➤ Our Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy review 🎮

Close your eyes and think back to the past. You are in front of your PlayStation on a hot summer afternoon and you want to have a good game of Crash Bandicoot: first grab the Memory Card that you find at hand and insert it into the save slot, obviously giving it a good tip, insert the disc and turn on the console. Don't you feel a shiver down your spine when you think about it? Since the release of the first Crash Bandicoot, developed by a semi-unknown Naughty Dog, 21 years have passed and after an adventure full of ups and downs as a roller coaster all Crash fans had slowly lost hope, convinced that the marsupial and his band of friends would never return to keep them company. Unexpectedly, however, Activision has fulfilled their dreams by entrusting the Vicarious Visions team with the task of bringing the first unforgettable chapters dedicated to the Sony mascot to the PlayStation 4. That Activision had some confidence in the development studio was quite logical, after all Vicarious is particularly close to the American producer as he is responsible for the Skylanders franchise and over the years he has had to deal with Crash several times, but the work done with the N. Sane Trilogy is something truly admirable; we expected it a bit after seeing it in action a few months ago in London but to be really appreciated it must be played in its entirety, all in one go.

1, 2, 3… Crash!

The trilogy contains the first three chapters of the orange marsupial saga: Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and Crash Bandicoot: Warped. After a short animated introduction, in pure Crash style (and a somewhat long loading that really reminds us of the waiting times of the first PlayStation), we have access to the game's home screen where we can select the three titles, choosing whether to start a new game or possibly continue one already started without having any kind of limitation and starting from our favorite. For some of you it will be obvious but since more than two decades have passed it is good to do a quick review. Crash is a 3D platformer where the aim of the game is simply to get to the end of the various levels, collecting crates full of colorful fruits along the way: by smashing all the crates you win collectible gems and inside the crates, in turn, they are enclosed the Wumpa fruits. Every 100 fruits you get a 1-up and every time you die you lose one. We proceed like this, passing levels, conquering collectibles, exploring bonus areas and defeating every number of bosses at the end of the area.

Interface and commands have remained unchanged compared to the past: the lives are visible in the upper right corner while on the opposite side we have the Wumpa counter, in the center then the number of split and total crates. With X you jump, with the square you perform the turn attack and to move Crash you can use both the left analogue and the directional cross; between '96 and '98, with the sequels, many other abilities were added to the marsupial, such as area attack and double jump, all available in the related adventures and illustrated by the tutorials. There are some small differences compared to the past but we are faced with extensions rather than changes: the three chapters in fact maintain their native structure with a lot of bonus areas, secret and collectible paths scattered around, however, presenting a certain uniformity in terms of content. So let's talk about the presence of time trials in all three episodes, to which is added the possibility of playing some levels with Crash's little sister, Coco, even outside of Warped. For the less experienced (or just plain rusty!) Players, hints have been introduced during the loading screen of each level.

PlayStation 4 Trophies

The PlayStation trophies of the N. Sane Trilogy are more than 70 and divided into episodes, so that each chapter has its own collection of achievements with relative platinum trophy. The average length of the title adding up the three episodes is really very variable because it depends on how much confidence you have and how many trophies you want to win. For us, the total duration of the three adventures was about 12 hours net of collectibles: if you want all the gems and relics it will take you much longer!

Look how hairy I am

The pause menu also remains extremely dry providing a summary panel on the percentage of the game completed. It will not be possible to act directly on the graphic setting: the title remains fixed at 30 frames per second on both PlayStation 4 and Pro and the only options available for the screen are the inversion of the axes for the control of vehicles where provided for by the game and nothing. more; so if you expected to be able to play in the original graphic format, we have to disappoint you but the reason is soon explained. As we had already told you in our last trial, the developers worked on these three games completely from scratch, using as a reference only the proportions of the character with respect to the game environment, thus reconstructing every single object and animation. From this point of view, the work carried out is really impressive because the attention to detail has not only been dedicated to the narrow corridor levels and the elements inside them but goes far beyond, it extends, eliminating that graphic separation between the game and landscape. The difference is undoubtedly the numerous graphic effects, in particular those of light and water: the glare of the sun on the surfaces, the reflection of the ice sheets or the pouring rain are just some of the many details added for the occasion. The characters also underwent a major restyling while maintaining their original look. The overall result is a real joy for the player but at the same time it turns out to be a bit alienating for those who know the old titles by heart, especially if you listen to the N. Sane Trilogy carefully: the main themes of the levels have all been recomposed. in high definition but the sound effects, such as the sound of the speakers, the Wumpa or the Aku-Aku mask, are truly indistinguishable from the original ones.

Old school difficulty

To really understand the impact of the game you need to go into a little more detail and dissect the three chapters carefully. When we say that the three games are really those of twenty years ago, we don't say it lightly: we bet that each of you keeps the memory of a particularly hated level, an impossible time challenge or a cursed hidden chest that you only found after going up and down the bonus area at least ten times ... 'years ago you experienced these difficulties, get ready because they are still there waiting for you, with the difference that in the meantime we have all played video games for twenty years that have deluded us that they are difficult. Unless you have practiced (or are that kind of self-injuring player ... we meant hardcore), you will find when you pick up the pad that the youth polish is a bit scratched and at least once you will exclaim to yourself "but was it really that hard? ". To be taken seriously, the N. Sane Trilogy requires the same reflexes and concentration used to complete the original games., a particularly grueling performance for all modern gamers a little distracted. The difficulty offered by the trilogy extends as in the past on different levels because in addition to never letting our guard down, we will have to find the bonuses of the various games, redo a level several times to access its secret area, engage in difficult backtracking sessions and understand the right order in which to break a group of crates as if it were a small puzzle.

Made with love

Wouldn't it have been better to simplify the game dynamics a little, making the three chapters more frendly and perhaps opening up to a new audience? For us the answer is no, Vicarious Visions made the right decision, elaborating everything with a truly unexpected elegance. If we were facing a real return of Crash Bandicoot and therefore we had a totally new game on our hands then yes, they should have absolutely revised most of the game mechanics.; the genre over the years has experienced a sharp decline and even if someone is shyly trying to get players used to 3D platformers, it is difficult in the current market to conceptually separate the genre from that large array of children's games, where Skylanders is perhaps the maximum exponent. Let me be clear, The N. Sane Trilogy is within everyone's reach, it is simply a type of game different from contemporary tastes and the approach adopted by the developers is the right one because although the collection was created from scratch, Crash is and Crash remains: this trilogy could not be something different, it had to remain as it has always been even if, it must be said, at certain moments the stench of mold is felt.

However, what the development team has achieved goes far beyond the rosiest expectations because we are talking about a practically perfect remake but initially created by a different developer. Vicarious Visions not only found a bomb in its hands ready to explode at the slightest mistake in handling it but he had to do it by collecting the legacy of a development studio that in the meantime has collected so many successes that it has become practically untouchable ... since today a timid criticism of Naughty Dog is automatically equivalent to hanging in the public square. Yet Vicarious proved to be largely up to the task, working so painstakingly as to emphasize the nuances of the three chapters; although the developer has slightly standardized the titles in some respects, playing the first chapter is not like playing the second or Warped. The first is significantly more woody, the second "lets you play" with less resistance and the third acquires that fluidity that Naughty Dog has given it after having had a little experience.

Not only do we see the growth that the saga has experienced sequel after sequel but, pad in hand, we even perceive the experience and confidence that Naughty Dog herself has perfected in the first years of her debut. Obviously, as nostalgic beasts as we are we would have been satisfied with much less, even a more coarse job would have gone well anyway because you know, when the withdrawal crisis calls and the desperation grows we adapt to anything, but in the face of a such meticulous work you can only pay the due compliments. It would be bold to say that Vicarious Visions with his N. Sane Trilogy has redefined the standards for remastered but has undoubtedly proved that the talent of a development studio is not exclusively innate. but it also goes through hard work of analysis and research until the right balance is found between personal processing and past memory. All this to say: now we want Crash Team Racing.

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Digital Delivery PlayStation Store Price 39.90 € Resources4Gaming.com

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Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy is undoubtedly one of the most successful collections of recent years. To simply call it "remastered" is an understatement given the work done by the development team: the first three chapters of the Crash Bandicoot saga rediscover a graphic splendor that in the nineties the technologies of the time were not able to give them, thus bringing back to the PlayStation 4 those challenges that they made us suffer so much in the past and adding a series of unpublished contents for the occasion. The care taken by Vicarious Visions in the creation of the series does not hide the fact that the game mechanics and the feedback of the commands are now stale, but we would not have wanted anything different. A nice blast from the past without compromise.