Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is a game that I realized
fairly early on wasn’t going to live up to my hopes for it, and sure enough, as
things progressed, what little enjoyment I had dwindled further and further. It
isn’t an easy thing to report, as someone who grew up playing video games back
in the days when each of the big 3 (Sony, Nintendo, Sega) were represented by a
cartoony mascot with tons of personality and a gameplay style all their own.
Though Sony’s development output has shifted wildly from the
days when a goofy bandicoot served as the face of the Playstation brand, many
of us who gamed in the 1990s fondly remember our adventures with Crash
Bandicoot. I’d been hoping for years that the series would be revived for the
modern era, and the success of the recent Crash Bandicoot N’Sane Trilogy made
this all but inevitable. Sure enough, a proper sequel has now been developed,
and It’s About Time attempts to capture the magic that made Naughty Dog’s
original Crash Bandicoot games such memorable platformers back in their day.
You can tell by my review score of course that I don’t think it does, but why I
failed to find Crash Bandicoot 4 to be enjoyable on almost any level is due to
something very straightforward; the removal of the Lives system. It’s a strange
thing, because on paper, removing this outdated mechanic would seem like it’d get
rid of a lot of frustration, but instead, it does the exact opposite. The Lives
system required Naughty Dog to design their levels in a smart way; they could
be difficult, and often were, but they couldn’t be so difficult that
people wouldn’t be able to finish the game. Because of this, Naughty Dog managed
to create levels that were quite challenging, but they weren’t relentlessly
challenging; you were allowed to have fun in between the challenging sections,
allowed to have minutes at a time where you weren’t dying over and over again, and
instead enjoying the fun platforming mechanics and beautiful worlds.
Toys For Bob, who developed Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About
Time, is under no such obligation; you’re granted an unlimited number of lives,
giving the developer the freedom to design the levels with as many hazards,
enemies, and blockades to your progress as possible. They can do this because
there’s no such thing as getting a Game Over, no matter how many times you die.
Rather than making the game more fun, this turns It’s About Time’s levels into
tedious exercises in trial and error, where dying upwards of 20 times per level
in the latter portion of the game becomes commonplace. As a result, I was
denied the feeling of ever being on a roll, of mastering the level, of enjoying
myself, because I seemingly couldn’t walk more than a few steps at a time
before being instantly killed by something offscreen, or falling through one of
the many bottomless pits that overwhelm pretty much every area. The number of
checkpoints isn’t horrible (albeit it could certainly be better) and the game
will throw additional ones your way if it sees you dying enough times on any
given part, but even without the fear of having to restart entire levels over
again, having to repeat section after section after section until I had them
memorized isn’t much of an alternative. It’s just frustrating.
On a lesser, though still significant note, the removal of
the Lives system also takes away the fun of collecting Apples during the levels
and finding secret bonus areas, because while in previous Crash games this
provided much-needed additional Lives, here, the only purpose of collecting
Apples is to award you with bonus skins, but these, along with Crash 4’s other
rewards, are so difficult to earn on your first time through any given level
that I felt like I wasted my time even trying, further damaging the formula and
making the game less satisfying to play.
It’s important to note that Toys for Bob does an admirable
job of capturing the Crash Bandicoot art style and vibe, though the Switch
version, it has to be said, is a little on the blurry and jagged side. The cutscenes are
funny and charming, even if the character of Crash himself, in my opinion
anyway, feels far goofier and over the top than he was originally portrayed.
Still, there’s a good sense of humor to the game all throughout, (including an
incredibly funny bit during the end credits) and there are hints of a more epic
scope that never quite materialize, but occasionally makes themselves apparent. The
addition of other playable characters is a cool touch, and the story itself has
its fun twists and turns, making good use of many of the returning characters.
Some of the new powerups are fun and shake things up, while the various boss
battles are actually pretty great; unlike the rest of the game, the boss fights
do manage to strike the right balance between fun and frustration. There’s good
stuff in here, to be sure, and Toys for Bob has their heart in the right place,
but the game simply sinks under the weight of its unforgiving level design,
resulting in something that looks and sounds like Crash Bandicoot, but that
just doesn’t have any of the fun or any of the pacing, and unfortunately in a
game like this, that’s a pretty big oversight.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time doesn’t manage to live up
to its predecessors; and with the possible exception of the first Crash
Bandicoot game, it doesn’t even come close. Though removing the Lives system
was intended to alleviate frustration and take the series forward, it instead
gave Toys for Bob the freedom to design tedious, pit-filled, trial-and-error
levels that just aren’t any fun to play. Rather than getting to enjoy
conquering the various stages, you’re forced to stumble along, bit by bit,
dying endlessly along the way, until you can hobble Crash or Coco across the
finish line at the end. I don’t doubt that this might very well be many
people’s cup of tea, and there are worthwhile elements (such as the boss
battles and the cutscenes) that I did find myself enjoying. All in all though, there’s
no way I can recommend the latest Crash Bandicoot game, and after waiting for
so long for it, that definitely hurts a little bit.
2/5
Note; This review is based on the Nintendo Switch version
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