The N-Sane remake of Crash 2. Crash returns to action, this time seemingly working alongside series villain Neo Cortex, who ropes his nemesis into collecting magic crystals for him ostensibly to stop an even bigger baddie from taking over the world. The writing leans heavily into Saturday morning cartoon vibes, which works really well! The gameplay is also a vast improvement over the first game, with a greater variety of level designs, even more challenges for masochistic completionists to sink their teeth into, and a much more tightly designed difficulty curve.

Just like the PS1 originals, the remake of Crash 2 marks a significant improvement over the first game. It's far more forgiving, the level design is tighter and fairer to the player, the new moves in Crash's arsenal grant more diverse traversal (especially helpful during time trials) and the boss battles... well, they aren't godawful this time around.

It's N'Sane how much more enjoyable Crash 2 is compared to the original. It's amazing what a bit of difficulty balance can do for a game. I might even go for the platinum!

This would easily be a five star game but there were just two major things that were wrong with it. There were no minor issues as all the levels were perfect (except two or three) and the gameplay was smooth (with the exception of one thing). The jetpack mechanics were just awful in two of the levels. It's in the Cortex boss fight that I'll get to later, but it was smoother in that. In the individual levels, it was awful. Everything is tightly packed together and the jetpack was all wonky. Because of that it was much harder than it needed to be. The other thing is the Cortex boss fight. It was so anticlimactic! All of the other bosses were harder than the FINAL boss. He only has three lives and the fight doesn't get increasingly difficult. He could've shot stuff at you or evolved into a mega robot of some sorts! Other than that, this game is perfect. The game improves on much of the first game with the coherence, level design, and boss fights (except the finale). The game flows better in my opinion since the levels feel more related to each other than the first. The first game changes rapidly from bridge to jungle to factory, while this game gives you time to get there. There are some jumps from desert to arctic, but there's less of that in this than the first game. It also has more imaginative levels with bee obstacles, night lights, and the idea of a jetpack. The boss fights are also more creative in this game as you do more of a variety of stuff than jumping to certain spots like in the first game. This is a phenomenal platform game that I'm willing to play again. It makes me really want to play the original games.

GRADE
A-

I don't really know what happened here, but... I just didn't like Crash 2. I had low expectations coming from the original, and while I'd find it difficult to say that this is ostensibly the worse game of the two, I found it far more dull than its predecessor, perhaps partially due to how little I engaged with its 100% requirements.

Again, I don't think the Crash world is all that remarkable. You have the same few level aesthetics repeated ad nauseum throughout the game and it somehow feels even more played out this time around. The forests feel like a rehash of Crash 1 while the ice and sewer levels just introduce such dull mechanics that fail to justify their existence. Level design feels even more infuriating in this one, with more tight, awkward to time jumps that never offered a fun challenge. Then you have the gimmick levels which provide some needed diversity, but usually wound up even less fun than the regular levels. While I liked the polar bear sections, the jetpack portions almost put me to sleep.

And there was no satisfaction in beating this one, either. The bosses are overall much worse, with the penultimate one being a drawn out button masher that only provides a mild challenge during the final phase which, if you fail, you have to repeat the tedium all over. I hestiate to blame the game for this as I played on Steam Deck, but a crash that occured during the final blow of this fight put me in a real sour mood. To get the platinum relics in this one, you need to have already beaten the game, as you'll require the running shoes in order to speed through most of the levels. This, on top of awkward gem requirements for certain levels, made the process of collecting everything a chore, something I gave up on after the first world. Maybe I would've enjoyed my time more had these been possible to get on my first trip through the levels, but padding a lot of the completionist runaround into the post-game totally put me off.

I'm not sure I'll ever enjoy Crash Bandicoot. I'm still going to give Warped a shot, and likely even see it to the end, but I'm doubtful it's going to turn me around on this franchise. 4 looks fun, I suppose.

Si bien muchas de las pantallas del juego son más divertidas que las de la anterior entrega, resultan menos memorables por culpa del hub principal. El sistema de ascensor tiene una ventaja interesante: te permite avanzar eligiendo pantalla por grupos, de forma que si te quedas atascado en una… puedes probar otra mientras. Pero las pantallas no tienen relación entre sí, tampoco los pisos tienen una puesta en escena que encaje con las pantallas del mismo… parecen pantallas sueltas, sin más, en vez de una campaña.

Los gráficos en switch son borrosillos pero van bien, el juego funciona bien y se disfruta mucho en portátil. En televisión en cambio es injugable, tiene un input lag insoportable.

Buen juego, lo mejor que se puede hacer como remake.

Crash 2 is the one of the original trilogy I was most familiar with going into my first time completion of all of the N-Sane Trilogy remakes, and I rather get the feeling the overfamiliarity of failed playthrough attempts and watching a lot of casual and top level gameplay of this one dulled the edges that the game offers a little too much for me. I can recognise that it's presented way better, is much more player friendly and overall improves the experience in every conceivable way, yet my own pre-exposure to it really lead to it lacking that punch and feeling of trailblazing Crash 1 had about it in my eyes.

It's really a game I'd want to come back to once I've spent enough time away from it and the dust has settled. But weirdly, finishing it for the first time didn't confirm the opinion I thought it would that it's my favourite like I'd been convinced of for so many years, it actually ended up currently slipping down to 3rd place.

My view of this game is admittedly clouded by nostalgia for the original games. I first completed it a couple of years ago and noticed it's flaws, however when I picked it up again for the time trials and 100% achievements this highlighted even more flaws or made them more difficult to accept.

The major one is just the overall feel of the game. It doesn't flow together as nicely as the original game. After Crash slides, he comes to a complete stop and crawl which had me pulling my hair out in time trials. Depth perception was also another issue as I found myself constantly missing platforms that I felt I was meant to land on.

I'm glad these remakes put Crash Bandicoot back in the spotlight but I will always recommend the originals.

Crash 2 refines the formula from the first game to a pristine shine. The addition of the slide to crash's move set is a game changer in how crash is played as if used smartly chunks of level can be skipped with ease and it increases the tempo crash can be played (body slam is mid). Each new level theme is a winner and returning themes are better than previously with the biggest improvement being the river levels that now promote a speedy playstyle seen with timetrial like gems. The addition of secret exits, death routes and unique gem unlock conditions add depth to levels not present in the original. Three alternate playstyles are included to give variety with the balance still leaning towards traditional platforming levels. These playstyles retain the core games quality with polar in particular being standout. The warp room format allowing players to choose from five levels to play is a neat structure change but loses the first games grand journey feel in exchange. The ost is a bop full of great tracks and is the best in the series. On the more negative nit picky side the boss fights are nothing special with the final boss in particular being poor. The biggest problem with the game is it's uses of back tracking when going for completion as due to the camera angle it can be hard to see what's ahead when going backwards leading to unfair feeling deaths. All in all crash 2 is a textbook example how to do a sequel and for my money is the best platformer in the franchise.