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Introduction

Today a new review will be crashing onto the site, Crash Bandicoot 1. We have played this game on the Nsane trilogy of Crash Bandicoot, you can expect reviews of Crash Bandicoot 2 and 3 as well! We still need to complete the time trials and find every hidden gem, but that is quite a hard task for an old school game. Are you up for the challenge to complete this platformer? Or will you perish by falling in oddly shaped gaps!

What did I think before playing Crash Bandicoot 1?

Crash Bandicoot has a quite simple concept, do not die by falling into holes. Getting your butt handed to you by enemies is also not a great idea.  The idea behind this concept is, that after failing most likely, many times, you will learn from your mistakes and then succeed where you failed before. There is not exactly a good page to find information, thus we used the Wikipedia page to find information!

The Wikipedia page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_Bandicoot_N._Sane_Trilogy
There is still quite a lot of information to digest, but, you will mostly be jumping a lot while spinning your enemies out of the way while collecting wumpa fruit. If you are feeling confident, you can also try the time trials or even open every box in each level.

Rating

I rate Crash Bandicoot 1 with an 8.6 before playing.
If you know the name, you know what to expect. If you do not know about Crash Bandicoot, you are in for a big surprise.

Story

While it is a game from an era that is long gone, Crash Bandicoot 1 still has a story, it all involves the evil Doctor Neo Cortex.

Doctor Neo Cortex has made an evolution ray to make an army of animals to take over the world, however his brainwashing machine malfunctions when he tries to brainwash Crash. Seizing the moment, Crash escapes, but Doctor Neo Cortex wants to brainwash his girlfriend, it is up to Crash to save her with the help of Aku Aku, a powerful mask!

Rating

I rate the story of Crash Bandicoot 1 with a 7.0
While not perfect, it is still a fun story that makes you want to punch Neo Cortex in the face!

Gameplay

The gameplay of Crash Bandicoot is quite simple, do not die. Many of the levels can be fairly hard, especially if you are not familiar with Crash Bandicoot, and it will take quite some to adapt to this game. In most of the levels, you need to walk up while avoiding enemies and huge gaps. Any enemy in the way can be spinned away!

If you are able to clear the level, I hope that you have registered the fastest way to clear it for the time trials. Some of the times that are needed for the time trials are absurd, which is why we still need to complete many of these trials. If you truly want to clear the game, you will also need to open each box in all the levels, including the exploding TNT boxes!

Rating

I rate the gameplay of Crash Bandicoot 1 with an 8.8.
While this game is a lot of fun, it can also be very frustrating. However, the feeling that you get when you finally complete that nasty level is amazing!

Sound and Graphics

Graphics

The graphics of Crash Bandicoot 1 have been remastered and remade. This is quite evident if you would see a picture of the original version and this newer version. It is quite amazing what the developers managed to achieve. A lot of the levels have different settings, like running away from a builder. However, the death animations are great in this game, unless you have already died over 100 times in the same level.

Sound

The music and ambient sounds are great, it makes the environment feel alive, ready to kill you. 

Rating

I rate the sound and graphics of Crash Bandicoot 1 with a 9.5
It is up to you to see as many death animations as possible!

What did I think after playing Crash Bandicoot 1?

My wife and I had quite some difficult challenges to face in this game. One of them was a level where the bridge pieces fall away when you stand on them for a second. There were also turtles that you needed to use to bounce around, and it was pure evil and frustrating. There is no way that I can complete that fast with a time trial.

The bosses were fun to fight but once you had them figured out, it was quite easy to defeat them, but you can only make one mistake otherwise you are a goner! I tried to complete one of the hardest level in only 25 minutes. But did I succeed?

Rating

I rate Crash Bandicoot 1 with a 9.0 after playing.
Time to spin your way to either victory or death!

What are my personal thoughts about Crash Bandicoot 1?

I already thought the first level was hard, imagine my surprise when that was just a piece of cake compared to the rest of the game. Luckily, there are no sharks in this game, yet.

Rating

My personal Rating of Crash Bandicoot 1 is a 7.1
While I had fun when playing this game, the later levels were very frustrating!

Last Words

Pros

Cons

We played this game with the Nsane trilogy, we enjoyed the remastered graphics but we did die a lot.

Final Rating

8.6/10

8.6

Let me know what you think of Crash Bandicoot 1 in the comments!
I hope you enjoyed reading this review, I hope to see you in the next review!
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25 thoughts on “Crash Bandicoot 1 Review”

  1. Avatar

    Do you think you’ll give the original Playstation version of the first game a go and compare it to the remastered version?

  2. Avatar

    Thanks for this review. I was planning to get this game for my sons. I still do, but the difficulty of some of game levels makes me to postpone this game for the future. =)

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