Game Defence: Crash Twinsanity

Talk to your average gamer and ask them about Crash Bandicoot. You will hear about their love for the original trilogy and Crash Team Racing, dismiss the later games entirely, and then contemplate another instalment for the former Sony mascot down the line, preferably for the PS4 and developed by Naughty Dog.


Its hardly a surprising attitude. The Naughty Dog Era of Crash Bandicoot games are seen as a masterpiece of platforming for the PS1 and tend to feature on any reviewers best of PS1 list in some form. The levels are fun to play, the characters are unique, the humour is slyly macabre, silly, and often in spades. The Boss fights make the most of the mechanics, and the Character of Crash himself feels exactly like the sort of character the Playstation deserves; Cool without being too childish or conventional. Everyone loves the guy.

Then Naughty Dog left...

From Wrath of Cortex onwards, most people act like the series never happened from that dark time in 2001. Yeah Crash Bash was okay, but by no means a classic, Nitro Kart wasn't a patch on CTR, and Crash of the Titans took the characters sense of cool and threw it out the window with a new look that fans hated.

Dafook is this?!

However, for all the mediocrity that Crash has endured, there is one game in this dark period that shows that a Crash game can and should be just as good as the Naughty Dog games. That game is Crash Twinsanity.

Here is a game forgotten by the masses, dismissed as another game for the pile, not nearly remembered as fondly as the original games. I must disagree, because this feels like a logical progression of the series. Read on.

For starters, the crucial elements of the original games i.e the charm, sense of humour and level design, are all present and accounted for. In fact, if you use the rule of gaming comedies (judging the game solely on if it makes you laugh), you will laugh with a few of the games scenarios. Dr Cortex getting used as a snowboard by Crash? Crash being completely oblivious to Cortex's disguises? The silly death animations? A game mechanic of controlling a big ball of violence? Fourth wall jokes about how bad the Wrath of Cortex was?! All of these have chuckles to them, and the story facilitates this really well. Its true that the jokes are more juvenile perhaps than the originals, but they fit well with the characters and scenarios.

The nonlinear beach is a great start to proceedings

The story follows Crash 3 years after the events of Wrath of Cortex, lazing about on the beach of N'Sanity island, when Cortex (in the laziest disguise imaginable) lures Crash to a Mecha Bandicoot to destroy him once and for all. When this fails, the two fight until they find out that a pair of alien twin birds from another dimension are planning to destroy the Wumpa Islands. From there its a quest to stop the evil twins, visiting a lot of open ended locales, collecting crystals and learning about teamwork (or, just tolerating). Its very much a style reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons and it pulls it off with aplomb. Remember, the PS1 games had a paper thin excuse to take Crash on adventures as well, so while this is still fairly barebones to other games, its still contains more lore.

The main gimmick of this game is that Crash and Cortex have to work together to defeat a greater evil. Watching the apparent 'brains' of the operation getting humiliated by Crash's brainless antics, or having Cortex discover something mindblowing, only for Crash to give the same bemused look as when he sees a passing bee, is the stuff that comic duos are made of. Cortex in particular gets fleshed out more as a character, since Crash is a silent protagonist. Cortex's lines are very much in character,and his bumbling, hammy antics are worth watching through the cutscenes. He is the sort of character that you love to see get his comeuppance, and it has just the right amount that it doesn't feel particularly cruel or unfair to the mad scientist.

The gameplay is a hybrid of Crash games of old, and newer mechanics that feel right in place. The levels are now constructed with one hub area, before travelling through the traditional linear levels. It feels very open, and that works to the games advantage. While less of a linear rollercoaster, it still has the levels fans love; The side scrolling, the "escape from approaching doom", the Boss Fights, the enemy variety, and of course, pits. The standard Crash controls are familiar to veterans and are still simple enough for the casual player to get going. New mechanics such as controlling a fighting Crash and Cortex downhill like a pinball, controlling the two together, preventing Cortex from getting hit by numerous hazards, and controlling Cortex all add some variety to the gameplay. You will have had just the right amount of Crash by the end, and its satisfying to get to the end in one piece.

Sometimes the gameplay is quite unforgiving, and you will need multiple attempts to complete certain levels. I do enjoy this aspect, as it shows the developers like to challenge the player. Its no dark souls, but its no stroll down easy street. Veterans will like this aspect.

The devil is in the details, and as you play you notice callbacks to the older games too. N'Sanity Island has Papu Papu's hut designed identical to its original appearance in Crash 1, Crash's hut is reminiscent of its appearance in 3, and the many recurring bosses appear for cameos at worst and full on encounters at best. The game captures the essence of the Crash games visually, and even has the silly names for the levels (Boiler Room Doom springs to mind)

Shoddy quality but you get the idea

The game also needs to be commended for its soundtrack. In a very bold move, the developers got Spiralmouth to do the score. Spiralmouth are an entirely a cappella group, and the tracks are very unique. You simply won't hear anything like it, and the variety in sounds is surprising. Its tense when it needs to be, and cheery when you are simply exploring the beaches of N'Sanity island. The gamble paid off, especially when you remember just how great the original Crash score was.

There are criticisms about the game, no question. Its apparent in hindsight that the development time was just too short in some areas. This is lampshaded in some places, and while funny, it still feels like continuity around the midpoint is a bit off. The most glaring example is a boss fight that appears out of nowhere, just a short time after another with N-Gin. With the more open ended nature of the gameplay, its likely that simply adding levels as bonus ones like in Crash 2 and 3 would have been harder to do without messing up the pacing. Some aspects of the gameplay are a bit rough around the edges, such as Cortex's slow movement, and Nina's late game addition feels like a missed opportunity that doesn't hang around nearly long enough.

And without wishing to spoil, but the ending does leave something of a sour taste with the villains. It feels like an ending made for a different series, one with characters that don't return after each instalment like this one.

Yes, ultimately the original Naughty Dog era still remains the best time to be a Crash fan, but Twinsanity isn't half bad. By no means a classic, but a respectable effort in a series filled with disappointing sequels. The mechanics are solid, the art style hasn't aged as badly as some others, the story is silly enough to overlook the flaws, the characters are likeable, and the hub world design feels right for the game. A bit more polishing and a few extra levels may have put this beside its better loved predecessors, but what is here isn't bad. If you long for a bit more of Crash, but have somehow played your PS1 collection to death, you may find what you are looking for with Twinsanity. Just hope that they go with this style for any future Crash game, and not whatever this is...