The game that made me 100% want a Playstation after seeing it at a friend's house. In particular the rolling boulder level seemed like the coolest, most intense thing I'd seen in a game. When I've tried to revisit it though, I think it's aged kind of badly. In particular the controls and the linear level designs that always discouraged me from going after collectibles. Once Spyro came around it absolutely blew Crash out of the water for me and I almost never went back to it. The N-Sane trilogy version felt a little smoothed out, although Long Road to Nowhere was still pretty punishing.

I enjoy playing this game, I really like how well the cartoony aesthetic comes through despite the PS1 graphics, and makes the game feel upbeat and lively, but unfortunately the gameplay hasn't aged well with some tricky precise platforming being met with wonky controls which makes it a pain to get through some levels, and paired with the horrible save system it's possible to lose all your progress in one wrong move if you don't manage to complete a bonus stage due to the weird physics screwing you over slightly.

Typically me and PS1 games don't get along when it comes to beating them legitimately, as generally I'll use save-states through emulation just because they're games which are fun when you remove certain outdated features, and unsurprisingly the same is applied for Crash Bandicoot, as I have a fun time when playing this game until I get to zero lives and have to restart not just the level I'm on, but the previous few levels too. Playing the original Crash Bandicoot has made me interested in seeing more of the Crash series at least, and I'll probably continue to the N. Sane trilogy for a more modern way to get through this game, and eventually return to the PS1 versions.