CRASH BANDICOOT: THE THREAD

Soooo...

Skylanders seems to be under a lull as of late and the N-Sane Trilogy seems to be doing very well.

How likely is a Spyro the Dragon PS1 trilogy remake+ looking right now?

I'd say pretty likely. Also, Activision's CEO has stated that they're not done with Skylanders yet, and that it's possible to have both franchises around at the same time.

The Dark Souls thing comes from a 3.5/5 review where someone said Crash was as hard as Dark Souls, and it became a meme.

" Games Radar's 3.5/5 has gained infamy for comparing the collection's difficulty to Dark Souls, of all things, despite the original Crash trilogy coming out over a decade before any of the Souls games and because of the reviewers' quite faulty memory. Also because comparing every hard game to Dark Souls is extremely lazy.

Games Radar's comparison of the collection to Dark Souls has been met with much mockery from the internet, eventually escalating with people photoshopping the Souls UI over screenshots of the game, as well as people drawing crossover fanart depicting the Crash cast in the Dark Souls universe. "

How hilarious would it be if Vicarious Visions actually rolled with that in like their Twitter or hypothetical DLC?

Here◊ are◊ a few◊ examples◊ of the hilarity that ensued.

The level that was removed from the original Crash Bandicoot for being too hard, Stormy Ascent, has been finished and given a fresh coat of paint for the N. Sane Trilogy, and from now until August 19th, it's free (afterwards, you'll have to cough up $3).

Click here to torture yourself wi— er, download and play Stormy Ascent. And most importantly... good luck.

For comparison, here's the original!

Gosh, that is super hard and from the looks of it lots of skill to get through it.

Regarding the castle levels, I wonder where Stormy Ascent was supposed to fit on the map. I've always found it noticeable that Slippery Climb seems to be misplaced on the map; rather than being placed on the base of Cortex's castle like you'd think it would be, it's placed before Crash actually reaches the castle on the map (so are Lights Out and Fumbling in the Dark, which seem to take place inside the castle).

There's a similar confusion with Cortex Power, which depicts Crash entering Cortex's power plant, but for some reason it's the second level with Crash inside it, after Heavy Machinery. Logic dictates that Cortex Power should come first, so I'm not sure why that got switched around.

I think when they took out Stormy Ascent they didn't change the locations of places on the map.

Maybe some levels got swapped around mid development, but they never changed the map and just thought "fuck it" and left it as is?

As to why they got swapped around, maybe difficulty reasons?

I just got all the gems from Crash 1. The little outro they added with Crash finding Tawna is neat. I wonder if there's just the tiniest seed of frustration in Tawna toward Crash in that scene, hinting at why she might decide to dump him — when Crash jumps up on the vulture, he slightly unbalances Tawna, for which she 'oohs' in surprise. Then he accidentally dodges her kiss by hanging from the vulture's neck by his feet as they're flying away.

Stormy Ascent was... easier than I thought it would be. Everything including the enemies acted like clockwork and really only took a bit of observation to get past.

It feels like the vultures would have been harder to get through if their hurtbox wasn't so oversized. I literally connected to one from their direct right side and still got to bounce.

Tawna never really looked annoyed with Crash's buffoonery, just bewildered.

On a side note, I always liked how Coco most of the time laughs at Crash's antics or outright joins in on them. It's a cute fresh take for an intellectual character. They could have easily made her a stuck up straight man always rolling her eyes and scowling whenever Crash acts like an idiot, but she genuinely thinks her big brother is awesome. While some were bummed about Coco replacing Tawna, I think she makes a cuter soulmate for Crash.

edited 26th Jul '17 8:53:21 AM by Psi001

So the game is doing well i reckon?

I hope this will make activision consider remaking Spyro the Dragon and give us a new Crash Game.

I want a retelling of N. Tranced cause that game was pretty good imo.

If they remade N Tranced they'd likely have to do Huge Adventure/XS as well since they are chronologically connected.

It probably helps that she knows how things turn out...

edited 26th Jul '17 8:54:31 AM by Grounder

Well most of their interactions are in Warped where she's in present day form (I'm still not quite sure why she decided to "help" her tricked brother in Cortex Strikes Back, especially when it's her past self working against the clock to stop him).

After those three games, Crash is usually saving her every title though, that probably bought her pedestal of him up a fair bit.

edited 26th Jul '17 9:01:18 AM by Psi001

I like to think Coco going back in time to help is just to have fun, knowing that things will turn out alright.

Again kind of cute a theory. She just wants to be around her brother during the action, she even sulks in 2 if he doesn't let her tag along.

edited 26th Jul '17 9:27:04 AM by Psi001

In 2, she also helps Crash collect the gems anyway.

And yeah, seconding the GBA games deserving more love. Although that'd involve having to introduce Crunch in some way, and Warth of Cortex is, well, kinda lacking in the charm department. It'd be neat if improved tho.

And the gems end up releasing Uka Uka... In hindsight playing 2 isn't gratifying at all story wise.

Actually Wrath of Cortex brought up to level with the N Sane remakes would likely make for a great game. I liked the level design, just the mechanics, graphics and gimmicks were very rough around the edges, and most of those would be fixed by default using the N Sane engine.

I could totally dig an N-Sane-ified Wrath of Cortex.

I almost feel like that would have been a safer direction than the original trilogy. Most of the changes made to Wrath of Cortex would at least be considered improvements, given it has a good enough core game but has flaws and hasn't aged well, while the trilogy even to this day has aged majestically and has extravagant detail to everything, as much as VV tried to replicate it, so people are still very divisive over whether they improved or worsened them.

edited 26th Jul '17 1:13:40 PM by Psi001

The only division I saw was the one revolving the shape of the hitboxes. Other than that? Unanimous praise.