Reviews from

in the past


Would not recommend. What new it brings to the table (compared to the first 3 games by Naughty Dog) are some additional stage gimmicks that immediately feel like they overstay their welcome, and made me dread each subsequent time they came up. Certain collision geometry seems broken or poorly represented, such that sometimes a jump will bonk against what you thought was a smoothly curved roof that turned out to have an abrupt edge that halts your horizontal movement. The whole game is very ugly, like they didn't know how to make use of the new hardware (or more likely, how to develop for all 3 new platforms at once), and at times this can affect gameplay, with dully lit enemies blending into a dully lit environment.
I think my feelings on this game are encapsulated well by the fact that halfway through, I genuinely thought it might have killed my interest in gaming altogether.

This game reminded me of when I tried Fire Emblem: Tharcia 776. Both were bad.

Traveler's Tale's first installment in the Crash Bandicoot series left me with one question after completing it: was any of that necessary at all. The game is a gimmick driven Crash 3, complete with crappy physics, bad water levels, and horrible boss fights. There isn't anything in this game that wasn't done better in the Naughty Dog games.