Backlog Game 002: Crash Bandicoot

Main image source: www.playstation.com

Gaming in the 90’s was about so much more than the games themselves. With no social media (or even widely available internet), you really latched on to whatever nuggets of information you could find about what Sega, Sony, or Nintendo (not only, but mostly) were up to.

Magazines of course played a huge role, but some of my most vivid memories of being a young gamer involved TV commercials. To me, this particular commercial, announcing the grand arrival of yet another wannabe platform mascot with ‘tude for days, still resonates almost 30 years after it first aired:

SO MUCH ‘TUUUDDEE!!!

(SO LITTLE RESOLUTION!!!)

But seriously, could this commercial be any more “90’s”?

You have one console brand calling out another in a direct way that I don’t think happens at all these days, you have the snark that comes along almost inherently with taking that approach, and then you have the weirdness that permeats so much 90’s media and that frankly makes it so endearing (like, it’s a guy…in a bandicoot costume…).

As much as I remember the commercial, I don’t remember actually playing the first Crash Bandicoot all that much, or maybe even at all.

For one thing, my household was an N64 one for much of that console generation (I did have a Saturn owing to my familiarity with Sega, that turned out to be the wrong call), and for another, I just couldn’t get to all the games that I wanted to play.

If you can relate to what I’ve written in this piece, then you know how it was at the time.

I mean, you gamed, sure, but you also rode your bike around the neighborhood with your buds, hung out at the local pool with them during the Summer, or went to theater to check out whatever block-buster was out at the time.

So, you had other entertainment options.

Also, money was scarce, and so were opportunities to get new games: one or two at Christmast, one or two for your birthday (and I’m sensitive to the fact that some of you may have gotten less than that!).

For these reasons, though I consider my backlog as starting around 2002, there were still quite a few games prior to that that I have not played, even if all the collateral associated with them is very much a part of my gaming past. What’s also interesting about picking up gaming in 2023 is that many franchises have kind of come full-circle, with re-releases and re-masters already out, allowing gamers like myself to (re)discover franchises they may not otherwise have experienced.

My intro to Crash’s modern escapades came when I received a news alert a few years ago about the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, and though it wasn’t enough to get me gaming at the time, I definitely made a mental note that if I ever did seriously pick up a controller, this would be something I’d try shortly after that (knowing also, somehow, that many of the Crash games past the first three sucked).

I keep hearing how hot the market for old games is in legacy NTSC territories, but here in Europe, you can get older games really cheaply if you search around, so I was very pleased to pick this game up for 11.98 euros, shipping included.

Having just completed the first game, I can say that this is without a doubt an absolutely incredible value as far as cost per hour of gaming.

That exploit took me about 23 hours, and that doesn’t even include the talismans. As a quick side-note, I won’t be going after those, the cost-benefit is not worth it to me, and neither are the associated bragging rights (believe me, why wife will not find me any cooler for beating all the time trials). I’m not a huge fan of companies artificially inflating play-time with such measures, and as far as I’m concerned I am more than satisfied with my experience having achieved all of the gems.

To be honest, I was surprised it even took me that long, because though it’s been a while since I’ve played anything regularly, I know what I’m doing with a controller, this isn’t even really fully 3D, so you know pretty much exactly where you have to go.

And yet…

Crash Bandicoot is HELLA HARD.

I just cannot imagine 13 year-old me sticking with this for very long back when it was first released on the Playstation. As an adult with a better-formed sense of grit, I toughed it out and found the overall experience to be a little frustrating at times, but overall very fun.

So much of that fun had to do with the graphics. Even on the PSX I think this game still holds up (check out the video below for an in-depth account of how the Playstation was “hacked” to birth Crash Bandicoot), but on the PS4…

Wow.

Everything is incredibly bright and vibrant, and if you’re going to struggle with a given level, at least the level is beautiful looking.

Nothing is perfect though, and as much as I really enjoyed actually playing Crash Bandicoot, it still has its flaws, even after a fresh coat of paint.

Whereas the graphics (both new and original) are fantastic, some of the gameplay aspects are very much stuck in the 90’s, and the experience as a whole suffers accordingly. As explained in this Retronauts retrospective discussion about Crash Bandicoot, developers were still figuring out what a 3D game should be; Mario took the open-world approach, Crash took the approach of running into the screen with a fixed camera, technically 3D, but the same thing at all in practice.

Generally it works, but when you’re trying to line up a jump with Crash’s back to you…

It doesn’t (same goes for the boss fight with Ripper Roo and its weird, forward-tilted playfield).

With two-thirds of the N. Sane trilogy left to plays, I will not be jumping into the second game right away. Though I’m aware that the first game is considered the hardest of the original trilogy, thus sparing me some of the challenge I’ve just been through, if I’m going to spend another 20 hours or so with a game, I’d rather jump over to something else. If I had to guess when I tackle the next installment, I keep in mind that it came out just a year after the first (that must have sucked for the Naughty Dog team!), and that sounds like a good estimate.

Overall though, this was a really fun way to do something I wanted to do as a teenager, but with all the modern conveniences of gaming today.

The slogan for this site is “join me as I discover all the games you’ve already played”, but if for some reason you also have not gotten around to this one either and you have some tolerance for dying (over…and over…and over…) definitely check out Crash Bandicoot The N. Sane Trilogy.