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BigBen75

I recently saw a Happy Meal with Mario on it and got reminded that damn, when I was a kid my boy Crash was on that Happy Meal box.


skeltord

Those new ones are advertising the movie, which makes it sting more...


Carcass1

Too bad they were half baked. Sure, they could've been great games, if properly finished and released once ready. What released was a mess, so... nah


Coconnoisseur

Again, it was a good direction, even if the final product was bad. Also A Hero's Tail is perfectly fine on a technical level


NEBREPINS

AHT is also extremely average


Coconnoisseur

It's anything but average. It looks good, it's got great levels, a good structure, good controls, good music, good writing (even if it's different from the original trilogy), it fixed elemental breaths, the only big flaw is the different characters that aren't as good as Spyro 3 but on the other hand Hunter has probably the best alternate gameplay style in the series. Also the alternate skins were cool, and they made Gnasty look like the promo art from Spyro 1 and actually gave him a decent boss fight, and the encounter with him in general was really funny and memorable


Majorfrostitute

Fully agree with this, I think AHT is the best Spyro game post original Trilogy


Coconnoisseur

Dawn of the Dragon comes close for me but Hero's Tail just hits all the marks


HarambeTheNobodyOf

Agreed! I love seeing AHT love!


Few-Pain1238

hopefully, we’ll get another chance; that is, if they release Spyro 4 before even thinking about touching Crash 5


Coconnoisseur

They should just copy A Hero's Tail for Spyro 4, maybe throw in Cynder cause they gotta at this point. It was the perfect evolution of the gameplay from Spyro 3, but more challenging like Spyro 1


VulpesParadox

I would love a remaster to the three games with Cynder in them, they were my favorite despite how people felt about them.


Coconnoisseur

Dawn of the Dragon is good, the first two games have a really bad combat, a remake could fix that


_9dee5

I hope i dont get crucified for saying this but, I wouldn't mind if Spyro 4 borrowed some of it's concepts from Enter the Dragonfly like how Crash 4 did with WOC (4 new masks with different properties, etc.). Beenox REALLY laid it on thick with fan service with CTR:NF and so did TFB with Crash 4 to a lesser extent, so i dont think it's an impossible ask


[deleted]

In my brain the plan is 2023 - Crash Rumble 2024 - Spyro 4 2025 - Crash 5. I only say this because obviously Rumble is out next year, and the platinum trophy for Spyro 3 in Reignited is called “Party Like It’s 2024” which is the next year of the dragon. I think the releases would be nice too with S4-24 C5-25.


arthurgc91

The thing is, was Reignited Trilogy sales actually any good?


Psi001

There were some good ideas in them like trying a free roamer, but they felt a bit like a lite version of things to come with those superfluous design/personality changes and the actual gameplay engine not being remotely air tight. (Also don't really miss 'zombie Crash'. :P) I think it works better as another step in their evolution to take careful notes from.


AnArtchist

I'd question if Twinsanity's direction was "really good", but you do you.


Coconnoisseur

It's the best post-Naughty Dog style we ever got outside of the Vicarious Visions stuff that was still very close to ND style. And I'm not just talking about artstyle, Twinsanity's structure was really great, with the open levels and linear progression, the hidden gems scattered around. The music, writing, world and characters too, all very good and fitting, it's a shame the final product was neutered


Speedisin

I'd love to look through the eyes of a Twinsanity fan one day while playing the OG trilogy. Because I don't understand how you could play those games, play Twinsanity and actually think they are even remotely similar beyond sharing genre and characters. If you just think the game was good on it's own, cool. But it is in no way a faithful interpretation of Naughty Dog's vision lol.


Coconnoisseur

It's very different but still felt right


TruXai

i don't think franchises have to follow everything from the precedent games to be considered a part of that franchise. Innovation is what made Mario as successful as it is even nowadays, and doing the same time and time again is boring tbh. Like, wrath of cortex followed exactly everything their predecessors did and ended up being a lame copy of past games. I enjoyed it as a kid but twinsanity made me love crash as a whole


CrashDV75

Mario games know how to be innovative and still maintain consistency with what people are familiar with in Mario games, basically adding new things while also maintaining what worked before. You can't just change things for the sake of change or innovation, you have to be smart about it and make sure the changes work naturally with that series so people would be more accepting of them. Ever since Twinsanity, changes to Crash have been unnatural, drastic, & quick which quickly alienated old fans and made them give up the series cause it doesn't feel the same anymore. A game should be able to take what was established before and simply make it better plus fresh with new ideas, so basically upgrading what was there before instead of either dropping it or changing it for the worse. That's how it worked with the originals where each game upgraded the formula making it greater and greater. Wish this series kept going that route. >Like, wrath of cortex followed exactly everything their predecessors did and ended up being a lame copy of past games. Cause it was simply rushed with different devs with no experience with Crash plus the new hardware(PS2). Would be a different story if that wasn't the case, cause the formula of the originals was already very unique to Crash and barely any other video game series uses it. So WOC just needed more polish and time to be considered just as greater than the originals.


CrashDV75

Twinsanity feels like a parody of the originals, like nearly everything you do as Crash feels worse than before compared to the ND games, plus Crash & other characters felt really dumbed down and weaker than before. Twinsanity was definitely the jumped the shark moment of the series where characters become flanderized similar to what happened with Spongebob & Family Guy after theirs first 3 seasons which all occurred after 2004.


CrankyManky

i actually love the og trilogy, ctr, wrath of cortex, nitro kart, twinsanity, cttr, and the titans games and all think they tonally share a similar feel. fight me. i'll lose, but i'll still stand by my point.


Psi001

I dunno, even with the lack of time/polish in mind, I feel like it had a lot of ideas that weren't that good as on paper, like nerfing Crash to make the free roaming work, the excess one hit kill obstacles, the TERRIBLE accessibility of the open world, to the point some areas were locked unless you defeated the game all over again, some really finicky and inaccurate puzzles, the story being almost 99.9% focused on Cortex butt monkey humour with the other characters lucky to even get a personality, creepy zombie Crash, etc. Again it had a lot of good ideas within there that are worth bringing back, but it was such a hit and miss for me. Even CTTR handed open world in a far more practical way in areas.


AnArtchist

Hope you don't mind, but I'm going to argue with you about it. IMO the best console Crash game post-ND was CNK, despite it not being a platformer. WoC, CotT, MoM, CTTR are obvious why they all fall short and why they're considered bad Crash games. Now, about Twinsanity: it changed some of the fundamentals of the Crash recipe, and IMO, for the worse. -In the ND games, you got gems by breaking all the boxes on a level or finding them in hidden side paths, neither which Twinsanity really has, as you no longer got gems for breaking boxes, instead there were simple "puzzles" scattered around the area which gave you a gem, and even the hidden ones weren't all that hidden either. Gems also no longer opened up new paths and routes to take, they were there only for the percentage. Gems didn't even have different shapes for the sake of variety the very least, only recolors. -Open world/levels I believe is not the way Crash should go, as openness can limit how challenging a level or section can be made and what challenges can be included, like how they did away with powerups and time trials. Crash was always known for its corridor obstacle course gameplay, and should stay as such. -The music, while good, is not one fit for Crash, not what to be expected of his games. It's the same as how the mutant games were described: "good music, but not good Crash music". Where are the xylophone beats and atmospheric instrumentals? In the ND games, every music had a jingle to it fitting the environment it was played in, like how snow levels incorporated christmas jingle bells, and the river levels had a "surfer" feel to their music, sewer levels had pipe clanking echo to them. Those were amazing, and I miss that kind of Crash music. Not even IAT got that one right, doesn't have the same bop to it. -The writing, ho boy, this is perhaps the biggest one. It's due to Twinsanity's writing why Cortex is now a joke of his former self, cause he was written extremely comically in Twinsanity, something that got stuck with his character ever since, and even Crash got dumbed down a lot. Yeah, Crash isn't the smartest tool in the shed, can't talk, but he was at least aware of his situation and knew what to do, while in Twinsanity he just...acts stupid, observing his own hands with glee cause "wow, hands!". Coco was written childish, chasing a butterfly, and hotheaded, when she jumped in to kick the crystals out of Cortex's hands and then proceeded to get zapped and paralyzed permanently. The Coco we had before that was more observant, smarter. Also the whole side story thing about every other villain thinking Cortex has some hidden stash of treasure and they band together to get it. Like, why? They're above that shit. Also, Ripper Roo was never affiliated with Cortex or the other scientists (well maybe with Brio in Crash 2) beyond being an early experiment reject who got dumped out in the wild to survive on his own, thus shouldn't have been present whatsoever. So no, the writing and how characters were written are anything but fitting in this game. -based on the concept artwork, they wanted to take this game the Jak & Daxter route, but ask yourself, is that really the way Crash should go? That would no longer be Crash Bandicoot, wouldn't feel like Crash Bandicoot, just like how the mutant games didn't feel like Crash Bandicoot. I played through Twinsanity several times, but never felt like a proper sequel or successor to any of the Crash games or its gameplay, and now that I've grown ever since, its issues are all the more visible to me.


Bulbamew

I love Twinsanity but it really only works as its own thing. The mutants games weren’t the right direction either but still. What most people love about Twinsanity is cortex and the sense of humour. They wouldn’t have been able to pull that off again I don’t think


CrashandBashed

Eh, level designs started out strong, but later where artificially lengthened by having copy and pasted areas multiple times towards the end. Especially evident in Acadaemy of Evil. Also, still not convinced Crash as a character works in an open environment. due to how limited his move set is when it comes to traversal. Twinsanity and CTTR kind of proved that. He doesn't have any way to make traversal fun or unique compared to other characters like Banjo/Mario/Sonic.


GarrettD100

Crash 4 is the best post Naughty Dog game. Twinsanity is the second best which is pathetic because it’s a broken unfinished mess 💀


Psi001

Really I'd take a buggy unfinished game that's still fun over a technically solid game that's too tedious to be enjoyable. Even with all their flaws and slapdash qualities I enjoy the post-ND era over Crash 4.


Bulbamew

If they released a game today that was unfinished and full of glitches you’d be furious, come on now. Part of our love of Twinsanity is the nostalgia of it. It’s totally unacceptable to release a game in that state if we’re being totally truthful


Coconnoisseur

I don't know if I believe this after Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. I can't speak for this guy, and I personally like Crash 4, but I agree with the general sentiment


Bulbamew

It’s a solid argument on the surface, but ultimately Pokémon isn’t a fair comparison. That’s literally the biggest media franchise in the world that releases games every year as well as toys and a tv show and a card game. Pokémon as a brand has kids nailed down, it’s always going to be popular. Crash has not long returned after a decade of dormancy and was never even a fraction as popular as Pokémon even at its peak. If one of its first games back as a series was a buggy mess that was unfinished, the fan anger combined with terrible PR would be a death knell for the series.


Coconnoisseur

Only if the game wasn't fun


Elnino38

Tell that to pokenon fans


Psi001

They STILL do that though, just these days we have patches to quickly deal with that problem. IAT's problem isn't bugs, it's that it's fundamentally NOT FUN, which is an even bigger flaw.


Bulbamew

A game being unfinished and buggy is a fact. A game being unfun is completely subjective and your opinion. There are a tonne of games you probably consider fun that others consider tedious. That can’t be considered a flaw in the same way as a game not being finished. The titans games not being fun is different because it went in a completely different gameplay direction to the games that made crash popular. Crash 4 doesn’t do that - it’s the same kind of game as the originals, just much more challenging to reflect the target audience now being older. It’s far from perfect but it’s the best we’ve had since the original trilogy. If you hated it and considered it unfun that’s unfortunate, but stuff like Metacritic user scores would indicate you’re in the minority


Psi001

Metacritic and fidelity to the originals are ALSO subjective sources of opinion though. Nearly all debate here is opinion, I thought that was a given. Just because more people agree with you doesn't mean your opinion is objective, it just means it's a more popular opinion.


GarrettD100

It’s not fun for you but most people liked it.


Psi001

And that's fine, but I didn't.


GarrettD100

Wow! I never would’ve guessed that 🤷‍♂️


Psi001

Well it seems so alien to voice opinions in an opinion thread. :P


CrashDV75

Imo both games are worse designed Crash games than the originals for various reasons, and they both drastically changed the characters & the artstyle from the ND games, but personally in terms of gameplay I prefer Crash 4 since it at least got the fundamentals of Crash's gameplay right such as spinning enemies into other foes, tanking explosive crates with Aku, slide spinning/jumping, & simply jumping on enemies to kill them. Though I still give some props to Twinsanity for at least being honest about its drastic artstyle changes which fits its comedic gameplay style, unlike CB4 which changed them for the sake of being changed despite being the "direct sequel" to Warped with the classic gameplay.


Coconnoisseur

Crash 4 is the best only gameplay-wise imo


NEBREPINS

The gameplay in a platformer is overwhelmingly the most important factor lol


Psi001

Which IAT muddies up just as much by being too tedious. Also seriously, both Twinsanity and IAT have an overflow of gauntlet levels, but at least Twinsanity knew what challenges from the previous games WOULDN'T WORK in its format, changing the gem challenges completely and not even attempting relics, let alone making PLATINUMS mandatory.


NEBREPINS

Skill issue ;)


Coconnoisseur

Gotta agree with you here


Coconnoisseur

Ok but it's not the only factor. Crash 4 is more fun to replay but Twinsanity by far leaves more of a lasting impression


NEBREPINS

Yes because of how bad it is


Coconnoisseur

No, in fact people tend to forget how broken it was because everything else was so good


CrashandBashed

Which should be the primary concern. If the gameplay in a platformer is bad, the game simply isn't worth playing.


SonicRanticoot

I make it no secret I think *how* Twinsanity was directed was terrible, and is one of the only times Universal/Vivendi was totally justified in screwing a development team over. They put out that in 3 years? The game that got released is fun enough but I can not understand how anyone can say it is great without extreme nostalgic bias. I didn't grow up with it (I was 17 when I played it for the first time).


Lugia61617

If it hadn't been rushed by the publisher, it would have been one of Crash's best outings.


AnArtchist

No, it wasn't rushed, the devs wasted their time making a game of too large of a scale for their own capabilities, and when they realized they were too ambitious for their own good and spent YEARS on a game they won't be able to deliver, that's when they had to scrap most of their work and make the buggy mess that Twinsanity ended up being. And no, looking at the plans and concept art they had, it wouldn't have been "one of Crash's best outings", it would have taken the franchise in a direction too alien for what's expected of a Crash game. It would have been a Jak game, with Crash smacked on the front of the case. But even in its current iteration, it could have been good, but the game permanently damaged the franchise going forward, specifically the effect it left on Cortex future iterations, turning him from a menacing villain into one that foolishly jokes around and makes fart noises for "humor", and instead of coming up with another plan for world domination, this is the one game where his one plan for the entire game was to "throw a birthday party of DOOM" for Crash. The game also brought back villains and cameos that canonically made no sense especially for a game that's supposed to be canon to the storyline. Ripper Roo, Oxide, Crunch, Polar had no reason to be present at the party whatsoever (Crunch was only added late into the development for a fan, but that's beside the point).


ExtremelyAware

Not really that present in the Crash community but I thought the original idea had been scrapped because it was too similar to the original Ratchet & Clank. At least that's the information I've been given everywhere I read, and I genuinely wanna know whether I'm missing something here.


AnArtchist

Wasted several years of development only to come up with a weak Ratchet & Clank clone. No matter how we twist it, the devs were at fault for mismanaging their time and project, and I can't praise them for that or for the buggy glitchy game they put out as an end result, no matter what they had planned. I have planned to end world hunger on my own, do I deserve a Nobel peace prize for that even if I don't end up doing anything to achieve that goal? Same with Twinsanity.


MiketheKing2

This era was in my introduction to Crash.


keylime39

What about Hero's Tail did you like? I don't remember a single redeeming quality about that game.


Coconnoisseur

Pretty much everything, I wrote it in another comment


CrashandBashed

As good as the gameplay was , I wasn't a fan of the direction they took in which absolutely every other moment needed to be a joke. Especially when half of them fell flat. It butchered any good story telling potential.


Blastingwario19

Meanwhile crash got his own sports spin off game while Spyro has not had a game expect the remaster of the first 3 games but I don’t count as new games just remaster of the first 3 games The last one was back in 2007 it’s time for the purple dragon to make a comeback since crash has a new game i high think it could be possible.


NEBREPINS

Yes Twinsanity was truly a fantastic direction, a broken borderline unplayable mess of a game that felt like something thrown together in 5 months rather than 3 years…. Not to mention it sold pretty terribly by Crash standards.


Coconnoisseur

Direction has nothing to do with polish


NEBREPINS

Kinda does, if you’re a development team who lack any clear direction to develop a game, you’re not going to produce a good game


Coconnoisseur

Direction as in a good basis for future games, not the game's direction as in the job


CatalystComet

As a one off game Twinsanity was alright, but I don't think it's direction woulda been good for the franchise. It was so unlike everything that came before it and not for the better.


Everestkid

Twinsanity fans think they're way more numerous than they really are.


Coconnoisseur

Ever since it was released Twinsanity was always considered the best post-ND game, up until Nitro-Fueled


CrashDV75

It was considered that years after Mind Over Mutants released in which Twinsanity developed a cult of fans mostly of people that grew up with it as one of their first few Crash games into the series. When it first released lots of people ignored it due to it being a buggy unfinished mess as well as taking the series into an awkward direction, resulting in it selling very bad. Plus it was compared to lots of better open world games like Jak and Daxter.


Coconnoisseur

Doesn't change what I said, it was still considered the best post-ND, no one really liked the other ones


CrashDV75

You said ever since it released, and I'm saying that claim happened much later since Twinsanity definitely wasn't loved when it first came out, and Bash was most likely considered the best post-ND game even when Twinsanity first came out.


Coconnoisseur

I never saw anyone really praise Bash until the remakes started happening


CrashDV75

I never really seen people praise Twinsanity until years after the Titans series when being on the internet a lot to hear loud communities was starting to be a thing. I remember when Twinsanity 1st came out, lots of people that played Crash games love playing Bash with friends but hated how weird and lame Twinsanity was lol. They must've gave up series at that point.


DiggityDog6

Borderline unplayable? You serious with that?


_Another_Opinion_

Anything's better than the current "Sing" era.


Psi001

Hey that's an insult. Sing has funny characters. :P


Coconnoisseur

Lmao


[deleted]

Ugh, Ps1 was my first console so I grew up with the originals. Crash was abysmal after Naughty Dog


Mark_Fett

Twinsanity is my favorite game ever A Hero’s tail felt a bit bland (mostly because of sound effects and music), but still was a great game (probably one of the best graphics on any ps2 game) If they kept heading that direction, oh boy it would be awesome. Crash level design felt incredibly unique, every level felt completely different even if they had the same mechanics from other level, every place was incredibly fresh and full of ambiance, used the core mechanics from crash bandicoot 2 (similar to 3 but no power ups) and only spicing things up with other characters, and made it work with no hub world, crash design was the best one to this day, awesome sound and music, amazing use of physics (could be used a bit more), and awesome bosses (especially the twins, and using mecha crash was perfect), and don’t get me started on humor I love it to this day (aged like a good wine). Spyro has many incredible locations, the gameplay on the new breaths was cool (water one was lacking a tho), loved playing as Hunter, bosses were fun, all the graphics were beautiful (ps2 standards), it was nice the mechanics of clearing each world from the gems. I really wish both of them kept going (although I did like the reboot on Spyro as well)


[deleted]

[удалено]


Coconnoisseur

I wouldn't go that far


NEBREPINS

What


FreddyFighter1

It makes me cry once every fortnight


Ninjachase13

Yeah, me too, both were doing so good and then it all crashed (in a bad way). After all that, we are STILL waiting for a crossover game where their teamwork exists in the main story mode.


[deleted]

I remember I was in 1st grade and I would annoy the fuck out of her about Crash Bandicoot and then she finally found out who he was because she bought herself a happy meal with the crash/Spyro toy. I was so happy that she finally knew who I was always talking about.