Activision revealed how and why the jumping mechanism in Crash Bandicoot (the remastered version of the original game, which is available in Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy) has changed in comparison to the original in a blog post on Activision’s official blog.
“The reason for that is because we want the best experience for all players, and Crash’s handling falls into this category,” said Kevin Kelly, editorial manager of Activision. “We spent a lot of time studying the three titles and chose the handling from Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped as our Trilogy’s starting point; it represented the most improved and modern approach as it gives players the most control.”
Kelly also commented that the developers wanted the controls for all three remasters to be similar to give players a “cohesive experience.” This is because the jumping mechanisms in the first three games changed over the course of their releases (the first game, Crash Bandicoot was released in 1996; the second game, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back was released in 1997; the third game Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped was released in 1998).
One of the differences in jumping in Crash Bandicoot is that when releasing the X button (for jumping), Crash will fall faster in comparison to the original jumping mechanism. Along with the jumping mechanism changing, Activision also adjusted how Crash handles platforms, enemies, and other things that involve collisions.
“We’ve heard some questions about how Crash’s model interacts with platforms and enemies. Our game engine features a different collision system than the original game, and combined with the addition of physics, certain jumps require more precision than the originals,” said Kelly. “Much like the handling, we iterated on collision and physics throughout development to make it fair to all players and as faithful to the original games as possible.”
The final change discussed is the how the difficulty has been changed to become more modern, but it also sticks to the original games’ set difficulty.
“The modernization of the save and checkpoint systems make the first game a heck of a lot more forgiving than the original. On top of that, we added DDA (the dynamic difficulty adjustment that was originally only present in the second and third games) to our Crash Bandicoot, which gives Crash Aku Aku masks and checkpoints after a certain number of failures in a level,” said Kelly. “This certainly helps when players need it the most!”
The developers even map out a difficulty chart for players who haven’t played the game at all. They encourage newer players to start off at either Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back or Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, and eventually make their way to Crash Bandicoot, the hardest out of the three games.
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy has only been available since June 30 of this year. On Metacritic, the remastered collection received a score of 80. One reviewer from GamingAge gave the game a score of 100.
“If you’ve had the hankering for platformers as of late, like I have, this set is an absolute no brainer. For $39.99 you get three of the best platformers ever made, and they’re completely remade for the current [generation]… you can’t get a much better value than that,” said the reviewer from GamingAge. A full review from GamingAge on Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy can be found here.
Aside from the different mechanisms built into the remastered collection to give it a more modern feel, it seems that both players and critics are enjoying Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. If you’re interested in buying the remastered collection, it is available for $39.88 on Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart and GameStop.
Featured image via Flickr/BagoGames.
