The game's core mechanics are a good evolution of the those presented in the original trilogy, but the game falls down when looking at other components. Crash 4 tries to stand out from it's predecessors by including brand new gimmicks to the mix, including Grinding, Wall Running, the 4 masks, 3 extra characters, unfortunately I ended up only being a fan of about half of these, whilst the others made the biggest flaw of this game even more aggravating, box hunting.
To premise this, I have 100% the trilogy multiple times for fun, both OG and N.Sane trilogy. But something about Crash 4 frustrated me enough that not only did I start to actively skip boxes but even optional levels to try and finish the game as soon as possible.
Box volume and placement seem to not be placed in mind of being fun for the player but to entice re-playability. On basically every stage there are boxes hidden off screen in order to stop you from grabbing all the gems. Spending double to triple the amount of time on a level due to the sheer length of each, only to be off by one or two get's old real quick, and the notion of playing a half hour level in the hope you don't miss that box the second time is un-appetizing in comparison to an OG crash game, where most levels are finished in 3-10 minutes for a non-expert player. This is not helped by grind sections which almost always play as a guessing game, to figure out what's next, forcing you to kill yourself to restart (making 3 deaths or less almost impossible first try if you are looking at bosses. What should be fun characters in place of Dingodile and Cortex become chores since gathering those boxes takes an even larger amount of time (whether that be hoovering or specific platform placement) an even bigger chore when you die and realize you have to hoover up 100 boxes before the first checkpoint once more. Tawna on the other hand is just a strange character that feels off in the world and feels incredibly buggy, with her wall jump and hookshot which seems to only work about 75% of the time.
And then half way through the game, you are told you have to play through every level again to grab all the boxes with a skin change? I'm Okay, thanks.
Toy's For Bob, clearly put a lot of effort into trying to make this game live up to the original trilogy but, in my opinion, trying to lengthen the game to fit "modern length" levels has put an incredibly strong strain on each and although I was ready to 100% this game when it was announced, at this point I am happy to leave it after the credits and move onto something else.
To premise this, I have 100% the trilogy multiple times for fun, both OG and N.Sane trilogy. But something about Crash 4 frustrated me enough that not only did I start to actively skip boxes but even optional levels to try and finish the game as soon as possible.
Box volume and placement seem to not be placed in mind of being fun for the player but to entice re-playability. On basically every stage there are boxes hidden off screen in order to stop you from grabbing all the gems. Spending double to triple the amount of time on a level due to the sheer length of each, only to be off by one or two get's old real quick, and the notion of playing a half hour level in the hope you don't miss that box the second time is un-appetizing in comparison to an OG crash game, where most levels are finished in 3-10 minutes for a non-expert player. This is not helped by grind sections which almost always play as a guessing game, to figure out what's next, forcing you to kill yourself to restart (making 3 deaths or less almost impossible first try if you are looking at bosses. What should be fun characters in place of Dingodile and Cortex become chores since gathering those boxes takes an even larger amount of time (whether that be hoovering or specific platform placement) an even bigger chore when you die and realize you have to hoover up 100 boxes before the first checkpoint once more. Tawna on the other hand is just a strange character that feels off in the world and feels incredibly buggy, with her wall jump and hookshot which seems to only work about 75% of the time.
And then half way through the game, you are told you have to play through every level again to grab all the boxes with a skin change? I'm Okay, thanks.
Toy's For Bob, clearly put a lot of effort into trying to make this game live up to the original trilogy but, in my opinion, trying to lengthen the game to fit "modern length" levels has put an incredibly strong strain on each and although I was ready to 100% this game when it was announced, at this point I am happy to leave it after the credits and move onto something else.