Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time

I had this for Christmas- I loved the crash series, so was excited to try Crash 4 its about time.

The graphics are amazing and the little jump Landing locator is a nifty feature and proved very useful.

The levels had some retro feel to them while being fresh for this generation of gamers.

But the difficulty OH MY GOD. It is so frustrating but so addictive, you can't just give up you have to finish it.

The power suits are a good feature too, and the more lower suits you unlock the more difficult the game becomes. Trying to switch quickly between suits to get past space. The final level..... took me A-LOT of tries I just kept getting frazzled in the castle! But when I completed it I felt like I'd really accomplished something! Its a fantastic game, don't aim for 100% you'll never do it or die trying.

Setting it as a continuation to the original 3 games, toys for bob did a really great job at capturing the feel and lighthearted tone of the originals while adding some new mechanics that brings a lot of new challenges to the game such as the edition of masks which they have different powers and most of them are really fun to use and it takes some time to master their abilities.

Really nice game to play in these times at home though I gotta say it's absolutely the hardest game in the entire series by far but it's definitely better than wrath of cortex which was considered as crash 4 up to this point, now hopefully we can get a new spyro game as well in the near future.

The art is a sure standout with atmospheric landscapes that make areas so destinct you can almost smell them.

Even the music plays in to the rythm of the levels at times and makes it near impossible not to jam along with it.

The game introduces multiple new story elements and gameplay mechanics which the game explores fully and in unique and creative ways.

The story is fun and over the top granting some characters more personality than you could ever ask for, while others might've benefit from being taken more seriously.

Replayability is at an all time high as there's always something new for you to earn when going back into levels, though this can easily overwhealm someone striving to complete the game 106%.

There's something here for you in both spectrums like casual laid back play, and the fast pace time-trial runthrough of the levels.

Are you into speedruns? GREAT go for it!

Do you not have time for that and just want to get through the story? GREAT no problem, both will serve good competition.

While extremely hard in areas which can be either good or bad depending on the player there are items so easy to miss that you might not have a chance to get them without outside help.

Even though the title and story overwrites the majority of later Crash titles it does it in a celebratory manner instead of erasing it from existence.

Long story short, the game is fun, unique, beautiful and hard!

This game is a blast start to finish, so many levels to play, things to collect and bosses to master! Not to mention this is the first platformer in the Crash franchise that has this many playable characters, they all handle like a dream! I couldn't have asked for a better game!

So some of you might remember how much I loved the N. Sane Trilogy, even though I'd never played a Crash game in my life before that point. And so I was looking forward to this game, and really, really enjoyed it...for a while.

See, while the game is really well animated, has a lot of great level design, and Cortex is still a great laugh, there is a roughly equal amount of level design that really made me angry, I didn't find most of the humour all that funny, especially not when compared to the N. Sane Trilogy, and by god...the completion requirements.

And before anyone gets snotty about me thinking that it's necessary to 100% the game when it technically isn't, well you're completely correct. However, the game taken at its normal pace and only playing it through to the end without collecting everything will only take you around four to five hours, but the ludicrous amount of stuff needed to 100% the game, unlike the original trilogy, is just thoroughly not worth it.

Over 400 gems, including hidden ones, flashback tapes that can be serious pains to finish, and all in some of the hardest levels ever made in the entire series up until now, and when you add all that up, what it results in is the fact that unlike the N. Sane Trilogy, I would only ever recommend playing this through to finish it, not complete it.

If you do that, it's just as fun, if not more so than the N. Sane Trilogy, but through all the repetition if you're aiming to complete it, the humour that occasionally falls flat, and the frustration overtaking the fun far too often, I can't say I'm anywhere near as likely to return to this one as I am the N. Sane Trilogy any time soon.

Oh well, it was fun for a few hours...