Crash Bandicoot: N-Sane Trilogy (2017)

[Jango]

Ryan you're gonna have a hard time doing time trials in The Lab... just giving you a friendly heads up haha. I can agree with you, a lot of levels in Crash 1 don't work very well because there's a lot of waiting for obstacles. Sunset Vista and The Lab are very hard to do it, the former because it's a very long level, and the later because you have to count on the timing of the trap floors and the electric fences throughout the whole level.

And...

I've only played Crash 1 so far!!! Still couldn't calmly sit down, relax and start 2 or Warped. It's hard for me to play during the week I'll see if can do it right now, tho', and kinda sorta free.

[TheOcelot]

54 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Honestly, Am I the only one who feels like the insertion of time trials into Crash 1/2...really doesn't work? 

Like I haven't tried Crash 1 yet (Oh god no) but going through Crash 2, there is way way more difficulty trying to get time trials than compared to Warped. It feels like the levels really weren't designed to suit the trials (Which, y'know is understandable considering they weren't invented when Crash 1/2 was made). But even at that, I find myself constantly retrying because the levels feel like they weren't designed with the trials in mind. Let it be really shitty time constraints, crate placements being annoying as hell, or what I feel is the biggest issue, forcing you to wait in levels where you must be constantly going (I.E Sewer Levels with the monkey bars, Polar levels etc). It's doable, but it's not fun. It always feels like I lose the trial because the timing was pretty shit, or the level in general isn't good for trials.

Right now, I'm up to Sewer or Later and it's one of the biggest examples. Gold relic requires 1 minute and 3 seconds, yet you have to be lucky to have a ton of the level hazards line up so you can quickly run through the level. In Warped, the only time this was a real issue was Tomb Wader because of the rising water forcing you to wait, and on top of that, it was inconsistent rising water. Crash 2 feels like Tomb Wader the entire way through.

I feel your pain. I'm also trying to plat Crash 2. I only need three more gold relics:

The Crash 2 levels were of course never designed for the relic races. Add to that the different hit-box, collision detection in the remastered version and the faster moving enemies & Crash's different jump physics playing through level design which hasn't been altered to compliment these changes and the relic races have shown-up how much weaker Crash 2 has become.

 

Hangin' Out is a nightmare. The 1:03 requirement is so harsh.

[Teoskaven]

Haven't played these remakes, but as a person who knows the level design of the trilogy, do you think the time trials in Crash 1 would have been better with the Speed Shoes? I mean, they give them in Crash 2, i'm surprised they're not present in the first title.

[Ratcicle King]

1 hour ago, Teoskaven said:

Haven't played these remakes, but as a person who knows the level design of the trilogy, do you think the time trials in Crash 1 would have been better with the Speed Shoes? I mean, they give them in Crash 2, i'm surprised they're not present in the first title.

Crash 1 is more about timing and jumping, there aren't many spots after the first island in it where you can get away with using the speed shoes and not eating shit as a result.

[PickleBrows]

Been working on getting the Platinum trophy for Crash 1 before touching Crash 2 which I'll do the same for before 3 and yeah there's definitely a conflict between the time trials and the level design.

Here's the thing though, for me the issue's not so much the fact that the levels weren't designed with it in mind, which they obviously weren't back in the day, but rather the seemingly luck-based timing of the various hazards.

Jungle Rollers is what really drew my attention to this early on. Running forward and grabbing the stopwatch immediate almost always resulted in my path being blocked by the first pair of rollers. Waiting a few seconds and THEN grabbing the stopwatch resulted in a far more open run with many of the rollers being  in positions that didn't require me to stop, at worst I had to jump around a few of them.

Turning off things like the rollers and spike polls for time trials would be the obvious solution but Crash's level design really relies on these things to stay engaging so the really wouldn't be all that fun to speed through. Instead, I think touching the stopwatch should have resulted in a brief pause, maybe a countdown, which the game would use to synchronise the timings on the various traps so that the route is guaranteed to be identical with each attempt, essentially achieving the same result as the example I gave above about getting lucky with when you start the time trial.

All that said, I'm still generally having a fun time with the time trials, I haven't given up yet so that must count for something...even if it is just my speed-freak nature not being prepared to take a "You're Too Slow" taunt from any game. 

[E-122-Psi]

On 5 July 2017 at 1:02 AM, VEDJ-F said:

Spoiler

This actually follows a pattern that the remake (and some games that came before) seems to be establishing; the more intelligent you are, the more insane you are. Which, honestly, I don't have that much of an issue with because it better explains Cortex's frustration at apparently being surrounded by idiots when before at least four of them were perfectly fine and just unlucky in dealing with Crash. Speaking of which, he and Coco are pretty much exceptions to the trend, as he's dumb and partially crazy, and she's intelligent and sane (and being made more playful/goofy in the remake does not constitute a sanity loss, that's just giving her more personality). 

 

Spoiler

At the same time, there's still some divisiveness between the two in terms of 'intelligence vs common sense' factor and which of the two siblings actually knows what they're doing, especially in later titles. Even in the games where Crash acts outwardly braindead, he still has some moments of doing something oddly brilliant or where Coco pulls an idiot ball or two. Crash 2 was the nearest to just playing it straight and even then it's made rather ambiguous just how gullible Crash was (then we have the remake where Coco's future self meticulously travels back in time to apparently help Crash pull this blunder....oookay, well thought through).

There's also something apparent in how lacking Coco is in standard 'genius' attributes, she lacks much of any sense of superiority or contempt for 'lower' dumber individuals and will even stoop to their level on casual self-aware terms rather than hypocritical ones (she doesn't do cleaning, end of story). She's not a stick-in-the-mud archetype. She is more liable to laugh at Crash's antics than snide or berate them. No wonder Cortex considered her a failure despite her intelligence boost over the other creations.

That's actually a rather pleasant depth, especially given the stories don't even seem to be placing intentional emphasis on it for the most part. Compare to many other 'simple male, smart female' dynamics where they instinctively run the usual formula into the ground where the female character is a smarter, more stable and just all around better person than the male character in every way (and usually gets to rub it in the latter's face non stop), sometimes even when the writers are genuinely TRYING to make the female character look flawed. *cough*SatAm/Archie*cough* I mean, Coco can replicate almost all of Crash's moves AND can talk AND pull gadgets out her ass. She should by all logic outshine Crash completely, yet she doesn't somehow. She's just...really likeable in handling.

Welllll, anyway after exacerbating fan theories....I FINALLY GOT IT! Played through the first warp rooms of each games so far (feel a bit embarrassed among so many who have speed ran it in one turn). Concerning physics changes, I have noticed it feels a fair bit more stiff, if thankfully not that detrimentally so. I don't know how much this is amping the difficulty, since I remember the trilogy being pretty hard anyway (and I'm a little rusty using the D-Pad). I admit the jump does feel a tiny bit weak. This is probably something where having two characters should have came in handy, perhaps having Crash with the new physics and Coco with a refined version of Crash 1's floatier ones (not to mention would have made Coco more than just an awesome cosmetic).

Either way, it's fun so far. When I get further into each game, THEN my meticulous nitpick sensor will pick up.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/6246-crash-bandicoot-2-cortex-strikes-back/ryannumber3gamer

So, after beating Warped, I decided to get back to Crash 2 and get the time relics! 

Annnnnnnd it was one of the worst experiences I've had with this series. I've never liked time trials to begin with, but in Crash 3, they were at least decently designed challenges with the exception of Tomb Wader. But Crash 2 is really. REALLY. not designed to contain these time trials. I've played every single one of them, and a lot of them suffer from a lot of issues. Levels aren't designed well enough for a time sensitive situation. Often times, the timing is insanely specific and unforgiving. Levels like the snow levels are designed for timing when to move and when to not. Polar levels are the biggest pain in the ass because not only do you have to constantly boost, but there's delays and pauses to Polar's boosts and jumps. In general, the game isn't designed well enough for time trials in my opinion and it makes the majority of this downright boring and annoying to platinum.

[TheOcelot]

7 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/6246-crash-bandicoot-2-cortex-strikes-back/ryannumber3gamer

So, after beating Warped, I decided to get back to Crash 2 and get the time relics! 

Me too! Did it this morning 

Finished up with "Piston It Way" which wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

"Hangin' In" was by far the most difficult. Here's my gold relic playthrough:

https://psnprofiles.com/StonecoldSAS1mgs

[Your Vest Friend]

Yo, this is so goddamn cool. One of the character artists, Danny Williams, has put some (aka the ones he worked on) of the models made for N-Sane Trilogy online. You can turn them around, zoom on them, and even break the models down by layer. 

[E-122-Psi]

Cool site. I'm surprised my laptop could handle stuff like that. While I'm still half and half about some of the redesigns, you can really see the attention to detail with this, especially with the lovely poses we have here.

 

Just defeated Cortex (non-100%) on Warped. I have to say, now I've got accustomed to the newer feel, this was a pretty good replica. There are some control differences for better or worse(on one hand the bike steers better, on another the jet ski feels kinda slow) and there are some minor bugs here and there (died repeatedly on Hang Time, yet still got the skull route) but it doesn't bog things down too badly/ A lot of stuff is hard to judge because it's more personal nitpicks. If you don't have nostalgia over playing the original over and over I'd dare say this is a great title.

I do wish there were some playability differences between Crash and Coco though. I mean the sheer personality there makes me enjoy switching between the two, but that's all there is. Again it could have been a good opportunity to settle some of the complaints about the uniform controlling between games, Coco could have had Crash 1's floatier but less precise mechanics, making either character more suitable depending on the level obstacles.

One thing I've noticed also. Apparently both Crash and Coco can play Mad Bombers but only Coco can play Bye Bye Blimps. I suppose it evens the character level ratio a little, but it seems odd Crash can't access that level despite supposedly having the functionality for it (though I could say the same about Coco for the other animal riding levels and non-Crash referencing bosses).

[Graystripe2000]

Do not be idle as coco when near explosives. 

https://www.twitter.com/SergeantGravy/status/883502211665453056

[Chooch]

So I ran into a really really strange bug during the Crash 2 N. Gin fight. I think it might be worth looking at...

[Your Vest Friend]

48 minutes ago, Chooch said:

So I ran into a really really strange bug during the Crash 2 N. Gin fight. I think it might be worth looking at...

I think I may understand what happened there. I notice that you shot both arms down to the sparking animation in very quick succession, so it seems that the game recognised it as both arms being eliminated based on animation so switched to the next phase, but it didn't have enough time to actually quantify that on the health bar (as it only goes down when the arm's exploding animation is complete). Effectively, you were seeing ghost health while the game correctly knew it was gone...but that still meant that the trophy trigger didn't happen as it could see the ghost health as well.

Yeah, that's something that should be fixed, but at least it's not completely random and game-breaking, I guess?

[E-122-Psi]

I don't know if this has been discovered (and exploited) yet, but it seems neither Crash 2 or 3 deactivate the death routes if you lose a life as Coco.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

So,  looks like you can play the bear run levels without the bear. 

[JaidynReiman]

inb4 patch.

 

Honestly looks pretty cool, but those long jumps look almost impossible to make without the bear.

[Meta77]

Some are impossible without the bear

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Oh they're possible. Some are just N. Sanely hard to pull off. Trust me. I've done it myself.

[Jango]

So, three days ago I've got the platinum trophy for Crash 1, and finally moved to Crash 2... I'm gonna eat my words: the controls here don't work... Even the most ridiculous holes can become deadly. Crash controls very off in N. Sane 2. The high jump has a different input now, instead of pressing circle and X right after, you need to keep holding circle, which is kinda shitty when you want to make a sequence of high jumps... Feels like I'm playing Megaman X, which requires you to keep holding the dash button most of the time. Boy are my thumbs tired. Another thing, Crash doesn't bounce off crates and enemies as far and high as he always did. And he falls/lands too quickly too. This becomes clear in the Crash Crush's Bonus Round (I think it's either this or Air Crash's), where you can perform a bounce chain from start to finish with ease. Here, it's impossible. If feels like you can, but it never quite gets there

Also, I feel like the sound mixing in Crash 2 was poorly made, sometimes you can barely hear the SFX...

[E-122-Psi]

Crash 2 does seem the most rough around the edges. A ton of the worst glitches stem from that particular game and certain parts either don't play as well or look unpolished (eg. some of the animation for the hologram cutscenes looks incomplete).

I remember fearing it would get under looked by developers, since Crash 1 was the first and Warped had tons more gimmicks.

I really hope VV will consider a patch for all this. It looks like the game could have used maybe an extra month or so to polish and test everything.

[Chooch]

I played Crash 2 by far the least so I can't really talk too much about how the N. Sane version feels in comparison to the original, but for me the original feels far and away the worst. Getting sucked off platforms thanks to the new collision and just the general feeling of running around in the environment feels pretty bad. Crash 2 feels better just off of it being Crash 2.

Crash 3 is the greatest of all time forever tho'.

[Dejimon11]

Has anybody seen this yet?

 

[Graystripe2000]

Just now, Dejimon11 said:

Has anybody seen this yet?

 

I posted that earlier.

[TheOcelot]

How about some N-Sane merch

 

[KHCast]

I may be tempted to get one of those for my mom lol. She was loved playing Crash back when me and my siblings were kids ha