Image via Activision
There is a level in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (which is out now on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) that nearly broke my will to go on. It was Cortex Castle, the next-to-last level, which should give you an indication of how far this game pushed me to the brink. If you are the type of person who wants something relaxing to play after work, or favors the narrative experience over the gameplay experience, this game is a hard sell. But I say that ironically, as a gamer who typically fits into both of those categories, I stuck it out and endured hundreds of losses to my eventual satisfaction.
The closest comparison I can make is to 2013's Guacamelee. Like Crash Bandicoot 4, Guacamelee also featured precision jumping, eccentric bosses. and game-altering power-ups that diversified your movement in new, exciting ways. But in Guacamelee, the truly crazy levels were an optional challenge after completing the core experience. Crash Bandicoot 4, on the other hand, shows no mercy. The developers locked the "regular ending" behind a truly fiendish challenge—one that would be a "true ending" final test or DLC in any other game. Here's a clip from that penultimate level, which I recorded from my playthrough. Watching it back, I impress myself, but that feeling is tempered by the aggravation I put myself through to record it.
To give you some perspective of what you're looking at: Crash is using the powers of four different masks to navigate this open area; touching the pink lasers means instant death. The purple mask allows you to conjure a powerful tornado that propels you farther and more powerfully, though you'll die if you touch any explosives. The yellow mask allows you to slow down time, albeit for a few seconds. The green mask inverts gravity, forcing you to reorient your perspective. And the blue mask phases matter in and out, which means you have to switch platforms, midjump, to prevent yourself from tumbling into the abyss.
It took me (as you can see in the upper right-hand corner of the screen) 123(!) tries to get up to this point in the level; the prior challenges in this same level were no cakewalk either. But believe it or not, this is not even the most difficult part of the level. The truly intense part occurs right after this one, and it is the level's final sequence.
The grand total for the entire level? I died 276 times over the course of nearly two hours. But when I finally beat the level—at one in the morning—I felt that euphoric combination of relief, exhaustion, and happiness that made it worth it. It's a feeling, conjured by difficult, well-constructed gameplay, that's always been elusive and continues to be rare; until two days ago, I hadn't felt that feeling in years. That Crash Bandicoot 4 managed to recreate that feeling multiple times during my playthrough is a testament to its quality. That I immediately went right back into the game to defeat the final boss after that excruciating ordeal is another.
Crash Bandicoot 4 drip feeds you increasingly complex obstacles over the course of its playthrough. Enemies are unarmed at first; then, they begin carrying weapons. And Crash, aside from the intermittent mask sequences, has the same basic tools to defeat his foes—the ones he's largely had since the start of this franchise. He can run, duck, jump, double jump, belly flop, slide, and spin... That's about it. The level designers found enough permutations of these basic maneuvers to create some truly awesome levels. Some highlights include a midnight party that's a cross between Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Dia de los Muertos in Mexico City; a prehistoric level with a massive T-Rex that chases you to the end; a futuristic Coruscant-esque city filled with floating cars and a Jetsons vibe; and a traditional Japanese garden, complete with waterfalls and arched bridges.
The story and dialogue include some cute meta winks to these characters' histories, but it's almost beside the point; there's a better story being told through gameplay rather than cinematic cutscenes.
There are 43 core "main" levels and several "side" levels in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time which cast you as supporting characters Dingodile and Tawny, plus lead villain Neo Cortex. Each of these side characters has different abilities. Dingodile carries a vacuum cleaner that can suck up and shoot TNT, Tawny is equipped with a grappling hook that can hook onto distant platforms, and Cortex packs a ray gun that can turn enemies into platforms. Many of these side levels take place concurrently with the game's main storyline, which means that often, two different character's actions overlap; you'll have to play all of the levels in order to get the full story. On top of that are inverted "mirror" levels which add even more replayability.
If you complete specific tasks, like breaking a percentage of crates in each level, you can earn gems. You use these gems to unlock special costumes, like this chicken get-up I earned for 100% completion of the first level.
If you die multiple times in a single sequence, the game will give you additional advantages on subsequent attempts. It will add additional checkpoints, as well as allowing you more hits. As a last resort, the game will get rid of some of your enemies to make your timed jumps easier. Typically, I dislike this sort of hand-holding; I'd rather determine my own level of difficulty than have the developer take the decision out of my hands. But seeing as there is no changeable difficulty setting in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, this is the next best compromise. And quite frankly, it came as a relief, especially on the later levels.
As I observed in the demo, the jumping controls still feel a bit imprecise in Crash Bandicoot 4, although you have a shadow marker that shows where you're about to land. I also devised my own workaround for the problem: Rather than trying to hold the jump button for just long enough but not too long, I'll instead change the timing of the jump itself. I'll jump earlier if I need to make a short jump, and later if I need to make a long jump. This gave me some necessary accuracy, particularly in a late-game sequence where I had to traverse multiple, moving platforms in pursuit of a spaceship.
By playing both the demo and the full game, I also observed something really cool: the degree to which Crash Bandicoot 4 has seeped into my muscle memory. The demo levels that I mastered weeks ago were easily conquered in this second go-around. Just like with an old school Mario game that I haven't played in decades, my skills came back to me pretty easily. So rest assured: it may take you a hundred attempts to beat a level, but if you've done it once, you'll be able to do it again.
