Crash Bandicoot: N-Sane Trilogy (2017)

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Does the Spyro trailer even show up in the Xbox One port?

[Jango]

1 hour ago, Jovahexeon Pirate Ridley said:

Does the Spyro trailer even show up in the Xbox One port?

Yup, can access from the main menu with RT, just like the PS4 now is R2.

[Agie]

I got myself the Switch port earlier today, and decided to give it a whirl.

Now, the most obvious difference here is the graphics. I honestly prefer the PS4/Xbone/PC graphics, but I do understand why they had to be downgraded. In my opinion, it still looks pretty good, and when actually playing the game, you're probably not gonna think about it after a while, and think more about the fact that you died again. The loss of detail is a bit harder to notice in handheld mode, though I do find it's still sorta noticeable. Doesn't ruin the game at all, though.

The framerate is fairly stable. Did notice some minor dips that didn't exist in the initial PS4 release, but it doesn't ruin the experience. It's still pretty smooth.

Hitboxes seem the same...whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is up to you. It doesn't bother me, but I could see how some may have problems.

Load times are definitely faster than on the initial PS4 release. Makes things snappier, which is good for a portable game.

Thank goodness for the ability to skip the intro. It's a charming intro, don't get me wrong, but even I have to admit it was wearing out its welcome when it was unskippable.

Remember when I complained that when the game was paused, the PS4 controller's touch pad allowed you to automatically leave the level...and due to the size of the thing, it was far too easy to push it by complete accident? Well, the minus button on the Joycons essentially serves the same function, and for me, at least, it's harder to push by mistake, thus fixing that problem right there.

So overall, it's a pretty solid port of the game. If you played it on PS4 before, then I have to ask; do you want a portable version of the game? If you don't feel the need for it, then it might be best to stick with the PS4 version.

But if you want your Crash fix on the go, this is a pretty good way to do it. Pretty much everything that made the N. Sane Trilogy what it is is here and accounted for, and that's all I wanted out of the port.

And if you never played N. Sane before, and you were holding off until the Switch port to play it? Then I say you're in for a good time. Three games in one package, and it's a nice package at that.

[Blue Blood]

I did not expect to dislike these games. But holy crap, I'm finding absolutely nothing about the gameplay top be enjoyable whatsoever. I'm nearing the end of the second island in Crash 1, and following advice from people more familiar with the series I decided to stop playing and move on to the sequels instead. Road to Nowhere is a bad level. I gather it's a kind of Classic Sonic game deal, where S1 laid the groundwork, but the series truly hit its stride in S2 and S3. Crash 1 is supposedly much more dated less refined. I can accept that. You can skip Sonic 1, and you can skip Crash 1. Later games are better in virtually every way. So I'm up to the second floor of Crash 2 and it's better, clearly, and yet I still don't like it.

Crash 2 is the only game in the series that I've ever played before, and it was for no more than about 10 minutes at an After School Club when I was in primary school; I instantly recognised the layout of a 2D ice area and a 3D river level at the beginning of the game that had just been firmly etched into my mind. Beyond that, I've gone into these games blind. Crash controls strangely, with a few frames of lag before he responds to any movement; you have to jump before the edge of platform, which is a nightmare considering how tigh most of the jumps are. One of my biggest gripes in just about any platformer is when there is no preservation of inertia or moment when letting go of the control stick (or d-pad, as that's what works best here), and Crash suffers immensely from it. At any one time you have complete control over Crash's movements in a detrimental way. Running and jumping won't get you any further than jumping from stationary, and attempting to adjust your jump angle in mid-air will almost certainly result in death. Let go of the D-Pad during a jump and you fall straight down. Plus, as I've seen mentioned plenty of times all over the place, Crash often seems to clip ledges and fall when he should have landed safely. The collision is unfair, especially when combined with the very limited hang-time of jumps aforementioned input lag. Considering this game is entirely about running and jumping with no additional fluff whatsoever, it's pretty poor. 

Just for references sake, I'm playing on the Switch. It's 720p 30fps and looks absolutely gorgeous. Of course it's better on other platforms, but considering how underpowered the Switch is by comparison, it gets top marks. The colours are rich, the backgrounds are detailed and the character animations feel like they were ripped right out of a golden age cartoon. The charm is undeniable. The presentation is rubbish though, and entirely unchanged from the Playstation originals some 20-odd years ago. You go from level to level with no fanfare or explanation, bosses show up out of the blue and even dying feels weak with drawn out animations and slow screen fade outs. Somehow it feels unfinished, as if they haven't finished adding in title cards or adding bits to the map screen and hub.

As a newcomer to the series, one of the biggest problems with this game is how agonisingly close it sticks to the source material (apart from jumping, annoyingly enough). Beyond the visual upgrade, there have been no concessions made to adjust the games for audiences in 2017/18. I would find the games more enjoyable if they had gone to an effort to make them more approachable. At the very least, the lives system in the game is totally unnecessary and outdated, not to mention broken as I was able to grind out infinite lives by standing on one spot and spin attacking respawning enemies that couldn't damage me. There's a lot of nostalgia playing into why the N-Sane Trilogy was so well received by critics and at retail, but I'll be much more interested in a new Crash game that actually attempts to move the series forward. It's unfortunate that this collection is only a visual upgrade. 

All that said, I'll do my best to persevere with all of the games here at some point. But for now it's just not fun. Back to playing De Blob for the time being.

[Blue Wisp]

4 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

De Blob

Off-topic but now that's a name I haven't heard in a while. I forgot that game exists and that it got a port for PS4 and Xbox One... Seven years after it originally released.

Odd.

But regarding your complaints, yeah the game has some wonky hitbox situations that I don't remember having with the originals. It's 100% due to them changing Crash's hitbox from a square to a pill which makes it REALLY finnicky to nail some jumps that you might have done everytime in the originals. 

I can't speak about the newcomer thing because I grew up with the first three games so I'm used to these, but I can totally see why newcomers might have some issues with how Crash handles. Hell before N-Sane Trilogy I haven't played the original trilogy in 15 years so it definitely took me some used to with how Crash jumps and stuff. Doesn't help that Crash 1's level design sucks some donkey balls.  

[PickleBrows]

4 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

As a newcomer to the series, one of the biggest problems with this game is how agonisingly close it sticks to the source material (apart from jumping, annoyingly enough). Beyond the visual upgrade, there have been no concessions made to adjust the games for audiences in 2017/18. I would find the games more enjoyable if they had gone to an effort to make them more approachable.

I also came into the new trilogy as a newcomer, aside from playing some of the first game now and then but never getting that far.

I personally loved that they stuck true to the original games, though for better AND worse admittedly. To be fair there ARE  two big improvements made to Crash 1 with the remake; auto and manual saving at any point instead of hunting for bonus rooms and no longer having to collect all boxes in a stage without dying (coloured gems excluded). Although granted you could argue that those aren't modern concessions so much as improvements to issues that shouldn't have even been there in 1996. For me personally though that was enough to modernise Crash 1, along with the visuals. A reversing camera for backtracking is the only real glaring omission I can still find.

[Blue Blood]

19 minutes ago, Blue Wisp said:

Off-topic but now that's a name I haven't heard in a while. I forgot that game exists and that it got a port for PS4 and Xbox One... Seven years after it originally released.

Between this year and last year, both De Blob 1 and 2 have been ported to modern platforms. The Switch versions are bit behind port; a of the original, which I'm currently playing, came out a few days before the Switch version of Crash. The sequel is due sometime later this year.

The game just feels unfair. The design of the gameplay is based around the camera; rendering a full 3D environment and developing suitable character and camera controls back in the early days of the PS1 was a real difficulty. The solution that the developers came up with then was fine and still is fine for the gameplay it offers. But you think that in 2017 they would tweak the camera angles slightly so that depth perception when jumping doesn't catch you off guard, and that they'd make the 3D sections actually 2D. 

1 minute ago, The Loudest Loud said:

I also came into the new trilogy as a newcomer, aside from playing some of the first game now and then but never getting that far.

I personally loved that they stuck true to the original games, for better AND worse admittedly. To be fair there ARE  two big improvements made to Crash 1 with the remake; auto and manual saving at any point instead of hunting for bonus rooms and no longer having to collect all boxes in a stage without dying (coloured gems excluded). Although granted you could argue that those aren't modern concessions so much as improvements to issues that shouldn't have even been there in 1996.

I'm not even going to consider changes to saving as an improvement because that's just such a standard feature in almost any game, apart from some RPGs, nowadays. Changing the box system sounds like a welcome improvement though. 

[Blue Wisp]

4 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Between this year and last year, both De Blob 1 and 2 have been ported to modern platforms. The Switch versions are bit behind port; a of the original, which I'm currently playing, came out a few days before the Switch version of Crash. The sequel is due sometime later this year.

Such a weird thing to port though, deBlob on Wii were tons of fun but why port two Wii games after 8 years to a new generation out of nowhere. 

Where's my MadWorld port SEGA.

5 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

they would tweak the camera angles slightly so that depth perception when jumping doesn't catch you off guard

This is terrible in Crash 2 and how some levels force you to backtrack backwards to get some crates in alternate pathways and such. It was horrible back in the PS1 and it's horrible here. Double so with the wonky hitboxes. 

Crash 3 greatly fixes all of that, it feels more polished than both Crash 1 and 2 and is my personal favourite of the three. But even if I understand why Vicarious Visions didn't fix the camera issues to be more... Eh. Faithful? To the originals I can't just excuse it because some levels can kiss my ass with that camera. 

[Blue Blood]

There's being faithful to the original for authenticity and there's being faithful for the sake of it.  For example, Majora's Mask 3D limits the use of Ice Arrows water-freezing capabilities to certain spots and allows the allows players to skip forward to any hour of the day. In the original version, any pool of water could be frozen and you could only skip ahead to nighttime. Changing the Ice Arrows is an unnecessary change because it only limits what the player can do, but allowing more flexibility of time skipping is more about quality of life than anything else. These things will always be subjective. In the case of this game though, they chose to change pivotal aspects of how the platforming works but chose not to make any quality of life improvements to go along with it. That's where it seems like stubborn and superfluous design theories. Change one big thing but not changing or "improving" anything else to compensate.

[Ratcicle King]

7 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

Crash 2 is the only game in the series that I've ever played before, and it was for no more than about 10 minutes at an After School Club when I was in primary school; I instantly recognised the layout of a 2D ice area and a 3D river level at the beginning of the game that had just been firmly etched into my mind. Beyond that, I've gone into these games blind. Crash controls strangely, with a few frames of lag before he responds to any movement; you have to jump before the edge of platform, which is a nightmare considering how tigh most of the jumps are. One of my biggest gripes in just about any platformer is when there is no preservation of inertia or moment when letting go of the control stick (or d-pad, as that's what works best here), and Crash suffers immensely from it. At any one time you have complete control over Crash's movements in a detrimental way. Running and jumping won't get you any further than jumping from stationary, and attempting to adjust your jump angle in mid-air will almost certainly result in death. Let go of the D-Pad during a jump and you fall straight down. Plus, as I've seen mentioned plenty of times all over the place, Crash often seems to clip ledges and fall when he should have landed safely. The collision is unfair, especially when combined with the very limited hang-time of jumps aforementioned input lag. Considering this game is entirely about running and jumping with no additional fluff whatsoever, it's pretty poor. 

 

Just for reference, you do know you can slide jump in Crash 2, right? It extends your jump height and distance, while giving you some forward momentum for the jump.

As for the lag, it's odd, there are reports of it existing but also reports of it not existing, I played the PS4 version and maybe it's me being used to it, but I can't recall any lag. Don't know if it's a console thing or a disc thing.

[Your Vest Friend]

Yeah, Crash 2 basically expects you to master the slide jump, in the same way Crash 3 expects you to master the double jump (and later the double jump death tornado spin glide, for a more accurate comparison). 

And then there's the spin slide jump. 

[Blue Blood]

1 hour ago, Ratcicle King said:

Just for reference, you do know you can slide jump in Crash 2, right? It extends your jump height and distance, while giving you some forward momentum for the jump.

As for the lag, it's odd, there are reports of it existing but also reports of it not existing, I played the PS4 version and maybe it's me being used to it, but I can't recall any lag. Don't know if it's a console thing or a disc thing.

I'm not far enough in Crash 2 to have been required to use that mechanic. I've got the digital Switch version, which contains no form of instruction manual so until reading this post I didn't know that that mechanic existed. I assume the game will explain it when I get to a certain point later on, like it's done for other controls. Doesn't help in the case of the first game though.

The lag is definitely there in the Switch version. While I can't speak for the other platforms, you can test it simply by analysing the footage on screen as you press a button.

[Ratcicle King]

@Blue Blood

Oh, the game never tells you about it because it's mapped to the crouch button, O on the PS4, and I assume A on Switch.

Just press it while moving and you'll slide. The slide will default to crouch once it's done, but if you jump before it turns to the crouch animation, you'll do a slide jump, which is basically Mario's long jump, only you get more height and you can still control the direction mid air. You can use it at any point in the game, so it helps with any and all otherwise tight jumps

[Blue Blood]

2 minutes ago, Ratcicle King said:

Oh, the game never tells you about it because it's mapped to the crouch button, O on the PS4, and I assume A on Switch.

Just press it while moving and you'll slide. The slide will default to crouch once it's done, but if you jump before it turns to the crouch animation, you'll do a slide jump, which is basically Mario's long jump, only you get more height and you can still control the direction mid air.

The game has told me about the slide and crawling. It pops up on the first level, and was required in at least one level that I've been through. The slide-jump though, yeah, that's a total new one. I thought that games not explaining basic moves and mechanics in some form was a trend we said goodbye to well over a decade ago...

[Ratcicle King]

1 minute ago, Blue Blood said:

The game has told me about the slide and crawling. It pops up on the first level, and was required in at least one level that I've been through. The slide-jump though, yeah, that's a total new one. I thought that games not explaining basic moves and mechanics in some form was a trend we said goodbye to well over a decade ago...

I THINK one of the loading screen hints tells you about it but it's later in the game, which in itself is pretty dumb. Guess VV just assumed people would naturally attempt to jump after a slide, figuring it out.

[Jango]

4 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

The game has told me about the slide and crawling. It pops up on the first level, and was required in at least one level that I've been through. The slide-jump though, yeah, that's a total new one. I thought that games not explaining basic moves and mechanics in some form was a trend we said goodbye to well over a decade ago...

-Back in my day we had to learn the game by playing it, ya whiny juveniles.

Joking aside, I don't know man, Crash isn't a complex game and frankly, the N.Sane Trilogy gives some -you can say too many- tips during the loading screens (which is kinda useless now because the loading time became really fast after the latest patch, you can't even read it lol)... I'm not saying "lol u suck", but Crash 2 has only 3 action buttons. I don't know which games you're used to play, tho'... Anyways, are you holding down the jump button after a jump or you just tap it? Because that's a common mistake among newcomers I see. The longer you hold the jump button, higher and further you'll go, same applies to when you bounce on crates and enemies (although the bouncing used to carry Crash a bit even further in the original, which I honestly missed). You will feel this especially in the level High Road from Crash 1... If you decide to play it again. Anyways, it works very similar to classic Sonic. The input lag may be a Switch thing, I only experimented such with the crouch+jump move which more often than not, doesn't register. But the regular jumps and slide jumps are responsive as heck. The collision is odd indeed in this new Trilogy, like @Blue Wispexplained, they changed Crash's hit box to a pill which requires you to be extra precise when landing your jumps. Oh and definitely the Road to Nowhere levels can fuck off. But I dig the music.

[Graystripe2000]

The Switch version is the fastest-selling Switch game this year in the UK. Whoah! 

https://mynintendonews.com/2018/07/02/uk-crash-bandicoot-n-sane-trilogy-is-fastest-selling-switch-game-this-year/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[Jango]

11 minutes ago, Operationgamer17 said:

The Switch version is the fastest-selling Switch game this year in the UK. Whoah! 

https://mynintendonews.com/2018/07/02/uk-crash-bandicoot-n-sane-trilogy-is-fastest-selling-switch-game-this-year/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

The history repeats itself, now in another console! I have faith that Crash will successfully hold this title untill Ultimate Smash releases, which is quite an achievement actually. Hopefully a new game is on its way and it's coming to all platforms without the one-year gap exclusivity xD

[Blue Blood]

1 hour ago, Jango said:

Joking aside, I don't know man, Crash isn't a complex game and frankly, the N.Sane Trilogy gives some -you can say too many- tips during the loading screens (which is kinda useless now because the loading time became really fast after the latest patch, you can't even read it lol)... I'm not saying "lol u suck", but Crash 2 has only 3 action buttons.

Right. It's not a difficult thing at all. The thing is though, I had no idea whatsoever that there was a high-jump, because there's nothing that tells me that. All I'm after really is a list of controls. Nothing major.

1 hour ago, Jango said:

Anyways, are you holding down the jump button after a jump or you just tap it? Because that's a common mistake among newcomers I see. The longer you hold the jump button, higher and further you'll go, same applies to when you bounce on crates and enemies (although the bouncing used to carry Crash a bit even further in the original, which I honestly missed). 

lol, I'm surprised you're telling me this. That's a basic function of platformers, not least of all Sonic and this is Sonic board. Yes, I'm holding jumps and bounces. It's just instinctive. I don't think you could even make it very far in these games if you just tapped to jump, considering how tight many of them are even with a full jump. 

1 hour ago, Jango said:

The input lag may be a Switch thing, I only experimented such with the crouch+jump move which more often than not, doesn't register. But the regular jumps and slide jumps are responsive as heck. 

I can't comment on it on other platforms, but on the Switch at least the controls are not as responsive as you would want or expect. When you hit jump, Crash won't actually begin jumping until a few frames later. This actually applies to crouching and walking as well, but jumping is where it's most noticeable for obvious reasons. A lot of the time you won't notice it at all. But particularly in areas where you've got to be very precise, I find myself annoyed that Crash didn't jump before running off the ledge even though I had pressed B. Nintendo Life cite this issue in their review, and a quick Google search turns up mentions of this from last year implying it's not Switch exclusive. 

[EmmBee]

11 hours ago, Blue Wisp said:

Such a weird thing to port though, deBlob on Wii were tons of fun but why port two Wii games after 8 years to a new generation out of nowhere.

It's likely because of THQ Nordic trying to utilize IPs from the original THQ. You're probably going to see a lot more random ports out of nowhere in the next year. We already know they have plans to port old Nickelodeon games to modern systems.

[Sonictrainer]

So I tried the Future Tense DLC yesterday

Spoiler

This level is nuts. Not only are there hidden boxes, a death route, multiple back track areas, and a challenging bonus stage, I managed to go through it 3 times and on my last playthrough, I was missing 4 boxes...

Also, Butch Hartman talks about his initial designs for Crash Bandicoot

 

[Blueknight V2.0]

What do we have here guys? It appears to be Skylanders text and models in the files of the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy. Now obviously these can be found in the PC/Steam versions. Now these texts include a 2017 Skylanders Game, was it cancelled or was it the Switch port of Imaginators? Probably Not the latter as these files are from the PC version.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Blue Knight/Bluestreak said:

What do we have here guys? It appears to be Skylanders text and models in the files of the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy. Now obviously these can be found in the PC/Steam versions. Now these texts include a 2017 Skylanders Game, was it cancelled or was it the Switch port of Imaginators? Probably Not the latter as these files are from the PC version.

Skylanders 2017 is probably the cancelled game, as NST was built upon Skylanders Superchargers, hence why there's no title for Skylanders Imaginators and only referred to as Skylanders 2016

[Jango]

It means nothing, these are leftovers. Remember when people hacked Sonic Generations demo and found the Werehog life icon (and everybody started loosing their minds)? It's because the NST was built over the Skylanders game.

I hope they can dig more interesting stuff next time

[Agie]

Well, Digital Foundry talked about the differences between versions. Kinda interesting what they found, I admit.

Didn't notice the Switch lag, but I compared the PS4 and Switch, and it is slight, but there. You probably won't notice, but it is there.