My first "real" platforming experience with a Crash Bandicoot game was a smooth one and while I don't find it the pinnacle of the genre, it has its own unique take compared to the bland platformers out there. It gives me surprises, boxes I scratched my head where they were at, sweaty palms, heart racing to get at least gold medals on time trials, acquiring those shiny gems and Stormy Ascent, even that made me almost snap my head with sheer frustration and give me a never give up attitude. It's Crash Bandicoot, PlayStation's favorite mascot, or maybe Activision? Activision Blizzard? Microsoft?!

We have a simple plot here and there is no need to be harsh about it: save the girlfriend from the evil Neo Cortex's lab, we're here for some sweet platforming after all.

In the game Crash can run, spin and jump (hit enemies on their head, Super Mario style), usual stuff it makes for cool platforming except when your perspective of space is off due to the camera and die inevitably, don't think the game is hard as I thought, it's just the die enough times and you'll get used to it, I might add that it gives that satisfying feeling when you finally do that time trial or a shiny gem and it's a feeling I don't often feel as much as before.

Played it via Steam Deck with graphics on Ultra everything was super pretty, despite some small frame drops to the low 30's in the Jungle areas that I dropped to High and it worked perfectly. The scenarios are rich of detail and the developers did an amusing job at remaking the game, no complaints.
The levels I would like to give some appraisal would be the hog ones, it was so fun and love the song, it made dying each time enjoyable, the bridge ones made me rage since I was trying to do them without dying and successfully got them. The banned level Stormy Ascent is hard, but for me it was just having lots of lives stacked, rinse and repeat, needing perfect platforming to not die, I don't hate the level but understand why it isn't present in the main game (didn't even try to do that one without dying, screw that), Aku Aku saved me on the last section, and as other collectatons (Jak and Daxter, Rachet & Clank, Spyro & Sparx), he is a good companion and I appreciate his "take one more hit" chance.

I didn't do true ending, because it felt like a chore to be honest (after discovering you had to do them all, and not just the shiny ones), also gave up on the time trials halfway through it, felt really anxious and decided it wasn't worth it to not ruin the pleasure of the game.

To conclude: Crash Bandicoot is a marvelous remake, while I didn't get the opportunity to play the original when I was younger, it gave me a taste that the Crash games are really solid platformers (started playing when I was younger the Crash Tag Team Racing game, and I expect the future iterations I play to be very good like this one, being the next one Crash Bandicoot 2)

PLATINUM TROPHY
- All 27 Platinum Relics obtained... including Stormy Ascent, which, Geez...

I loved playing the original Crash Bandicoot as my first ever PlayStation game way back when, and I loved it the same with better graphics and the little improvements made by Vicarious Visions all these years later.
If my muscle memory is to be believed, this has to be one of my favourite games ever. Or one of the games I've completed the most in my lifetime. One of the two.

To be succinctly blunt, I don't get the appeal here. I like platformers, 2D or 3D, linear or open, but this did so little for me, only getting positive marks because I found the platinum relic process rather rewarding overall.
I can't say I care for Crash as a character. He's a wacky Taz-like mascot who I've always sorta tolerated. He's a bit too zany for me, very little to latch onto. Besides Neo Cortex, I can't say I connect with anything in Crash's world. It's all 'fine', but partially why I struggled to enjoy aspects of these games that I may like in a Mario or even Spyro. These are the least of the game's issues, though.

What breaks this game for me is just how dull most of the levels are. So many hazards are just tedious to work around, forcing you to constantly wait for the right cycles before you can progress. This makes almost every level a bit of a slog, with so few obstacles requiring unique approaches. The more interesting levels, such as the lights out ones, are pretty bad. The lights in those levels aren't interesting, you can see until you get hit and there's nothing beyond that. Your field of view is as good as any other level when you have lights but as soon as they're gone, you may as well throw yourself into the nearest pit because you're unlikely to make it through otherwise!

Then there's the 100% goals. I got 105% (well, 104% because the game decided to glitch on me) which means collecting all of the box gems and time trial relics (I got all of the platinums, though I don't think this is required for 105%). The box gems were rather uninteresting, very few boxes are well hidden, with only a couple I couldn't find on my own because they were placed in completely insane locations. The painful part of these is that you can't even get some box gems on your first run through a level, requiring you to find a coloured gem later in the game before returning and completely a new route. I'm not a fan of this kind of backtracking; you're not revisiting levels with new abilities, the game is just gating you arbitrarily, with no ryme or reason to why these needed to be something you couldn't do the first time around.

And then we have the platinum relics. Many of these were incredibly easy, taking 5-10 minutes at most to grab. This included The High Road, a level which I'd heard horror stories about yet turned out to be a breeze. The only challenge in levels like this are to do with awkward depth perception, frame tight jumps and awful, awful hitboxes. On the other end of the spectrum you have levels like The Lab and Stormy Ascent, which were absolutely miserable to speed through. What makes these levels abhorrent to speedrun is how much it relies on good cycles on the obstacles to beat them quickly. You often have to wait a few seconds at the start to time things correctly, and often you'll be making jumps with almost no room for error. I would clash with these terrible hitboxes constantly, The Lab was the worst offender of this. You either had to wait for the electric gates to clear, time it perfectly so that they're not in your way or make pixel perfect jumps over the top, which I found near impossible to perform consistently. It was infuriating, and while I generally only found the game enjoyable when it was a challenge, it would usually go too far and become egregious.

There was some fun to be had here, but not much. I was glad to finally see my save file with 105% 104%, but I'm not sure it was worth the effort. Maybe the other games will be better? I'm not certain.

Primero que nada tengo que aclarar que este juego lo empecé cuando salió, hace casi 6 años y medio, por lo que claramente no tengo del todo fresca una gran parte del juego.
Si bien jugué un poco del Crash Bandicoot original, fue cuando tenía apenas unos 10 años, así que no tengo mucha comparativa que hacer entre ambas versiones, pero puedo decir que el primer juego de la N. Sane trilogy es realmente muy exigente y preciso en algunos niveles. El primer nivel de los puentes me tomo muchos intentos para poder completar, y el segundo directamente solo me lo pude pasar caminando por encima de la cuerda. No ayuda mucho que el movimiento en este juego se siente muy poco preciso, y nunca podes estar del todo seguro de dónde es que vas a aterrizar cuando das un gran salto.
Honestamente tras haberlo terminado sigo sin tener en claro realmente si este fue un buen o mal juego, definitivamente lo disfruté, pero por momentos se me hizo tan frustrante que hubiera preferido ni haberlo empezado. Lo más gracioso de todo es que la pelea final es muy tonta, y si bien me llevó un par de intentos, la verdad es que no es que sea un clímax demasiado satisfactorio tras haber pasado partes muchísimo más complicadas y exigentes.
Le guardo cariño por el tono tonto y el humor medio absurdo que tiene por momentos, y Crash es un protagonista muy simpático y con personalidad marcada pese a prácticamente ni tener historia o diálogos.
Recomendado solo para gente con paciencia y con ganas de arruinarse un lindo día, se la van a pasar muy bien.

The original Crash Bandicoot continues to be as hard as ever, and the surprise to everyone is probably more shocking then the difficulty. The first 3 crash games were always some of the best platforming on the Playstation, but a lot of people forget just how rough the original was. From not having to die to get gems, to tricky platforming, and some oddly long levels, Crash was hard to beat, but brutal to 100%.

Thankfully the remake gave a far better option of just letting the color gems be the only ones you have to do a deathless run to get them, but that honestly doesn't stop the difficulty as much as you think it does. Some of the hardest levels contain colored gems, and with new problems like platform detection being an issue, can still be rightly frustrating. The good news, of course, is that compared to the long rage inducing time you would have with the original; N.Sane Trilogy only has you mad for a little while. Although there are still rough edges in this game that amount to bad level design, mainly hiding a few boxes away on a color gem path for little reason other than having to go back to get it. To say the least, N. Sane Trilogy lowered the amount of frustration from the original, but didn't improve it enough.

Everything else is pretty spot on for the remake, with plenty of graphics and models being improved by the new engine the N.Sane Trilogy uses. The music is still good, the sound effects snap quite well. Everything visually is better, and while there isn't much improvement in level design, it at least stays true to the original game, warts and all. Course with the original Crash being the weakest of the trilogy, it only stands to reason that the remake is the weakest of remake trilogy. I certainly wouldn't call Crash Bandicoot a bad game, but it is hard to come back too.

Crash Bandicoot is a series I've always wanted to play but never really got the chance to, previously I've only played 3 of the racing games. So when this new trilogy bundle came out I was excited to experience the actual platforming of Crash. I'm incredibly disappointed, for reasons that probably are only caused by this remake.

The biggest thing about the remake is the graphic upgrades done, and yeah they certainly look nice. But also they make the game play like shit at some points. The majority of my deaths come from simply jumping into death pits in jumps that would be incredibly simple if the platforms weren't annoying difficult to discern cause of their visuals. In the ruin stages what seems like the edge of the block actually isn't cause some of the crumbled bits can still be stood on, and annoyingly there's so many jumps you actually need to be on edges for.

The camera is also absolutely absurd sometimes. A lot of times you just can't see what the fuck you're doing, like where you're being chased by boulders you can barely see what's coming up in the path because of how zoomed in it is. The field of view is often so obnoxious for this, and especially becomes a problem when you're trying to play fast for the time trials. They're so many camera angle changes that it feels awkward to play at times, or backtracking level becomes nearly impossible cause the camera doesn't show what's behind you (try walking backwards in the level Toxic Waste for example).

And all this is a shame because the game has so much potential and is pretty fun outside of those issues. Unfortunately, those issues make going for anything but any% unfun as hell. Some additional complaints would be that the time trials feel absurdly difficult at points, and some like Generator Room have so many cycles that it becomes necessary feeling to wait at the start for a lucky cycle. I also completely despise how unobvious it can be at times that a colored gem is required to unlock boxes in stages, for a while I would try to get All Boxes while playing through only to find out I completely wasted my time because it's impossible. (There is a hint tool tip on loading screens for when you do need a gem, they go away pretty fast and also doesn't seem obviously level specific at first, so you don't think much about it for a while).

Overall, I just can't say this first game in the set feels worth the purchase. It seems like emulating the original Crash Bandicoot would probably be more enjoyable.

I loved Crash Nitro Kart and Crash Twinsanity a ton as a kid, and the N-Sane trilogy has been on my radar since launch. Not that I finally have a PS5, I feel like it was time to give this trilogy a shot.

I had a ton of fun with this first entry! Difficult at times, but very rewarding once you make it through. Any time I felt frustrated, I stopped playing for the day and tried again tomorrow, and I usually made it within a few tries at that point. Fantastic platformer with a lot of character and charm. Reminds of both Pac-Man World 1 and 2, and that’s always a great thing.

Classic platformer with one of the most recognizable characters of all-time. The remaster has treated this game well, the graphics look great, but the controls could be very frustrating. I think I read about them changing Crash's hitbox? Something about squares and pills? Regardless, I completed every challenge this game threw at me, and felt immensely satisfied when it was over.

100% Completion Notes: Going for the 100% turns this game from a challenge to pure lunacy. Stormy. Ascent. Time Trial. That is all.