Crash Bandicoot languished in obscurity for almost a decade before coming back strong with the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy in 2017, a remake of the first three games. Developer Vicarious Visions rebuilt each entry from scratch, retaining the level design and story while completely upgrading the visuals. The three games are almost exactly as fans remembered them.
“Almost,” because Vicarious Visions made several subtle changes to the design and gameplay, ten of which are listed below. Most are harmless, but a handful of players took umbrage with a couple of adjustments. One cannot be faulted for missing these since it takes an avid fan of the unofficial mascot to catch them.
10 Fake Crash
In the original PlayStation games, Fake Crash only shows up in the third entry, Warped, in select levels after collecting all the crystals and gems. For the trilogy, the developer decided to give him additional appearances in the prior entries as well.
As a result, he is fairly easy to spot after achieving one hundred percent in any of the games. While visually unsettling, he means no harm. Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled included him as a playable character as well.
9 Keeping Extra Lives In Crash Bandicoot One
The debut title is easily the most difficult of the trilogy, and the remake doesn’t make it any easier. Fortunately, some of the stress is relieved by allowing extra lives to carry over between play sessions. In the original PlayStation release, the player would always have four lives upon starting up the game, regardless of how many they had the last time they played.
Fortunately, the remake removed this feature, forcing the challenge to come exclusively from platforming. Save for seasoned veterans, players will need every life they can muster in order to best the game’s toughest levels.
8 Time Trials In All The Games
Crash Bandicoot: Warped tripled its replay value by adding time trials into the mix. Players would do their best to master each level and go through it as fast as possible in order to get the gold relics.
Ambitious players could go for the platinum time, but those weren’t necessary for fully completing the game. Those with fuzzy memories may not realize that the prior two games didn’t include this feature, but Vicarious Visions added them to give players more incentive to replay the fantastically designed areas.
7 No More Cheat Codes
Players looking to circumvent the games’ toughest challenges could simply input a cheat code to unlock all the gems and crystals. Because of trophy support and modern gaming sensibilities, this feature was stripped out of the N. Sane Trilogy.
No one can lie to their friends and show them a falsely obtained one hundred percent completion anymore. If they want to show off their save file, they have to roll up their sleeves and do it the honest way.
6 Eggipus Rex
The hidden level “Eggipus Rex” in Crash Bandicoot: Warped was unique for being the only level where Wumpa fruit didn’t disappear upon activating the time trial.
Because one didn’t lose lives while attempting these, one could farm lives here by collecting the fruit, dying, and repeating. The N. Sane trilogy removes this exploit. The level itself is an interesting outlier, being the only side-scrolling segment where Crash controls his dinosaur sidekick.
5 Spyro Demo
Crash and Spyro have always been closely linked, and the two eventually collaborated in a pair of games on the Game Boy Advance. This partnership first came in the form of a demo in Warped for the purple dragon’s premier entry. While doing the code in the N. Sane Trilogy does not activate a demo, it does cue a trailer for Spyro: Reignited Trilogy.
This was only added after the game’s announcement since it was just a rumor in 2017. If a new Crash game is announced in the near future, we wonder if the Spyro remake will be updated in kind with a trailer.
4 Playing As Coco
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back introduced the bandicoot’s sister, Coco, and the third game let players control her in select levels. She remained a fan favorite for many years, making her expanded role in the remakes a treat for fans.
Instead of being relegated to her own segments, players could freely switch between her and Crash in the hub and use her in any level. Her controls and physics are identical to her brother’s, making the change purely aesthetic.
3 Stormy Ascent
“Stormy Ascent” is a bonus level in the remake of the first game. It is not required for one hundred percent completion, luckily too, as it is one of the most grueling platforming gauntlets ever.
Those who fondly remember the PS1 game will note its absence from the original. It was made during development but ultimately cut after being deemed too difficult. A GameShark code can still grant access to it, however. Vicarious Visions was thoughtful enough to include it as a bonus in the N. Sane Trilogy.
2 Speed Shoes In Crash 2
Warped introduced the power-ups obtained at the end of each world. Because of the time trials added to the prior two games, Speed Shoes made their way into Crash 2 upon beating Cortex.
These make the time trial stages more engaging. They weren’t in the first game, however, perhaps because the smaller levels and tighter areas didn’t make the shoes necessary for speedrunning through them.
1 Jumping
This change was the most controversial. Each game had slightly different jumping, but the N. Sane Trilogy gave each of them universal physics based on Crash Bandicoot: Warped. Where the first two games let Crash jump as far as he could without momentum, the new physics forced players to get running starts where they previously didn’t have to.
As a result, certain jumps in the first game are made even harder, and veteran fans had to adjust to the new physics. The desire for uniformity between all the games is understandable, but it hurts when the games were not originally designed for this type of movement.
