Crash Twinsanity's development has been talked about a lot. From its switch from a more mature tone to a more comedic one, to the butt-load of things they had to scrap to meet the deadline.

There are people who love this game. There are people who hate this game.
Personally, I've always had an interest in this one. Not just because I'm a fan of Crash, but because some of the cutscenes were really funny.

And I think I'll start right there. The comedic tone that they went for really paid off! There were a lot of times I laughed my ass off! From Cortex's falling into a spiked pit, to Crash's dumb facial expressions, to Crash having a very interesting look when looking Cortex's behind.
Cortex even spanks Crash, nice to see they're getting along.

And that's the main gimmick with this one. Crash and Cortex have to team up to defeat an even greater evil... the Evil Twins.
I feel like that generic name might've been intentional.
You'll playing as Crash and Cortex throughout the adventure, either as just one of them, or both of them. Launching Cortex and smacking his head into boxes, or using him as a sled, and hurting his balls on rails.

There's also a new playable character in Nina Cortex, the daug-- niece of Neo Cortex, and she... just kinda exists, to be honest.
I liked her gameplay style of using a hook on certain objects, but you don't play as her much.

The level desing has also seen a big change. While the game is linear like previously, the stages are bigger, and you can explore around them to get the game's gems, as they are no longer tied to boxes.
Getting these can be fun, because obtaning them is kinda like a puzzle. But I didn't feel like gathering them all, especially in the Slide levels, which are the hardest to obtain all of the gems.

Regardless, this change in level design is a welcome one, and I wouldn't mind future Crash games returning to this style. And it also does not come at the sacrifice of the game's platforming, as it's very well designed and fun to go through!

One thing that I think should be said about this game, and probably is the biggest point of contention of it... is the fact that you can clearly see that this game is unfinished.
Examples include, but not limited to:
- Collision detection being all kinds of wonky.
- Story jumps around a lot, and some plot threads are wrapped up out of nowhere.
- Characters like Evil Crash and Nina just kind of exist, and don't have much of a presence.
- Plenty of sound effects simply not existing in various cutscenes.
- A stunned Coco has a hitbox.

By collecting the gems, you receive a lot of the game's concept art, and it serves to also confirm that there's a lot of cut content.
Now, is this a 100% bad thing?
Not necessarily. I still think the game we got is pretty serviceable, but it definitely needed more time in the oven. I wish certain things got expanded upon, like the two characters I mentioned earlier.

Outside of the comedy and the gameplay, another thing I really liked about this game was the overall presentation! Compared to The Wrath of Cortex, this is night and day. Crash Twinsanity's graphics and art direction still hold up to this day, and I love how the game looks!
Character animations are also pretty good, especially Crash's and Cortex's.
The voice acting is also very good, but it came with a change. Clancy Brown is no longer the voice of Cortex, now Lex Lang is at the helm.
Simply put, I love the voice he brought to Cortex! His line delivery is on point, and it enhanced the comedy that much more.
What I find weird is that Crash never emotes anything in Twinsanity. Like, there are no grunts... at all. Weird, considering Crash is pretty expressive in this game, you'd think he'd "talk" more, but I guess not.
Also, Nina is pretty much a mute until her "Huh?" at the final cutscene. Most likely a consequence of the rushed dev time.

Speaking of voices, you'll be hearing plenty of them in the music, as it was composed by a band called Spiralmouth, an accapella band. Since it's accapella, which only involves voices, the game's soundtrack has its own unique vibe. It's not for everybody, but I really enjoyed it, and I think it enhanced the game's tone nicely.

Overall, Crash Twinsanity, while definitely flawed, was a really fun game to play through, and I can see myself playing this again sometime in the future.

A pura nata doida de Crash Bandicoot elevada a um nível de ridículo (no sentido ótimo da palavra) que supera qualquer outro jogo da série.

Ele sabe ser bonzinho e desgraçado numa medida até que justa. É tranquilo de conseguir mais 1Ups, assim como é beeem tranquilo perder esses 1Ups.
A única critica maior - além dos diversos bugzinhos que rolam aqui e alí e que, por vezes, acabam te matando E também não poder pular cutscenes - é quanto a escolha de câmera de algumas partes do jogo, principalmente aquelas que envolvem você correr em direção à câmera pra prosseguir a fase. A velocidade necessária para prosseguir nessas fases, junto ao zoom da câmera ser muito próximo do personagem, vai inevitavelmente fazer você morrer várias e várias vezes. Essas fases acabam virando mais um gigantesco jogo de memória (de lembrar quando vai ter algum obstáculo no caminho pra poder desviar) do que uma fase de reação.

Mas fora isso é uma experiência incrível pra quem é fã da série. Esse jogo em especial está REGADO de personagens e conteúdos dos jogos anteriores, assim como está cheio de piadinhas estúpidas ótimas.
Aviso que você vai sofrer em várias partes, mas também vai dar muita risada em outras.

Playing this game can be painful at times. Its gameplay styles are of a wide variety and as a result the game feels unfocused, though not to the level of wrath of cortex. Some of it is not executed well and some others are not executed to their full potential and they leave you feeling like more could have been done with these styles. That's not even mentioning the bugs, which atleast in my experience were plentiful, ranging from funny to frustrating. Same for the controls, which were at time smooth and at times very odd. Nevertheless, i felt my experience was redeemed thanks to the amazing and funny writing, perfectly complemented by great voice acting and the best crash music the franchise has ever seen.

Considering my extremely harsh opinions on a game like Enter the Dragonfly for its unfinished and incomplete nature, me liking Twinsanity was both surprising and not surprising to me in the slightest. This is a game where, at every turn, you can feel that something more was planned for it. I like this game for the same reason I (kind of) like Sonic 06.

This truly feels like a next-generation leap for Crash. I loved the open-ended nature of the game progression and world design. The almost-entirely acapella soundtrack provided by the musical group Spiralmouth is memorable and distinct. The laugh-out-loud writing of cutscenes and the way it perfectly weaves the entirety of the franchise's mythos together kept me thoroughly entertained. The cutscenes, however, are this game's strength and its weakness. The game is blatantly unfinished, as I said, and that goes for the story as well. Quite a lot of the game's unused cutscenes (all available on YouTube via FakeNina) explain things that left me scratching my head regarding story beats that come up and are very quickly dropped, and that really stinks that I feel like I have to pause my game and go look up what the REAL scene was supposed to look like on YouTube while I erase the unfinished version I witnessed in-game from my mind.

There was even an instance between the airship level, fighting off Ant Drones with Cortex, and it abruptly cuts to Crash at the Academy of Evil. There wasn't even an unused cutscene to explain this when I tried looking it up. I thought I accidentally skipped a cutscene or something (which you can't do btw. They removed cutscene skipping to prevent crashes).

While playing, I had a feeling that this game could be even more fun if it was a couch co-op game akin to the Lego games made by Traveler's Tales after Twinsanity. I did some research and the game WAS planned to have been co-op all along. There are so many points where I could see having two players doing things independent of one another, helping each other defeat enemies and throwing switches, would've been more fun than if you did it alone, waiting and relying on Cortex's AI to do things after you toss him. Any time a level that has nothing to do with teamwork comes up, Cortex awkwardly vanishes or teleports away, which feels clearly unintended.

Don't get me wrong, this game is FULL of jank and things I don't like. Right before the bee level starts with Cortex, I hit an invisible death barrier in a spot with absolutely no indication of there being ANYTHING there that would kill me. I'm unsure if this is an emulator issue, but drop shadows would not render over crates, making lots of platforming sections on iron crates, bounce crates, or TNT far more difficult than they needed to be. TNT kills you instantly. Invincibility barely lasts very long and isn't useful because you don't even do contact damage to enemies or TNT/Nitro. In fact, you can DIE while invincible by touching Nitro or TNT. TNT ignores Aku Aku/Uka Uka protection.

But for most of my playtime, I really enjoyed myself and I saw the vision they were going for. 90% of the problems I had, I recognized likely stemmed from the game being rushed and unfinished. Whether I was playing as Nina in the escape from the Academy or using Cortex like a snowboard down mountains, I still had the biggest smile on my face while playing nearly the whole time. It's so full of heart and soul, and it's just DRIPPING with veneration for the entire franchise up to this point what with all the fan-service. So often, I felt as if this game would've been perfect as an anniversary title, and the extra 2 years of dev time surely would've helped this game come out as a true next-gen experience. Although inexperienced and amateur at the time, I have great respect for those at Oxford Studio who managed to get the game out the way it is.

As I said in my Wrath of Cortex review, I typically do not advocate for remakes or remasters of games over new products instead. But this is an even rarer situation where, given the choice between a sequel to It's About Time and a full remake of Twinsanity that implements all the cut levels, refines the gameplay, and makes the story feel a little more complete to the original vision, I would choose Twinsanity in a heartbeat. It obviously loses some points from me for being an unfinished, buggy game, but it speaks volumes to the potential this game had that this ends up being one of my favorite Crash games. If it gets this good a score as is, imagine how great it could be if it were finished.

man, pains me to do this but it's aged horribly for me. until this week this was, probably, my 2nd favourite in the franchise from childhood memory. there's still a definite fondness for what remains, I love the soundtrack, there's a lot of personality, and I think the explorable levels are a legitimately excellent progression for the Crash games to take (not to mention some of the puzzles involving Crash + Cortex) but it's just
sorta dogshit to play lol
hit boxes are crazy, Aku Aku masks don't protect you from Nitro explosions for some reason (made worse by said hitboxes), and maybe worst, all the unskippable cutscenes that the game throws your way every time you die... which is probably a lot with those hitboxes and the camera and...
still playable for sure but this took quite the hit for me. I'd be forgiving if those respawns were more generous too. on a level sliding down a mountain and avoiding obstacles, you think the game would be smarter about not dropping you next to the edge you can't jump over because you don't have the speed built up, right?

Around the end of the game, when you enter the alternate dimension that the antagonists of the game came from, Cortex remarks that there were supposed to be two dimensions, "but we ran out of time". Due to everything I had been through with this game while playing it, hearing this felt like when your friend makes a self-deprecating joke that's just a little too revealing and makes everyone uncomfortable.

I'm kind of baffled by how many people have given this game a pass when it comes to all its bugs, glitches, and general sloppiness. Don't get me wrong, this is a solid idea for a new Crash game, turning it into a more linear Jak and Daxter has its appeal and makes sense for when it came out. There are little moments where this new format works; when the platforming takes advantage of the more open levels and the crate mechanics of previous Crash games. But these moments don't last long and are replaced with mid-at-best gimmick sections. These gimmick sections start off kind of interesting, but nearly all of them immediately fall into the pitfall of the game's broken nature. Rolling around as a ball is neat until you have to make a precise jump and all of a sudden you launch thirty feet into the air. Rolling Cortex around in a barrel seems promising until one nudge rolls him off the stage immediately. Sliding stages require you to use a jump that only works half of the time, and the Nina Cortex level involves extremely brainless wall-jumping mechanics. Some stuff like Crash having to drag Cortex through levels and playing as Cortex aren't too bad, but man games in this era sure loved just giving as many different types of gameplay as possible, and considering Twinsanity is constantly falling apart, it does not do this game any favors.

But let's focus on just playing as Crash, going through levels with the usual jumping and spinning and whatnot. As I said, it sometimes works, but it often feels like they forced Crash-style platforming challenges into a 3D space and it doesn't feel great. I had several moments of falling into pits due to not being able to judge the distance of a jump, or not being able to see the jump at all, which rarely happened in previous Crash games. The worst part is anything involving platforming on steel crates, on which you can't see your shadow. This makes platforming on such sections a complete hassle, and I often ignored the gems that involved them due to how hard it was to find out how to land properly on them. In general, many of the crate bouncing challenges that are reminiscent of previous games are pretty bad here, and the game is at its best when it just acts like crates don't exist outside of TNT and nitro crates.

I have some other gripes, like how Aku Aku is basically useless since it seems every obstacle is instant death, how dogshit checkpointing can be sometimes (it really is inspired by Jak and Daxter), and the unskippable cutscenes, but really the main reason I can't recommend this game is how broken it is. I had three straight-up crashes/soft locks while playing, one of which sent me way too far back, one moment where I couldn't progress past a combat section because knocking an enemy into a pit didn't count as killing them, and a couple of moments of losing all the music for some time, and several other glitches. So many things just killed me without explanation that I went through most of the game scared for my life that a random seam on the floor would take my last life and send me back to the last autosave. Anyone else jump on that one boss's dead body, thinking it was safe, only to have it kill you and make you do the whole boss again? I could also talk about how the story feels like only half of it was told, the cutscenes that desperately need actual sound effects, and countless sloppy little things.

Obviously, no one sets out to make a game like this on purpose, it was the result of crunch, disputes between different parts of development and with the publisher, and having to scrape together different, unfinished versions of this game that went through multiple changes way too rapidly. There's a version of this game that fully realizes what Traveler's Tales set out to do, and it's sad we'll probably never see it considering the Crash series has both come back and died before it could get to giving this the full-on remake it needs. Some people can enjoy it for what it is, I personally had a rough as hell time and would not recommend this to anyone, especially since emulating it still seems to be an involved process. The music stands out as the only fully realized and wholly enjoyable part of this game. I need to stop trusting the taste of 3D platformer fans though, have you seen the way they talk about this game, it's like they played a different game I swear.

The next big step for Crash Bandicoot that never was. It breaks my heart that this is really only a fraction of the full game we would've gotten. It honestly plays out more like a beta than a full game. Despite that, I still find this to be a really good game for how short and incomplete it is. Sure, the story feels like it's rushing itself and coming up with things on the fly, but I don't care. This still holds some of Crash's best moments period. And I patiently await the day where this game will get a second chance to become the fully realized vision it was always meant to be.

I love this stupid game so damn much. Crash 2 is probably an objectively better game but I genuinely like Twinsanity, despite its faults. It's definitely flawed; the campaign is short, some characters get used only twice in the entire game, it was obviously rushed to hell and back and it's just flat-out broken, but the level design, concepts, vibrant visuals, unique a capella soundtrack by Spiralmouth and great comedic writing really make up for it. There's a lot to love here, even if it is very rough around the edges.

não vou dizer que esse jogo não é quebrado. se ele tivesse passado mais tempo no forno, os seus conceitos ambiciosos teriam chances de serem aprofundados (e em alguns casos, até realizados), e isso me enche de tristeza. tendo dito isso. esse é o crash que eu passei mais tempo jogando, sendo ele o primeiro jogo que eu fiz 100%. eu amo muito esse jogo e parte disso era por conta do quão quebrado ele era. não tô nem brincando! quando era criança eu procurava bugs no youtube e tentava reproduzir eles no meu ps2. isso era parte do apelo pra mim. nunca vou me esquecer de quando eu corrompi um save meu depois de ter esticado o jogo além dos limites (algo bem fácil de fazer devo admitir). eu amo esse jogo. até mesmo após ter jogado outros jogos de plataforma 3D (francamente até melhores), nada acerta a vibe que twinsanity tem, com sua trilha sonora inusitada, senso de humor esquisitinho e mecânicas de gameplay visualmente excêntricas.