Crash Bandicoot 4 review: It’s about time – a lovely throwback

the Crash Bandicoot The series has always held a strange place in the pantheon of platform games. It does not offer the sheer joy of movement and discovery that has prompted the Super Mario games, nor the technical spectacle that drives each new Ratchet and Clank Title. Still, there is something different about Shock: the over-the-shoulder perspective, the bouncing motion, the ’90s vibe. He has lower ambitions, but is much more focused as a result. And it turns out that none of that has changed in the last post.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is the first main line Shock game since 1998, when the series was a PlayStation exclusive developed by Naughty Dog, a studio now better known for Unexplored Y The last of us.

Not much has changed in the intervening years. While contemporaries like Super mario 64 focused on exploring large open spaces, the original Shock the trilogy was much simpler; Players essentially ran down a hallway, jumping on baddies and collecting items. Every now and then the perspective would switch to a side scrolling perspective, with the odd boss battle to mix things up. It was simple, but it felt good.

This structure remains largely intact in It’s time. Instead of changing the formula, the developers have tried to build on it with some new ideas. You still spend most of your time bouncing off bad guys and breaking boxes to collect pieces of fruit. There are some great scenarios too, including some especially tense scenes where a big bad enemy is chasing you, and one wrong move means starting over. In particular, I loved some of the nifty boss battles, including one against a giant squid that you attack with a bunch of floating rats.

Most of the new features are based on the core of Shock. The most notable is the inclusion of masks that grant temporary powers. One allows you to “switch” objects in and out of existence, while another turns you into a powerful tornado that can leap through huge gaps. These lead to many interesting platforming scenarios; The phase mask in particular creates moments where you have to jump through areas while also managing the existence of the platforms you are landing on. It takes a lot of concentration.

The great thing about these masks is that they add to the Shock experiment without feeling bloated; they are new dynamics that do not fundamentally alter the game. Not all the additions are great – there’s a new grappling hook character that feels a bit out of place – but none are bad either.

Another thing that has not changed is the difficulty. It’s time It can be a difficult game, but its simple structure means that weak spots are particularly painful. In almost all cases, there is only one way to solve a puzzle. So if you get stuck, it’s a lot to repeat the same annoying jumping sequence over and over again until you get it right. It can really kill the momentum of the game, which is disappointing considering how much fun it can be.

Similarly, despite being the year 2020, the vibe of It’s time It’s purposefully stuck in the ’90s, a time when video game mascots had to have an attitude and bad jokes were plentiful. It is certainly an acquired taste. This doesn’t affect the game itself much, but I definitely found myself skipping cutscenes to avoid all the terrible dialogue.

If nothing else, It’s time it is admirable because it clings firmly to what is. At a time when Mario’s adventures are getting even wilder, and Ratchet continues to be a showcase for new technologies, the latest Shock it is refreshing. It is not a bold reinvention of a classic. It’s the game you know, with a few tweaks.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time It is available now on PS4 and Xbox One.