Released just a few weeks ago on PS4, Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy offers the chance for longtime fans of the classic Crash Bandicoot trilogy to relive the titles with newly-remade visuals and more, while many fans have addressed that some things about the titles feel noticeably different than before.
In a blog post from developer Vicarious Visions, the studio took time to address some of the technical and gameplay changes made to the three titles. Specifically, one of the most vocal changes that fans have commented on with the release of the N. Sane Trilogy has been the adjustment of how Crash controls and the game’s physics, as his jumps are noticeably altered compared to the previous games, while his handling sometimes felt a bit more slippery and less precise than what some fans remembered in the previous games.
Vicarious Visions addressed that, overall, the goal of the team in developing the game was “to reduce any points of frustration while preserving the challenge of the originals, and we feel we’ve done that.” However, the team also explained that “many fans have picked up on the fact that Crash’s jump isn’t quite the same as it was,” which is especially noticeable in the remade version of the first title in N. Sane Trilogy.
The reasoning behind this change was that Vicarious Visions “carefully considered the choice to unify the design of these games” to present “a cohesive experience across all three games” in the N. Sane Trilogy. This led to the team deciding to use the handling from the third game, Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped as the trilogy’s “starting point,” as it “represented the most improved and modern approach” to provide players with the most control over Crash.
Vicarious Visions “went through rounds of internal testing, user testing, and iterations to each game’s handling to just the right place” as the studio explained in the post, but ultimately the team decided to tune the jumps differently for each game “so that the jump metrics are the game as the originals,” aside from a few small changes from the previous games.
In particular, the studio explained that the game engine used for the N. Sane Trilogy uses a different collision system than what was present in the original titles, and with the addition of physics makes “certain jumps require more precision than the originals.” The studio “iterated on collision and physics throughout the development to make it fair to all players,” while also preserving the feel as closely to the original games as possible.
The final note that Vicarious Visions touched upon was the difficulty of each game, as the introduction of more modern progression elements (such as save points and checkpoints) were made to “make the first game a heck of a lot more forgiving” than the original version of Crash Bandicoot. While the first game does require “increased precision” moreso than the later two Crash titles, other adjustments that the studio made include dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA) to the first game that provides players with Aku Aku masks and checkpoints after a certain number of failures in a level.
Alongside the explanations provided by Vicarious Visions, the team also provided a thank you to fans that have supported the remade collection of games so far, and also teased to stay tuned to the Crash Bandicoot panel at this week’s San Diego Comic Con for “a special surprise for fans.”
Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy is available now for PS4.