So, we all wanted to see the crash bandicoot franchise make it into the new millennium, naughty dog was out but Sony still wanted the marsupial to stick around in the 00s, so their solution was to commission another developer into taking warped but with putting in minor tweaks into that game’s formula. The result was a mixed bag that retains some if the strengths of its predecessor but is a huge mess when it comes to its visuals and gameplay.
I’ll get the positives out of the way first as many of them do come from the game its remaking. You can check out what I said about
Crash Bandicoot: Warped for a more in depth detail into what this game does right but to summarise, the levels are creatively designed and varied from each other, the stages where you play as Coco breaks up the monotony of it being a crash solo venture and the villains are as charming as ever even if this time around they take a back seat to the elementals who serve as the new threat our heroes are up against. One thing this game does well that wasn't present in its predecessors is the introduction of crunch who is portrayed as the ultimate weapon cortex was hoping crash to be in the original game, this is before he adopted a Mr t impersonation, so his presence is much more menacing than his later appearances. It's too bad his boss battles are rather lame as they let down a great addition to the cast of characters this franchise has.
Now onto the negatives starting off with the visuals, while the environments look great due to them successfully taking the environments from the ps1 games and upscaling it for (then) modern hardware, they're let down by horrible character models, particularly from the villains as they now only appear as obstacles in certain levels rather than bosses due to crunch now taking centre stage as the main antagonist of the game. Crash and Coco look OK here, but that's mainly due to them retaining their designs from the ps1 games as opposed to the villains who have been given more realistic designs. The enemies in the levels also look terrible, again due to there being far more human and non-anthropomorphic bad guys this time around due to the game’s insistence in striving for realism. As good as the levels look, the level design as far as the gameplay is concerned is abysmal as the hallways are far too spacious which admittedly was a common issue for early 00s games who wanted to showcase their technology rather than innovative gameplay. This also makes the relic runs a pain as there's several mechanics in the levels that grinds progression to a halt such as the mine shift stage and the monkey bars, the monkey bars in particular are excruciating to navigate due to how slowly crash traverses on them, made worse in the time trial modes where you're racing against the clock to acquire a relic with this sluggish mechanic. Don't even get me started with the vehicles as while coco’s stages are actually well thought out, crashes aren't as he has a Jeep that doesn't drive straight, a bug plane that's a pain to fire weapons with and what has to be the worst submarine ever put to gaming. I honestly believe coco’s stages were intentionally made better than crashes as a way of making her the star of the show which I would've been fine with had they done away with crash altogether as I've always preferred her over her brother as the hero of the series. Speaking if, coco’s platforming levels are decent, she has a different move set to crash which is further proof that this game wanted to make her be the star of the show but couldn't bring itself to sideline her older brother to allow that to happen.
So yeah, this is just warped but worse, I’ll always have a soft spot for it due to giving Coco a chance to shine in a main line crash game, but I understand how many people despise this entry to this day.