The Wrath of Cortex is Consistently Frustrating
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- Опубліковано 27 тра 2024
- Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, and Crash Bandicoot: Warped are all excellent games - however, the fourth title, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex... not so much. The game received mixed reception from fans and critics, due to its frustrating gameplay and lack of innovation. But The Wrath of Cortex doesn't have just one obvious design flaw to blame, instead a series of small issues all contribute to the disappointment in the first sequel to the Crash Bandicoot Trilogy.
#CrashBandicoot #CrashBandicootTheWrathOfCortex #CrashBandicootWarped
You might have noticed that some of the footage looks a bit blurry. The PS2 outputs interlaced video, which causes problems when capturing the footage for use in a progressive format, like a computer monitor, phone, or any video service on the web. The deinterlacing settings I used here weren't ideal, I will try to avoid this problem in the future.
00:00 What is The Wrath of Cortex?
01:27 Teaching new mechanics
04:09 Alternate paths and hidden gems
06:02 Nitros, nitros, everywhere
08:29 Coco (but the less good version)
09:59 Floaty jumps and a new camera
12:28 Sneak shoes: the worst power-up ever
14:23 Various Things Wrong With The Wrath of Cortex in 4 minutes or fewer
17:22 It's ok I guess
Clips used from:
Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Crash Bandicoot: Warped
Crash Twinsanity
Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
Cuphead
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Star Wars
Squid Game
Original gameplay of Playstation and Playstation 2 games was emulated on PC at 1440p using ePSXe and PCSX2 respectively
Clever camera trickery in the original Crash Bandicoot
all-things-andy-gavin.com/201...
The infamous Cuphead gameplay:
• Cuphead Gamescom Demo:...
Whoa!
• Woah! Green Screen | O...
Chill Wave by Kevin MacLeod
Link: filmmusic.io/song/3498-chill-...
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Killing Time by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Sneaky Snitch by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Retro Action Game Soundtrack by AndySv
Link: www.gamedevmarket.net/asset/r...
Heavy Riffs - More Gain by AndySv
Link: www.gamedevmarket.net/asset/h...
"Bike, Bell Ding, Single, 01-01.wav" By InspectorJ
Link: freesound.org/people/Inspecto...
Licensed Under CC BY 3.0
Button Clicks:
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Paper Rustling Noise:
Link: freesound.org/people/keweldog... - Ігри
I started planning this video when Crash 4 was first announced... it took me a while to finally make it.
Let me know what games you'd like to see me talk about next!
Wow thats indeed a very long time, but it turned out well
Lego Star Wars, I think there is a lot to talk about considering all the other lego games and their mechanics (for example Lego Star Wars The Clone Wars and it's Base Building which was only used in that game)
Your pot of greed vid was incredible. As an MTG fan, I'd love to see vids about Magic. The Steven U vid was great too, cheers!
Play that game along time ago I hardly remember it
Crash 4
Don't forget the insane loading time for this game! I played this as a kid on ps2 and I remember joking about how long he was falling for every time you chose a level
Agreed. The loading time alone sucked the fun out of the game for me and I didn't even get to the first boss before walking away.
the loading time is the ps2's fault especially if it is a phat ps2
The original PS2 version was thankfully the only version which had this issue. Gamecube, Xbox and the Platinum/Greatest Hits version on PS2 had much snappier load times.
@@iCABALi oh my God, hearing that makes me wish I had gotten this game on gamecube as a kid instead LOL
@@PSNSackboy7789 Asides from the exclusive titles (which you obviously couldn't get anywhere else), the vast majority of third party games were at their worst on the PS2. The Gamecube and Xbox were the way to go most of the time lol
Never realized how clever the game design was in the first games for beginners
This sort of stuff is why I love UA-cam, people can explain things that if implemented correctly people don't even register.
Really good design is often easy to not notice.
That´s how clever game design it was
OK but to be devils advocate, I was genuinely awful at games as a kid. I was never able to beat most of the games I played or even make it more than a few levels in. But I was still able to at least make it to the final world in Wrath of Cortex as a stupid kid. If you start catering your game design to people who are somehow worse than THAT at games I think you're doing everyone a disservice.
As the saying, "Good design is often invisible. Bad one often stands out."
As a childhood owner of only this Crash game, I can tell you the worst part about it - the loading times. As a kid I would load up a level and then walk away from my console and find something to keep me busy for the next few minutes because the load times were so long I couldn’t just sit through them. It’s the only game I remember ever having this problem on any system I played.
I can tell you another game that has the same loading problem, Sonic 06. But that's a jar you don't want to open.
@@RenShinomiya121 Hahah, I’ve always loved Sonic but somehow I managed to miss that one growing up, I almost count myself lucky for that :P
@@RenShinomiya121 im sure you don't have to say it, everyone knows about sonic 06 let it goooo let it goooo
On GameCube I never had this issue actually. Definitely remember the loading times being atrocious when I played on my friend’s PS2
Whoa yeah. After re-playing the first trilogy for the 4th time or so I realized I also still own The Wrath of Cortex and I couldn't stand the loading times. I have never played any game with loading times even close to that and it was even more unbearable in a time of open world games.
Funny how they specifically made the walkable nitro crates sit still instead of randomly jumping. Both showing that nitro crates are simply not made for this, and that any other nitro crate cant possibly be walked on because it might jump right as you touch it.
That's an interesting little detail I didn't catch! Good eye!
Well.. kinda? Nitro crates don't jump if they're suspended in the air, they only jump when they're touching the ground. I believe that was always the case in the original games too, at least it is in the N. Sane Trilogy, and is a bit strange when you notice how idle they are. Now I think about it that power up might have just been a joke about how uncanny floating idle Nitro crates appear.
I remember being so disappointed and bored using it when I was a teenager.
"It's a death by thousand paper cuts scenario, it's only when you start looking at the totality of these problems do you start to see the issue" -Cybershell
When i was a kid, I never really knew what the tippy-toe power up was suppose to do since i didn't read the instructions. Anytime i encountered rows of Nitro crates, i either double jump over them or take the hit and take advantage of the invincibility frames to remain invulnerable till i reach a safe platform.. 😅
Same😂😂😂
My big problem with this game was the art and animations, it somehow looks worse than the ps1 games, like, even in the first game crash looks a lot more alive. Not even the gems look good despite being one of the easiest things to model.
The Naughty Dog trilogy used some really innovative technology to get the characters and levels looking so good on a PS1.
Andy Gavin has a series of posts that talk about making Crash Bandicoot - they're a good read: all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-bandicoot-part-1/
Yeah the only good looking levels are those where crash is inside ball thingy
Honestly don’t get why Gamecube was the one to go solid while PlayStation 2 had semi transparent like Warped. It’s still weird that the load times between the two are DRASTICALLY different.
@@CyanLater Basically the original PS2 version had leftover data from a minigame that played during the loading screen, that ended up quickly deleted due to fears of copyright enfringement (Namco supposedly pulled a N Brio and held claim over loading screen minigames due to inventing them :P). It was done so eleventh hour however that leftover data made the loading screens chug, something they only managed to fix by the time of the ports and the Greatest Hits/Platinum rerelease, which has much shorter load times.
@@JspoonG Those levels are a slap in the face
I saw Coco's limited moveset less as a stereotype and more as a throwback to Crash 1's very limited gameplay.
That's still kinda bad. Considering that there was games after crash 1, that had coco in. Its still a regression of gameplay and leads to poor comparison between the characters.
Yea he was SUPER stretching with that one. Kinda left the video with a bad taste...
@@arionell I was thinking the same thing, especially since girls are weaker than boys
@@arionell Agreed, somewhat. It's very odd to complain that it "plays into the stereotype that girls are somehow weaker than boys" (which is true, physically speaking, but not relevant for video games) instead of complaining about the fact that making a different playable character by taking away movement options is incredibly lazy. This is a *gameplay* review, gameplay should be front and center.
@@calsalitra4689 Yeah he made it sound like he believes Men arent generally stronger than women, which just made him sound dumb and/or ideological.
Proper subtitles on youtube are so rare these days, thanks for going above and beyond! Wanted you to know I appreciate the effort it takes to put them in when most viewers won't use them anyway.
According to analytics, about 28% of my audience watches with subtitles turned on - it seems silly not to have proper subtitles considering how many people use them and how little time it takes to clean up the automatic captions UA-cam gives you.
@@PenguinInPyjamas I mean what else you can do, that means majority of the audience are definitely that good on English...i for myself have to use the captions (and as a YTber myself, I used it if I made videos that I think it needs to have one) since I'm not a native speaker.
Yes same I use subtitles for everything. I just don't hear everything people are saying at all.
@@bshays21 yea me to I appreciate anyone who takes the effort and time to make proper subtitles, which I freaking love without them. How am I gonna be able to watch UA-cam while eating subtitles
"It sold well"
Cortex in Twinsanity: "Wrath of Cortex didn't do as well as we hoped"
So what is it, then? Hmm?
I would believe cortex, it came straight from the developers
The Wrath of Cortex sold more than Twinsanity, though, if I remember correctly.
It sold well, but not as well as they hoped. Simple as that.
It sold well, but not as well as expected compared to the previous game.
Words are hard, don't worry you'll get it
It apparently sold better than CTR according to the GDC 2021 Crash 4 presentation.
I know this game isn't very well-liked in the Crash Bandicoot community, but I love this game because of how much nostalgic value it holds to me.
Yeah, but it’s just a piece of junk that i have nostalgia for, but crash Twinsanity, is more of a favorite for me.
The ones with the most nostalgic value for me are Crash Bash and Crash team racing (1999 version).
Crash Bash was so freakin' fun (Especially when played with others). Remember playing it on PS1 with my friends till our fingers were sore.
It's not too bad a game. I put it in the same level as Crash 4. Since Crash 4 has a good bit if jank
@@joshshrum2764 Twinsanity was an absolute banger.
I genuinely find this to be the best crash bandicoot game (in my opinion) it’s the most enjoyable for me ngl
Honestly, i have to say that soundtrack on Crash The Wrath of Cortex is the best thing in the game, there are a couple of great masterpieces. Nice vid btw 🙌🏻
Yeah the music in this game is great, lots of memorable tracks
They may have not had the best foot forward elsewhere but the sound track is a banger
I think all Crash soundtracks are fantastic, but the wrath of cortex takes the cake by a long shot
A couple? The whole soundtrack is great. If only the game could've lived up to it.
@AtlusAngelQ Same for Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the rescue. That game has a great soundtrack.
Arctic Antics was a rather demanding first level, wasn't it, especially due to being an infamous ice physics level. I guess I never noticed since I played the earlier games first. Maybe it was moved to the start later for some reason.
At that point I had already played Crash 2 so many times that level wasn't a problem to me
I think it is an excellent first level
@@pharohcharnes It's definitelly a level made thinking of players that already had some Crash Bandicoot experience.
I like how everyone is calling the human enemies scientists, while they are actually called Lab Assistants
Correction, they're called motherfucker.obj
ssssssssssssssssame thing?
@@knuclear200x except they are robots
@@cheatsykoopa98 sssssssssssssssssstill the same thing?
I like how everyone is calling the human enemies Lab Assistants, while they are actually called obj_motherfuckers
In my opinion the lack of explanation in wrath of cortex made the game more fun. I remember feeling accomplished as a kid when i found out how to beat a new level on my own.
Could just be the nostalgia talking. This was like my favorite game ever when i was young.
Yeah. A lot of these complaints sound like a git gud problem. XD
The originals didn't explain anything either. You are just presented with a wall of crates you can't get past until you break them. It is teaching without teaching.
@@alan62036 except I don't think this is what the developers actually intended. In Fromsoft, the obtuseness is intentionally baked in.
Man, I loved playing this game with my dad when he got the chance as a kid, there were SO many funny moments that became good memories. There were some flaws, but my child brain didn't notice them at the time. It was the best of the Crash games to me back then, I actually grew up playing Crash. Wish they'd remake this one like they did the others. Very good analysis video!
me too, i can understand the critique but it makes me sad so many dislike this game, as a kid seeing this on the original xbox
19:18 - Hey, you take that back. _Twinsanity_ is freaking *amazing!*
_Even if it_ is _only_ half _of a game…_
Honestly curious how it would've turned out if they had the time and budget to finish it.
Hey Twinsanity is a classic.
It's my favourite Crash game ever
Twinsanity is so tragic cause it shows its potential and has hella flaws. i love it
@@ColdNorth0628 It's a very flawed game but I feel like that's part of the charm. As a kid I didn't care whatsoever about how janky it could be. I genuinely loved that games. But honestly I loved Wrath of Cortex as well
This was actually one of the first games I remember playing, I always needed help killing the water boss and until the point I could manage it on my own I would just delete my save and start from the beginning again.
Now after playing the other games in the series and watching this I can see precisely why this game is seen as disappointing. Love the videos and I know you'll get a big break eventually, the pot of greed vid is only the beginning :P I also am really excited about the variety, ringing the bell for whatever comes next
Same, but nobody would help and i never beat that boss
The water boss? Who is that?
That gem path shown at 8:49 was the hardest thing in the game for me. I died dozens of times over the course of an hour trying to complete that path.
Seriously, I've had an easier time playing FromSoftware games.
In fairness, Fromsoft games have a completely different skillset from platformers, 3D or otherwise. It makes perfectly fine sense to be better at one than the other.
@@webbowser8834 True. It just thought it was an amusing analogy, considering FromSoft's reputation for brutally challenging games.
Elden Ring: *Puts 100 Nitro crates on your path*
My ass when you can hop on the zero death path so it doesnt despawn die hit the detonator and have zero nitro crates in your death path
It's a fair challenge though, and it is fun
I really enjoyed this video, good work! I’m glad that someone else has pointed out the wonkiness of Wrath’s camera; it really did help to contribute to a noticeably mediocre gameplay experience when combined with the floaty jump physics, relatively slow movement speed, subpar run animation, and overly wide/sparse level design. Like, even as a kid I was well aware of how inferior Wrath was to the originals in almost every respect. Like…even the visuals were somehow worse lol
Thanks for watching! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Naughty Dog did some really clever stuff to get the original Crash trilogy to look so good - Andy Gavin's "Making Crash Bandicoot" posts are well worth a read if that sort of thing interests you: all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-bandicoot-part-1/
"but it holds up better than the other offerings of the time"
*shows twins*
man talk about a hot take
Flaming
Honestly suprised that these vids are not getting much views. I feel that they are expertly made and are on the level where they should be getting hundreds of thousands
I'm glad you're enjoying them!
Eh I mean they are quite impressive for a new creator but I wouldn't necessarily go that far, it is clear they are picked up by the algorithm and I think this creator could probably start to make it big if they uploaded more frequently.
@@PenguinInPyjamas yeah like how do you only have a few thousand subs? This is quality content! I hope you'll continue to make more
the algorithm giveth and the algorithm taketh away
@@theblode1337 honestly surprised that your comments doesn't have thousands of likes, I feel it is expertly made
I would say Crash 4 takes a lot of the major issues of 2 and Wrath (Replaying large segments) and makes it worse by hiding Crates in positions where you physically can not see them. Or replaying levels with a filter. Combined with trial and error rail sections you're better off sticking with the old games.
It takes the worst aspects of past Crash games and makes them worse.
Agree. I recently got crash 4 and did not care for it much
Same here. I actually have almost, if not all Crash games myself, yet I have been playing the original Warped mainly all these years… no, I have not completed It’s about time, nor Mind over mutant and Crash of the Titans, actually, those two I tried and hated them immediately. I think Twinsanity was the only one I found so bad it was funny… 🤣 I think ”it’s about time” I get the Twinsanity out from storage if I can find it and replay! Had a demo waaaay back in the day and purchased it later…
ignore all side content and it's almost a great game. if only you could remove evil tawna and her broken ass uncharted gamepaly
@@incaseofimportantnegotiations I bet there's a speedrun trick for that
What you probably missed by playing on an emulator are the horrifically long loading times before and AFTER every level like on the original PS2 back in 2001. I think the game was pretty fun, but that completely destroyed it for me.
So, about the red gem in Snow Go:
They fixed this in the remasters, but on the original PSX version of Crash 2, you could actually land in the metal jump crate and do a slide jump + spin + belly flop to be able to reach the gem without having to do the secret level. I've never looked up if anyone else knew about this, but I could always do it consistently. They did place the red gem a bit farther up on the n-sane trilogy to compensate, and honestly, good call lol.
Obviously a new player wouldn't ever know about it at first glance but yeah, just pointing out, it can be done like that lmao
Twinsanity is pretty cool though, at least from what I remember.
No idea if game design wise it wasn't as good as the first trilogy, but I thought it was super fun with a more focused plot and interesting redesigns, for example, while first trilogy Cortex was menacing, I just loved the twinsanity comedy take, specially on him!
One thing to mention about the red gem in 2 is that you could actually MISS and have to redo the hard level all over again.
9:35 It's not a stereotype, it's an objective fact, but in a video game you could give Coco something. Cream the Rabbit's first game was in Sonic Advance 2 and Cream was easy mode in that game. She was almost as fast as Sonic, could fly like Tails, and had a homing attack that made even the final boss a breeze.
The difference between the two games is that Crash Bandicoot started being defined by difficulty on a gameplay level where Sonic Advance 2 ultimately wants you to breeze through the level and if playing Sonic made that task too hard you could play as Cream after unlocking her in the first boss zone.
Coco isn't in the game as an easy mode for Crash Bandicoot, instead it's more challenge for a player to accomplish the same task but with less.
Ok, but twinsanity is still better than this one
The tiptoe power up even becomes obsolete as soon as you start unlocking the double jump, death tornado and even the wumpa Bazooka to…
What they should have done with the tiptoe ability (or sneak shoes as it’s sometimes called) was include stealth levels or enemies that were either invincible or had a very specific weak spot that you had to work round to get to without being spotted…
The tiptoe would have been halfway useful if it let you sneak AROUND the crates rather than just on top, especially since you got in early in the game before those power ups. Basically a fun way to cheese around one of the biggest obstacles at the cost of speed.
5:34 it's actually possible to get the red gem in Crash 2 without entering the hidden level. It's difficult but you can get it from below by sliding, jumping, spinning and then a belly flop for some extra height
The most disappointing thing about WoC was all the stuff previews mentioned that ended up not being in the game. I remember reading an issue of EGM, learning about stuff like mini-bosses, elemental-themed crates, and puzzle segments. It was supposed to be an upgrade over Warped (developed by Konami, no less), but ended up being more of the same with a bunch of technical issues.
Konami were just the publisher
I remember as a child being pretty disappointed with wrath of cortex but of course as a child I couldn't process or articulate why. It's decades later but this puts everything into context.
3:20 Except that isn't the first time. The first time is in secret route in Turtle Woods. Unless player hasn't figured the belly flop by then
I remember how difficult the original 3 games were. Especially the first 2. It was that bad on the 2nd game that my parents had to get a strategy guide for the game when I was 4 years old. 15 years later I gathered all gems and crystals with a 99% completion rate frustrated that I couldnt get to 100%. I can appreciate Cortex strikes back.
Compared to the issues that you have pointed out the Wrath of Cortex felt too...easy. It's not a bad game. It's just that the other games gave me a better challenge. 1st game getting all bonus codes and completion level codes. 2nd game, getting 100% completion rate. 3rd game getting all platinum relics. There's not really anything special going for the Wrath of Cortex besides the level 3 ball level. One of the only few levels I'll replay any day.
Great video, dude. Also, the same title issue of Crash 3 and Crash 4 can apply to CTR and CNK. One where cart racers challenge each other, so only the best one could challenge Nitros Oxide, to save the Earth - called Crash Team Racing. When other, where two teams got taken by Emperor Velo, to entertain his citizens with racing show, while those two teams challenged for faith of the Earth - called Crash Nitro Kart.
Thanks for watching!
Hate to say to this buuuuut it's clearly on you not the games fall you can't be able to pay attention and that's when the games fun regardless how you feel about them and it's not really the game's problems if it were then why are they still bringing back gems and relics because now the challenging to get them and rewarding if they make it too easy it'll be just boring and besides the optional so you have to get all of them there's a crash fan it's clearly up to you if you want to get them all give me personally i got all of them don't know issues except for crash 1 that one was really hard to get them all but i took practice so they're sort of not that hard to get as for crash 3 and 4 uhhhhhhh no 4 i can understand buuuuuuut crash 3 and CTR not really especially 3 because that game is really easy especially with the gems which makes sense because i mean you have to worry about getting without saving and there's and lack hidden places to find the gems only but few and unless you get the color gems and the relics then yeah crash 3 is a really fun game when you come to collecting stuff i change your thos about them since the collectibles in all crash games are divided but you have to remember they're not going to always make them easy to get with some fine with because i make it too easy like wrath it was just boring and not the rewarding
@@raphaelbrown6314 wtf
@@raphaelbrown6314 ?
@raphaelbrown6314 Congrats... your comment has given me a headache
I know 90% of why this game was panned. The level design only made up about 10%. What made people dislike the game so much were the original PS2 load times. This shit took like two minutes to load ONE level and took a minute nearly just to save. That is a LOT of downtime, especially for a kid with a set amount of game time back when I got this game in the early 00s. I'm sure that would be very frustrating to get this game day one and have to wait over 15 minutes in waiting times just to play 5 levels or so
This was my first crash game growing up and I never realized how annoying somethings were because I was young but when I replayed the game a little later. I realized something's are stupid in the game.
6:57 I'm pretty sure that the reason behind using only nitros at bonus levels is because nitro crates (when exploded by green steel box) doesn't break the nearby boxes, because the box only sends the command to break them, but doesn't load the entire level at the same time
You can notice it on levels where wumpa fruits are near nitros, the nitro explodes but the wumpa doesn't flies
They could make it work by sending the same "break boxes" command to any non-nitro boxes in the bonus levels. This does introduce the possibility that players will get confused and think they have to go into the bonus level to break the non-nitro boxes though, so leaving them all nitro is still better to avoid confusion.
13:00 The same power-ups are obtainable in CB4 but WITH Sneaky Shoes being an EXTRA one
When you said "it sold well", my mind just drifted to that joke in twinsanity: "The check bounced? Well, to be honest, Wrath of Cortex didnt do so well as we hoped so-"
"Fish?"
The red gem path in banzai bonsai was literally the last thing i did in my first playthrough of the game. It felt so weird to get a power up on one random location in the game. Feels like they had the original five and kicked one out for a new one because they were forced to and just threw it in at a random location that had any challenge because it was still in the game and not that important. All the places where you need to use the sneaking power up feel forced and easily avoidable. As soon as you get the tornado spin and double jump combo you can skip every single instance where you could use sneaking.
As a kid I never thought this was overwhelming or too hard for an introductory level. This was my first crash game and I really enjoyed it. I played it when I was like 6 well after it came out tho.
I would love to hear your thoughts on Crash 4.
If they really didn't want to bring back the Speed Shoes until the fake ending, I think a better power-up than Sneak Shoes would be for Crash to have an air-dash ability similar to what Pixar's Bolt did, so you could double jump, and then "woosh" forward and land somewhere the Death Tornado couldn't reach; it's kind of like a "triple jump" in a way.
6:24 are we sure about that? The crate in The Eel Deal in the middle of 4 Nitros doesn't get broken by the detonator. Crash Bandicoot 2 motto is "if it's not on screen, it gets de-loaded": the detonator doesn't actually blow up the deloaded Nitro crates, bc thay are, in fact, deloaded. It just deletes them. Those 8 crates adjacent to the nitros wouldn't get touched by the detonator
That's why in (9) Crash Crush you cannot slide-spin too far ahead of the boulder, you have to wait for it to blow the nitros, otherwise they don't get counted and you'll miss the Gem
for the Wrath of Cortex yes, even Level 1 shows it doesn't work anymore like it does in CB2, as the crates after the blue gem (8:12) get blown up by the nitros using the detonator at the main exit. Otherwise you couldn't get the gem :)
It's honestly kind of incredible the game is as decent as it is considering its extremely short development time (pushed out in little over 6 months by the Publisher). Twinsanity was likewise forced out far before being ready or polished in any aspect. Sometimes I wonder how they would have turned out if Traveler's Tales was given more time
Come to think of it, since both games were unfinished,I wonder is that why they were let go from the Crash series
Coco's only a cliche weak girl as much as Crash is a cliche dumb boy. :P You said it yourself, Crash is the brawn, Coco's the brains, even if they could have done something more creative with Coco's gameplay than just a nerfed Crash.
I do prefer the newer games' format where the two are switchable the whole game, but you can kinda see the problem with it story wise, Coco's smarter AND more athletic as Crash (who's dumb and clumsy as hell), in other words, Crash is obsolete now.
Crash 4 probably handles it best. Even though they both play exactly the same, Crash and Coco still come across as unique characters - and it's nice being able to play as Coco the whole time.
@@PenguinInPyjamas Really I think Crash 4 was the least balanced because every difference points to Coco being better than Crash to the point of being almost boringly perfect with Crash almost her useless comic relief sidekick, while in N Sane Trilogy she at least had some quirks of her own like being WAY more of a hot head than Crash in the death/losing animations.
I like the idea that Crash is a butt monkey but at least used to it and can push on, but Coco has an ego and can't handle looking stupid at all. Heck even in WOC we get odd animations showing she's not used to the cartoony stuff like her skidding around on the ice (think Bambi to Crash's Thumper XD) or her angel having to flap like crazy just to ascend. Better than just 'flawless unfunny girl' which is a cliche in itself.
One thing we can all agree on, though… the soundtrack for the Wrath of Cortex was something wicked.
About to give it a listen now again
It's not dimension-hopping in Warped, it's time-warping. The title for It's About Time is tongue-in-cheek about how it's been a long time since there was a proper Crash game.
No, the kart and party games are NOT proper Crash games.
This was the first Crash game I got as a kid, and I never knew about the no-death platforms taking you to the gems. I thought there was something later in the game that unlocked them like the yellow and red switch platforms in Mario, but never really liked the game enough to get very far.
Which is crazy to me because I was 100%ing other games on the platform at the same age.
As this was my first crash game, the absolute air control you have in this game is something I miss in other platformers
As a wrath of cortex speedrunner, the floaty jumps are the WORST parts of any run. Especially when your trying to get wr times, the jump physics can ruin any run in an instant.
I had recently been working on a playthrough for Wrath of Cortex, the wonky physics and overzealous camera angles alone have made that experience far more infuriating than it ever needed to be. It is quite surreal to think that Traveller's Tales had most of the template down for Crash Bandicoot, and even had a remarkably smooth looking engine for its jump to PlayStation 2, but all of their own quirky design choices get in the way of making it feel like a truly compelling follow-up to Warped.
Wrath of cortex is a good game even with his problems
Wrath of Cortex and Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly feel more like mediocre DLC for their predecessors than sequels.
Enter the dragonfly isn't even a finished game either.
Dr. Cortex captures innocent Australian animals, uses Evolv-o-ray on them to turn them into super-strong humanoid (mostly) mutants, then brainwashes them to become his evil servants. The last part is a work in progress. Some mutants become intelligent, like Pinstripe Potoroo or Crunch, others stay dumb, like Crash or Ripper Roo.
In the final showdown, Crash's bazooka and Aku Aku's voodoo magic helped bring Crunch to his senses, then he probably got angry at Dr. Cortex for abusing him, hence Crunch's fist to Cortex's face.
13:32 it's actually worse. Those nitro crates are *specifically* designed to be walk-onable. The rest will explode on contact anyway.
I remember renting this from Blockbuster as a kid! It was pretty awesome imo! Crash TTG was absolutely my favorite! I hate that The Wrath of Cortex got a bad score.
It may be not the best crash game or not even one of the best but I personally have nostalgia with It and love for some reason, and one of its strengths is its incredible soundtrack. Good video man.
You blew my mind at the end.
Crash 3 and 4 have a Greenland vs Iceland thing going on with their titles.
4:10 what's this tune playing in the background?
Playing the game when it launched, I actually didn't mind it much. As a kid, I hated the 3d models and the long loading times, but the levels are fun and the music is decent. Watching this video I realized there are some more weakness to this game that I simply never noticed or just got used to and forgot.
Ultimately it's still not a bad game imho, I'd argue that the original Crash 1 can be as frustrating if not worse.
Also how dare you disrespect Twinsanity aka the last good original Crash game before CB4
The Wrath of Cortex is certainly a lot easier to clear than the Naughty Dog trilogy, which helps reduce the frustration a lot.
Maybe I'll give Twinsanity a second chance some day... maybe...
Twinsanity's actually worse than WOC & even the titans games since it was very unfinished and poorly made Crash game as a result of being so unfinished & rushed. Sure it can still be enjoyed due to its main focus on humor plus being a very short & less demanding game, but fundamentally it fails a lot & is objectively the worst made mainline Crash game. That game has more frustrating elements than WOC as a result.
I also liked twinsanity, especially the soundtrack, but it has some issues for sure
Crash 1 is so frustrating to me. I never found it fun like the DKC games
They really did a good work with the soundtrack, I'm loving it to this day!
19:10 "It's a good time as long as you can handle a little bit of frustration"
Ah yes, the dark souls of Crash games
Some of these complaints are so stupid I thought I was listening to DSP. Funny too how most of these also apply to Crash 3.
Nice to see some actual analysis deeper than the typical "Argh, I am so angry at the frustrating video game" when it comes to Crash tWoC
Brilliant video mate, be proud of this cause it deserves way more than 2k views.
Watching this one year later and man...
Is it awkward to say this was my first ever classic Crash game?
My favorite thing about the Death Routes is that you can cheese most of them by hitting the Nitro detonation switch and backtracking so the route has nearly ZERO obstacles. And the first route thinks it's so clever at 8:08 by putting crates you're supposed to jump on right next to the nitros so you can't finish the route if they're all detonated, but they placed the blue gem BEFORE that impassable wall so you can just grab it and death-warp. Whoops!
Honestly I grew up with this game being the 1st platformer I ever played. You dont need to be a rocket scientist to figure out these mechanics.
Agreed
Yeah, but it's bad game design even if you figure it out. That's what he was saying.
Two years ago I re-bought this game to relive the nostalgia I had for it back when I was six, but damn the controls sucked. TheStimpyLand was right.
Unexpectedly good watch, man. You brought up aspects of this game that I never even considered or have ever seen mentioned. Good job.
I'm gonna say the point of secrets of Crash 2 is to explore something unusual. The Red gem sticking out like that indicates there's a secret somewhere in the game, and it do exist if you noticed a discrepancies on Bear Down (It's intentionally made hard to miss), Which lead you to Secret Portal 1.
This incentive you to go explore and found something that's sticking out like a sore thumb, which the Dev expect you to find really quickly on Air Crash with a neatly placed box and a random platform in the middle of nowhere with no enemy nor box placed. Thus lead you to Secret Portal 2, which is Snow Go.
And the ride continues with hints such as dropping on the center of the map or having a chunk of land sticking out on an usually impossible hole to jump, so they expect you to go explore and finding something out of the ordinary. The only extremely random thing that they did are the Fake Nitros on Bee-Having, which is wtf?
They only did this on Crash 2 since Crash 1 doesn't have any and Crash 3 are locked behind Relics
A video essay with the focus on Twinsanity with the other games of the time in regard would be brilliant, youve a great talent for this and you really keep the viewers engaged. Great video!
Twinsanity is heated garbage.
@@Euro.PatriotDon’t be like that. As a kid it was one of my favourites.
@@Euro.Patriot I didn't like twinsanity either.
@@Euro.PatriotNo its a buggy unfinished gem
I loved the asymmetrical gemhunt in the ps1 games. Made you explore and try so much. There's enough hints to know when you should try something (except the pteradon. Wtf)
The worst part of this game was having the same boss fought over and over, instead of the classic villains from former games
13:42 fun fact! You can use the death tornado spin here so that makes the powerup even more useless lol
9:32 Well it is correct, they're physically weaker than boys, doesn't mean they can't be strong and thats what the Sterotype misses. Women don't need to be stronger than men to be strong as they weren't biologically designed to deal with as physical challenges, so considering them lesser for it is dumb because like they weren't inatley made to excel there so why are you basing their value on that?
anyway Basically Coco should've been unique to crash as she is a character like him, Maybe she's faster but spends less time on movements so has less distance, taking into the unientional Gender Sterotype as again yes Women are biologically different from, that uniqueness is what helps them and us come together to overcome challenges.
Her Bazooka could be a gerade launcher instead, could assist with her stopping long range opponents as unlike crash, she can use it while Moving to make up for how she would rely more on her movemnetum to be kept than crash's standard consistent speed.
Making her viable But not the same as she's a different person, However also show how capable she is in her unique traits.
Awesome video! I’d love to see something on Spyro the Dragon… but if your next vid is like this, I’ll watch it regardless of the topic :)
This was actually the first Crash bandicoot (and only thus far) game I have played. Its mainly because me, my brother and 2 twins were at some kind of meetup with our parents and got to play games. I think we were like 9 or 10 at the time, but still we got through like 5 levels before our english skills and mainly game crashing after losing all our lives stopped us from going further.
*"Wrath of Cortex didn't do as well as we'd hoped."* - N.Cortex (Twinsanity)
Great video man, looking forward to seeing more stuff :),found you on reddit
Thanks for watching!
6:27 did i see the gems of Master Duel 😅💙?
There's something important about the jumps in Crash 2 and 3: They're incredibly consistent, and the levels are designed around their consistent reach, so if you see a jump that looks hard but you're sure you can make, you can easily complete it by just holding down forwards, jumping high, and trusting the developers and testers to have made this jump on par with your jumping range.
It's a simple thing but in a game with floaty air controls it's very easy to overestimate how much you need to control, vs a game with more set movement.
Devil May Cry 1 has a similar case too, the jumping there is very stiff but jumps are designed around that stiffness, so don't try any harder than a basic jump and you can manage the gaps.
that section about spinning was so dumb LMAO biggest nitpick of all time nobody is not gonna know how to press a button
Crash 4 is the worst crash game I've ever played, and one of the worst platformers I've ever played. I remember not liking Wrath of Cortex that much as a kid, but I never HATED it. It can't be anywhere near as bad as Crash 4.
Skill issue 100%
9:28 "...it plays right into the stereotype that girls are somehow weaker than boys". Not that it should affect gameplay, but they are. It's true most of the time.
Precisely.
But Crash 4 is soooooooo frustrating with their crates placement !
I wasn't even THAT frustrated with Wrath of Cortex in comparison !
I was gifted this game as a kid. The second boss introduced me to the concept of bad depth visualization & that was enough reason for me to hate the game. Never make players jump over 2D hazards that move toward them in an over-the-shoulder perspective in an otherwise 3D game. An 11-year-old will call you stupid for it.
If the camera showed everything from the side for that fight, it would be so much more playable.
@@ruschcoil7282 Yeah, it was such a weird choice to not do that.
Really surprised by this video. Some really great analysis on game design and how small difference add up to knock a game down. Well done. You deserve a lot more attention for your content. Subbed.
Thanks!
Officially underrated channel.
Fun fact: there are more unique vehicle types in Wrath of Cortex than there are non-vehicle levels in Wrath of Cortex.
"You have to wait ages for this turtle to carry you"
I mean... It's literally a turtle.
*DING*
Nineteen minutes 19:00
That flying tornado boss had me raging as a kid, playing it for hours until I finally beat it and I don't even know if I ever found out about the separate hit boxes.
The original crash game from 1996 was frustrating.
Very frustrating. A game with early 3D jank if I ever saw one.
I think you took the coco thing way too close to heart, I've seen this happen with other characters in other franchises who get gimped and it happens to guys too, shit just happens
Nvm, finished the video, dunking on Twinsanity invalidates any opinion you have
Typical virtue signalling.