Crash Bandicoot 4 It’s about time is chronologically the 4th game in the crash franchise and the 8th main game not including countless spin off games too.
The game was developed by Toys for Bob best known for the Skylander series and the Spyro reignited trilogy.
So first of all i was a little confused when this game was coming out as we already had a Crash Bandicoot 4 titled The Wrath of Cortex that came out all the way back in 2001, however what this game does is make this a direct sequel to the original trilogy whilst still having the sequels that came earlier still ‘technically’ remain canon through a plot of alternate realities and timelines. Hence the tongue in cheek title ‘It’s About Time’
So to expand on the plot a little bit more, the game of course follows Crash Bandicoot and friends once again trying to defeat Dr Neo Cortex and his cronies such as N Tropy, N Brio and N Gin, all faces you know and love to hate.
So this game takes quite a departure from the N sane trilogy’s art style, despite being a direct sequel and goes for more of a cartoony vibe to the overall world of these characters, and I have to say I am a fan. The art style despite being cartoony and smooth delivers us the most ambitious and detailed world we have seen in a crash game yet. Crash has looked the best ever right here and no longer sports tribal tattoos from the original sequel games nor does he look like he is on hard drugs like the Nsane Trilogy games, This is the definitive Crash Bandicoot from here on out. The environments are beautiful to look at and have such a larger scope than the other games in the series (despite having the same linearity of most of the series) the game just feels much bigger and it is just fantastic. Toys for Bob know they have created a beautiful looking world and straight from the first level during a grind sequence ( A new mechanic that we will talk about later) they pan the camera up to show the utter beautiful detail and effort they have put into the game and i was literally like “woah” Toys For Bob flexed and it didn’t come across as pretentious it was earned.
Crash 4 whilst also a return to form for the series introduces some new gameplay mechanics such as grinding a rail which will have you swinging left and right and jumping up and down on a fast moving rail which you will have to quickly plan you’re next move if you want to make it to the other end and challenges you even more if you want to get all the Wumpa Fruit boxes the games are known for. They also introduce new characters to play as too, Coco, Dingodile Cortex and Crash’s ex girlfriend Twana are all playable with their own different gameplay style for the most part.Coco plays the same as Crash and you can switch between the two on any mission you would like. Dingodile has a Suction gun that can suck up boxes and blast things at enemies as well as a powerful tail whip attack that serves similar to the classic Crash spin. Twana has a grapple hook and wall jump abilities in order to fight her way across the dangerous terrain .Finally Cortex has a Blaster that turns enemies into either a solid block or a gelatinous blob to jump on to in order to reach hard to get places or advance through the mission as he cannot jump very far when compared to the clothes, Cortex also has a dash that also serves as a headbutt attack. All this variety splits the game up perfectly and adds a nice change of pace to the gameplay when needed. However if you’re just here for classic crash then most these missions are totally optional for the main story but do add to and explain certain narrative choices.
The Crash games or at least the first three are notoriously known for being difficult and It’s About Time is absolutely no exception this game is HARD, possibly the hardest Crash has ever been and though the base game delivers a somewhat balance challenge, its the 100% completionist that are really going to struggle here not only do you have to collect all boxes and 80% of the wumpa fruit in each level you also have to do the latter criteria as well as not die once to obtain the N’Sanely Perfect Relic this process was probably the most challenging thing i had experience in a video game ( still not 100% completed it though) some missions took me upwards of 2 days to complete and i felt like snapping my controller in to two. However because of the extremely difficult nature of the game which includes pinpoint precision platform jumping and split second button switcher-roos the torture us worth the reward for after doing it for so so long when the Relic pops you have the greatest feeling of accomplishment and you feel like an absolute Don, until you realise you have so much more to do.
Despite all the praise i have for the game there are two things i would like to address. Number One if you are not completionist gamer then this game might feel a little to short and not worth the £55 price tag as there are 35 base mission and you could probably work through it in a few hours, The second is a game breaking bug i encountered which had my progress reset a 55% completion and 26 hours of gameplay (this is why the review took so long) i don’t know why this happened and Reddit tells me that this has happened to multiple people with no apparent fix this was extremely annoying as i had Perfect Relic’d half of the game only to find it just disappeared without warning which cause me to not play the game for just short of a week. Apparently this has now been ‘Fixed’ but a bug so infuriating to be shipped with such a difficult game is possible the worst case scenario that gamers and fans of the game could ever think of.
Game breaking bug aside, Toys for Bob have crafted a true crash bandicoot sequel that would make Naughty Dog proud not only does it live up to the legacy of the originals it also adds new and welcome additions to the franchise and hopefully Toys for Bob are here to stay.
Final Score.
Title: Great
Crash Bandicoot 4 It’s About Time is Fun, Colourful and extremely and infuriatingly difficult.however a beautiful art style and great platforming gameplay along with some welcome new gameplay mechanics Toys For Bob deliver a ‘True’ sequel to the series we have being playing for over 20 years and makes the name Crash Bandicoot shine for the first time in a while.
Head Over Reels 