Crash Bandicoot

Crash Bandicoot is a game that's fondly remembered as an innovator of the 3D platformer genre. Many have have gone so far as to tout it as a serious competitor to the likes of Super Mario 64 and other contemporary platformers by Nintendo. While it technically is in three dimensions, one has to wonder whether it was always supposed to be. It has some charm, but it fails to make the most of its innovations, instead coming off largely as a gimmick or an experiment.

The game indeed allows movement on three planes, but the action is incredibly linear, usually playing as a traditional sidescroller, somewhat reminiscent of the Donkey Kong Country trilogy in terms of action. For its time, moving in and out of the foreground was a novel concept, but as a function, it rarely proves useful. On the contrary, it frequently impedes the player as the plane simply isn't large enough to accommodate such a capability. Things only get worse when the game transitions to a camera angle positioned behind the player. In the sidescrolling segments, the timing of jumps is relatively intuitive, if imperfect compared to other entries in the genre. When the camera follows the player, any sense of coordination goes out the window, making for some incredibly frustrating segments of gaming. As I progressed through the game, I found myself relying increasingly more on dumb luck rather than my own abilities. On the whole, the game mechanics, just aren't that satisfying, but there are some quite decent level designs, that would provide an appropriate amount of challenge were it not for the gimmicky camera, and touchy controls.

For its time, the game looks outstanding and remains appealing today. The Crash character has a design that seems influenced by Sonic the Hedgehog. He is nothing if not cute, but there's a lot of personality in his design, evoking a lovable loser type, which is good since the storyline is almost non-existent. Otherwise, the game again takes its cues primarily from Donkey Kong Country, with lots of jungle and tribal settings, and a host of hostile critters and dangerous platforms and traps. There are also several boss characters that seem to have had just as much effort as our protagonist, one of the most inspired being a tommy-gun wielding mammal dressed in a pinstripe suit. The unique 3D perspective really helps to keep the visuals fresh, and I really can't find any major complaints, apart from the inevitable signs of age that come with decades of progress. The sound is adequate with a catchy main theme, but otherwise, largely forgettable music, and sound effects that tend to get annoying quickly.

In addition to some problems in the game mechanics, Crash also suffers from some lousy interface issues. This is one of the areas where the game's age shows the most. Saving the game is a needlessly difficult chore. The player must collect three tokens in a single stage in order to play a mini-game, which then must be completed in one attempt in order to save the game. Failure necessitates restarting the entire stage. Even once you've saved the game, however, you still must complete the stage that the save tokens were located. This proves to be a very cumbersome method that results in repeated playthroughs of levels unless the player attempts to complete the game in one sitting. Even for the game's era, this was a shoddy excuse for a save system, and it feels simply intolerable today.

It's easy to see how Crash Bandicoot became a popular title. Crash is a very nice mascot in a nice-looking game that seemed fresh after two generations of moving on only two planes, but despite being a pioneer, it simply doesn't do three dimensions all that well. I have to applaud the effort of Naughty Dog to attempt something so different from the norm, but the implementation here is just too frustrating, and it fails to make the most of the extra plane of movement. It's really not a bad game, and if you have a great deal of patience, you'll probably enjoy it, but with so many better and more accessible platformers, 2D and 3D alike, it's hard to recommend this as anything more than a curio. While Crash is an important and memorable touchstone in the history of video games, it is by no means a great game.

One of the reasons why Sony trounced the once indomitable Nintendo in the console wars from their first attempt is because the PlayStation did not alienate any prospective demographics. As dedicated to their seal of quality standard as Nintendo was and still is, they admittedly get slapped with the stigma of a kiddy company akin to Disney. Because the third dimension allowed video games to depict graphic violence beyond what pixels were ever capable of, Sony capitalized on this market for mature video games when Nintendo was forced to stick to their family-friendly brand. Between the outstanding success of new IPs aimed at adults like Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid, however, Sony still had to drum up a few franchises that appealed to a younger audience because that vital demographic would’ve easily stuck with their Nintendo standby that offered that kind of accessible content in spades. Sony released a plethora of new age-appropriate IPs to cover their marketing blindspot, but it’s difficult to say if any of these charming, cartoonish characters ever served as their definitive mascot like Mario for Nintendo. Sony learned from Sega’s example not to bet all of their money on sending their finest soldier into battle with Nintendo, for Sonic stumbled and bled out contending with far more than just Mario in Nintendo’s battalion. Even though Sony wisely treated their library as a collective, the closest character that could technically constitute a mascot for the system was Crash Bandicoot: the first of the PlayStation’s properties that was cut from the same platformer cloth that Mario laid out. The Crash Bandicoot trilogy on Sony’s first home console is fondly remembered by the younger demographic of gamers at the time, so Sony must have succeeded in converting at least a sizable fraction of Nintendo’s child consumer base to their console. Still, similarly to Sonic, Crash Bandicoot alone couldn’t have sucked Nintendo dry and stolen the video game console industry for themselves because the first Crash Bandicoot exemplified the roughest qualities of the early 3D era.

Since Crash Bandicoot was devised as a direct competitor with Mario and Sonic, let us examine his mascot material as thoroughly as a judge at a dog show. Upon lifting up and inspecting Crash Bandicoot’s proverbial undercarriage, I find that he’s as exemplary of a mascot breed as his older, iconic adversaries. For those of you who are neither zoologists or are native to Australia, a bandicoot is not a fictional animal like an Ewok or a mogwai. A bandicoot is a real strand of marsupial located down under the equator, even if this particular one was created in a laboratory by a mad scientist. Hence, why Crash has an unnaturally orange skin complexion like a clementine. Bandicoots are also not known to stand upright wearing jeans or sneakers either, but any additional human trinkets applied to Crash’s anthropomorphism aid his mascot stature. Actually, if there is one credit to Crash’s effectiveness as a mascot, it’s that he seems far more human than the representatives for Nintendo and Sega. Obviously, Mario is technically the only human in this equation, but I mean human in the sense of player-character relatability. If Mario is the charming, cherubically whimsical tramp of Chaplin, Sonic the daring thrill-seeker of Keaton, Crash is the blue-collar, exceptionally unexceptional everyman of Harold Lloyd, the uniformly third-place contender among the three comedy legends of the silent film era. Essentially, Crash better embodies the awkward and infallible personhood of a human being. If the fact that Crash doesn’t wear a shirt in his would-be-snappy combination of clothes is any indication, he isn’t afraid of conducting himself in an undignified manner. Once an enemy slights Crash on the field, he dramatically commits to the role by spinning around and uttering his trademark, high-pitched “whoa!” like the fun uncle after being “shot” by their nieces and nephews with a toy gun. Whenever Crash is flattened, eaten, burned, or electrocuted, the humiliation of the death animations is far more lively and detailed than what the exalted Mario and Sonic would allow. Crash blowing himself to bits upon hitting a TNT barrel and seeing nothing but his shoes and eyeballs rain down from the wreckage always tickles me. The whacky, silly tone emanating from Crash Bandicoot’s protagonist and overall presentation will also remind players that Crash Bandicoot, unlike Mario and Sonic, is distinctly American. Santa Monica-based developer Naughty Dog most likely grew up with Warner Bros. iconic Looney Tunes properties and implemented their cartoonish hijinks into their creation to give it a western flavor of childish lightheartedness. Also, Crash’s spin move where he flails his body like a cyclone is too similar to the idiosyncratic swirling vortex of another Australian animal of the Looney Tunes canon to be a coincidence.

Beyond the tonal influences and the strive to compete with the big boys representing other companies, Crash Bandicoot practically functions as a 3D adaptation of Donkey Kong Country. No, really, the similarities between Crash Bandicoot and Rare’s rendering of another one of Nintendo’s finest platformer series is so uncanny that I’m convinced that Sony sent an undercover spy to the Rare offices to gather information on the development of Donkey Kong 64’s beta testing. For starters, Crash gains extra lives by gathering a hundred of his favorite kinds of fruit, the fictional apple and tangerine hybrid “wumpa fruit” in this instance instead of bananas. Crash’s movement in the overworld map is strictly limited to the narrow trajectory paved for him after completing a level, and the entirety of Crash’s journey takes place across three separate islands. As Crash diverts further from the shores of N. Sanity Beach and the wild, unkempt jungles that surrounded it and the other areas situated on the starting island, the settings will progressively become more tailored towards resembling human civilization. Ancient ruins in the jungle catacombs are one thing, but the areas of the third island encompass the quasi-gothic architecture of Cortex’s laboratory castle at the same pace as when the first DKC gradually became industrialized. Crash even has a disturbingly buxom bandicoot girlfriend that could substitute for Pamela Anderson in a furry version of Baywatch. Unlike her DKC counterpart Candy Kong, she’s the typical damsel in distress instead of a supportive checkpoint aid. Crash Bandicoot is evidently more man than animal compared to Nintendo’s burly, tie-wearing ape, and would probably trade all the wumpa fruit in the world for another knock at Tawna’s boots.

If all of the contextual evidence here doesn’t blast Donkey Kong Country in your face like stepping on a rake, then you obviously have never even glanced at the series from a distance much less played it. Rare probably had to scrap the production of Donkey Kong 64 upon seeing Crash Bandicoot and were forced to reshape it as the collectathon 3D platformer that we all know and harbor mixed feelings towards. Besides Crash existing as another animal outside of the primate family, the game offers plenty of admirably distinctive attributes that keep Nintendo from imposing on the rightful grounds of suing Sony’s asses off. Health in Donkey Kong Country was displayed abstractly using either Donkey Kong or Diddy Kong as a meat shield depending on who was stationed in front, losing the line leader Kong as a penalty for taking damage until the player came across a barrel with the grazed Kong freshly intact. Crash doesn’t tag team with a buddy that shares an equal precedence in terms of gameplay, but a series secondary character still shows up to block the barrage of blows from enemies. When Crash cracks open a crate with the image of a mystical, yet strangely friendly-looking mask on it, the crude illustration comes to life and bursts out of its confinement to levitate above Crash’s shoulder. Aku-Aku, the trust-worthy witch doctor mask, will not only save Crash’s bacon if he mistakenly brushes up too close to an enemy without executing the proper offensive maneuvers but breaking open other crates with Aku-Aku still hovering overhead will stack the number of defensive capabilities. By the third chain of Aku-Aku collecting, Crash will wear Aku-Aku on his face and storm the level with a hyperdrive state of invulnerability for around twenty seconds. Aku-Aku’s implementation is admittedly a variation on a health system that DKC already established, but the gratification of earning the invincibility streak as a reward for skillfully dodging obstacles is something that DKC never provided. Ultimately, other instances of Crash Bandicoot’s innovation on its influences lie in its design in the third dimension. With this polygonal advancement, branching paths seen in “N. Sanity Beach” and “Cortex Power” are visibly defined and are more lucidly chosen by the player as opposed to Sonic’s wonky rollercoaster levels. There’s a reason why Crash sprinting away from a boulder in an homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark in “Boulder Dash” is the most indelible image associated with the series, for the perspective of the action running towards the screen as Crash anticipates where to jump and evade at the first reflex, is truly a milestone for the 3D platformer genre.

Another familiar reminder of DKC conjured up in Crash Bandicoot is the brutally swift and consistent difficulty curve. Throughout the game, the player will be wishing for the loud whistle blow of a referee to call in their favor for the same fatal, recurring errors that befall anyone who has played a DKC game. However, all the mismatched mistakes suffered in DKC occur even more frequently in Crash Bandicoot because of the injection of the third dimension into the gameplay. I’d be dead if I decided to make a drinking game revolving around how many times one of Crash’s jumps reverted him off to the side of a platform because of that extra spatial dimension. Euclidean range is not your friend in Crash Bandicoot, but the player is forced to work around it and press their luck because the levels seen from Crash’s side view are more commonplace than proper 3D levels where the camera is pointed at his backside. It doesn’t help matters that Crash seems to execute his jumps stiffly because of the controls, feeling as if his bones are brittle on top of lacking a sense of confidence in his platforming abilities. Which level in the game draws out the most fury and contempt from players? Is it the lack of friction in the rainy tower ascent of the aptly named “Slippery Climb?” Perhaps the endurance test of Sunset Vista, or the array of scorchingly hot pipes in “Heavy Machinery?” For my money, it’s the rickety, broken bridge of “The High Road” that tested my patience the most with the exacting precision found in the game. But really, the worst aspect of continual death in Crash Bandicoot is that the game’s method of accommodating it is equally persnickety. The only way to save the game and plant a firm checkpoint on one’s progress is to complete a minigame unlocked by collecting three tokens with a character’s face on them found in each level. The issue with this stipulation is that it isn't guaranteed that the player will succeed in getting to the end of these sections, especially since a narrow bar of steel boxes suspended in the air is the only ground Crash has to walk upon. If the player fails to meet this standard, exhausting every life will drop them all the way back to the beginning of the game. Making the player earn what should be a requisite feature through a challenge outside of the primary objective isn’t any less cruel than simply not offering any continues in the first place.

Again, the DKC connections grow starker regarding Crash Bandicoot’s boss battles. If there is any aspect to the first DKC game that is brazenly half-assed, it’s a collective of tepid and uninspired boss battles that should’ve served as mighty climaxes to their slew of levels preceding them. Conquering Crash Bandicoot’s baddies proves to be just as effortless, but I’d be hard-pressed to label them as uninspired. Occasionally situated between the platforming levels on the map are the boss encounters to alternate the pace of gameplay. Like all of Bugs Bunny’s opponents in his disproportionate battle of wits, Crash’s enemies are an eclectic batch of animals with distinguished personalities. There’s the portly tribesman Papu Papu, the vain, steroid-freak Koala Kong, Tommy Gun-toting, Al Capone wannabe Pinstripe Potoroo, and the straight jacket-detained Ripper Roo who is as insane in the membrane as B-Real after twenty hits from the bong. Of course, the personality of all these foes stems solely from their designs, as they never utter a word and will take maybe a minute to overcome. The scientific duo of Dr. Cortex and his assistant N. Brio does not pose much of a threat either, not even when N. Brio drinks a chemical concoction that turns him into The Hulk as a last-ditch effort to crush Crash. The bosses in Crash Bandicoot are at least memorable and varied unlike those from the first DKC game, but that bar is sunk to the fucking sea level.

In the extensive laundry list of comparisons to DKC, Crash Bandicoot also features a few secrets hidden under its sleeves that will unlock the full extent of its content. However, the way in which Crash Bandicoot conducts the methods of uncovering all of its extraneous rewards is entirely its own. I’m sure the player will come across a screen after completing a level that sees Crash being reprimanded for missing a number of boxes, pummeling him with the literal weight of his failures to the point of total humiliation. A supplementary completionist task that Crash Bandicoot presents is breaking every single crate in every level, rewarding Crash with a white gem instead of punishing him with a throttling. Diligently searching every hidden corner of a level is a trying escapade in of itself. Furthermore, a disheartening caveat to some of these completionist tasks is that Crash must destroy every crate and trek to the end of the level without dying. Not depleting at least five lives between the checkpoints in the later levels is hard enough. If the player manages to master Crash Bandicoot to its acme point, the player can engage with the vestibule before fighting Cortex called “The Great Hall.” Here, the fruits (or gems) of Crash’s meticulous labor will serve as platforms that will lead him to the true ending where Crash accomplishes his mission of saving Tawna as well as defeating Cortex, and Tawna shows her gratitude by grabbing up her half-pint boyfriend and planting a passionate smooch on his cheek. Unfortunately, the true ending does not reveal an additional phase to Cortex’s pitiful fight. Considering the herculean efforts needed to unlock something so miniscule, I’d rather save myself the trouble by telling Crash to forget about her and promise him that there are more fish in the sea.

Essentially, Crash Bandicoot is exactly what everyone’s preconceived expectations were for the platformer genre going forward into the third dimension. Crash Bandicoot technically doesn’t predate Super Mario 64 in terms of its international release, but Crash Bandicoot was obviously in development before Nintendo made the golden template for the 3D platformer generation. A loyal and literal translation of the 2D platformer seen in Crash Bandicoot still proves to be exhilarating, with moments of pure platforming brilliance intermingled in that will win over any Nintendo fanboy. However, what Nintendo foresaw for Super Mario 64 that Naughty Dog didn’t was the glaringly rudimentary buffs and scratches involved with the shift of a 2D genre, especially as early as the first year of the Playstation’s lifespan. This is why scrapping the linearity of a traditional 2D Mario game in favor of the open level design newly granted to the plumber via 3D advancements proved to be far more accommodating for the dimension. Crash Bandicoot, an already grueling and difficult game, is pushed to the limits of sadistic injustice with how many deaths are due to the developer’s inexperience and naivete instead of the player’s genuine platforming skill. Still, one can’t help but be charmed by this goofy Frankenstien creation story filled to the brim with energy and character. With all its faults, Crash Bandicoot is still one of the more interesting of Mario’s (and Donkey Kong in this case) many disciples.

Games like Super Mario 64 and Jumping Flash 1 & 2 can compensate for the necessary hiccups of early 3D platforming by immersing the player in a world that retains its charm decades later. Crash Bandicoot plays too familiar in the spirit of something like Gex to warrant its spot in the Playstation canon; maybe we should have listened to Steven Spielberg’s hype and sought the future of gaming in experiences like Bug! instead.

3D movement in Crash is locked to eight directions but the control scheme doesn’t have the (relative) fluidity afforded by Dualshock support, so you end up with stilted movement that feels like the worst of both digital and analog. The conflict is exacerbated by some less-than-ideal hitboxes, making the platforming more irritating than challenging; likewise, making finer judgments in depth on a console that infamously lacks a z-buffer leads to a lot of frustrating deaths.

I tested a few gamepads and the 8bitdo Pro yet again reigns supreme in comfort with its beefy directional pad; the Switch Pro Controller’s pad felt ‘off’ both wired and wireless. [Note: I don't why I mentioned that]. The arbitrary 3D element added to sidescrolling makes it very easy to miss platforms on account of just existing. Boss fights aren’t that exciting either.

In terms of scenery you’ll explore Jungle Japes But Bad and the Dick Sucking Factory and that’s about it. Level variety is at the bare-minimum of ‘competent’ and radiates the funk of lazy copy-pasting. Do this obstacle. Okay do it again but longer. Okay do it again but longer. Okay do it again but longer. Ad nauseum. The soundtrack of Crash is similarly lazy; in fact it might be the game’s most consistently miserable feature: sparse MIDI instrumentation with crystal-clear CD audio does not mesh well. I was almost taken aback by how bad the soundtrack was in some areas, like somebody was playing a cruel joke on me.

The predictable level design lends the lackluster gameplay no favors: hazards like enemies and platforms are slowly, slowly cobbled into obstacle courses over (often head-scratchingly diffused) checkpoints, but Crash’s essence could easily shrink into three hours. As I was struck by increasingly frequent episodes of deja vu (and alt-tabbing), I found out I still had a two-thirds of the game left.

Every now and then Crash Bandicoot’s groove clicks into place and provides a decent challenge, and I was surprised to find the boulder levels were actually fun, but I’m still giving a firm finger wag. Weren’t the flow so often compromised by positioning needlessly loose platforming. Perhaps there’s enough of a foundation for Crash’s two sequels to expand on, but what’s here is built with toothpicks and blue tack.

Oh boy is this game lucky it launched a highly successful franchise as even for its time, there's a ton of flaws with this game that really make you wonder how it was such a success.

I'll get the flaws out if the way first as the positives do make this game worthwhile, the first being that it relies on a password system despite being able to support memory card saving upon its initial release. This means that there's only limited opportunities to save in this game as opposed to other games around this time where you can do so at the end of each level or after collecting a valuable item in game. The latter is your only opportunity here as even the bonus rounds only give you one chance to clear them to allow to save in them. As this game relies on a password system, your lives reset to four whenever you load a saved game, meaning you're often better off memorising a password rather than using up space in your memory card to track your progress. None of this would be an issue if the game was a cake walk, but alas, this might be one of the hardest ps1 games out there which largely comes down to there being a no dying rule for collecting the box gems in each level. Admittedly this only becomes a hassle later in the game as early stages prevent you from collecting gems due to pathways being inaccessible until you acquire a coloured gem from a later stage, usually from one of the harder levels in the game. Compared to later crash games, the controls here are a bit stiff due to crashes hitbox being a square rather than cylindrical in the sequels, this is a mixed blessing as it can save you from imprecise jumping due to how wide his hitbox is but also leaves you more vulnerable to enemies as they don't have to necessarily touch crash to kill him again due to his large hitbox. The levels themselves can be brutal even without the hitbox issues as we have several of them that have bottomless chasms that crash needs to cross (including the two infamous bridge stages and the castle exterior stage) which is challenging enough without needing to worry about breaking every box in a stage to acquire a gem without dying. There are also two stages that require a key to access, these keys can only be acquired in a bonus stage in two levels that only give you one opportunity to clear and can only be reattempted by exiting the level and acquiring the tokens needed to access the stage again. My final complaint is that outside of the cortex bonus rounds where you acquire the keys, the bonus stages are pointless with Tawna’s only there to acquire a password or save and brio’s bring completely unnecessary with no rewards.

So, what does this game do right that allowed it to launch a successful franchise? A lot actually, the biggest victory being how it translated the gameplay of a game like sonic the hedgehog into 3d which allowed the frenetic pace of that franchise to be realised in 3d environments. The environments look really good for an early ps1 game, sure it's obvious that it's just a bunch of polygons that the sequels dud a better job in stylising, however they at least resemble lush jungle environments and the Australian wildlife which is something I can't say for the likes of Mario 64 where the blocks of polygon only barely resemble the mushroom kingdom in that game. I also like the cast of villains in this game, crash himself is dull and I've never liked him much as a hero even as a kid, Tawna is your typical damsel in distress who even at the time was criticised for being a sexist stereotype which led to her getting replaced by Coco in the sequels. The villains are great though, cortex is a maniacal scientist who would go on to shine in the sequels, brio is the neurotic sidekick who would redeem himself in the next game, Papu Papu is fairly basic but is a fun first boss and not too much of an offensive aboriginal stereotype, ripper roo is a ton of fun and comes complete with a voice sample from Disney's lady and the tramp, koala Kong is a great macho villain who was sadly underutilised as the series went on and finally pinstripe is a fun Mafia stereotype that also has his full potential realised in later games. I also like how collecting all of the gems unlocks the true ending of the game which sees our hero escape with the love of his life rather than fighting his creator just to get her affections, although it's strange how the main ending was the cannon ending of the game and not the true ending which the sequel retcons presumably to censored Tawna into Coco in that game. Also, this is a minor thing, but I appreciate how the game calls the collectibles gems and not emeralds like in sonic the hedgehog, only green gems can be emeralds which naughty dog was clearly aware of here.

It's a very mixed bag of a game, however beating it 100% is immensely satisfying due to how challenging it is to do so. Still, I'd probably go with the nsane trilogy version as that does fix all of the issues this game had.

O esqueleto daquilo que viria a ser o melhor jogo de plataforma em 3D da segunda metade dos anos 1990 (desconsiderando os collect-a-tons do N64, são outra coisa).

This is it, folks! The start of it all! The OG of 3D PlayStation platformers! The game that gave Sony's new PlayStation brand a mascot! 1996's Crash Bandicoot!

The original Crash Bandicoot is a fantastic action-platformer all the way through. One of the main things that makes this game so perfect is that there is just no BS in this game. It's just a completely fun platformer from start to finish. You progress through each of the game's levels by starting at point A and then moving towards point B, and that's it. There aren't any silly gimmicks or moments in the game where it takes a completely different turn, and while some whiny people may argue that that makes the game less interesting/stimulating or too linear (boo hoo), it really only makes it more perfect by just how straight-forward it is. You move through the levels, you break the boxes, you collect the wumpa fruit, you avoid getting hit by enemies, you try to earn the gems, you do your best to not fall down into oblivion. It's all just brilliant!

You play as a marsupial named Crash (if that already wasn't obvious enough) after you escape from captivity by a mad scientist named Neo Cortex. Unfortunately, Cortex is holding Crash's girlfriend hostage and it's up to Crash to save her and stop Cortex's evil plans (sound familiar?), and that's pretty much the entire story. See? Simple!

Everything about the actual game is fantastic. Each level is very well-designed and are all very memorable. The boss battles are very well done. The 3D visuals are as good as almost anything else you're gonna play from 1996 and it still looks pretty solid. It's very easy to control Crash and traverse through each level. Everything is vibrant and colorful, but definitely not in an annoying way. The game is great for both people who just want to simply play through the game as well as people who want more of a challenge and want to complete every challenge the game has to offer.

While getting through each level is simple enough, the real challenge of the game comes from collecting each of the level's gems. Gems are obtained only by breaking every single box in a level, but what makes this Crash game more interesting than the others is that you cannot lose a single life while going for the gem. Yup, you have to break every single box in each level without dying. Some levels also contain secret passages with hidden boxes that are only obtainable by collecting a different level's gem. So you have to be pretty familiar with each level in order to truly 100% this game. Whether you want to do everything or not, you will love every second of it because this game is just so damn fun and rewarding. I've played through this game dozens of times over the years and it is still just as fun today as it was when I first played it many years ago. This game just doesn't get old.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot to mention that the game's soundtrack is absolutely killer. The music really adds to the level's already-awesome atmosphere, whether it be the slightly creepy tunes of levels like Lights Out and Generator Room, or the electronic-y vibes of Heavy Machinery and Cortex Power. The game still sounds fantastic, too. The rain and thunder in Slippery Climb still gives me chills.

The original Crash Bandicoot is a true classic. It really showcased how great 3D and disc-based gaming could be back in 1996, and while I honestly don't love it quite as much as its sequel, Cortex Strikes Back, the original still gets full points from me as it is a perfect platformer that has aged really well. I honestly don't think I'll ever be able to forget this game for as long as I live. Forget about the remake, because the OG Crash Bandicoot is where it's at!