Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

Welcome back fellow Steemians, it's that time of the week again, time for your weekly game review fix.

This game was an awesome time travel back in time to when console gaming began to take off, no not the beginning of console gaming like the Atari and Nintendo. This was more the third generation consoles, the first PlayStation console which is now known as the PS1. Which is rather interesting, because with in the next few days Sony will be launching their PlayStation Classic, which is a replica of the original PlayStation with a few small differences. This new console looks exactly as you remember it only it's about 60% smaller with wired analog controllers, updated HDMI ports and it comes preloaded with 20 games, running off the open source emulator. Unfortunately Crash was not included.

Getting back to the game, Crash was an epic straight up fun platform game and if I recall correctly I think I did play all three games and finish them. This was also long before the PlayStation trophies were introduced, which came along with PlayStation Network. So as someone who has a long standing history with the series, this updated and remastered version delivers exactly what I wanted. I got a small taste of Crash Bandicoot not so long ago, when I was playing the last Uncharted game, and there is a part in the game where you can play the first level of Crash, which was sort of an Inception moment. The game now is just as addictive as it was back then, and I'm already deep into trying to find each and every relic and crystal.

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Our story begins when the evil Doctor Neo Cortex and his assistant Doctor Nitrus Brio uses a device called the Evolvo-Ray to mutate the various little creatures living on the islands into beasts with superhuman strength.

They decide to then experiment on Crash, a peaceful bandicoot who Cortex intends to be the leader of his growing military of animal soldiers. Despite Brio's warnings, Cortex subjects Crash to the untested Cortex Vortex in an attempt to control him, which then ends up rejecting Crash and allowing him to escape. After Crash leaps out a window and falls to the ocean below, Cortex prepares a female bandicoot named Tawna as a replacement for experiment. However Crash being the good guy that he is and also developing feelings for Tawna during their time in captivity, he decides to make it his mission to rescue her and defeat Cortex. Crash makes his way through the jungle filled with all manner of dangerous creatures and scales the wall of a giant wooden fortress, which is inhabited by the native tribe. He enters the hut of tribe leader Papu Papu and is forced to defeat him in self-defense after accidentally waking him from his slumber. Luckily he escapes and then has to take on the second of Cortex's islands as he slowly but surely gets ever closer to facing Cortex.

This is just the first part of the first story as there are a total of three stories all combined into one game. It is pretty awesome if you say maybe only played one or two of the originals back then, and just a fun game to have in your collection.

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"Crash, Coco, it is just as I feared. Uka Uka and Doctor Cortex have freed a group of destructive masks known as the Elementals. We must find a way to stop them before they destroy the Earth and all of its inhabitants. The only way to stop the Elementals destructive nature is to imprison them with the use of ancient Crystals. Each Elemental can be returned back to their hibernation state with a total of 5 Crystals. We must act quickly. Coco, what is the status of the new portal chamber you've been working on?" - Aku Aku

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The most stand out part of this game, was that it was not just a case of upgrading the graphics like you would do on a PC by pushing up the graphics settings and adding some lighting effects.

This looks like it was completely redrawn or something and has the feel like you are watching a Saturday morning cartoon. What also really stood out to me personally, as someone who works in music, was the high definition upgrade to all the music and sound design, especially when you get the Aku Aku mask and the tribal drums go ballistic. The game is filled with loads of content if you are a first time Cash player and there is loads to rediscover if you played this years and years ago. The last major addition comes in the ability to play as Crash’s sister Coco, who is far less of a nutty fur ball compared to her older bother, she has her own animations but it functionally identical when is come to mechanics.

All in all it's the same game and the developers stayed true to the original, but the audio and visual overhaul has brought new life to an old school classic for the newer generation. This is definitely a great game if you have kids and want something less violent than everything else out there, but don't be fooled, just because it looks like a kids game doesn't make it super easy. I almost lost my controller a few times when I originally played the game due to some frustrating parts, I think it taught me some patience in the long run.

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Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is a platform video game compilation compiled by Vicarious Visions and originally developed by Naughty Dog.

The developers are pretty well known and also brought us titles like Jak and Daxter, the Uncharted series and The Last of Us. The game is basically a remastered collection of the three Crash Bandicoot games, Crash Bandicoot, Cortex Strikes Back, and Warped, from back in the day, between the years of 1996 to 1998. It's now been nicely packaged with upgraded graphics for all the gamers who were too young back then to experience. The game was first released on PlayStation 4 in June 2017 and then sold over 2.5 million copies by September 2017. Activision then later released the game on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows in 2018. So if you're in a nostalgic mood to travel back in time, this is a great title to get your hands on and you will be able to hopefully get this at a nice discounted price just before Christmas.