Why I Love Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time

I've already covered how I think the Crash Bandicoot trilogy is a fantastic set of platformers, but believe it or not, they aren't my favorite Crash Bandicoot games. While the Naughty Dog games are obviously much tighter and more focused than the ambitious It's About Time, I think Toys For Bob's effort improves and iterates on the Crash Bandicoot formula in every way that counts: Gameplay, level design, boss design, environments, art direction, and especially difficulty.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time was always going to be a bit of a loaded game. It pitched itself as the true fourth Crash Bandicoot game, essentially wiping out everything after Crash Team Racing. And I get why that would put someone off, I like my fair share of post-Naughty Dog Crash games too. I thought N-Tranced was pretty great, Twinsanity had a lot of potential and high points despite the bugs, the first Crash Of The Titans is a totally solid platformer, and I will absolutely go to bat for the original Crash 4, Wrath Of Cortex, any day of the week. That being said, despite how gutsy of a move this was, I think It's About Time lives up to that lofty standards. It may divide a lot of Crash Bandicoot fans, but personally, I absolutely think it's the first game to truly live up to the Naughty Dog trilogy and then some.

The main premise of It's About Time is that N Tropy wants to take over the multiverse, so Crash, Coco, Dingodile, an alternate version of Tawna, and Cortex team up to stop him, at least until Cortex betrays everyone in the last second as usual. It's a bit of a mess of a narrative admittedly, but the story more than makes up for that in a number of ways. For starters, the character interactions are an absolute joy. I love the Crash Bandicoot cast, and this game offers a ton of lively animated cutscenes showing them bouncing off each other and it's great. I adore Dingodile's retirement subplot, Lex Lang is still hamming up a storm as Cortex, Crash and Coco's sibling dynamic has never felt more real and genuine, and I kinda like alternate Tawna? What can I say, her free spirited pirate energy is fun and it's not like the original Tawna had anything to build off of. But ultimately, the story is mostly just an excuse to toss Crash and the gang into a bunch of inventive worlds, and man are these worlds cool. The landscapes and environments you visit in Crash 4 are remarkably creative and memorable, from a pirate world to a party in New Orleans to several variants of Cortex's castle to outer space to a post-apocalypse to a futuristic city with flying trucks. The theming in Crash Bandicoot 4 is absolutely on-point, and that's only the start.

Crash Bandicoot 4 also has some of the best gameplay of any Crash game. While I still think Crash 3 is the best game for speedrunning, Crash's moveset in 4 is so tight, fluid, and responsive. Especially coming off the heels of the N-Sane Trilogy, all the sluggishness and hitbox issues that plagued that remake are completely gone here. And the same applies to all the other characters too. Every once in a while, you get to play as Tawna, Cortex, and Dingodile and they're equally fun to play as. In a fashion more akin to Sonic Adventure 1 than Spyro 3, the alternate characters have the same base platforming controls as Crash, but with one cool twist that sets them apart. Tawna has a sick grappling hook that gets used in some very fun timing challenges, Cortex has some solid puzzle platforming challenges with his freeze ray, and my personal favorite, Dingodile has a very Luigi's Mansion-esque combat system where he can suck objects up with his vacuum and shoot them at enemies. 3D platformers often have an issue where the secondary characters aren't as fun to play as, but that's not the case at all in Crash 4.

Crash Bandicoot 4 also has a fantastic central gimmick in the Quantum Masks. Across the course of the game, Crash will stumble upon four masks that will give him a new ability that shifts the world in some way. Lani-Loli will cause objects to phase in and out, Akano will let him do a powerful dark matter spin to glide around, Kupuna-Wa lets him slow down time, and Ika-Ika lets you flip gravity. All of these masks are a joy to use, and I really like how they put control in your hands. It's up to you to remember when to phase in the platform, it's up to you to remember when to flip gravity, it's up to you to figure out when is a good time to slow down time. And the game does a fantastic job at iterating on all of these masks' abilities and giving you increasingly tough challenges that further flesh them out, culminating in my favorite kind of final level where you're tasked with switching between the masks in rapid succession. This whole system reminds me of Rayman 3's combat fatigues which I also praised, but I feel Crash 4 takes the concept even further with its Quantum Masks.

The level design is the real star of the show, though. Everything that I've already mentioned coalesces into one of the most creative, engaging, and satisfying sets of platformer stages I've ever played. Every level is memorable and unique both in terms of their creative theming and how well their themes are utilized. Whether you're jumping across flying cars, rolling through a post-apocalyptic wasteland in a death ball, doing antigravity puzzles with Ika-Ika in a freight ship, slinging yourself from pirate ship to pirate ship as Tawna, rail-grinding through multiple universes in rapid succession, dashing through an alien planet on a weird dino thing, or hoping across rooftops in a music-themed stage, there is never a dull moment in Crash 4. And on top of that, the stages are so dynamic. Many stages often start in one location and end somewhere completely different. The first stage alone has you start on a beach, journey through the forest, head through a cave, rail-grind through a village, and ends with you climbing up a village fortress. It's like the entire first world of Crash 1 compressed into a single level, and it does an immaculate job at setting the bar for how the stages in Crash 4 will be like.

What I also love about Crash Bandicoot 4 is just how hard it is, but in a fair way! It's About Time is a challenging game, it might even be the hardest game in the series, but it also drops a lot of the antiquated elements that made the original trilogy hard. While you can decide to have lives, most players will choose to get unlimited lives, so there's no risk of having to re-do lots of content if you die too much. Respawns are quick and snappy, and the level design never throws any cheap shots at you. Instead, It's About Time's difficulty primarily comes from how far it pushes all of its mechanics. To beat It's About Time, you need to master Crash's movement, the side characters' gameplay, and all of the masks. Crash 4 doesn't stop ramping up the precision platforming until you are a pro at Crash 4, and I love that about it. The final world in particular makes you do lengthy, challenging platforming sequences without a moment to breath, but it feels totally manageable because of how well Crash 4 teaches you in the lead-up to this final world. It's quite possibly one of my favorite final worlds in all of gaming because of how well it functions as a rewarding final challenge. Making it through Cortex Castle and pulling off that aforementioned Quantum Masks sequence was one of the most satisfying moments I've ever had in a platformer, on par with the finale of Celeste which is a very high compliment.

And the bosses are so good too. Crash Bandicoot tends to have pretty weak bosses thanks to its one-hit death system. Either the bosses are really short so replaying them isn't a pain, or they're too long so dying sucks out all the fun. Crash 4's bosses found a perfect solution by implementing checkpoints. These are some of the lengthiest fights in the series, but they're divided into 4-10 distinct phases so dying doesn't set you back too far. These boss fights are filled with fun and unique attack patterns while also testing you on the Masks, with N Brio's music-themed fight being a notable highlight on that front. And Crash 4 once again saves the best for last with its final boss that has Cortex use all the Quantum Masks against you, completely turning the tables in a masterful twist.

That being said, I will admit that Crash 4 does have one fatal flaw. Getting 100% is an absolute pain, because this game is massive. Not only is there roughly 40 stages in its main campaign, but there's also alternate versions of every level, Flashback Tapes to collect that unlock even more runs, lots of costumes to get, a ridiculous amount of boxes to break (some of which are hidden pretty deviously), Gems that you get for minimal death runs, and worst of all, those cruel N Sanely Perfect Relics. However, I don't really see how this is a deal-breaker since you don't have to do any of this stuff. Naughty Dog's games were built around 100% but Crash 4 isn't. It's built around letting the player decide what they want to do, and offer many options for people who want to come back and replay the game. If you want to just beat the game, that's fine. If you want to solely focus on exploration, that's okay too. If you're so invested in the game that you want to push yourself to perfect every level, that's totally fine. And this isn't an inherently worse approach than the way Naughty Dog did things, it's just different. Crash 4 isn't any less of a Crash game because of its approach to completion, that feels like such a minuscule issue on which to judge an entire game. I have the same take about Mario Odyssey and Yoshi's Crafted World and Sonic Adventure 2 and Kirby Canvas Curse. Games having too much content isn't a game-breaking flaw, just engage with what you personally find enjoyment in and ignore the rest. Crash 4's 100% completion is a pain, I'm not denying that, but it doesn't make me like the game any less. One's enjoyment over a game is just as affected by how they choose to play the game as it is by the game itself.

In terms of the presentation, Crash 4 is surprisingly divisive for its shift in art direction, and I'm going to be honest, I still don't understand it. I think this game is the best Crash Bandicoot and the gang has ever looked. The original trilogy was always based off of slapstick cartoons, particularly the Looney Tunes, so Crash looking as cartoonish and animated as he does in 4 is perfect for him. And I hate to trash on the N Sane Trilogy again, but his hyperrealistic design with the human-looking teeth and prevalent fur just looks kind of uncanny to me. Crash Bandicoot as a series thrives when it looks as cartoony as possible, and Crash 4 feels like the peak of that. Even beyond just the designs, Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time is a visual treat with remarkable production values. All the cutscenes are super expressive and well-animated, the environments are so lush and vibrant, the colors are bold and always pop, the N Verted effects are often really sick and weird, and the incredible voice acting only accentuates how good it all looks. The music on the other hand is admittedly a tad unmemorable by Crash standards, since it's a lot more dynamic, adaptive, and ambient, but it does its job well. At its best, it feels like a throwback to the more atmospheric feel of the first game's soundtrack.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time is the game that got me into Crash Bandicoot as a series. When the N Sane Trilogy failed to peak my interest, Crash 4 showed me just how impeccable Crash Bandicoot platforming can be at its best, and going back to the original trilogy only solidified that. Crash 4 isn't without its flaws, but I still think it nails everything that I want out of a great platformer. It has spot-on controls, a lot of variety without feeling disjointed or uneven in quality, ridiculously creative platforming levels that are both dynamic and lengthy, a cool central gimmick that's utilized to its absolute fullest, bombastic multi-phase boss fights, and a satisfying sense of challenge that pushes me to master the game without feeling unfair. I feel many Crash fans claim that the series was never meant to be "this hard", that Crash was never really a rage game like Super Meat Boy, Celeste, Dustforce, Super Monkey Ball 2, or Rayman Origins. And that's probably true, but it doesn't change the fact that Crash 4 is so good at being a rage game that I would easily rank it right up there alongside the titans of the genre. As someone who loves those kinds of games, I can't understate how much of a freaking accomplishment that is.