History of Crash Bandicoot (1996 - 2019)

welcome back everybody my name's dick 9:30 and to celebrate the upcoming release of Crash Team Racing nitro fueled I want to share with you the complete history of Crash Bandicoot [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Crash Bandicoot is a classic video game franchise first introduced by the popular game developer Naughty Dog in 1996 this series was initially intended to be a direct competitor to other mascot 3d platforming franchises in the 90s including Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog but has gone on to define itself with its own unique style characters and gameplay elements after over 20 years of experimentation and reinvention the crash bandicoot franchise has finally come full circle with full remix of the original three Naughty Dog platformers and even more recently a remake of the fan-favorite kart racing spin-off Crash Team Racing so what about Crash Bandicoot has allowed it to remain Melvin after 23 years to answer that let's look at how this series began back in the mid 90s in 1993 a small studio named Naughty Dog founded by Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin started working on a fighting game for the 3do entertainment system called way of the warrior despite its obvious unoriginal inspiration from the popular Mortal Kombat series and the incredibly tight budget way of the warrior managed to impress skip Paul the former head of business development at Universal interactive who ensured published the game and signed the small development studio on for three additional projects after landing this deal the pair of young developers decide to relocate their studio to California and along the way began brainstorming concepts for their new trilogy their first idea was a traditional 2d side-scrolling platformer game about dinosaurs and time-traveling scientists but after seeing potential in the emerging three-dimensional gaming style the 2d platforming concept was scrapped they instead began designing a 3d platformer with a camera that moved in and out of the screen and a character that players with view from behind this new idea which the pair of developers nicknamed the Sonics ass game was met with praise when introduced at mark Cerny in their new California office and the project entered full development by the end of 1994 then around the same time Sony created the Sony Computer Entertainment Division to handle their new venture into the video game market and began development on a powerful new home video game console called the PlayStation seeing an opportunity with this new PlayStation console Naughty Dog entered a partnership with Sony Computer Entertainment which not only the title become an unofficial mascot for the platform but also about Naughty Dog to take full advantage of the unrivaled power of the system itself at this point the basic concepts for the game were in place both players need to maneuver our characters through various 2d and 3d environments while dodging enemies and clearing obstacles to set themselves apart from other character driven platformers Jason and Andy decided early on to find a unique animal mascot that people were not familiar with especially those from the Australian outback including dingoes wombats and of course the Bandicoot having difficulty coming up with a clever name they decided to use Willy the wombat as a placeholder name despite the main character being modelled as a colorful orange Bandicoot who wore blue pants and sneakers after developing several levels the team decided to add in some more puzzle based elements to make the experience more interesting and introduced collectable objects and boxes to smash open with this new gameplay mechanic the team finally landed on the name Crash Bandicoot due to his tendency to crash to the crates in the game world after several months of development Crash Bandicoot was finally revealed at the Electronic Arts Expo in 1996 this official reveal was then followed up by a line of commercials with a costume bandicoot heckling his competition and the final product finally hit store shelves in September of 1996 the original game tells the story of a Bandicoot named crash who after being experimented on escapes from the evil dr. cortex his laboratory and is forced to run jump and fight his way through a dangerous Island in order to save his girlfriend Tana and put a stop to the crazy animal experimentation that's been happening on the island players need to complete 26 platforming levels with teams ranging from jungles villages and ancient ruins to more industrial locations like secret labs power plants and factories the goal of each level is to reach a warp pad at the end while simultaneously smashing crates and dodging hazards along the way well the general concept of each level remains consistent throughout the way the levels are played can be very different depending on the set camera angles with some levels being played more like a traditional 2d platformer while others feature the player running in and out of the screen this allows for unique challenges and obstacles not possible with the more conventional platformer design players not only need to clear gaps but also need to properly aim their jumps based on the layout of the Behrman while carefully maneuvering the difficult platforming sections players are also challenged with destroying a set number of crates scattered throughout each level if the player can destroy every crate in a level without dying they'll be awarded with a special Jam which can be used in the penultimate level to access a secret bonus ending the crates come in several different varieties and typically holds several wumpa fruit which after collecting 100 pieces grants the player and extra life levels also play host to several enemies that crash can either jump on or spin attack to defeat however players will need to exercise extreme caution as taking any damage can result in an instant death to make this more tolerable players can protect themselves by means of a special tribal mask called aku aku who will float by crashes head collecting multiple masks grants the player with increased hit points and can even temporarily grant invulnerability similar to the star powerup from Super Mario voters also need to be on the lookout for special character tokens which feature mug shots of various character phases and grant special benefits the most common token is the crash token which Awards players with an extra life everywhere manages to find three tada tokens then they'll instantly be teleported to a special bonus area with a challenging set of floating crates and an opportunity to save progress upon successful completion there are also a few levels with hidden embryo and cortex tokens which functions similar to the tana tokens only they offer much more challenging bonus rooms while completing breo's bonus rooms offers no real benefit aside from some extra lives completing the cortex bonus rooms unlocks access to a few secret levels crashes hybrid of classic 2d platforming mixed with its unique semi three-dimensional environments helped it stand out in the sea of colorful cartoon mascot platformers in the mid 1990s in order to avoid the experience appearing too similar to the likes of Mario and Sonic no need of ensured that the environments were built with as few straight lines as possible with several the decorative props bending around the players path and creating crash bandicoot's unique aesthetic in order to save on the Playstations limited memory the developers decide to avoid creating many textures and instead utilize simple colored shaders to help make the various characters and objects in the world stand out other impressive techniques included static shadowing and light effects all which helped make the islands and crash bandicoot appear more natural and interesting Crash Bandicoot was met with mostly positive critical reception mainly for its advanced visual design great soundtrack and interesting lead character however many reviewers nock the game for its overwhelming difficulty and it's awkward camera angles often comparing it to the overwhelmingly successful super mario 64 which had released around the same time lock crash wasn't the most inventive platforming experience it still managed to become one of the best-selling playstation games at the time helping cement the new IP as the unofficial mascot for the entire PlayStation brand being contractually obligated to create two more titles Naughty Dog immediately began work on the sequel even before the original Crash Bandicoot had hit store shelves only this time their budget was even higher and many of the tools and assets for the project were already made and ready to use however in order to greatly expand on the limitations introduced from the original game engine Andy Gavin worked to create an updated version that allowed for more complex character animations and much more polygons this allowed for more interesting environments to explore while also simultaneously smoothing out the sometimes choppy gameplay of the original title many of the core design elements from the original title were retained for the sequel including the hybrid 2d 3d platforming levels and most of the main characters however in response to complaints made by their Japanese distributors no new dog decided to do away with crashes sexy girl Fantana and replaced her with the more age-appropriate Coco Bandicoot crash bandicoot's little sister only a year later Crash Bandicoot 2 cortex strikes back released exclusively for the original PlayStation and would be a significant step up from the original title crash 2 takes place immediately after the events of the original game with cortex plummeting from the blimp circling his tower and crashing into a dark cave in the island below but when he comes to he managed to find a powerful pink crystal that he then plans to harness in order to build an even more powerful mind control ray to accomplish this he kidnaps his nemesis Crash Bandicoot throws him into a warp room and convinces him that if he doesn't help cortex gather more power crystals then the entire earth will be destroyed by a natural disaster blissfully unaware of cortex is true intentions crash proceeds to warp around the world to several new locations including snowy glaciers ancient temples and dirty sewers while also secretly helping dr. nitrous Brio gather gems to stop cortexes evil plot it's a little bit more inventive than the cliche storyline of the original game but it's still a crash bandicoot game so there's not really much else to talk about in terms of narrative but crash 2 does offer a nice improvement to the game design including smoother controls new abilities and more interesting environments while the original game was stuck on a single string of islands all with the same basic themes and concepts crash 2's new warp room allows for much more variety in its locales crash can now surf along a river slide across frozen lakes and fly around in space with a jetpack unlike the levels from crash 1 where they were either side-scrolling or semi 3d Crash Bandicoot 2 typically combines both styles within single levels with transitionary points like holes in the ground dropping crash into new dimensions this not only helped to mix up the gameplay loop but also greatly expanded the overall level length many of the enemies from the original game also make some fun appearances including the jumping lizards and the slow walking turtles only now the enemies have been retrofitted with some special sci-fi upgrades these new enhancements require more sophisticated techniques from the player like the new belly-flop move or the slide technique these new moves also have a direct role in the standard platforming gameplay with crash now capable of sliding off of wedges and jumping to clear large gaps similar to the rolled jump combo from Donkey Kong Country the belly-flop is also used to destroyed the new locked crates and access a few hidden bonus rooms throughout many of the levels crash 2 also introduces the nitro crate an incredibly dangerous green crate they'll explode instantly upon impact adding many new challenges for players to overcome other quality-of-life improvements include a total creep counter at the end of the level and a handy inventory screen visible from the pause menu that displays the total number of crystals gems and progress of the player Crash Bandicoot 2's presentation was greatly improved thanks to the newly refined game engine environments were not only more varied but also more finely detailed with twice the number of polygons for objects and character models the game soundtrack isn't quite as memorable as the original title but it's still fairly good and captures that same funky jungle rhythm the the series was becoming known for Crash Bandicoot 2 was met with even higher critical acclaim with fans praising Naughty Dog for improving the game's controls graphics and greatly expanding on the level variety though not everyone felt this way with some claiming that the environments were too similar to the original game while others continued to complain about the game's awkward on Rails camera making it difficult to judge jumps still with only one more title to go in the contract Naughty Dog moved on to the third and final entry in the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy development for the third Crash Bandicoot game began in early 1998 with roughly the same funding and timeline as cortex strikes back only this time Naughty Dog decide to incorporate several fresh new gameplay mechanics and features that would directly address many of the complaints made about the past two titles in fall of 1998 Crash Bandicoot warped hit store shelves and is still considered by many to be one of the very best entries to the series Crash Bandicoot 3 takes place immediately after the events of crash 2 with crash and nitrous Brio having just fired third gen mounted laser at the cortex vortex that been orbiting the earth but as the ship plummets to the ground a large piece of debris smashes into a nearby temple and releases an ancient evil who is later revealed to be aku aku's evil brother Luca Luca Luca Luca is a sort of mastermind behind all the evil plots in the world of Crash Bandicoot and because of cortexes past failings he begins to send allies back in time to achieve more of the powerful pink crystals aware of this plot aku aku sends crash and his sister Coco on a mission to stop the time-traveling thieves and put a stop to oku Luca for good this new time-traveling plot device greatly improves the level variety and experience will players keep them while visiting the time of the dinosaurs ancient Egyptian temples and medieval villages a pretty drastic change from the typical jungles and ruins in the first two games and while this extra variety and look how certainly helps its the changes to the gameplay that truly makes warped a more interesting experience most of the gameplay mechanics from the previous titles remain intact like the smashing boxes and collecting crystals only now many of the levels in the game test players with controlling cool vehicles like a jet ski or an airplane unlike the traditional crash levels these levels were built to make use of a large three-dimensional space able to drive in any direction and approach obstacles from different angles Crash Bandicoot 3 also marked the first time that Coco Bandicoot would be a playable character as she takes over for crash in all the jetski and Great Wall of China levels other new features include special moves that are unlocked after defeating the boss in each stage which allow crash to jump higher spin longer and even fire a wumpa fruit bazooka to entice players to revisit older levels crash 3 introduced the new time relic collectible which challenges players with racing through levels against the clock specially time-freezing boxes in order to beat the part-time crush 3 also expanded upon the hard-to-find secrets that not only offered additional levels to play but even featured a secret playable demo with a certain purple dragon from a visual standpoint crash warped introduced several impressive visual techniques not present in previous games for one crash now projects a more accurate shadow rather than the plain disk shadow used in the older titles in order to make the jetski levels more interesting the developers created some nice water simulation effects with waves that cost book the player's vehicle and the objects around them to move realistically up and down other changes include more detailed environments a significantly increased number of animations for crash and seamless transitions from the rear facing camera to the classic side-scrolling style without any fades or loading screens all these gameplay and visual improvements resonated well with audiences as crash bandicoot warped managed to score an average of 91% on Metacritic critics praised the game for its visual improvements and applauded the increased gameplay variety crash bandicoot 3 was a massive success and the perfect note for Naughty Dog to go out on but throughout the development of Crash Bandicoot 3 but another project was brewing and after seeing potential with the Crash Bandicoot license no dog reached out one final time to Universal Studios to create a unique spin-off experience development for Naughty Dog's fourth Crash Bandicoot video game began soon after Crash Bandicoot 2 had been completed only instead of creating another platformer nobody dog instead wanted to create a kart racing game in fact during the early phases the developers actually recreated one of the tracks from Diddy Kong Racing to test whether or not the police station system could handle the same level complexity rather than just copying the diddy kong and more kart game formula and slapping the crash bandicoot IP on top Dhoni dog expanded on the genre by introducing a more complex boosting mechanic to make the experience feel more involved and interesting to play after a year of prototype builds and a final eight months of full development Crash Team Racing was finally released in fall of 1999 the story and CTR takes place independently from the main cannon story line with an evil alien named nitrous oxide threatening to enslave earth if the planets fastest racers failed to beat them in a racing competition that's pretty much as deep as the story gets which isn't too surprising considering this is just a kart racing game but the idea of being able to drive around a little open-ended hub area really helped to make these spirits more interesting especially with the book ended boss encounters with classic villains like pappu pappu Ripper ro & pinstripe Crash Team Racing unlike the first three titles is a kart racing game like most other games in the genre players will need to race around goofy tracks inspired by the franchise's various environments while also jumping off of ramps sliding around corners and blowing each other off with random weapon pickups bars can choose from many classic crash bandicoot characters all of which have their own unique stats and voice lines there's even a secret unlockable character called Penta penguin who actually has a broken voice line in the final code each track is usually made up of twisting turns jumps and item pickups along with several well hidden secret shortcuts to help close the gap lines up crates with question marks on them can be found on every course and give players random weapon pickups to gain the upper hand there's the heat-seeking Rockets which can lock on to the nearest player and follow them around corners TNT and poison bottles that could be dropped down as traps a powerful clock and blue electric ball that can often benefit players in the rear of the pack a nitrous boost a protective bubble and the aku-aku or cuckoo Ooka mask which function exactly the same as the star powerup from mario kart buyers also need to find wampa fruit in order to speed up the cart in each race collecting and holding on to ten won per fruit not only allows players to maximize their speed but also enhances all the game's weapons with boosts lasting longer and some weapons becoming more powerful Crash Team Racing presented a unique challenge for the developers at Naughty Dog due to its full three-dimensional environments and local split-screen support functionality to help limit the load on the weaker PlayStation hardware the developers replaced the 3d vendor tires of each cart with dynamic 2d sprites that properly rotate based on the player's camera angle this greatly improved performance especially when playing the game in the four player split-screen mode the Playstations memory limitations also forced Naughty Dog to limit their roster size with many characters like the Komodo brothers originally being playable but need to be removed Crash Team Racing was met with positive reception with many critics noting that Bob it certainly wasn't the most original idea it was one of the few titles that actually managed to improve on the formula with a better sense of speed and weight to help give the experience a more visceral and appealing aesthetic after Crash Team Racing Naughty Dog was officially separated from their beloved Bandicoot mainly because the character itself was not owned by Sony but by Universal Studios Interactive with their contract expired and Naughty Dog looking to continue production on new titles Sony purchased Naughty Dog and the studio went on to create a new franchise for the upcoming PlayStation 2 with the crash bandicoot franchise no longer in Naughty Dog's capable hands Universal Studios tests mark journey and eurocom entertainment software to create another Crash Bandicoot license title the first Crash Bandicoot game to not be created by Naughty Dog was called crash bash crash bash is another spin-off title only instead of ripping off the classic kart racing genre bash is a crash bandicoot version of the Mario Party series with a collection of various minigames and crash bandicoot characters the game's story centers around both aku-aku and Yuka Yuka arguing about whether good or evil is better and attempt to prove it by hosting a contest pitting various Crash Bandicoot characters against each other the game features both the same screen local multiplayer modes and a full adventure mode with several different stages containing various minigames and bosses that increase in difficulty minigames include a goal based pinball battle icy glaciers where players need to use their polar bears to knock each other off tank pals inspired by bomberman and a pogo stick game where players need to capture coloured spaces on a grid and Bank their points by smashing special crates as a party game crash bash certainly has a lot of nice variety and it's a fun experience but the actual gameplay animations are noticeably more stiff than Naughty Dog's incarnations of the characters and the visuals in general are a noticeable step back crash bash was met with mixed reviews with critics saying that the game is fun but ultimately unoriginal and forgettable during Euro comes time making crash bash mark Cherney one of the development studio travelers tales had already begun work on the next generation crash bandicoot experience this new project nicknamed crash bandicoot worlds was initially going to be more of an open-ended 3d platforming game breaking away from the mold of the traditional on Rails camera placement of classic bandicoot games however about halfway through production Universal Studios entered into an agreement with Konami effectively severing ties between crash bandicoot and Sony Computer Entertainment because of this Universal took turning off the project and forced travelers tales to completely rework the project to align with the more traditional crash bandicoot experience this required a complete overhaul of the game and after a short 12-month development schedule Crash Bandicoot the wrath of cortex was rushed off the store shelves October 29th of 2001 unlike past titles wrath of cortex also found its way to other platforms including Microsoft's new Xbox and the Nintendo GameCube a year later rather cortex takes place after the events of the original series with all the classic bad guys trying to figure out how to defeat their arch-nemesis crash during the intro cutscene cortex reveals that he has a secret weapon in development but unfortunately can't use it without an alternate power source directive hi this looka looka releases for ancient masks each with the power to harness a different elemental power after releasing these masks the elementals begin to cause unusual natural disasters which aku aku picks up on immediately and sends his team of loyal bandicoot's to solve the problem from this point the game's story takes on a very similar structure to Naughty Dog's Crash Bandicoot warped well the players need to complete five stages find pink crystals and then defeat a boss to move on to the next warp room all the powers awarded for defeating bosses in warped return and wrath of cortex but for some reason are locked behind boss fights again with the one exception being the new tiptoe ability which allows crash to tiptoe across nature crates without detonating them rapid cortex also features a very different feel to the various level designs while still built around the on Rails taste camera along with a side-scrolling angle the game's levels are slightly more natural and appearance with more unique obstacles and complex paths the updated engine also allows players to move around and expanded play zone making some areas less cramped and feel noticeably more empty the split pathways in special colored gem routes have been removed and an even greater number of levels now feature full vehicle sections where we taking away from the classic platforming aspect the series has become known for new vehicles include submarines jeeps planes spaceships snowboard scooters mechs a weird helicopter jetpack and one of my favorites the atmosphere a sort of hamster ball for crash that needs to be navigated through twisting ramps and platforms mochi ball style wrath of cortex is also the first game in the series to feature Koko as a playable character in the platforming levels though her jumping distance attack range and hitboxes field mostly smaller than crashes the boss fights which previously featured a wide variety of silly creatures from the a pack are now limited to confrontations with series newcomer crunch Bandicoot who is accompanied by a different elemental mask at the end of each stage visually thanks to the power of the next-generation hardware of the PlayStation 2 Xbox and GameCube Crash Bandicoot wrath of cortex is a huge step forward animations are smoother colors are richer and environments appear much larger and more complex but unfortunately because of these short development time and lack of experience the environments and wrath of cortex also appear less detail there are a number of areas with unused empty space and it comes off feeling like a fan made game wrath of cortex despite selling extremely well in the early 2000s was met with mostly mixed critical reception critics complained this fourth entry to the platforming series failed to present anything unique or meaningful to the franchise others complained about the excessively long loading times especially with the original release version of the PlayStation 2 that sometimes took up to 45 seconds just to boot up a level wrath of cortex is mixed critical response resulted in an uneasy partnership with Universal and travelers tales a situation that caused a lot of last-minute changes and problems with feature Crash Bandicoot titles developed by the studio while wrath of cortex was being reworked Universal contracted Vicarious Visions to work on a standalone mobile title for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance platform using several animations from Naughty Dog's Crash Bandicoot warped Vicarious Visions managed to craft a full 2d crash bandicoot experience that while not as visually impressive still managed to play just like any other Crash Bandicoot game this project titled Crash Bandicoot huge adventure would be made available in early 2002 soon after the release of the already poorly received wrath of cortex on the ps2 huge adventure also takes place after the events of Crash Bandicoot warped and plays out very similarly to the wrath of cortex with booka booka scolding cortex for his foiled plans at the hands of Crash Bandicoot in response cortex makes use of a powerful shrink ray he calls the minimizer and shrinks the planet down to the size of a small fruit along with all of its inhabitants aku aku realizing what has happened once again calls on crash to collect crystals and put a stop to Cortex's evil plans huge adventure while not a 3d platformer like the main interest of the series features mostly the same style of gameplay crash can run jump and spin through several different themed platforming levels while also destroying crates and collecting fruit and crystals many of the features from warp return including crashes super moves characters and the bonus time trials only with the added benefit of being able to play on the go of course because of the Game Boy advances limitations huge adventure is strictly a 2d platforming experience with the occasional semi 3d levels with crash running away from a Yeti the game also only features 20 levels about 5 less than usual and the experience fails to really introduce anything new or unique crash bandicoot huge adventure was met with decent reviews with some even claiming that it was a better crash game than wrath of cortex reviewers praised the game for its solid visual design and tight controls but were disappointed by the lack of innovation with huge adventure managing the cel over 19 million dollars worth Universal extended their contract with Vicarious Visions and had them create a sequel in the following year this sequel titled crash bandicoot entranced offers a similar portable experience only with a few slight changes for one entrance is the first title in the series to not feature dr. neocortex as the main villain instead Luca oka requests doctor and trapeze assistance in defeating the bandicoot's to accomplish this they test series newcomer and trance to hypnotize the tree of bandicoot's in an effort to make them allies rather than foes but as cocoa and country being kidnapped aku-aku catches on it prevents crash from being taken with both cocoa and crunch now under entrances control he's forced to go on yet another adventure to save his friends and defeat evil this game handles almost exactly like huge adventure only instead of the classic level warp hub and trance features a map similar to the world maps used in mario games new to n transfer vehicle levels like a wakeboard level what crash needs to dodge sharks and jump off of ramps to smash boxes other new features include two new superpowers the super slide and the rocket jump and a few levels where you play as either crush or cocoa and trance even includes a unique multiplayer mode where players can either battle against each other with these atmosphere hamster balls or race through any of the standard platforming levels by means of the Game Boy advances system like hardware Crash Bandicoot and transpose met with slightly less positive reviews many critics found the game to be fun but very derivative with essentially nothing new introduced to the exceedingly old formula around the same time as entrance development Universal once again reached out to travelers tales for another major console release for the franchise only instead of attempting to create a standard platformer travelers tales decided to make a direct sequel to Crash Team Racing but rather than just copying what Naughty Dog had already done they initially meant for the sequel to feature a new vehicle damage mechanic where pieces of the players cart would begin to chip away throughout the race ultimately resulting in the player riding around on a single wheel Universal interactive likely skeptical of travelers tales potential after the mixed reception of wrath of cortex suddenly put the Game Boy Advance developers by carries vision in charge of the project resulting in yet another last-minute change to the development pipeline and a major shift in the game's direction while still a kart racing experience this redesign was nearly identical to Naughty Dog's CTR with incredibly similar level designs gameplay mechanics and overall style the resulting game was 2003's crash nitro cart which released for the PlayStation 2 along with the Xbox GameCube and a few other mobile devices MetroCard takes place after the events of crash team racing with oxide having been defeated and news of Earth's past racers spreading throughout the galaxy intent on featuring these new racers in this competition collecting Emperor Vela kidnaps crash and all of his friends and forces them to compete for the fate of their world thanks to the new full motion cutscenes nitro car features far more depth to the various characters with precious silly personality but kind-hearted spirit being demonstrated more clearly Mitchell Kart also features a more lighthearted aesthetic than its predecessors with villains being even more goofy than usual hinting at a potential shift in direction that the series would eventually take while seemingly a different experience crash nitro Kart is ultimately a next-gen remake of Crash Team Racing practically all the tracks throughout the game share some striking similarities to the courses offered in the original game including a rainy castle frozen glaciers and sunny beaches though nitro Kart does feature a few unique aspects to help distinguish itself possibly one of the most interesting changes is the reworked karts themselves which can now ride along walls and upside down at specific points throughout each track a feature that was only recently adopted in Nintendo's Mario Kart 8 other new features include new crates marked with an X that always provide players with three items rather than the standard one a few new weapons like the electric trap and ice mines and a new boost combo tracker that contract the number of times the player has boosted without slowing down this put an even greater emphasis on linking drift boost with various boost pads and jumps throughout each course wires can theoretically continuously boost throughout most courses in the game making nature cart a much faster game experience overall thanks to the power of the new hardware nature cart was a huge step forward in the visual department with a higher resolution smoother animations and a massive boost to the level of detail in the various environments new dense weather effects helped to provide an interesting twist to environments that were ultimately very similar to the original title and new slick animations to things like the starting line help to make nitro kart feel more otherworldly and interesting magic art was met with positive reviews for the most part but most critics did take note of the heavily recycled content and lack of innovation after finishing with MetroCard Universal once again looked to the Gameboy advanced platform and testify carries visions with creating a third entry for the handheld device but in order to address concerns regarding the lack of creativity in the franchise's of late Universal decide to incorporate none other than Spyro the Dragon into the mix while the Gameboy Advance version of crash nitro kart was typically the first appearance for the purple dragon in a Crash Bandicoot game Crash Bandicoot purple riptos rampage was the first official entry to feature the pair together along with a simultaneous in verse title featuring Spyro facing off against crashes enemy cortex in Crash Bandicoot purple the evil dr. cortex teams up with sparrows enemy ripto in an attempt to pit both spyro and crash against each other but after crash and Spyro catch on to this plot they team up and hatch a plan of their own to defeat the two villains Crash Purple's gameplay is somewhat similar to the first two Gameboy titles but hasn't even heavier focus on mini games rather than featuring a workroom hub with various different platforming levels to explore crashed purple features large interactive Hub areas that act like platforming sections with traps and enemies and minigame warp rooms that required an in-game currency to unlock after completing enough of these minigames the perk and then proceed to the next platformer area will need to repeat the process again this title is no simply more shallow than the rest of the entries in the franchise and reviewers picked up on this almost immediately stating that the game felt cheap and uninspired with yet another disappointment under universals belt they turned their attention back to the main console platforms where travelers tales was hard at work on the next main installment to the series after being taken off the crash nitro Kart project travelers tales planned to completely reinvent the franchise from the ground up with entirely new controls gameplay mechanics and a more sci-fi style the title was called crash evolution and was directly inspired by other 3d platformers in the early 2000s especially Naughty Dog's new IP jak and daxter but after seeing the progress on the title Universal stepped in and requested that the studio start over with the heavier focus on the more classic island themes of the original titles they also wanted to emphasize the more comedic relationship between crash and his arch-nemesis neocortex resulting in two thousand force crash twinsanity twinsanity is unlike anything else in the series with a much greater emphasis on slapstick cartoon comedy into insanity cortex once again hatches a scheme to defeat his longtime enemy crash but after encountering a pair of strange alien creatures from a different dimension both crash and cortex are forced to team up and travel across the islands in an effort to save their island from destruction along the way the dual encounter several classic crash bandicoot characters and are thrown through a gauntlet of silly cooperative comedic action it completely abandons the traditional size 4 and fixed camera level designs and opts for more open-ended environments filled with crates and 3d platforming challenges one of the more unique features into insanity is the interaction between crash and cortex because both characters refuse to let go of a pink crystal the two are forced to work together in silly ways levels often feature unique situations where players will need to escort cortex Pass hazards or need to use each other as weapons to defeat enemies several levels also incorporate the atmosphere mechanics from wrath of cortex only now the ball is made up of the two characters fighting in a comedic fight cloud twinsanity is easily one of the most creative uses of the crash bandicoot property post Naughty Dog but the short development cycle unfortunately hurt the overall quality of the experience to insanity also features a distinct shift in the visual style with character models still resembling their former selves but having exaggerated features and a more stylized brooch a lot of the game's humor relies on various site gags with one in particular being crashes goofy dumb guys tear he does after hearing something silly all this works surprisingly well and gives to insanity its own unique feel unfortunately twin sandy was met with mixed reviews while most reviewers found the game to perfectly capture the comedic partnership between these two characters it ultimately fails to provide a worthwhile gameplay experience with lackluster platforming mechanics boring level environments and an absence of the original franchises core style twinsanity despite its mixed critical reception has to build a reputation by fans as one of the most underrated post Naughty Dog bandicoot titles especially considering it's one of the first times of franchise truly stepped away and tried to do something different in fact the developers at travelers tales Oxford were so passionate about the reinvention of the series that they even had plans for a sequel which would be based strongly around crash jumping in and out of various television programs like the gex franchise but after the lackluster perception of twinsanity Universal decided not to greenlight the sequel and instead want to push forward with that third racing title development for the 12th crash title began during development of to insanity with travelers tales creating concepts for a new kart racing experience titled crash class racing the idea was to take the beloved kart racing elements players love from nature cart and team racing and add in a few new gameplay mechanics mainly one where players could team up with random racers on the track to take down other nearby opponents in goofy ways many of the tracks were going to be based around dreams and crash bandicoot subconscious likely building off of the strange mind surfing concepts introduced towards the end to insanity however after the lackluster performance of to insanity Universal took travelers tails off of the project effectively severing travelers ties to the crash franchise and instead assigned radical entertainment to take over the project was then renamed to crash tag team racing and released for the PlayStation 2 Xbox and Gamecube in fall of 2005 tag team racing takes place after the events of the past few games with the bandicoot team being chased down by the evil villains and stumbling into a strange new theme park built around crazy race events the leader of this park van clutch then invites the two teams to compete in his tournament with the reward being control of his theme park after cortex agrees in an attempt to build a new evil base of operations crash and his friends are forced to enter as well and the characters are once again thrust into a silly racing tournament but tag team Racing's gameplay marks a substantial shift in direction from previous crash karting games for one the game's hub area is no longer only accessible by driving around but instead acts as a sort of platforming arena with a number of Secrets and collectible tokens hidden throughout first can interact with a large number of NPC characters and can even spend found tokens on new tracks and carts adding much more depth to the kart racing adventure mode the actual racing itself also feels very different thanks to much simpler track environments and a far greater focus on weapons first can smash into crates and collect weapons to defeat enemies but players are no longer flipped into the air after a single hit instead each cart in the race is given extended health requiring multiple direct hits to destroy the character's vehicle to account for this increased damage resistance weapons are now far more powerful with extended ammunition and the ability to combine with any nearby tracer and fire specialized weapons from a rear turret this adds an interesting new element to the gameplay as players now need to carefully pick players to combine with based on specific situations tag team racing while an interesting twist on the classic kart racing formula failed to really impress critics and fans alike many of the trucks were too simplistic and the actual racing itself felt less interesting due to the removal of the drifting and boosting mechanics from the past games tag team features more of the overly comedic stylings introduced with twinsanity but critics called out the game for not being as visually impressive as other titles around the same time tag team would be the last title in the series to feature the traditional crash bandicoot art style as Universal decide to take drastic steps with their next title in order to make crash relevant again as work began on a soft reboot for the series Universal contracted a Japanese developer studio called dimps to produce another Nintendo portable crash title only this time for the Nintendo DS this game titled crash Boom Bang was heavily inspired by eurocom scratch bash boom bangs gameplay revolves around a large board game similar to the classic Mario Party titles in order to win pers need to reach the end goal first by rolling the dice in completing minigames in order to progress there are many minigames available to play with several of them taking advantage of the Nintendo DS's capabilities especially involving the stylus tool go to go reception four Boom Bang was overwhelmingly negative with reviewers faulting the game for its misuse of the crash bandicoot IP and failure to create any actual fun minigames to play with yet another failure under universals watch work on a crash bandicoot reboot intensified immediately after work had completed on tag team racing radical entertainment began work on another main entry to the crash bandicoot series only with a complete redesign for practically every character most notably crash himself who now featured large Ted along both of his arms and very different body proportions one of the most important gameplay mechanics incorporated early on was the ability for crash to Jack enemies mean that he could directly control defeated enemies and use them to either solve puzzles or defeat other enemies this initially led to the early title crash jaqen but for obvious reasons this was changed to the final title crash of the Titans in crash of the Titans for Tex once again tries to take over the world it starts by trying to sabotage the bandicoot family by kidnapping aku aku and cocoa and then freezing crunch any block of ice as crash explores the wampa islands and rescues aku aku he learns that cortex is planning of creating an army of super mutant creatures in order to enslave the world this new focus on giant mutant creatures carries over directly into the direction of the gameplay experience as most of the game revolves around melee combat as opposed to the traditional platforming design of the older titles all the environments much like to insanity are large open-ended areas linked together by linear paths lined with several enemies and collectables crash can now perform a new set of combat moves including standard punches and extended spin and even extended combos assuming the player has managed to collect enough blue mojo collectibles to earn various upgrades well crash of the Titans does feature some white platforming elements a majority of the gameplay loop involves running it's a large open-ended combat arenas and defeating all the enemies to proceed to help make this more interesting enemies offer much more variety with even March or being controllable thanks to the new jack mechanic visually crash of the Titans is certainly an improvement over past titles with much more organic and vibrant environments but for 2007 the game really failed to stand out and did not properly utilize the available hardware to its full potential crash that the Titans was met with average critical reception while some praised the game for its solid gameplay and decent visual style many were disappointed by the departure from the franchise's core aesthetic fans hated the new Punk inspired redesigns of the various characters especially crash in his weird tribal tattoos despite the negative backlash crash the Titans still managed to meet some decent sales figures convincing Vivendi Universal to press on and have radical developed a sequel in the following year in December of 2007 the American game publisher active step forward and offered to merge with Vivendi Universal a deal that was finalized the following year this merger officially transitioned the crash bandicoot intellectual property into Activision's hands a move that would result in a massive hiatus for the series but before that could happen radical entertainment still have one final project in the works a sequel titled crash mind over mutant mind over mutant despite being a direct sequel to crash of the Titans Peters a massive shift in its narrative approach with these shorter development time and smaller budget forcing the studios to think of creative methods to create cutscenes and tell their story this resulted in a number of cutscenes in the game utilizing distinct visual styles inspired by a number of different artistic formats including puppet theatre anime and even a bit built around the South Park art style while this comedic storytelling device has no impact on the actual gameplay experience it does help provide a surprisingly funny new angle to the exhausted storyline that's been told at this point over 14 times when it comes to gameplay most of mind over mutant plays exactly the same as crash of the Titans with players need to collect glue mojo to power up their abilities while also fighting large groups of enemies and doing some light 3d platforming the game's signature jacking mechanic was expanded on slightly with more variety to the large mutant enemies and an expanded arsenal moves for each Titan to help make them feel more practical in large combat situations visually mind over mutant failed to really do much more demo was already introduced in the previous title all the characters still retained their less popular Punk inspired art styles and the environments seem to share a lot of the same assets used in the previous title my never mutant just like its predecessor was met with mostly mixed reviews some reviewers did take note of the improved variety to the combat and the improved Titan jak mechanics but overall the experience failed to draw in the audience that no vendee and radical had anticipated with a large number of failed attempts to bring crash back into the spotlight Activision took a long look at the franchise and decided that the best course of action was to give the beloved marsupial a much-needed rest and an extremely long hiatus for the crash bandicoot franchise began throughout the course of the next several years many attempts to resurrect the franchise were made including an open-world third entry to the Titan based reboot called mutant and several attempts at recreating the magic of the original crash team racing but Activision ultimately called for cancellations to all these projects and crash was left alone for the next nine years throughout the course of this hiatus a number of hints began to emerge most notably from a small Easter Egg hidden in one of Sony's PlayStation commercials and even in odd cameo appearance in activations kids show Skylanders Academy finally during an e3 conference in 2016 Activision officially announced the triumphant return of one of gaming's lost mascots with a complete remake of the entire Naughty Dog trilogy of games including Crash Bandicoot 1 cortex strikes back and warped to capture the feel and art style of the classic titles the developer Vicarious Visions were given the original level geometry from the classic PlayStation 1 titles to build off of everything from the games textures models lighting and even the musical tracks were given a complete overhaul effectively bringing the classic hybrid 3d platformer to an entire new generation of gamers this collection titled the crash bandicoot insane trilogy released exclusively for the PlayStation 4 in 2017 though after a year the collection also found its way to many other platforms including Microsoft's Xbox one the Nintendo switch and for the first time ever the PC practically everything about the gameplay in this collection remains the same as the originals well mate with a few new additions including the ability to play as Coco in any of the game levels the addition of a more forgiving safe system full time child support across all three entries and even a bonus level that was so difficult that it was cut from the original Crash Bandicoot game the insane Shoji as the title would suggest looks insane with incredibly high resolutions beautifully detailed environments a faithful redesign of the classic characters and an incredibly polished overall gameplay experience a game even sports 60 frames per second on the PC providing an unrivaled crash bandicoot experience the insane trilogy was met with generally positive reviews with most critics praising the game's faithful recreation and beautiful visual design however many noted that the game's old-school platformer mechanics had not aged as well and some diehard fans even took note of a slight change to the way crashes hitboxes our hand resulting in slightly more difficult platforming than in the original versions despite these minor complaints the insane trilogy mark a welcome return for the crash bandicoot franchise not only capturing the spirit of Naughty Dog's creation perfectly but also providing an opportunity for other long-forgotten unofficial Sony mascots to make a return with both the original crash trilogy and now the original Spyro trilogy being met with incredibly positive fan reception it was only a matter of time before Activision officially revealed the full remake of Naughty Dog's final entry to the crash bandicoot franchise with a complete top-to-bottom remake of the original Crash Team Racing but instead of just remaking the game with better visuals like the insane trilogy this upcoming kart racing experience also features both tracks and characters from the PlayStation 2 sequel crash nitro Kart while also adding in a plethora of new features never before offered in the series only weeks ahead of the game's release the developers V Knox have confirmed the existence of a number of never before playable characters including the trophy girls Tawna from the original game Spyro the Dragon and even a completely brand-new track cars can now customize their cars and character skins and can even play against other players across the world with full online functionality a feature never before offered in the main titles in the series nitro field has gone from being a faithful recreation of Crash Team Racing to being a celebration of the crash bandicoot franchise as a whole almost like a love letter to fans I've stuck through the game's evolution over the past 23 years crash team nitro field is set to release next week and if you want to learn more about it make sure to stay tuned for a detailed review in addition to a full direct comparison between the original title and other rival karting games crash bandicoot has had an unbelievable run what started as a simple idea from two friends on a cross-country roadtrip has grown into an instantly recognizable video game icon while crash was initially intended to be to PlayStation what Mario and Sonic worked had their respective platforms his game franchise has managed to define itself through years of innovation and creativity and has even gone on to influence games like Mario Kart with crash finally returning to its roots with the insane Sochi and now nitro field it's unclear where Activision plans on taking the Bandicoot next will they build completely original games or will they attempt to recreate other titles like twinsanity or wrath of cortex regardless of what direction they decide to take I think it's safe to say that the individuals in charge of the franchise now have a deep respect for the series so I think whatever they plan on doing should be interesting but what do you guys think are you excited for the Crash Team Racing remake what other games from the series would you like to see revisited let me know in the comments section and if you like this documentary and want to see more like this please consider donating at my patreon these donations help pay for all the games and materials required to make these videos possible also if you haven't already don't forget to Like and subscribe for more content posted every week [Music]

Channel: Nick930

Views: 455,720

Rating: 4.9195313 out of 5

Keywords: Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled, Review, Comparison, History, Crash Bandicoot, Woah, Racing, meme, song, msuic, ps4, warped, animation, all gems, aku aku, air crash, all deaths, android, all games, all boxes, bosses, CTR

Id: PUr6JxzkzOc

Length: 50min 24sec (3024 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 15 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/4114119321121225]

Thanks for sharing this! I really enjoyed it!

[u/vokame]

Very well done, precise history and attention to detail, really enjoyable watch

[u/ConfusedFence]

Great work on this! Briefly played some Crash games as a kid and am just now getting into the N. Sane Trilogy. Having a blast, and this was an awesome history lesson showing me the entire franchise.