After longtime howls from Crash Bandicoot fans for the franchise's comeback, the game will finally return in the form of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, a reworked and remastered three-in-one first announced at this year's E3, after hints of Crash's return made the rounds in early 2016.
Surely, the remake is far from an actual new entry, which let down many fans, but a recently released trailer seems to suggest that the developers have reworked gameplay and graphical aspects of the game from the ground up, making for a refined and visually impressive return of the beloved marsupial.
Crash Bandicoot Remaster 'Plus'
According to latest Crash Bandicoot information from the PlayStation Experience Keynote and a follow-up post on the official PlayStation Blog, the new trilogy is being billed by its developers, Vicarious Visions, as a "remaster plus" instead of a simple remake.
The remastering process inspired Vicarious Visions to rely heavily on what made the Crash Bandicoot games so special, extracting the game's original geometry from Naughty Dog and building around its simplicity and precision. The developers exhausted a surfeit of hours out of the game, deftly recognizing and studying its inner workings. The devs even went beyond the game as it dug its original inspirations from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? to Looney Tunes.
Reworked Graphics And Animation
Equipped with the understanding of what made Crash Bandicoot tick, the developers then built the games from scratch, implementing its own layers of remastered art, animation and audio. Each element from the original games was rebuilt, with new spanking and high-def versions of character designs, levels and cutscenes.
"Using the original level geometry from Naughty Dog as a guide, we rebuilt the [Crash Bandicoot] gameplay from scratch, capturing its simplicity and precision," wrote Dan Tanguay, game director at Vicarious Visions.
New Features
The developers also added new features on top of the heavy graphical remastering. Vicarious Visions used the evolution of the Crash Bandicoot franchise as a jump-off point, taking the best features in each game and universally applying it to all three remakes.
For example, there will now be a unified checkpoint and saving system, with options for either manual or auto-saving. The original Crash Bandicoot, for the record, lacked a proper saving system. Back then, saving required players to accomplish a major part of the game such as completing a bonus round or collecting a gem.
There will also now be a unified menu system that shows up when the games are paused. Vicarious Visions has also added time trials in all three games. These new additions might come as a tad few to warrant a "plus" label, but the developers did note that more will be revealed soon.
The remastered trilogy is shaping up to be quite a huge graphical overhaul of the original games with slight modern implementations that will iron out inconveniences found on the original titles. With Naughty Dog's spirit embedded quite significantly in these remakes, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy could make for a faithful nostalgic tribute for longtime fans while also being excellent entry points for players new to the franchise.
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy comes out 2017 for PlayStation 4, but for those who can't wait for the remastered trilogy, the original game is up for purchase on the PlayStation Store.
