CRASH BANDICOOT: THE THREAD

Weirdly I didn't have as much of a problem with the slug's hitbox over Polar's.

I THINK its because Crash Landed's riding segments don't have very many 2x2 crate arrangements whereas Polar's throws you one every other set.

The Slug level was less... demanding, I guess? When it came to moving around to get boxes, specifically. Most of the trouble was in figuring out how to get around X or to X part of a big section, but once you were there the boxes weren't so bad. I only really had trouble nabbing boxes in the part with the horizontally moving platforms, mostly because the box placement at that part was bullshit.

I'm playing through the N.Sane trilogy on the Switch (Yeah yeah, call me late to the party), and...

May I ask if people think Crash 1 is harder than Crash 2 or not? Because I find the latter harder - I didn't Game Over once on Crash 1, while I lost count on the number of Game Overs I got for Crash 2.

Part of it is, to be honest, the slide jump. I hate how it's on the A button on the Switch version, because I keep mixing up the jump and slide buttons, leading to me bellyflopping to my death like a moron.

The other part is that I guess I'm fairly used to straightforward platforming in the case of Crash 1. Sure, I died a fair share of times on Stormy Ascent, but I didn't find it that hard. It's no Slippery Climb, at least. The fact that you can die in Stormy Ascent covers a world of hurt, I tell ya. If it wasn't for that, I'd probably have a different opinion on it.

Haven't started on Crash 3 yet, but I'll get to it when I have the time. Hopefully, I won't be quite as terrible at that one.

But, uh... I guess the N-Sane trilogy has kind of started to make me a Crash fan. (Fuck the ice physics in Crash 2, though - They're terrible!)

Edited by MagmaTeaMerry on Dec 17th 2020 at 11:01:38 AM

Part of what made the original Crash 1 so hard was the stiff early PS1 controls, from what I get. I did find Stormy Ascent pretty damn hard, though.

As for the ice physics in Crash 2… well, they’re ice physics, of course they’re terrible.

That's not because Crash 1's harder, it's because Crash 1 force-feeds you a shit ton of lives, while Crash 2 is a lot stingier with them.

Well, yeah, but it feels like Crash is as heavy as a barrel on the ice, moreso than any ice physics I've experienced before.

OT: So, I've started on Crash 3, and...

Oh dear, oh dear, I've gotten like 4 Game Overs on the Tiger levels. I'm absolutely terrible at them. Color me surprised that I managed to somehow snag a Gold Relic on Midnight Run.

But Pura is cute, Coco is cute, and their combined cuteness is enough to give me diabetes, so I don't mind being awful at them too much.

But yeah, the platforming is fun, the bosses are fun, if easy...

But fuck those motorcycle levels, they're not fun at all to me. I actually dislike them more than the jetski, to be honest - At least I can adapt somewhat to the heaviness of the jetski, but the motorcycle? I just can't figure out. I feel like those tight turns are impossible regardless of whether I use the breaks or not.

Still trying to figure out how to get the boost at the start, too. I just don't understand the timing.

I used to love the motorcycle levels as a kid (mostly probably due to the presence of motorcycles), but as I've grown older, I've really come to see their shortcomings.

Man was smashing crates hard due to how everything moved.

The Nintendo Switch version of CTR is having a free trial week for Nintendo Switch Online members.

Neat.

Any words if CTR: Nitro-Fueled is going to get an enhanced version for PS5 and Xbox Series X or a PC release (or possibly both)?

So I've been trying out CTR through the NSO trial period and man, maybe I'm just speaking as someone who grew up just playing Mario Kart games, but this is tough to get used to.

Anyone have any pointers on how to get good at this game? I feel like I shouldn't be losing to Papu Papu of all people over and over again.

Edited by kablammin45 on Jan 3rd 2021 at 12:31:02 PM

Papu Papu is no joke. I'd practice the track a little. Get a good feel for where you can and cant drift effectively. And learn the shortcuts. If you do it right, the last u-turn is entirely optional.

Started playing It's About Time a couple of days ago and uh, it's quite hard. I'm not even that far and it's kicking my ass in the way that the original trilogy never did. I guess moving away from the traditional video game life system gave Toys For Bob a license to make the game even more deadly, since now the punishment is "only" to start from the nearest checkpoint.

Edited by Xeroop on Jan 4th 2021 at 11:09:43 AM

Yeah, I got it too and am loving the fact that it's not pulling punches. Although it does remind me why the game paired so well with a chill exploration game like Spyro; sometimes you gotta unwind after forty deaths in a row.

I did get the blue gem!

CTR wants you to keep turbos going forever. Power slide constantly.

With the turbo boost you get from drift, the thing to remember is that you build up more boost with every drift done while boosting. Imagine an invisible meter that fills with boost. Do it long enough, and you can go periods not drifting, but still getting the drift boost as the meter depletes. That level of tech will only truly be necessary for time ghosts and online, however.

Edited by Zeromaeus on Jan 5th 2021 at 12:30:52 PM

Papu's Pyramid has four major shortcuts. Two are more obvious, (the pillar hop near the falls, followed quickly by the left-side ledge jump onto the bridge, the latter of which isn't all that important), and two take more tech finesse to pull off (cutting across the grass at the top of the main pyramid and jumping the wide gap just before the end). The grass cut can be done in two measures, a quick cut that just goes around back of the first plant hazard, or a long cut that rides the inner edge of the grass. The former is easy to pull off and gives you a slight advantage, low risk, low reward. The latter requires some serious turbo momentum or a mask and some mad hopping, but if you can manage it without losing speed, it will put you quite a bit further ahead. The big gap jump just requires some drift boosting right beforehand. If you angle yourself just right, you should be able to get a drift boost off just before jumping, making clearing the gap a cinch. YMMV depending on the engine class you've chosen. Most jump shortcuts are more difficult to pull off with a slower class like Turn or Balanced.

Papu's also has very few turbo pads, making it difficult to get an ideal run even if you're familiar with the more advanced turbo preservation methods. Such an ideal run isn't necessary outside of the harder time trials and highly competitive online lobbies though.

This vid demonstrates most of the shortcuts I mentioned, but takes the shortest path on the grass, which is all you need in most cases.

I finished Crash 4 (not 100%) last night.

Random observations:

• Aku Aku has been seriously nerfed. He doesn't seem to protect you from any environmental hazards, even ones that he did in the originals / N. Sane Trilogy (lava pits, crushing).
• I don't mind the high amount of boxes in each level, but hiding boxes out of sight — as in: literally impossible to see — is complete bullshit. A single hidden box is by far the biggest complaint people have about the original Crash 2 and it was fixed in the N. Sane Trilogy, so including several hundred of them here strikes me as idiotic.
• Making the lives system optional is great and long overdue, but including three different ways to punish you for dying anyway kinda defeats the point. Again, people hated this about the original Crash 1 and it was also fixed in the N. Sane Trilogy, so why would you do it again? Even worse at that? And yes, they're technically "optional", but collecting things is half the point of playing Crash games, each game would be 10 minutes long if you didn't.
• I haven't played all of them yet, but I haven't found the Flashback Tapes to be that difficult. Some of the normal in-stage Bonus Rounds are way harder.
• The gravity flipping sections have an over-reliance on bottomless pits. That's pretty lazy design, especially on the spaceship stages where the bottomless pits are hard to even notice.
• I wouldn't mind the Tawna / Dingo / Cortex stages segueing back into the Crash / Coco stages if they weren't treated as separate stages. Yet again, the original Crash 2 and 3 did this better. The alternate entrances are just that: alternate entrances, if you already got the gem in one path, you didn't need to get it again in the other.
• The N. Verted stages should've just been an unlockable bonus mode for completing the game, not something required for 100% completion.

I can't wait for Vicarious Visions' remaster 20 years from now that fixes all these issues.

If they're not going to do lives, then finding ways to punish the player for dying regardless in a game that's all about difficulty and perfectionism is essential. Not doing so would be defeating the point of the game.

Don't hold your breath for someone "fixing" it later on: it's not a bug, it's a feature.

I don't think you quite got the point of those alternate stages. They're not supposed to be literally the same stage, but hard-mode versions with their own rewards. You're not likely to see that "fixed" either.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 7th 2021 at 9:42:35 AM

It's really not though. There have been plenty of games that manage difficulty and precision without "punishing" players, to great acclaim in fact. Turns out an inability to progress is all the "punishment" players need.

You can have deathless challenges in the game, just don't make half the normal challenges in the game require no deaths.

You call it a feature, I call it obvious padding.

These are supposed to be hard mode? That's not communicated, like, at all, and I didn't find them to be particularly difficult. Hell, I thought Dingo's stages were actually pretty easy. Once you get back to Crash and Coco, they're basically identical. I don't buy it.

Do later levels lower the amount of deaths that prevent getting a gem?

If so, then there's merit.

If not, then that's just preference.

Not every game needs to manage difficulty identically to every other game, in large part because not every game is trying to do the same things with its difficulty that every other game is attempting to.

Then you would be using the term incorrectly. That's not what padding means.

It's one of the first things they ever said about those stages, yes.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 7th 2021 at 5:52:25 AM

I'll be frank, not fond of the approach they had with the latest game. Too many gotcha moments and rethreads of levels being required for the complete ending.

Crash Bash didn't require you to do the hardcore stuff for 100%. That's what its 200% Bragging Rights Reward was for.

Padding is something that is added to artificially lengthen a work. If you don't think forcing players to replay the same levels more than ten times fits that definition, I don't know what to tell you. I can't think of any other game that could get away with that without well-deserved criticism. Especially since a lot of those replays aren't the players' fault since the developers thought they were being clever by hiding things out of sight.

Also, something being "by design" doesn't automatically mean it's good, even if they accomplished exactly what they set out to do. Bad ideas exist.

Is this in-game? Because all I remember seeing was a pop-up about these stages being the other character's perspective. If this was in-game, then okay, I guess I missed that. Again though, if these were supposed to be harder, they dropped the ball. The other characters' sections aren't any harder, in some cases they're easier, and the back halves are basically identical save for some box placements.

This has literally nothing to do with my complaint — which was about repetition — anyway though, so whatever...

I haven't played Retro Mode, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure all these challenges remain the same even if Lives are enabled, so what's the justification there?

Edited by Primis on Jan 8th 2021 at 9:00:32 AM

And enemy placements, and tnt placements, and occasionally platform placements, etc.

You're not being forced. The only thing replaying the level for completion and the like gives you is cosmetics and bragging rights.

For that reason alone, it's not padding by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, it skews closer to postgame content.

Likewise, just because it's hard doesn't mean it's a bad idea. It just means its difficult.

I have my problems with the way the game handles parts of its difficulty (you'll notice that I didn't disagree about the bullshit regarding hidden boxes), and as many of my prior posts have noted not every level of the game is well designed in regards to difficulty, but the specific thing you're trying to sell as bad game design that I'm responding to... well... isn't. It's just game design.

You have to think about why Crash punishes players for dying X number of times, and what it actually does for the gameplay besides making the players do levels again.

Crash has always been a series based not just on getting to the end of the level, but challenging the player to get to the end of the level in certain ways: it's platforming is built on the idea that the game gets easier when you're careful, but significantly more dangerous (and rewarding) when you're being daring and risky - far moreso than most platforming series. Crash is a series that is geared towards speedrunning, geared towards challening the player to playing perfectly and going through the gauntlet without messing up.

Hence, traditionally every single collectible in the series dares the player to be perfect. Relics make you go through the whole level without dying. Boxes make you explore the whole level. Death routes make you do the entire stint without death, etc. But what happens to some of these challenges - especially the latter ones in the list, if the player can die eternally without consequence? Then the actual challenge intended by the mechanic is removed, leaving Crash without a big chunk of what it is designed to do.

Hence Crash 4 fixes the problem: it includes new collectibles that are geared towards life perfection, while introducing the idea that you can die as much as you want to prevent this challenge from impeding regular gameplay. And even better, you only get an unessential collectible for doing so rather than anything essential for completing the game.

It's actually a very inspired idea for removing lives to make regular gameplay more fun and unfettered, while also retaining the mechanical point/challenges the lives system offers in a benign way.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 8th 2021 at 9:17:36 AM