Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time review

In Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, developers Toys for Bob recreated the idea of a reboot-sequel to the original Naughty Dogs trilogy that ended in 1998. The team understood Crash perfectly and recreated favorite characters and action-platformer gameplay elements from the old games, but also added a host of new ideas that fit seamlessly into the game and made it feel like they were always meant to be here.

Crash Bandicoot 4: ItRs About Time.

Crash Bandicoot 4 clearly shows hints of Crash’s previous history: after Warped, Crash’s main villains get out of prison with Neo Cortex and Uka Uka. As usual, Crash will be in the lead role, but his amusing adventures become part of the ironic realization that the game came out so many years later. At the same time, it tells a compelling and entertaining story.

An exciting and fun story.

Brief About Crash Bandicoot 4

Crash Bandicoot 4 keeps the story linear, returning to a world map above ground similar to the one from part one, rather than the transitions between levels from parts two and three. I was surprised by this decision, but it keeps the pace going. Visually it’s nice to be on a world map, with level landmarks, waiting characters, and obvious places for unlockable power-ups.

And it’s nice to be on a world map, with level landmarks, waiting characters, and obvious places for unlockable power-ups.

Any Crash game comes to life through fun, challenging and interesting platformers. Toys for Bob has managed to recreate the magic of the original trilogy and add exciting new elements. Crash’s standards, including double jumps, ground kicks, and attack spins, have been revived, but the new ways to use these skills are exciting.

These massive challenges involve creating different levels with multiple objectives: find a certain percentage of Wumpa fruit, unlock all crates, find a hidden gem and die a certain number of times, — also include creative solutions that require completing increasingly difficult sequences and perfect jumps and spins against enemies. The result is the delightful Crash Bandicoot 4 levels that have become some of the favorites in the series.

All of the levels in Crash Bandicoot 4 are a delightful experience that has become one of the favorites in the series.

Innovations to an old formula

When four quantum masks are added to the game and abilities like gravity bending and time slowing become available, the brain is brimming with ideas. Gravity changes can cause you to lose your bearings, and the game seems deliberately sharpened for the challenge and flow of complex puzzles rather than simple tricks. Crash finds ever-new ways to get around levels, testing your platforming skills on the way to a difficulty that increases in a reasonable way.

The game’s difficulty increases in a reasonable way.

New enemies like hungry sharks and giant locusts, unpredictable jumps and new Crash moves make for a unique adventure. Even if the obstacle was already there, it’s often made more difficult, creating challenges even for well-prepared players. Exactly as with the board surfing familiar from childhood.

Surfing on a board.

Not all levels, like the one with the fire boxes, proved to be to my liking – they only make the game more difficult because of the need to wait for the boxes to cool down. The game also has challenging levels where you have to make quick decisions due to enemies and water currents that change speeds. The endgame challenges use the game’s entire arsenal, including masks, which can be annoying at times, but ultimately makes for a fun and challenging level and one of the best platform games of recent years.

Despite the game’s difficulty, the developers have tried to make it easy to learn new tricks, minimizing the trial-and-error element common to some platformers. As in previous games, there are levels where you have to react quickly to danger, but the new approach makes you feel more confident. The developers made small additions, such as the appearance of a round shadow under the flying Crash. It eliminates guesswork about the landing point, allowing you to concentrate on making dangerous jumps. Olds also have the option to disable this feature in the settings.

So you can turn it off.

Crash Bandicoot 4 sometimes adapts to your level: if you die frequently in one location, a new checkpoint box appears. But in my case it wasn’t necessary, of course. Of course…

Crash Bandicoot 4 offers new tricks besides Musk’s abilities: swinging on a rope, scrambling on rails, and wall-running. But these tricks have become staples of the platforming genre, especially since Warped. Their challenge blends well with the rest of the tools, making timing and precision paramount. A few short sections with rails were a little annoying because of the camera perspective. Crash Bandicoot 4 minimizes the number of confusing situations, but some moments still trip you up and can increase the number of deaths.

Some of these situations are a little more confusing than others.

The game has a number of challenging levels that test your platforming skills. This is not only the main content of the game, but also exciting additional tasks such as time trials, local multiplayer, co-op mode and even an inverted world. The latter — is analogous to the mirror mode from Crash Bandicoot 4, but it introduces many new challenges, even in familiar levels. The first levels give you the ability to see through walls. You have to carefully plan every move, avoid getting trapped, and account for delays between jumps. All of this has become an added incentive, especially when trying to complete the game at 100%.

All of these things have become an added incentive, especially when trying to complete the game at 100%.

New game characters

Crash Bandicoot 4 delights in shifting the focus to the ensemble of playable characters: Dingodile, Tawna, and Cortex. Each of them has individual characteristics, which makes the game even more interesting. Each of the new characters could potentially be the star of their own game. Cortex has lost his double jump in favor of a jerk and a beam weapon that turns enemies into platforms or jumping dots. This makes the levels horizontal. Tawna has a grappling hook, which not only makes combat easier, but is also useful for smashing crates. Finally, Dingidil has vacuum mechanics that allow you to create devastating combos, like sucking in and launching a crate of TNT to smash obstacles.

Here’s the thing.

The only drawback is the difficulty of aiming weapons in Cortex and Dingodile: there’s no aiming reticle — you just shoot in the direction of the character, which sometimes results in a miss. To continue or improve on these concepts, it’s worth revisiting.

New worlds, new visuals

The levels in the Crash 4 game are a joy to play, with a level of fun and detail that sets them apart from the original trilogy. The detail woven into worlds including 18th century winter tundra, New Orleans, and prehistory showcase the developers’ creativity and attention to detail. Crash Bandicoot 4 becomes a natural extension of Toys for Bob’s work that began with Spyro Reignited. The more linear approach to the levels allows for more detail put into the characters, crates and collectibles, making them more interesting. This greatly increases the overall atmosphere of the game, turning it into akin to a Saturday morning Crash cartoon.

The game’s atmosphere is much more interesting, making it more like a Saturday morning Crash cartoon.

This is evident in the character designs: Crash retains his original form and Looney Tunes-style fun, Coco brings a moderate approach to adventure. The updated Tawna goes from stealthy to valiant hero, and Dingodile is given a place emphasizing his personal impact on the restaurant. Toys for Bob brilliantly integrates full character arcs into a story that grows deeper as you progress through their levels.

So far, it’s a great way to integrate the characters’ full arcs into a story that grows deeper as you progress through their levels.

The soundtrack of Crash Bandicoot 4 follows the classic Crash score — fast percussive tracks that adapt to different times. The soundtrack contains some pleasant surprises. I especially liked the sound change when you put on any «quantum» mask.

Soundtrack.