If you played the original Crash Bandicoot titles and recently got your hands on the N. Sane Trilogy, then you’ll no doubt have seen some differences in how it controls. Vicarious has now addressed this and noted that changes were indeed made.
“Our goal for the Trilogy was to reduce any points of frustration while preserving the challenge of the originals, and we feel we’ve done that.” The developer wanted there to be a “cohesive experience across all three games,” thus resulting in the changes made.
“The reason for that is because we want the best experience for all players, and Crash’s handling falls into this category. 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.
“We went through rounds of internal testing, user testing, and iterations to get each game’s handling to just the right place. In the end, we ended up tuning jump differently for each game, so that the jump metrics are the same as the originals. However, there are a few subtle differences in Crash Bandicoot, chief among these being the fact that you fall more quickly upon release of the X button than you did in the original first game.”
Obviously the collision system was also changed and thus made Crash’s overall platforming different. “[C]ombined with the addition of physics, certain jumps require more precision than the originals. 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.”
We already know about how changes were made to the checkpoints and saves for the first game while a dynamic difficulty was added. Vicarious discusses and notes that players should try the other titles before jumping into the first Crash Bandicoot.
“An increased precision is now required in the first game, which makes the gameplay experience different. Particularly if you are a new player, you may want to start with the second and third games first, and then come back to try Crash Bandicoot after you’ve had more practice. For those of you who played the originals and acquired a fair amount of muscle memory, re-learning the handling in our game may present an additional challenge you weren’t expecting. But we’re sure you up to the task.”
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