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.

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.

Don't play this on a Xbox 360 through backwards compatibility. The FPS are all over the place and it breaks some important scripted zones like Nina Cortex grappling hook. A word of caution.

Now, for the game itself. It's bad, and good. Jank as all hell, and has...brittish humour. Wish it's fine by me. It tries to be so much things, not in a good way.

The platforming stangely gets really good by the end, a very hard, long but challenging level. The rest is ok.

It's a weird game to talk about.

I can see the bones of what could be not only the best Crash game but one of the best PS2 platformers in general here, but they just didn't have the time or money to do it justice. The platforming is a lot of fun, its really funny, and I found the music really enjoyable. Sadly the game is just constantly falling apart and fighting with itself that it is just frustrating often enough to sour the whole experience. In a world where the team was allowed to finish the game this would be peak, but sadly we're not in that world. These songs are gonna be stuck in my head for weeks.

It's a ton of fun, Crash controls really well (besides the slide jump being really stiff) and some of these levels are really well designed especially the final one. I really enjoyed the off the wall humor and the really endearingly goofy ways that Crash and Cortex team up in some segments leading to some fun gameplay gimmicks that spruce things up.

Sadly the nature of it being rushed does lead to a lot of jankiness, awkward structure and really odd glitches that makes you lose a lot of progress. The physics for those little ball challenges were so finnicky that I went crazy. Nina was a fun addition but her being mute was very obviously not the plan and made her scenes really awkward, this also affects some bosses which appear out of nowhere without any build up and some are weirdly designed in general. While Crash and Nina are fun, Cortex's sections are really boring and halt the pacing down.

While it's a really fun game, the rushed nature of it does get in the way of it being truly great. I hope a remake that lets the game live up to it's true potential is on the cards in the future.

An unfinished mess but what IS here is pretty good, for the most part! The soundtrack is amazing and graphics are very cartoonish and stylized, gameplay also feels smooth after you get the hang of it. Unfortunately, there are LOTS of bugs present here and also the game's very short, 100%ting Twinsanity takes about 4 hours on a first time playthrough if you're good at platformers. I'd say the bugs add to the silly charm of the game, makes it even funnier to play, but it isn't for everyone, though.

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.

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?

Крайне сырая игра с неплохими идеями.

Игра в состоянии порадовать в той же степени, что и взбесить. Вместе с прикольными геймплейными фишками вкупе идут баги и недоделанные уровни. Конечно, вы всё ещё можете пройти игру, но опыт от неё будет очень смешенным.
Отдельно хочу выделить саундтрек, который весь исполнен в а капелле. Музыка очень гармонично сочетается с тем бредом, который происходит на экране, когда, к примеру, твой персонаж проваливает под текстуру или улетает за арену и босс не может достать его.

Прежде всего рекомендовал бы эту игру фанатам Крэша.

Twinsanity, when you really look at it, is an unfortunate mishap of exerted ambition that didn't reach its true height.

It's an unfinished game, but what is there, as well as the unearthed cut content, gives you a taste of what could've potentially been; The scaffolding inspires that sense of mystery that makes your imagination run rampantly wild of what could've been in the cards for this game.

And I think partly, that is why I can't help but be fascinated by it.

The more open level design reminiscent of Jak and Daxter, the environments, the tongue-in-cheek writing followed with lively voice acting and the incredible soundtrack by Spiralmouth. The building blocks are all there, and I think given the proper time and effort, could've been a fun and standout Crash game.

The aforementioned soundtrack is one of my favourite video game soundtracks ever made. Spiralmouth hit it out of the park with Twinsanity's OST, which is composed of acapella performances only for most if not all tracks. It is truly unique, especially for a video game ost, and really elevates the settings/scenarios to a whole new level.
The Evil Twins track is probably my favourite, such a goddamn cool piece of music.

Would be happy to see a remake one day that puts all the missing pieces together and completes this title.

Twinsanity, although far from perfect, feels so earnest and brimming with potential...it's hard not to feel like it deserves a second chance.

Not for everyone, but in my eyes it's one of the greats, if not the greatest Crash game. The only things I can really hold against it are the factors ourside of the game which held the title back. Bugs, not enough playtesting in certain places (looking at the final boss where I wasted over 50 lives to grappling hook and bullet scatter shenanagins) and a lack of checkpoints around bosses all come to mind as issues. These issues likely could've been fixed with more time, and the copious amounts of cut content could've made it in too, all things I can't really blame the game for as much as I can the rushed development time.

Well thought-out levels, a bold new direction, a great soundtrack, beautiful visuals and most importantly a fun game to play make this a favourite of mine in this series, it's just a shame it's let down on a few occasions by factors not at fault of the game itself but rather the conditions it was made under.