Crash Bandicoot has long been a staple of 90s-era 'funny animal' platforming, taking the classic Mario formula of an obstacle course that you need to navigate with limited ability to take a hit, and successfully transporting it into the third dimension.

The N. Sane trilogy encompasses the original three, Naughty Dog-developed games, remade shot for shot by the now aptly-named Vicarious Visions.


Crash Bandicoot's gameplay is the platformer fare of 'get to the end without becoming dead', with the key difference being both Crash's Mario-esqe frailty, and the game's absolute slapstick nature; given the difficulty of these games, aforementioned slapstick is a much-needed reprieve.

Your health is represented in Aku Aku masks; One means you can take a hit, two means two hits, three means that you're invincible, move quickly, and have a jaunty tribal drumbeat backing you for the duration. That's all the mercy you get, and even then, falling or getting crushed won't save you.

While the end goal is to get to the level, and in Crash 2 and 3's cases, do so with a crystal, one omnipresent thing in this series is crates. You can break them. Breaking ALL of them in a given level will earn you a Gem, and while you can certainly beat the game with just Crystals, in order to complete the game, you'll need to acquire all the Gems as well.

So, pretty standard 3D platformer fare, with a Looney Tunes slapstick style added on to reduce frustration at any deaths and to give the games a feeling akin to playing out a cartoon.


Being a remaster, the N. Sane Trilogy has two hurdles to overcome. The first is merely looking good, and they achieve that in spades, with everything looking rather stellar indeed. The second hurdle is overcoming how Crash fans remember the original trilogy looking, and that's a challenge. Crash's PS1 adventures looked pretty good, especially for their time, and the animations still hold up today, especially with regards to Warped.

I'm glad to report that Vicarious Visions captured the look and feel of the original trilogy's animation work perfectly; Everything here, as mentioned, looks good, ans the glow-up makes all three games look as good as you likely remember them on the PS1. Even the new additions to animations, such as Crash bouncing off Papu's belly or the fact that Coco is now a fully playable character with her own animations in all three games, stay to the cartoony spirit of Crash Bandicoot instead of feeling shoehorned.

In short, it looks good, and it captures how these games moved and animated all the way back in the 90s. No mean feat.


Is the N. Sane Trilogy worth your time and money? I'd say so. There are some irritating artifacts of the older design; The camera can still be a nightmare when backtracking, Crash's unified physics leaves some jumps easier and others more difficult, and the games can easily veer into the obtuse.

For those hiccups, however? If you liked the original trilogy, you'll enjoy this one. If you've yet to try a Crash game, this is as good a place as any to begin. For 40$, you get three full, quality games, fully remastered, and that's pretty high value no matter how you look at it.

WHOA

Will always love the original trilogy of Crash. The time trials though? nope.