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.
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.