Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is pretty much an improvement over the original in almost every single way.
The level designs and aesthetics are more varied and fun, providing the player with a good challenge, but I believe levels never become quite as hard as Crash 1, which allows this game to be more beginner-friendly, in my opinion.
Crash now has a new move, that being the slide! Doing a slide jump in this game is very satisfying, especially when you're trying to do longer jumps, or when you're just casually running through the stage!
Additionally, Crash also has the Belly Flop, which is performed by pressing the slide button after a jump, and I think it's fine. I found it useful for breaking my momentum in the middle of a jump, but I don't find it as reliable as something like the Stomp in the Boost Sonic games.
I think the bosses are a bit better than last time, not by much, but they are fun to fight, as simple as they may be.
Additionally, there's a bit more story this time around.
I didn't really discuss this during my Crash 1 review, but the plot of last time was that Crash was a failed experiment by Dr. Neo Cortex, and that he escaped the lab, but his girlfriend Tawna, is still stuck in there, and Crash has got to save her from Cortex and stop him from taking over the world with his army of animal experiments.
This time around, Tawna is nowhere to be seen (I wonder why) and Crash has a younger sister named Coco. She doesn't do much in the story, mainly just trying to warn Crash of Cortex's actual plan, which is pretty obvious to see, but considering that Crash is a big dumbass... yeah. Cortex is using Crash to get all crystals, the plot McGuffin of this game, to power up the Cortex Vortex and rule over the world!
The biggest glow-up, I'd say, has got to be the voice acting. Now, in the original game, voice acting was minimal and we didn't hear many characters talking, but when they did... it was meh. Nothing bad per say, but nothing really good either.
This time around, there are more cutscenes, and we hear more of Dr. Cortex, this time being voiced by Clancy Brown, and I love how much character he gives to the mad scientist, it's great!
And that also applies to the game's overall presentation, as the graphics look slighty better, especially Crash's model, and the music is more catchy than the original. Not all of it is memorable, but there are some pretty good tracks in here.
This time around, I actually decided to go for 100% completion, being the first time I ever 100%'d a Crash game, and while it is generally a better experience than the original, but not having to worry about dying, there's probably way more backtracking here than last time.
Now, Crash 1 had its backtracking moments, especially with the colored gems, but this time around, not only can you get a gem by breaking all of the boxes, but also by doing something different, and this is where the Death Routes come into play!
Not all stages have a Death Route, and not all secondary gems require you do a Death Route, but a Death Route is an alternate route of a stage that you get by not dying up to that point. The thing is, a good chunk of stages that have Death Route have boxes in said route and in the main route, which requires a bunch of backtracking and fighting against the game's locked camera to break every box in the stage and get one of the gems.
While this game is an improvement over the original in many aspects, this was the pits, and not really that fun.
But I will admit, I did smile when I finally got 100% completion, especially because it was my first time doing so.
Overall, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is a great sequel to the original, improving on a lot, but still has a couple of snags holding it back from being the best it could be.
The level designs and aesthetics are more varied and fun, providing the player with a good challenge, but I believe levels never become quite as hard as Crash 1, which allows this game to be more beginner-friendly, in my opinion.
Crash now has a new move, that being the slide! Doing a slide jump in this game is very satisfying, especially when you're trying to do longer jumps, or when you're just casually running through the stage!
Additionally, Crash also has the Belly Flop, which is performed by pressing the slide button after a jump, and I think it's fine. I found it useful for breaking my momentum in the middle of a jump, but I don't find it as reliable as something like the Stomp in the Boost Sonic games.
I think the bosses are a bit better than last time, not by much, but they are fun to fight, as simple as they may be.
Additionally, there's a bit more story this time around.
I didn't really discuss this during my Crash 1 review, but the plot of last time was that Crash was a failed experiment by Dr. Neo Cortex, and that he escaped the lab, but his girlfriend Tawna, is still stuck in there, and Crash has got to save her from Cortex and stop him from taking over the world with his army of animal experiments.
This time around, Tawna is nowhere to be seen (I wonder why) and Crash has a younger sister named Coco. She doesn't do much in the story, mainly just trying to warn Crash of Cortex's actual plan, which is pretty obvious to see, but considering that Crash is a big dumbass... yeah. Cortex is using Crash to get all crystals, the plot McGuffin of this game, to power up the Cortex Vortex and rule over the world!
The biggest glow-up, I'd say, has got to be the voice acting. Now, in the original game, voice acting was minimal and we didn't hear many characters talking, but when they did... it was meh. Nothing bad per say, but nothing really good either.
This time around, there are more cutscenes, and we hear more of Dr. Cortex, this time being voiced by Clancy Brown, and I love how much character he gives to the mad scientist, it's great!
And that also applies to the game's overall presentation, as the graphics look slighty better, especially Crash's model, and the music is more catchy than the original. Not all of it is memorable, but there are some pretty good tracks in here.
This time around, I actually decided to go for 100% completion, being the first time I ever 100%'d a Crash game, and while it is generally a better experience than the original, but not having to worry about dying, there's probably way more backtracking here than last time.
Now, Crash 1 had its backtracking moments, especially with the colored gems, but this time around, not only can you get a gem by breaking all of the boxes, but also by doing something different, and this is where the Death Routes come into play!
Not all stages have a Death Route, and not all secondary gems require you do a Death Route, but a Death Route is an alternate route of a stage that you get by not dying up to that point. The thing is, a good chunk of stages that have Death Route have boxes in said route and in the main route, which requires a bunch of backtracking and fighting against the game's locked camera to break every box in the stage and get one of the gems.
While this game is an improvement over the original in many aspects, this was the pits, and not really that fun.
But I will admit, I did smile when I finally got 100% completion, especially because it was my first time doing so.
Overall, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is a great sequel to the original, improving on a lot, but still has a couple of snags holding it back from being the best it could be.
Crash Bandicoot 2 was the first game I played for the Playstation, and as a consequence the first game to press upon me the all-consuming need to have one. I'm pretty sure I drove my mom up the damn wall with how much I begged for a Playstation of my own. Every time we went into the Toys R' Us near our house, we would walk by a massive Playsation display near the entrance, and every time I got it in my dumb little head that maybe, just maybe, this would be the day she would relent and buy me one. At the time I couldn't quite conceptualize how poor we really were. It just wasn't going to happen.
I only got a Playstation years later when my friend was throwing out his own, which his dog had knocked over and broke. Jokes on him, the console worked fine! ...If you turned it upsidedown, that is. But man, I played the shit out of that thing until I finally scraped together enough money to get a refurbished PS2.
My friend moved shortly after getting Crash Bandicoot 2, and since most of my other friends had Nintendo 64s, I never got to play more than the first two worlds of this game until much later. I think it's interesting to see where my nostalgia begins and ends with this game as a result. I love Crash 2, but it wears on me by the time I get to the final world. It's one of those games I think starts incredibly strong and just tapers off the deeper in you get. Again, I think that's mostly nostalgia, I'm just very hung up on the first couple hours of the game. And you know what? They hold up. They're every bit as fun as I remember! I also don't want to totally misrepresent the end game, I still have fun with it, it's just, you know... Jet packs.
Even if I think Crash 2 is a game of diminishing returns, it's still a clear step up from the first. There's a lot more story, the voice acting is terrific, there's a ton of new level gimmicks and most (not the jetpack) are actually fun to engage with, and it just feels good to play. I know a lot of people like to hold the original trilogy of Crash games up as being "hard" or whatever, but I think Crash 2 is well balanced and very approachable, *3 even moreso. It's 1* that's straight bullshit.
Sure I could try to look at this one more objectively, but I don't want to. I hear Cortex say "crystaaalssss" and my neurons start activating. One of the best Playstation games I've ever played.
I only got a Playstation years later when my friend was throwing out his own, which his dog had knocked over and broke. Jokes on him, the console worked fine! ...If you turned it upsidedown, that is. But man, I played the shit out of that thing until I finally scraped together enough money to get a refurbished PS2.
My friend moved shortly after getting Crash Bandicoot 2, and since most of my other friends had Nintendo 64s, I never got to play more than the first two worlds of this game until much later. I think it's interesting to see where my nostalgia begins and ends with this game as a result. I love Crash 2, but it wears on me by the time I get to the final world. It's one of those games I think starts incredibly strong and just tapers off the deeper in you get. Again, I think that's mostly nostalgia, I'm just very hung up on the first couple hours of the game. And you know what? They hold up. They're every bit as fun as I remember! I also don't want to totally misrepresent the end game, I still have fun with it, it's just, you know... Jet packs.
Even if I think Crash 2 is a game of diminishing returns, it's still a clear step up from the first. There's a lot more story, the voice acting is terrific, there's a ton of new level gimmicks and most (not the jetpack) are actually fun to engage with, and it just feels good to play. I know a lot of people like to hold the original trilogy of Crash games up as being "hard" or whatever, but I think Crash 2 is well balanced and very approachable, *3 even moreso. It's 1* that's straight bullshit.
Sure I could try to look at this one more objectively, but I don't want to. I hear Cortex say "crystaaalssss" and my neurons start activating. One of the best Playstation games I've ever played.
One of my favourite games of all time, i seriously can't find a flaw with this game. The level design is excellent, the controls are perfect and the difficulty is a perfect balance between tough and fair. Oh and it holds up fairly well still
One of the visual peaks of the 5th gen and still one of my favorite looking games. There's something aesthetically evergreen in the design and color choices here even after two decades of fidelity improvements leave it looking crunchy.
The first inklings of the technical perfectionism that would come to define Naughty Dog are detectable here. A refined second draft that, at least to me, stands clearly head and shoulders above the other two entries in the trilogy, the first one being significantly rougher in its graphics, controls and level design and the third game getting too bogged down in gimmick levels and - though granted this is a particularly subjective criticism - introducing the horrific bullshit of time trials being necessary for 100%. They have their precursor here in two level-specific challenges that add some variety, rather than an exhausting extra parameter stretched across the entire game.
This one is almost air tight. The controls still feel perfect and almost every level is laser focused straight forward platforming, pared down compared to its more free-roaming contemporaries but hitting an intersection between simplicity and polish that makes it significantly nicer to return to today. The variety of terrain, obstacle layouts and enemy designs squeeze every last drop out of Crash's move set - expanded here quite ingeniously with a slide that doubles as an attack and can lead into a high jump. The jetpack levels are questionable but brief and inoffensive, and the only other gimmicks - the polar bear, jet board, chase levels - are bangers, providing bursts of varied challenge rather than totally irrelevant and often wonky mechanics to be endured ala Crash 3's plane or bike racing levels.
The difficulty has been refined as well, levels are segmented with more checkpoints, with most of the harder bits being in the bonus levels that don't cost lives. It's subjective, of course, but this more forgiving approach after the first game's occasionally brutal difficulty to me indicates a matured team who know they're on top of the platform with nothing to prove. Plus when you do die you're treated to one of a couple dozen unique death animations, one of the more showy indicators of an increased attention to detail.
This does make a few sadistic choices stand out in a weird way - by far the most egregious is a box that's outside of your visible screen with no indication that its there. In other cases its not just the level of difficulty but requirements being esoteric enough that you might not clock them, like having to play through levels without dying and then backtrack to branch off into a harder route, sometimes against the camera. The most difficult parts feel like the game's design folding back on itself, like you're doing something that surely couldn't have been the intended method.
On the other hand I can't hate it because nothing has ever tickled the core of my gamer amygdala like finding a secret exit in Crash 2 and its a product of the same design mindset. No other game secrets capture the feeling that you've genuinely trespassed outside the normal and into the fringe as much as Crash 2's secret warp room with its shadowy, liminal levels, a feeling further emphasised by the room not being easily accessible even after its discovery, you can only get in through another obscure backdoor. Its magic.
The only thing that really bothers me (besides that one box) are the odd times when an alternate route platforms brings you back further along than when you branched off, making it unclear if you need to backtrack for boxes. That, and it's too short and too addictive. Every time I get 100% I have to start it over again.
The first inklings of the technical perfectionism that would come to define Naughty Dog are detectable here. A refined second draft that, at least to me, stands clearly head and shoulders above the other two entries in the trilogy, the first one being significantly rougher in its graphics, controls and level design and the third game getting too bogged down in gimmick levels and - though granted this is a particularly subjective criticism - introducing the horrific bullshit of time trials being necessary for 100%. They have their precursor here in two level-specific challenges that add some variety, rather than an exhausting extra parameter stretched across the entire game.
This one is almost air tight. The controls still feel perfect and almost every level is laser focused straight forward platforming, pared down compared to its more free-roaming contemporaries but hitting an intersection between simplicity and polish that makes it significantly nicer to return to today. The variety of terrain, obstacle layouts and enemy designs squeeze every last drop out of Crash's move set - expanded here quite ingeniously with a slide that doubles as an attack and can lead into a high jump. The jetpack levels are questionable but brief and inoffensive, and the only other gimmicks - the polar bear, jet board, chase levels - are bangers, providing bursts of varied challenge rather than totally irrelevant and often wonky mechanics to be endured ala Crash 3's plane or bike racing levels.
The difficulty has been refined as well, levels are segmented with more checkpoints, with most of the harder bits being in the bonus levels that don't cost lives. It's subjective, of course, but this more forgiving approach after the first game's occasionally brutal difficulty to me indicates a matured team who know they're on top of the platform with nothing to prove. Plus when you do die you're treated to one of a couple dozen unique death animations, one of the more showy indicators of an increased attention to detail.
This does make a few sadistic choices stand out in a weird way - by far the most egregious is a box that's outside of your visible screen with no indication that its there. In other cases its not just the level of difficulty but requirements being esoteric enough that you might not clock them, like having to play through levels without dying and then backtrack to branch off into a harder route, sometimes against the camera. The most difficult parts feel like the game's design folding back on itself, like you're doing something that surely couldn't have been the intended method.
On the other hand I can't hate it because nothing has ever tickled the core of my gamer amygdala like finding a secret exit in Crash 2 and its a product of the same design mindset. No other game secrets capture the feeling that you've genuinely trespassed outside the normal and into the fringe as much as Crash 2's secret warp room with its shadowy, liminal levels, a feeling further emphasised by the room not being easily accessible even after its discovery, you can only get in through another obscure backdoor. Its magic.
The only thing that really bothers me (besides that one box) are the odd times when an alternate route platforms brings you back further along than when you branched off, making it unclear if you need to backtrack for boxes. That, and it's too short and too addictive. Every time I get 100% I have to start it over again.
Coco told Crash Bandicoot to study a bunch of baseball tapes so that he could learn how to slide like the best of them, and we are all better for it.
o level design é o ponto mais alto aqui, as músicas continuam muito boas, entretanto o controle da mochila voadora é uma merda e o boss final é completamente anticlimático, ainda assim tem fases muito boas e divertidas, que o torna tão bom quanto o primeiro.
That polar bear level still stands as one of the greatest levels in video game history.
ok, jet pack levels suck. final boss sucks. but, overall this is 5% of the game (going by completion totals, probably considerably less in real time).
The remaining 95% is platforming perfection. Hyperbolic I know. I feel Crash Bandicoot exists in its own genre of platformer, and Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is the pinnacle of this genre. I lovingly call it the "corridor platformer".
Rather than ever wrangle with a camera, the hurdle for many early 3D games, NaughtyDog opted for a fixed tight 3rd person camera angle and placed Crash in alleyways, creating levels that are like an Olympic hurdle course, but you also have to do a pole vault and a long jump as part of it. And then also do equestrian. And surfing. Then Crash also flows into 2D gameplay, then back into 3D. Then 3D which is kinda like the 2D. And then sometimes you gotta go backwards through a level you went forwards to get that 100% and it's super ridiculous and difficult but damn the absolute brass of NaughtyDog to make people do that.
(thinking about it, Super Mario 3D World is the closest we've come to a modern Crash-like... probably why that game also absolutely owns)
It just rules. Levels stay varied, music slaps, sound effects slap. The lives system works to the game's benefit, providing an extra layer of sonic feedback to a well played level. All the whumpa fruit "WHOMP" sounds and the "KA-CHUNK!" after exiting a bonus level, is an unintrusive endorphin blast as you continue crashing along to box break noises and the ever-so-iconic soundtrack.
Crash moves great. Slide jump rules. I use it far too much, but watching him go so damn high and do the splits, is just wonderful. Accentuates Crash's jump height, feels like he soars 10ft into the air.
Polar bear levels are great. Motorised surfboard levels are less great than the polar bear, but much much better than the jetpack. The boulder levels are great. The finale of the boulder levels should be put on a podium of how to happily repeatedly surprise a player.
If I have one criticism, I think two of the levels (Unbearable and Cold Hard Crash) have some really mean hidden boxes in their bonus stages which are off-camera. These just feel cheap, especially in a game where camera control is intentionally (and masterfully) non-existent. And I'd say some secrets are a little obtuse? I don't have the manual with my copy, so maybe it goes into more detail there? Idk, we got the internet now, and we had Prima Official Guides back then.
It's a wonderful game and a wonderful thing to 100%. I could chew ears off all day with banal Crash 2 chat, so I'll end it with this:
don't you ever bring up those jetpack levels again.
The remaining 95% is platforming perfection. Hyperbolic I know. I feel Crash Bandicoot exists in its own genre of platformer, and Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is the pinnacle of this genre. I lovingly call it the "corridor platformer".
Rather than ever wrangle with a camera, the hurdle for many early 3D games, NaughtyDog opted for a fixed tight 3rd person camera angle and placed Crash in alleyways, creating levels that are like an Olympic hurdle course, but you also have to do a pole vault and a long jump as part of it. And then also do equestrian. And surfing. Then Crash also flows into 2D gameplay, then back into 3D. Then 3D which is kinda like the 2D. And then sometimes you gotta go backwards through a level you went forwards to get that 100% and it's super ridiculous and difficult but damn the absolute brass of NaughtyDog to make people do that.
(thinking about it, Super Mario 3D World is the closest we've come to a modern Crash-like... probably why that game also absolutely owns)
It just rules. Levels stay varied, music slaps, sound effects slap. The lives system works to the game's benefit, providing an extra layer of sonic feedback to a well played level. All the whumpa fruit "WHOMP" sounds and the "KA-CHUNK!" after exiting a bonus level, is an unintrusive endorphin blast as you continue crashing along to box break noises and the ever-so-iconic soundtrack.
Crash moves great. Slide jump rules. I use it far too much, but watching him go so damn high and do the splits, is just wonderful. Accentuates Crash's jump height, feels like he soars 10ft into the air.
Polar bear levels are great. Motorised surfboard levels are less great than the polar bear, but much much better than the jetpack. The boulder levels are great. The finale of the boulder levels should be put on a podium of how to happily repeatedly surprise a player.
If I have one criticism, I think two of the levels (Unbearable and Cold Hard Crash) have some really mean hidden boxes in their bonus stages which are off-camera. These just feel cheap, especially in a game where camera control is intentionally (and masterfully) non-existent. And I'd say some secrets are a little obtuse? I don't have the manual with my copy, so maybe it goes into more detail there? Idk, we got the internet now, and we had Prima Official Guides back then.
It's a wonderful game and a wonderful thing to 100%. I could chew ears off all day with banal Crash 2 chat, so I'll end it with this:
don't you ever bring up those jetpack levels again.
This was a huge jump. Lol. The slide added a lot more depth to the movement of crash. The level design expanded and even enemies got harder of it too. The game just looks so much better. It's far farrrrr more responsive than 1 and it has a lot more charm too. It's slightly non linear? And the extras are very tempting to hunt. The only thing that Drags it down for me is the jetpack levels which there are 3. They're not great and lame the first final boss finishes with it. Nonetheless this is probably the best outta the trilogy and I'm tempted to 100% one day. Love this game
o rato no cu do jean deixa tudo melhor
Crash Bandicoot 2 is a straight evolution from the first game. Better control, more abilities, better visuals, and even more content. I still see myself playing this game to this day and it never getting old and still standing the test of time. Either through the N Sane trilogy or on the PS1 this game is a classic through and through.
A quintessential example of taking what worked about the original, refining it and trimming the fat.
Is better than the first one in all the important aspects, but especially on the controls, Crash actually feels good to play as. Is shorter but feels like a more complete game, even with how little variety it has.
Crash Bandicoot: Boy Genius; He spins, flings, and flies into action! It is a looker, it is pleasant to the ears, and it plays pretty smooooooth. Wish the bosses weren’t so lame tho…
Bem superior ao primeiro. Eu acho incrível que ele envelheceu muito bem e até hoje é gostoso de se jogar. Além de ter melhorado nos gráfico e trazer personagens novos e icônicos.
Local Marsupial Shoves Crystals Up His Ass And Ears
1/10 a genuine fat turd that released after another turd that released
fuck you Cortex and fuck your stupid ass space station
The slide-jump alone made this game a better experience than the first, although you may mess yourself up with this ability at first... When you get used to it, you feel unstoppable!
Also... am I crazy for liking this version more than the remake?
Also... am I crazy for liking this version more than the remake?
The definitive sequel to the first game that fixes most of its problems, sets up the structure to be used by future games and doesn't lose its identity in the process. Gotta give special props to the voice of Neo Cortex and the one who came up with the secret levels.
This is The Crash Bandicoot game. This is where many aspects of Crash as a concept became set in stone, and I consider this the watermark by which I judge basically any future Bandicoot game.
Great level design and improved controls, I prefer this over 3 because it doesn't have as many gimmick levels.
One of the best platformers on the original Playstation! The first Crash Bandicoot was a proving ground for Naughty Dog that attempted so much in a limited console, but that gave them the wherewithal to achieve so much more in its sequel!
Crash Bandicoot 2 has a sleeker art style, more defined characters--both visually and narratively-- and fantastic diversity in its stage design! When I was a kid, this made me very jealous of Playstation owners!
Crash Bandicoot 2 has a sleeker art style, more defined characters--both visually and narratively-- and fantastic diversity in its stage design! When I was a kid, this made me very jealous of Playstation owners!
used to think i was just on some huge hispter fumes to say that this was my least favorite of the trilogy. having now replayed it, i was so right. game's great, but it has the least interesting OST and level themes to me. but please know that this is all relative, this is a game i literally had to be pulled kicking and screaming away from a fry's electronics display stand to stop playing.
Quando era pequeno, eu apenas tinha este e o jogo do Hugo. Eu jogava apenas as primeiras fases destes dois jogos, pelo simples facto que não tinha um cartão de memória, para a PS1.
Entre merda e Hugo da PS1, posso dizer que obrigar uma criança de 6 anos, a jogar até à fase da água, pois ela só tinha esse tempo por dia de consola, é tortura.
Entre merda e Hugo da PS1, posso dizer que obrigar uma criança de 6 anos, a jogar até à fase da água, pois ela só tinha esse tempo por dia de consola, é tortura.
My favourite of the original trilogy and I think the first game I’ve ever played and beat. Most if not all the levels are a blast to play without getting too frustrating or difficult, apart slightly from the bees. Snow go and cold hard crash are amongst the best in the series. Bosses are fun and easy, very memorable too. Overall, one of the best platformers on the PlayStation
Maybe this is a hot take but Crash 2 is legitimately one of the best 3D platformers ever made
GOAT PLATFORMER ALERT
This game have a lot of personality, the developers really find the right path to work with the character in this one. The gameplay improved a lot since the first one, the stages are more creative and the soundtrack more "vivid". A great platformer, don't sleep on this game.