The true Crash 4 is finally here
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time (PS4) Review
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time was leaked earlier this year in June, showing off the box art to the game’s release on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. We later saw an official reveal trailer days after the leaks. I have been waiting for a brand new Crash Bandicoot game in this classic style of gameplay since Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy’s release in 2017. The title was financially and critically successful. Activision first gave the N. Sane Trilogy treatment to the Spyro trilogy and Crash Team Racing before surprisingly dropping a new Crash Bandicoot game on us. I thoroughly enjoyed Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and I’m glad we finally have a new Crash Bandicoot game to enjoy. I was sad to see the original N. Sane Trilogy developers, Vicarious Visions, did not return for this game. Toys for Bob who worked on Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy for the Nintendo Switch and the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, could deliver a good Crash sequel thanks to their experience with those titles. All of the trailers for this game were interesting and fun to see. Introducing platformer mechanics to the Crash series like grinding on rails and running on walls. Also, they showcased multiple playable characters like Cortex and Dingodile. Lastly, the devs re-iterated the cosmetic skins for this game were unlocked through gameplay and not through microtransaction. Leading up to release, I was somewhat excited for Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time. It’s been over three years since I played Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, so my excitement for this title wasn’t 100% there but I was still looking forward to the game regardless. The price for this game however, being $59.99 kind of threw me off because I thought it was $39.99 before the game’s release. Is this game worth the $59.99 price tag? Is it even worthy enough to have the fourth installment to the original Crash trilogy?
The story for Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is another Crash and Coco stopping Neo Cortex and friends from doing bad stuff. The bad stuff this time around has to do with traveling through time and space. Cortex and co. intend on conquering not just their dimension but all dimensions which is pretty ambitious to say the least. While Crash and Coco are on their journey to stop Neo Cortex, they run into the Quantum Masks which help alter different parts of gameplay like slowing down time or phasing platforms in and out. Crash and Coco also run into an alternate universe version of Tawna. Since time and space is acting weird, this Tawna somehow got mixed up into our Crash and Coco’s world. Tawna is here to assist the duo in defeating Cortex’s plans for dimensional domination but in her own way. Throughout the story, you’ll be able to see how messing with space and time has affected other characters like Dingodile and even Cortex himself. By the end of the story, it was still whatever to me. No one really plays the Crash Bandicoot games for the story…right? I mean I forsure don’t. Crash Bandicoot games are known for their platforming challenges and the story is more or less the last thing people are concerned with. One thing I will praise the story for is the writing. The dialogue throughout Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is fantastic. It’s so smart in its delivery and at times feels like a Saturday morning cartoon. Outside of the surprisingly good writing, the story is super simple which I’m okay with because I don’t expect super complicated stories for the Crash Bandicoot series.
The real reason people are buying this game is for the gameplay. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is still all about platforming over obstacles, breaking boxes, and spinning into enemies. Every Crash level can be played as Coco which is nice if you want to change up your look every once in a while. The new gameplay mechanics for this game involve the Quantum Masks and new platformer mechanics for the series. The Quantum Masks manipulate certain levels to Crash’s advantage. Lani-Loli allows objects and platforms to phase in and out on command. You’ll notice a blue outline and sparkles for objects that do this. Akano gives Crash a better spin attack, allowing Crash to break locked crates and hover in the air. Kupuna-Wa slows down time for a moment which makes dodging fast projectiles easier. Ika-Ika flips the direction of gravity upside down or back to normal.
All of the masks have their own dedication section for certain levels. They spice up gameplay enough without feeling too out of place. The power ups the masks grant are kind of standard for 3D platformers these days. Slowing down time, a stronger basic attack, the masks make platforming more fun and difficult. New platformer mechanics introduced for the Crash series for the first time are grinding on rails, running on walls, and rope swinging. Running on walls and rope swinging act just like most other 3D platformers, jump on the designated wall to start the run or jump towards the rope to start swinging. Grinding on rails is really fun and somewhat different from other 3D platformers. If you’re trying to go for all the boxes, the rail sections will make sure you’re jumping and spinning on the rails constantly to get those boxes. The big difference from other 3D platformers is being able to grind below the railing, adding an additional way to traverse the section. When it comes to these new mechanics, grinding on rails is by far the most enjoyable. Rope swinging and running on walls act just fine while grinding on rails goes an extra step to be different and more fun.
The platforming itself can be very tricky at times. It’s not because of Crash’s movement or anything, it has to do with the level design. Crash moves just fine from what I can gather. I don’t know how this game feels comparatively to the original trilogy or even the N. Sane Trilogy. Crash and all of the other characters’ movements were fine throughout my playthrough. The game even gives you a yellow circle below your character to know exactly where they’re going to land which helps when making precise jumps. The difficult platforming has to do with the level design. A lot of the levels, especially later in the game, will for sure be a challenge. The levels are challenging in a good way. They never were as rage inducing as The High Road in Crash 1’s N. Sane Remaster but I would be lying if I said:
I never once yelled at Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time while playing it.
I definitely yelled at the game because 99% of my deaths were my fault. The way levels are laid out to create this difficulty in the gameplay is great and never felt unfair. Also, since we’re literally traveling through time and space, the scenery is constantly changing. A variety of levels to playthrough and explore, you pretty much have most of the generic platformer locations in this one game. The jungle level, the city level, the ice level; a lot of the iconic platformer locations are here and accounted for.
Outside of Crash and Coco, Tawna is also playable throughout your adventure. Her levels take advantage of her new fitter body along with her grappling hook. Tawna uses the grappling hook to take out enemies, hit crates from a long distance, or advance to the next part of the level. She can also wall jump on designated spots with her stronger physique. Tawna levels are okay. They’re still platforming levels with a grappling hook and wall jumping thrown in to be different from Crash/Coco levels.
Dingodile also gets some gameplay segments of his own. You’ll be using his giant dino tail to swing at enemies and his vacuum cannon to pick up and throw TNT crates. Dingodile levels are less focused on the platforming and more focused on blowing up TNT crates. That’s fine because it would be a bit strange to have all of these characters super focused on platforming. In the end, Dingodile levels aren’t that bad.
My least favorite levels are definitely Cortex’s. For one, he can’t double jump so his movement is already more limiting than the other characters. Second, his main gameplay feature is his ray gun turning enemies into platforms. The ray gun feels a bit awkward to shoot. You literally have to turn your body exactly where you’re trying to shoot.
I would much rather have the ray gun shoot whatever is in my general direction. Let the bullets curve, I don’t really care. The lack of a second jump makes Cortex’s sections of gameplay feel the most difficult and not in a good way. I never once enjoyed myself playing a Cortex level because of the lack of a second jump and how the ray gun operates. He does have this dash move to travel horizontally, so maybe the devs thought a second jump for Cortex might’ve been too many movement options. Regardless, Cortex levels were never fun in my experience.
On the bright side, side character levels are mostly optional. The game will sometimes force you to play a Cortex or Tawna level but you can skip a majority of them.
The main reason I wasn’t so mad and frustrated while playing this game compared to Crash 1’s N. Sane Remaster is because lives don’t matter. If you pick the modern mode, the game will only keep track of how many times you died. You’ll always restart from your last checkpoint as many times as possible. You can play the game in retro mode where lives do matter but you’ll eventually see how much harder the game gets. Obviously, the difficulty for levels will go up gradually but the level length will also increase. So, by only having a limited amount of lives before having to restart the level entirely, this is old school as hell. The game does give you a lot of lives though. A ton of wumpa fruit to collect in each level and 100 of them still grant an extra life. If you want the hardest and toughest way of playing Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, play the retro mode. If you want to enjoy the challenge of Crash 4 without losing your mind completely, play the modern mode. You’ll have a much more relaxed time while still getting to enjoy the platforming challenges. The last couple of levels, I racked up close to 100 deaths. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m bad at the game or these last platforming challenges were genuinely hard.
After completing each level, you can experience the inverted version of that level with a twist. The twist could be a different color pallet or the level being under water. The inverted levels are worth experiencing at least once if you have the time.
Also, the inverted levels give you more gems to collect which will make unlocking skins much easier. There are a ton of skins to unlock and all of them look super dope. The skins also reflect in the cutscenes since they’re rendered with the in game models which is a nice touch. Another unlockable for this game are flashback tapes. Flashback tapes are unlocked when you find them in a level without having a death. The tapes unlock a special challenge level which really test your platforming skills. These are by far the hardest levels this game has to offer but are super satisfying to complete. In conclusion, the platforming is still tough as hell. The variety of playable characters makes the gameplay interesting while not intruding on the main Crash levels. The new mechanics like grinding on rails and the Quantum masks really mixes things up to keep it refreshing. The skins and other unlockables will keep completionists busy for a long time. All in all, the gameplay for Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is what I expected from a successor to the original trilogy.
Presentation wise, the game looks, sounds, and runs fine on the PlayStation 4. I didn’t have any problems with the character design or models. The game looks like a new Crash Bandicoot game for the year 2020. The music and sound effects feel right at home for the Crash series. The only real technical problem I see is the long loading times. Getting into a level could take over 30 seconds which is a lot of time when you’re staring at a black screen the whole duration. Even restarting a level could take just as much time as well. I did run into a couple of weird deaths that I can’t explain outside of them just being glitches. There was also this one time where the camera just didn’t follow Crash so I had to die to reset the camera. Little things like this make Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time a bit rough around the edges but it does do a really good job keeping the Crash Bandicoot look and vibe.
In short, Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is a worthy successor to the original PlayStation trilogy. The story is a super simple plot about good guys stopping the bad guys. The gameplay will challenge your platforming skills to their absolute limit. New gameplay features, a variety of playable characters, and a ton of collectibles to obtain, you can easily spend over 20 hours trying to see everything this game has to offer. While the game currently sits at a $59.99 price point which is a lot for a 3D platformer in 2020, you can wait for a price drop if you’re not super into platformers. Any platformer aficionado should definitely buy the game now because this is a 3D platformer you do not want to miss.
Travis “tvsonic” Vuong
Business e-mail: travisvuong56@gmail.com
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