I hope people will agree that this is the best balance of more focused action and variety since the og Crash 1 was beyond clunky while Crash 3 was exaggeratedly minigame filled.

I never grow up with the first two games, but managed to finish the original Crash 2 way many years after on PSP.

I'll probably take this as a second playthrough when I'll want, but from the few levels I tried it's a good remake. Not game changing unlike the Crash 1, but still a modern nice way to enjoy the second game.

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.

(NOTE: THE PS4 COPY OF CRASH N-SANE TRILOGY I PLAYED ON MY PS5 IS A USED COPY. ACTIVISION DID NOT GET A SINGLE CENT FROM ME. WHY I AM MENTIONING THIS? LOOK UP ACTIVISION’S LONG TROUBLED HISTORY AND “BOBBY KOTICK” AND YOU WILL SEE WHY I DID NOT BUY A NEW COPY.)

Crash 2 is an almost perfect sequel. The game is more fair than the unfair precision platforming of the original. There is still some here, but this game is overall easier than the first Crash game.

However, I guess the developers had to make the bosses a cakewalk. The only one that gave me some sort of challenge was N. Gin. Ripper Roo, The Komodo Brothers, and Tiny Tiger were easy. The final boss, Cortex, is RIDICOUSLY EASY. The developers probably made the final boss easy, so you did not have to deal with the awful jetpack controls.

Speaking of which, I HATE the jetpack levels. The controls are godawful and I will never like them.

Crash 2 is more fair, but the easy bosses and the jetpack levels prevent this from being a perfect game. It is still a good game and an improvement over the first Crash.

Woe is me...a lot of time was spent for minimal improvement. I have room temperature hype going into new levels... but the biggest takeaway by a wide margin is jumping nitro... like, far and away...I... just can't picture someone specifically coding that into the game and never questioning the consequences!! Crystals required to actually finish the level can be so hard to see... my vision works just fine but I gotta haul my ass through the level like 3 times and I still don't catch a glimpse of it 😂 game was having fun with me and not the other way around.

Even the hub feels suffocating. The one respite this game has is adding some much needed movement to the Bandicoot! He can slide with style...then jump to do a pose? Okay thats barebones but this game has atleast a little bit more personality. Race with Cortex in space? Thats what we talkkn about... the one moment of clemency this game allows.

Crash Bandicoot 2 es una secuela que sabe muy bien hacer su trabajo: Tomar las buenas ideas del juego original, y pulirlo para superar la entrega anterior.
La bajada en dificultad que tiene este jugo a comparación de la primera entrega es considerable, los niveles no requieren una enorme cantidad de intentos para poder superarse, y lo que es más importante, es en general bastante más divertido de jugar.
La cueva de dificultad es notoria llegando a los últimos niveles, pero no a un punto insano como en el juego anterior (con la excepción del nivel de las abejas, que solo me pude pasar cuando descubrí una forma de matarlas todas a la vez). Me gustó mucho el nivel de las luciérnagas, los niveles de nieve son más entretenidos de lo que esperaba, pero los niveles con el jetpack son super tediosos. Las boss fights van bastante en línea con las del juego anterior, pero hay 2 en concreto de las que me gustaría comentar alguna cosita. La primera es la pelea contra N. Gin, la cual propone una forma de jugar muy diferente al resto del juego, y que sí bien en primera instancia me pareció algo interesante, termina por hacerse súper tediosa debido a los horribles patrones que tiene el jefe para abrir sus puntos débiles, termina por ser un embole absoluto en cada intento. La segunda sería la pelea final contra Cortex, que si en el primer juego ya era bastante mala, en este creo que es incluso peor XD. Realmente es una pelea tan tonta que creí que simplemente era un calentamiento antes de la verdadera batalla final, pero no, es una persecusión tonta que termina sintiéndose incluso más anticlimatica.
Algo de lo que quería hablar también es de la historia, aunque tampoco es que haya mucha historia, pero en este juego pasa algo raro que no termino de entender. ¿Por qué se supone que Crash hace lo que le pide Cortex? Si es el villano a lo largo de todo el primer juego. ¿De dónde sacó Coco las herramientas para hacer un holograma? ¿Cómo supo comunicarse con Crash? Realmente no entiendo por qué hicieron una historia tan incoherente y estúpida, si simplemente alcanzaba con decir "Cortex está de vuelta, hay que ir y patearle el culo" y listo. Además que los hologramas aparecen cada 2 niveles y siempre son aburridisimos de ver.
Con sus fallos y todo, es una secuela que supera ampliamente a su predecesor, que no se vuelve frustrante ni pesado, y que genuinamente puede ser disfrutado a día de hoy sin sentir que es un juego totalmente anticuado y obsoleto.
Por suerte no me tardé 6 años en pasarme este (?

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.

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.

My favorite Crash game, and the one that started the whole franchise for me. Honestly the remake does an amazing job remaking all the levels, assets, and music. Really this a great remake of a great game.

As for the original game though? Well, it certainly has it's flaws, but a lot of that is manageable. From weird perspectives to backtracking to just some really cryptic secrets, Crash 2 is a game with a lot of quirks that kinda go unnoticed once you notice them. Like there are several no death paths that require you to go backward and get boxes you missed because you took a split pathway, sometimes outright fighting the camera perspective in order to make a lot of faith jumps. Then you also have some of the oddest ways to find hidden areas where some levels actually led to other ones, just straight up you could be in world 3 and come out in a world 1 level. We also have a good amount of difficulty spikes throughout the game. While most of the game is a slope of difficulty, some of the levels are just way harder than others. Looking at the level list, I always wondered why the final world is a relieve to me on site, but it turns out nearly all the hard levels are in fact in the 4th world.

For the most part though, a lot of the difficulty is mainly put on 100%-ing the game over actually beating Crash 2. So if you just want to pick up and playthrough Crash 2, it's a fairly manageable experience, and a large reason why a lot of it's flaws can be overridden. While I certainly think this is the best game overall, I completely understand that a lot of these failing points are made better in Crash 3 and how some people actually prefer that game. I will still have nostalgia for figuring out all the cryptic secrets and 100% this game though; as it does truly feel like an accomplishment that satisfies more than it frustrates.