Is Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time too hard? Is it worth it to 100%? It’s probably the best Crash game of all time, but there might be a bit too much of it… In this video, I look at how Toys for Bob re-imagined Crash and brought him back into the limelight, after their success doing the same for Spyro. So you can be prepared when the game comes out for Switch and PC.
Will I go N-Sane trying playing this game? If you know anything about Crash 4, you know the answer to that…
Transcript:
Are games meant to be completed? What does it mean to “complete” a game?
Well that’s kind of hard to answer isn’t it? It can mean a ton of different things to a wide variety of people. If someone says they completed, or finished, the recent Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 and 2 remake you can’t really know what they meant without further clarification.
Did they get all the goals in both games? Did they get all the goals in both games with multiple, or even all the, skaters? Did they get every challenge in the main 3 challenge categories? Did they get all the achievements?
You might think this is an unnecessary point, because you could just ask them specifically what all they did, but that’s not important. I want to focus on what completing a game means to each of us as individuals.
Let me be very clear, right off the bat here. All of this is arbitrary.
You might have a connotation that “completing” is synonymous with “doing literally every piece of content in a game”, but that’s a subjective assessment. If you’re a trophy or achievement hunter, you can get all of them in a handful of games without doing every challenge in the game. In Marvel’s Spider-Man, you don’t have to do all the bonus objectives in each warehouse fight to get the platinum trophy. And in the Spyro Remakes, you can get the platinum trophies without finishing all the Skill Point challenges.
I just platinum’d Spyro 2 recently. Here’s my Platinum trophy, signifying that I’ve done every other trophy in the game, yet here’s unchecked boxes for challenges I haven’t done. But I still got my platinum and the file select screen percentage is at 120%. Did I “complete” or “finish” the game? Did someone who did everything I did, and also checked all those boxes, “complete” the game more than me? I think the answer to that question is an emphatic “yes”.
The point of that little anecdote was to show that there’s a gradient when comparing what we all view as “completing a game”. If we think back to all the examples of a way a person can complete the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 and 2 Remake, I feel comfortable saying they all completed the game. The only difference is to what degree they literally accomplished every single task possible in the game.
Some of you might have a problem with me saying that someone who simply got all the goals, which takes like 6+ hours, completed the game, when getting every trophy in the game could take 50 to 60 hours. How could I say both of these people are “completing” the game, even if I do admit there’s a gradient when talking about completion? I don’t blame you, it’s something that I just recently came around on. To hopefully alleviate these concerns, we’re gonna have to get boring, if I wasn’t already.
Let’s crack open a digital dictionary. Merriam Webster defines the word “complete”:
“to bring to an end and especially into a perfected state”
I think the disagreement might lie in the importance one puts on the part “and especially into a perfected state”. To me, that emphasizes the gradient I was talking about earlier. It places the people who did more content higher in completion than the people who did less. But to you, getting to a “perfected state” might be the deal breaker. “Completion” would require someone to finish every task that the developer programmed into the game. And that’s a fine perspective to have, but you can’t hold others to your own perspective. The more important part of that definition I read earlier is, “to bring to an end”. A game can be brought to an end while still excluding optional content.
Now that I’ve established the finish line of “completion” is at different places for different people, what does “completing a game” mean to me?
I’ve always been fascinated with the concept of playing past the end credits in a game. I love engaging with optional content that’s meant to push the player to the absolute limits of the game’s mechanics.
Look at Mario games. They’re almost always balanced so that pretty much anyone can get to the end credits, which makes sense considering how wide of a demographic they appeal to. But after the credits roll, you’re given access to much harder levels that test your mastery of Mario’s movement. The developers are able to implement challenges that have no place in the main story’s difficulty progression.
I’m also a sucker for checking off items on a list. I feel like a dumb caveman for admitting that I’m easily manipulated by such a simple thing, but it’s the honest truth. I’ll go back to Mario. It’s so satisfying having all these moons checked off in Super Mario Odyssey. I guess beyond the simple satisfaction of having every moon name in the list, it’s representative of the fact that I finished every single task in this area, that I had the dedication to even do it in the first place. With Mario Odyssey, there weren’t a whole lot of hard moons, but there are a few that really pissed me off. Hell, there’s some I’ve told myself I’ll never get, just on principle. I’m never going to get the moons for 100 jump rope jumps or volleyball volleys. It’s such a difficulty spike from everything else in the game, and more importantly, so mechanically different from the traditional gameplay in the game, that I just don’t care about them.
I don’t attempt to fully complete every game. I’ll generally only go for ones that have satisfying movement or gameplay. I’m not really attracted to replaying games based on the plot, like Until Dawn, because they’re mechanically the same the second time around. Sure the story is good and all, but the gameplay is what keeps me playing something after the credits.
As for how thoroughly I’ll complete a game, it depends. I’ve shown that I’ll ignore challenges if they just are straight up not fun. I’m not into the idea of doing something that isn’t fun just so my percentage will be at 100% instead of 99%.
It also depends on how the game presents it’s challenges. If a game presents collectibles like how the Spyro remakes present their gems, with a tiny little counter at the top of the level select screen, I’m gonna feel compelled get all those gems.
I’m sure there’s one little fella you expect me to talk about. Well uhh… He’s supposed to be here, I told him to show up right around now, but I don’t see him anywh-oh.
This guy. This marsupial. This-this BANDICOOT. I’ve been OBSESSED with him over the past few months. The original and N.Sane. trilogy were perfectly crafted to draw out that desire for completion. They’re a schedule one drug for people like me. Easy to understand, hard to master movement, generally fair challenges, and tallys of all the collectibles in the game ON THE PAUSE SCREEN.
Every time I pause the game to check my phone or mess with settings, I’m confronted with how many time relics or gems I don’t have. This is weaponized content. They want me to feel bad if I have 39 out of 40 gems. I would show you that, but not only have I gotten 40 gems, I have 42! I have 42 out of 40 gems. Isn’t that amazing? I completed the game so hard, I went beyond 100% completion for gems.
Now I’ll be honest. I didn’t do everything in these games. Crash 1 I didn’t even attempt to 100%, because I wasn’t a big fan of the simplistic movement compared to Crash 2 and 3. Crash 3, I did 100% complete though, because it was the one I enjoyed most out of the trilogy. Also, it required me to do all the optional stuff I skipped in 1 and 2 to get the true ending, so there’s that.
Man, I loved those games. It’s kinda crazy how Naughty Dog really hit it out of the park with these games back in the 90s and how Vicarious Visions did a pretty good job of remaking those games while maintaining the fun factor. I wonder if there’s any other games that are in a similar position that came out around the same time. Random tangent here, but I’ve also been in the mood for a racing game.
That’s right. C T R. Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled.
4 word review: Mario Kart, but better.
I could do a whole video about why I love CTR, but I’ll keep it brief here. Crash Team Racing was a fantastic diversion from the gameplay of the original trilogy. I feel like it’s a game you wouldn’t expect to be good. It’s a joke when a series is getting milked, one of the genres you’ll see them reach for a racing game. My point is, I didn’t have very high expectations going into this game. But it scratched every same itch that the original trilogy did, but now you were racing instead of dodging enemies and running through levels.
CTR Nitro Fueled is more than just a remake. Beenox added all the race tracks from CTR’s sequel, Crash Nitro Kart. And on top of that, they made 8 brand new tracks and added 30 new characters. So there was a lot for me to chew my teeth on and… complete.
It was kind of a Crash Renaissance wasn’t it? The N. Sane Trilogy and CTR Nitro Fueled came out in 2017 and 2019 respectively. They were the first Crash games to be critically received well in nearly 20 years. In those twenty years, there were like a billion Crash games that some people admittedly cared for, but none of them hold the widespread appeal the original trilogy and Crash Team Racing have.
People speculate. Rumors materialize. Whispers poke through the silence. “You know these games aren’t gonna be it right? They’re just testing the waters… A brand-new game’s comin.”
And you know what? It’s about time.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is truly something special. It’s a 10 out of 10 in a lot of ways.
The movement is perfectly iterated upon from the N. Sane Trilogy. Control is a hard thing to describe, but I think the best way to put it, is that when I died, I felt like it was my fault as opposed to the game’s. And I can’t say that was the case for the N. Sane trilogy in a lot of places. Crash 4 feels like a perfection of what Crash Bandicoot should control like.
The art-style is another aspect they hit out of the park. Their art team blows me away in general. Especially considering they were responsible for the bastardization of Spyro. Like, how can you redesign this little cute dude into this pug with wings? 7 years later, they gave him some much needed love with the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. It still boggles my mind that the development team that changed Spyro into this BEAST, also came up with this lovingly faithful adaptation. And they continued their great work with Crash 4.
I’ll be honest, I thought Crash looked kinda gross in the N. Sane Trilogy. I think it’s more of a lighting thing than an art style thing, but he always seemed a bit off. And don’t even get me started on Coco, she’s nightmarish.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time rights the course in my mind. I can’t really begin to tell you why I prefer his design, because I don’t know a lot about “art” or anything. But my love for the visuals goes beyond the character design, he’s a lot more animated. The animators utilized squash and stretch to it’s full potential here. He’s able to show so much emotion compared to his N. Sane Trilogy appearance. Which makes him more similar to his original design in the PS1 games.
And you’re able to see so many different emotions because they put a fair amount of effort into the story. Instead of you watching a floating head talk about how they’re gonna kill that darned bandicoot like in Crash 3, you have interactions with these bad guys in the level. All the other characters are just as expressive as Crash, so there’s a lot of good back and forth.
Ohh man, the writing? The writing in a Crash Bandicoot has no right being this good. It’s kind of like my expectations with CTR, in that I didn’t expect much from it, but it promptly taught me never to judge a book by it’s cover. It’s one of those games that makes you wish it was a TV show, because I could definitely watch these characters bounce off each other a couple seasons.
Uhh… I’ve been kind of dancing around this, because I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. I love this game. But man… its a lot.
And I mean that wholeheartedly. There is a lot of game in Crash 4.
There’s 43 levels in the game. Already more than any game in the original trilogy. But hoo boy, do they wring a lot of content out of those levels. You know how levels in Crash 3 would have a gem or two in them? Every non-boss level in Crash 4 has 6 gems. 3 of those are collecting up to 80% of the wumpa fruit in the level, 1 is for destroying all the boxes, 1 is for beating the level in less than 4 deaths, and the last one is for finding a hidden gem somewhere.
Remember how I said there were 6 gems for each level? That was kind of a lie. There’s actually 12 gems for each level, if we’re getting technical. Every level in the game has an N-Verted version, each with the same 6 gems. These N-Verted levels are the same as the original level, but they’re mirrored and a weird visual filter is applied.
Of course, there’s the iconic time trials. Each non-boss level can be speedran, where you break certain boxes to pause the timer for a few seconds. When you finish, you’ll get a relic ranging from Sapphire, to Gold, to Platinum, to Dev times, escalating in difficulty respectively. Dev times are just for bragging rights though, they aren’t counted towards the completion score.
Man, just listing those was exhausting. Can you imag… Wait what’s that? I forgot something?
Of course I did, I forgot the N. Sanely Perfect Relics. And yes, they’re as frustrating as the name implies. To get an N. Sanely Perfect Relic for a level, you have to break every crate in a level and not die ONCE. Not just get the “Under 4 deaths” gem, you can’t die at all. So that’s fun.
Alright that’s all you have to do. Pretty simple isn’t it? That was kind of a rambly bit, so let’s break it down. How many times will you have to play each level? It’ll of course vary based on how good you are, but I’ll give you my experience.
Playthrough 1. Almost every time, I’d get all the Wumpa gems. It’s really easy to collect enough Wumpa fruit to hit the 80% threshold, even if I missed a fair amount of boxes. A lot of the time, I’d get either the “all boxes” or “under 4 deaths” gem, but never both. Sometimes I’d come across the hidden gem, sometimes I’d miss it.
Playthrough 2. Get the “Under 4 deaths” or “All Boxes” gems, whichever I missed from my first playthrough. I’d also grab the hidden gem if I missed it my first time around.
Playthrough 3. Time trial time. These really require a perfect understanding of the controls and knowledge of cycles in the level.
Playthrough 4. I move to the N. Verted version of the level. I only do this part after I get the platinum time relic, so I’m pretty much a god at this level by this point. All the crates are in the same spots, so it’s pretty likely that I can get all 6 N. Verted gems in one playthrough here.
Playthrough 5. Often I’ll miss the hidden N. Verted gem my first go around, so I’ll grab it here. I’ll also pick up the N. Sanely Perfect gem here, because I’ve mastered the level so much.
And that’s all assuming that I do each of these attempts in one go. It’s very, VERY likely that I’ll have to attempt each of these multiple times. And in the case of the time trial relics and N. Sanely perfect relics, it’s not unheard of for me to give dozens of attempts for each of them.
Little tangent here, but some of the box and gem placement in this game is straight-up diabolical. I like a good, well choreographed secret. It’s hard to strike a balance between making a secret path extremely obvious and impossible to notice without knowing about it beforehand. Crash 4 strikes the needle of impossibility more times than I would want from any game.
Like, how was I supposed to know to shift the camera in this particular part of the stage for no reason? And when you do move the camera, it’ll often be a couple hundred pixels that you barely notice. I hate feeling like I’m forced to use a guide when I play games. I like feeling like I’ve discovered secrets like this of my own accord.
But if I were to go about finding all the boxes and gems in the game without using a guide, I’d probably waste 5 or so hours that could be completely eradicated if I looked at a guide. If you’re interested in my perspective on walkthroughs in gaming, check the cards for a video I put together a while back about it.
Anyway, back to my multiple playthroughs of each level. I’ve already done all my first playthroughs of the levels, because at some point, I just decided that I was gonna stop trying to get the “all boxes” and “under 4 deaths” gem on each level at the same time. So the game for me right now is just a loop between playthroughs 2 through 5 on each level. And they aren’t easy, by any stretch of the imagination. It’s hard for me to say, but I think I spend on average about an hour and a half to two hours on each level doing these attempts.
At the time of writing, I’m 73% through the game and I have 19 levels left to complete (not even counting the flashback levels which, admittedly, don’t take as long as normal levels). I’m only halfway through grinding out the main stages. And I’ve already put nearly 38 hours in.
Not gonna lie, that’s kind of disheartening. Spending a couple of hours in the game just to complete a few levels feels like a waste of time in retrospect. Why do I throw myself at the wall dozens of times trying to hit a certain jump perfectly so I can make an early cycle later in the level?
Phew. Why do I feel this compulsion to get everything in this game? What is this bringing me? I’m gaining nothing from this. I was planning on making this video once I got 106%, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not gonna be able to offer some unique critique just because I grabbed 100 more gems from all the levels I already played. I’m not gonna think about the game any differently once I do all that. In fact, I might even be more sour on the game after doing literally every challenge. I’m yanking at the teats of Crash 4 just for every microscopic drop of content, and what’s it given me? It’s just made me resentful of a game that I think is perfect in a lot of ways.
Beyond that, why spend my time playing a game past after all the meaningful content has been exercised from it? Why not play something else? Why not read a book even? Why not sit in my room and stare at the wall? Why do anything when I’m just gonna die someday?
coughs
Well that was a bit self-indulgent. I didn’t even write that bit in my script to be performative or anything, it’s something I genuinely think about sometimes. I talked about the concept of feeling “obligated” to play games in my video about too many games, but it’s relevant here too.
Crash 4 is a game that I knew I’d love from the second it was announced. Which is weird, because I wasn’t a fan of the series before it was revealed. I had always wanted to play the original trilogy, but I always put it off for one reason or another. But when Crash 4 was announced, I knew I finally had my excuse to play the original trilogy.
More than an excuse, it felt like an obligation. This is a personal thing, maybe some of you out there have this problem, but it feels weird to me to play a sequel without having played the originals.
With hindsight, I can say that I did enjoy my time playing those games. They were a bit janky, but because of Crash 4, I’ve been introduced into a series I wouldn’t have played before. But now that feeling of obligation rears its ugly head again.
Crash 4 is amazing. In case you hadn’t noticed, my only real complaint is that there’s too much of it. I think I’d rather have that than not enough content, but I think there’s something to be said for in favor of developers erring on the side of making less content when working on a game.
My opinion of the game is tainted because of the N. Verted levels. You’re forced to practically play the same level again if you want to go for 106%. Luckily you don’t have to do that, you can stop whenever you want. But the content is still there. They thought the inclusion of these “palette swaps”, if you will, would bring more to the game than if they weren’t included. And I don’t think that’s really the case. I could go into a whole bit about “less being more” but I kinda wanna do a whole video on just that topic in the future.
Nevertheless, I’m sure some people loved going back to levels with weird effects and filters, and good for them. I can just appreciate when a game does what it sets out to do, and gets out of there. And I think Crash 4 would have been a better game if they had better stuck to that principle.
I keep telling myself that I’m going to 106% this game. Get every clear gem, every N. Verted gem, every time relic, and every N. Sanely Perfect relic. I’ve already “completed” it though. I saw the end credits. Why push for a more complete “completion”?
I know I have it in me to do it. I could definitely spend 30 or so hours perfecting the rest of the levels in the game. But man, should I? 30 hours is a lot of time. I could use that time to finally watch the Lord of the Rings extended editions. Twice.
Some people are really dedicated to perfecting one game. It blows my mind just how many speedrunners are out there. Speedrunning, at least at the higher level, requires you to dedicate a lot of your time to one game, often at the expense of other media. I prefer to play a lot of games that I like than play one that I love multiple times. I can’t imagine having over a thousand or two hours in Super Mario 64. Playing the same thing over and over until your mind and body are in sync to perfectly execute the strats you’ve watched and practiced for the last five years just isn’t something that vibes with me.
I’m nowhere close to that point with Crash 4, I’ve only put in like 40 hours, but I’m getting hints of it. I can see myself slipping into that mindset where I get upset at every little misstep I make in a level. The game does require you to have that critical mind. When doing time trials, you really need to think about the route you take. You need to analyze your run and figure out why you’re 20 seconds behind the platinum relic. And then you get the plat relic and find out you’re 15 seconds behind the dev relic? How is it even possible to save 15+ seconds off what I just did? It’s just draining…
That’s a good word to describe 106%ing this game. Draining.
Before I close out this video, I want to be very clear. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is a game that I didn’t even think was possible. I never had faith in Activision to get somebody who cares working on an IP that had been dead for a while. But they’ve been putting Toys for Bob, Vicarious Visions, and Beenox to work recently. And they’ve all done amazing work. Vicarious Visions on the Crash N. Sane Trilogy and Tony Hawk remake, Beenox on Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled, and Toys for Bob, the stars of the show, on the Spyro Reignited Trilogy and Crash 4. Every single one of those games is a slam dunk. I never thought I’d be saying this, but I appreciate what Activision has done here. They let Toys for Bob make a beautiful love-letter to the fans, unconstrained by stingy micro-transactions or rotten pre-order bonuses. If you’re a fan of platforming at all, I can wholeheartedly recommend Crash 4. It contains everything you’d want in an exceptional platformer.
Just know what you’re getting into if you want to “complete” Crash 4
Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed the video, I’m really trying to find my own niche on this website, and I pushed myself with the script here. It’s fuckin hard to find something that hasn’t already been done. You have so many great people out there combining both intellect and humor into their writing, it’s hard to compete. I don’t think I’m nearly at the point of any of them, but everyone’s gotta start somewhere.
I know this video’s gonna get like 24 views in the first week then get thrown into the trash to never be recommended again, but at this point, I’m just putting these out to find myself. Find something that allows me to stand out from the rest. Hopefully I can before I lose steam, because putting out a bunch of videos to no public reception kinda takes the wind out of me.
Again, thanks for watching. Hope I earned a sub from you, and I’ll see you on the flip.