.

It's pretty heavily implied that an ancient civilization used to inhabit Crash's archipelago. They seemed to resemble the Easter Islanders a bit, and they'd clearly built temples and statues and whatnot on all three islands, but by the time of the first game, the only tribesmen we ever see are a small group on N. Sanity Island. I get the impression that a bunch of barbarians slaving away under a big fat guy is a far cry from the glory days of their island civilization. So what happened to all the other tribesmen?

And there's something else to consider. This ancient civilization clearly had advanced magical/scientific-ish powers. There's Aku Aku, Uka Uka, and the Elementals, the teleport pads from Crash 1 and warp rooms from Crash 2, the mojo from the Radical games... Heck, during the boss fight with Cortex in Crash 3, you can see that the center of the time twister was built over ancient temple ruins, plus that floating space temple in Crash Bash / Wrath of Cortex clearly has a mixture of both ancient and modern-looking technology on it. Not to mention the fact that the ancient civilization even HAD a floating space temple in the first place.

The point is, the islands housed an ancient advanced civilization, and now they're all gone save for Papu Papu's small tribe. And now Skylanders Imaginators is adding in the extremely weird detail that a wormhole to other dimensions opens up on Wumpa Island every 20 years. Okay, yes, this is obviously just a quick way to explain Crash's presence in Skylands, but think about it for a second. Aku Aku seems familiar with this 20-year-wormhole setup, right? And this wormhole has presumably been appearing every twenty years since the dawn of time, right?

Soooo... what if the ancient civilization got so advanced by getting otherwordly technology from the wormhole every 20 years? And then eventually most of them got tired of living on the islands and jumped through the wormhole to explore the infinite dimensions, leaving only Aku Aku, Uka Uka, the Elementals, and Papu Papu's tribe behind. It explains everything! The writers' lazy excuse for a Skylanders crossover inadvertently explains the series' entire backstory!

edited 18th Jul '16 9:02:42 PM by thebandragoness

Okay, here's something really cool. It's the production bible for the first Crash game from back when it was still called Willy the Wombat.

This gives us a rare, detailed look at Cortex's and N. Brio's original backstories, which were probably cut from the final game / instruction manual for being ridiculously dark for a kids' game. Also noteworthy in that Cortex's high school is said to be "Oliver North High" instead of the Academy of Evil, so I guess this backstory isn't canon as of Twinsanity.