CRASH 4: IT'S ABOUT TIME Demo Impression: New Features, Same Problems
Crash Bandicoot his back and his wacky 4th major game. Wild worlds, cool powers, and taking control of other characters bring a fun and new life to this game series. There’s a lot to enjoy here, just in the demo. After playing the demo I saw a lot of potentials, but there still are some platforming issues and general gameplay problems that have plagued the game since it’s inception.
Crash 4 looks really great. The over-the-top art design and wildly cartoonish characters and colors keep things visually entertaining the entire time. The music and the extreme expressions from Crash and the other characters are good usages of it being on a new platform. I do think the graphics overall could’ve been a little crisper and nicer like the Ratchet and Clank games that came out years ago, but overall things look pretty good for this very stylized and cartoonish setting.
There are many parts of this game and gameplay that are really fun. Being chased by certain enemies and new mask powers that slow down time or make things pop in and out of existence along with other things are really great and give us a good taste of it will be in the final game. Players can also play as Neo Cortex. I wish there was a lot more tutorial and how to use each character specifically and they’re different moves. It is somewhat fun to experiment, but after trying and trying the same part over and over again to realize that you had a certain power move that you never knew about to make it far easier is an odd design.
As much fun as the platforming is here, it still suffers from the same issues as years ago. The 3-D platforming doesn’t feel super tight and yet Crash himself feels very ridged. It’s hard to gauge exactly where Crash is going to land and I don’t know how many hours I’d have to put in if I would or could even perfectly learn his moves that and how he moves around. I’ve also played other performers where the different skills and techniques are used to combat really engaging and challenging levels. However, these levels didn’t challenge my platforming abilities as much as it challenged my patience. It’s hard to explain, but it just didn’t feel great playing the same part of a level over and over again. I didn’t feel like I was learning and getting better, I just felt like I had to get lucky with where I’d land as Crash.
The game will be coming out in a few days and we’re excited to try it out but still wary of the 3-D platforming and difficult to discern the depth of field.