A new ally? And more coming? Things are about to get interesting.
Super-Spinning, Magic Potions, and Funny Costumes
At the end of Salty Wharf, the group finds the second Quantum Mask, as confirmed by Lani-Loli. The new guy is named ‘Akano and he represents dark matter. Though he doesn’t say much, he packs quite a punch.
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| This is not flying, this is spinning with style! |
The next dimension we visit is Tranquility Falls, which looks like a fantasy land. Spyro could live here! The enemy wanting a rematch with our heroes is N. Brio, whose chemical concoctions can do so much they might as well be magic. This world is our first use of ‘Akano. This mask’s ability is a powered-up spin, not unlike an ability gained in
Warped!. Unlike the regular spin, it is triggered by pressing the X button (like all mask abilities), and will make the Bandicoot spin and as long as you haven’t pressed X again to cancel it. While spinning through this method, Crash and Coco’s jumps become very floaty, giving them extra reach, and they will instantly destroy any breakable crates they touch. This can be a double-edged sword since the heroes still get hurt if they spin into TNT and Nitro crates.
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| Ah yes, Legally Distinct Big Green Angry Smasher Guy. |
At the end of this world, we square off against N. Brio, and this fight begins similarly to the one in Crash 1 and its N. Sane Trilogy version. In the second round, Brio drinks his own potion and becomes a hulking brute that attacks directly. To damage this form, we need ‘Akano, as the boosted spins are the only thing that can knock Hulkbrio off-stage and hurt him.
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| Gotta tough out the sonar-style chase sequence. |
After N. Brio is defeated, we unlock the N. Verted Mode. It opens a new version of every level beaten so far; and for every subsequent level, an N. Verted version is unlocked after beating the original. A few things change in this new challenge; for starters, Wumpa fruits are replaced by… Grape-like Berries!
Gasp! The second is that the stage is horizontally flipped; Bonus stages and 2D sections are crossed right to left, and all 3D areas are mirrored.
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Oh, they still haven't learned to swim. They just don't
need to in the Sn@xx Dimension N. Verted. |
Each N. Verted world has its own design twist that makes it trickier to navigate – as if they weren’t so goddamn hard already! As an example, on N. Sanity Island, the level will be made of silhouettes, and the place will go dark unless you periodically use the spin, lighting up the area like the ping of a submarine sonar. In Salty Wharf, the world starts in black and white, aside from crates and enemies; several actions will bring back the color, which will stick even if you die. The screwy design changes for the next world, and again in the next, and so on. One world ends up underwater, with all the screwy physics this implies!
Oh, and the Gems return, making for a possible total of 12 for every level; six normal, six N. Verted. Same requirements, too; the only difference is that the hidden Gem is moved to a different spot. Still, good luck getting them all – this takes the game's Gems total from 228 to 456! But hey, at least you can get some cool skins out of them.
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Not all skins are available in every version, but there aren't
that many missing from any version in the end.
Special mention to the Balloon skins, which always play
the Pop-and-deflate animation when they die. |
Yep, that’s right! You can freely change Crash or Coco’s look! Every new skin is unlocked by collecting 6 or more Gems in its associated level. At first, you might have thought that it meant getting every single Gem in a level, already quite the daunting task; but the N. Verted versions count towards that total, so you could get half the Gems in the regular version and the other half in the N. Verted, and unlock the skin that way. It makes the task a less daunting… not by much, considering this game’s ball-busting difficulty. And yes, I did say 6
or more, because later skins require 7 from a specific level, going up to all 12 for the last few… Then there are extras for beating certain bosses, either normally or in their N. Verted forms… There’s 26 skins for each Bandicoot, including the basic one and the Skeleton one, the latter of which was unlocked from the start in my Switch copy.
Flashbacks, Friends and Enemies
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And this is only the first Flashback tape! I'm told that
the later ones get VERY cruel. |
If there’s one thing I cannot complain about in this game, it’s the amount of content. There is so. Damn. Much. Well! There’s still more. Starting in the first world, you can find Flashback Tapes. You can gather 21 of those, and they’re not in every level. The catch is that to pick one up, you must not die at all on your way to it. The Tapes unlock an additional collection of stages, 11 of which are played as Crash and 10 as Coco. These Tapes allegedly contain old recordings of tests conducted by Neo Cortex on the Bandicoots after granting them their higher intelligence. All the levels focus on smashing crates, and grant the new Flashback Relics; a Sapphire one for merely finishing a level, a Gold one for doing so after smashing more than 90% of its crates, and a Platinum one for breaking them all.
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OK, I love the design of this specific level. I might even
be able to tolerate the difficulty for once! |
The next dimension after Tranquility Falls is Mosquito Marsh, and it’s allegedly set… A few days ago. Huh, guess it happened last Friday when I published Part 1. The heroes land there right in the middle of Mardi Gras, in what might be visually my favorite level in the game; however, serious stuff is happening elsewhere.
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Not a lot of air game with this guy - but at least he's
packing a whole other kind of power. |
Remember Dingodile? Probably not, I didn’t even mention him. He was the second boss in
Warped!, and is a hybrid of a dingo and a crocodile. Mammal and reptilian? His entire being must be very confused. After his defeat against the Bandicoots, the guy set up a restaurant in the marsh. His food is… well, apparently, inedible would be an improvement. Not that he cares, really. His business gets blown up by a rival restaurant, so he goes on a journey for payback, armed with nothing but his vacuum gun. This trusty thing can suck, blow, and even make him float for a short amount of time after a jump!
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Here, have one of our finest barrels!
It's on the house! And we guarantee: It's a BLAST! |
Dingodile’s moveset is odd; he can’t slide or body slam, so that button, as well as the classic spin button, both make him spin his tail around to attack. On top of the floating ability it grants him, the vacuum gun can suck in any nearby crates, instantly destroying them and adding them to his tally (default controls for it is the ZR button). Nitros are still deadly, but the gun can keep sucked-in TNT crates and barrels as ammo that it can blow right back at enemies, obstacles and faraway, inaccessible crates.
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Even in Prehistoric Times, there are hundreds of Crates
just waiting to get destroyed! |
At the end of his first level, Dingodile gets sucked into a random dimensional rift that opened; he ends up going across time and space and visiting other worlds we’ve seen. These are Timeline stages just like Tawna Bandicoot’s; remixes of levels you’ve already been through. You’ll play as Dingo in the first half, until he triggers something on Crash and Coco’s path; after which you switch to the Bandicoot, playing through a tougher version of the original level. The tradeoff? Dingodile levels have ridiculous quantities of crates to break. 283, 398, 502(!!), 317, 441… I know this is due to the new character’s weapon being great at sucking and destroying stuff, but… Geez! I dread hunting the “All crates” Gems for those!
Unlikely Alliances
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When time is slowed down, the dreaded Nitro crates
take an extra second to explode, so you can walk on them,
or jump on them, without any danger. |
During their trip across Mosquito Marsh, the heroes find the third Quantum Mask: Kapuna-Wa, who speaks like a friendly granny and chats up the Bandicoots as if she has always known them. The Mask of Time experiences time non-linearly, so she knows everything that happened and will happen. God, I love that concept. Her special ability, when triggered, allows the player character to slow time down, allowing them to bypass an obstacle that would be too quick to avoid otherwise, or to halt fast-moving platforms in order to cross them safely. It only lasts a few seconds, so you better act fast.
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| Even when it's frozen, you don't have much time... |
The next world is an icy area, the 11th Dimension. Kapuna-Wa’s ability is very useful here, one example being when we slow down giant pieces of ice coming down from waterfalls to cross chasms. At the end of this world, we square off against… Cortex! N. Tropy gave him the task to defeat the Bandicoots, which should be easy. No way the heroes can outspeed the waves of attacks from his new machine! …Right? I mean, they wouldn’t have been able, let’s say, one world ago...
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Let's see... the green energy, the purple tornadoes, rockets,
and boxing robots. This would be overkill, but after three
prior defeats, I guess Cortex is putting all the stops. |
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| ...Awkward? |
Sure enough, the battle is tough, but Crash emerges victorious. Cortex has reached his limit. To the hologram of N. Tropy that appears to comment on his defeat, he announces that he quits. If he can’t beat the good guys, he'll join ’em. That’s fine; the time scientist has found new help anyway. And he is planning to go back to the beginning of time and remake not just his original world, but the whole Multiverse, in his image. Yeah, good friggin’ luck with that, bud. Need a therapist to talk about that god complex of yours?
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Cortex is undoubtedly the most puzzle-based character
among the five playable. Gotta learn to use his gun right.
|
Next up is the Eggipus Dimension (88 Million B.C.B. – Before Crash Bandicoot). The first level is classic. In the second, we have our first turn plaingy as Cortex. The diminutive scientist cannot double jump; however, he can dash forward using his rocket boots. And his weapon is a ray gun that can transform any enemy into a safe rock platform when zapped. Shoot at that same enemy again, and it will turn into a bouncy platform instead, allowing Cortex to reach great heights. A third zap will turn the enemy back to normal. This unlikely protagonist gets two solo stages; his other appearances are also Timeline variants, this time seeing how Cortex’s not-so-nice shenanigans come to impact the Bandicoots’ side of things.
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Even in the distant past, we're getting chased by
something. |
During their trip in the distant past, Crash and Co. meet the final Quantum Mask: The bipolar Ika-Ika, who changes mood when he flips upside-down. As the Mask of Gravity, his ability is to let either Bandicoot flip their center of gravity to move on the ceiling (which means you have to adjust your actions accordingly).
Towards the End
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Look, I wasn't the one to bring it to a weird place! These two
who are technically the same person, pretty much start
flirting on the screen! |
The siblings and Cortex end up meeting Tawna and Dingodile in the next dimension, set in the far future; Tawna brought the hybrid up to speed. The gang catches a transmission of N. Tropy and his new ally threatening some alien. Tawna recognizes that ally as her own universe’s N. Tropy… a woman. And the way the Tropies talk to each other… They clearly seem to enjoy each other’s villainy a little too much. They could be keeping this professional… but they aren’t! I had a lot of expectations coming into Crash 4, but selfcest wasn’t on my bingo card. Well, at least it weirds out the whole gang, so there’s that.
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The gravity shift does its best to not mess up your controls,
but the change in perspective |
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Ah, nothing quite like a leisure stroll in a country
we've never visited before. On another planet. |
Crash and Coco are ready to jump in and save the day, but Tawna knocks them out and ties them up. She slips and admits she doesn’t want to lose them again. Look, I get the concern Tawna; but they’ve already died like 500 times on the way here… The Bandicoots free themselves easily and continue their adventure. Two levels in spaceships, and one on an alien planet, the latter of which has animal-riding segments on the back of a semi-cute alien beast. This world closes with a boss battle against the N. Tropies; this fight has the heroes use all four Quantum Masks, in the order they were found. Lani-Loli to stabilize the timeline while grinding on a rail; ‘Akano and Kapuna-Wa to jump across first distant, then super-fast platforms to reach the battlefield; and, finally, Ika-Ika to switch gravity to get to each N. Tropy and give them the proverbial ass-whoopin’.
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Two time masters versus one marsupial!
Place your bets! |
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There's something shady with Cortex, and yet Aku Aku will
still give him protection! This guardian mask is too nice
for his own good. |
When they are defeated, the Tropies are tossed into an open rift, after which the Masks shut down the Rift Generator and close all the holes. However, the process tired them, so instead of bringing everyone anywhere, anywhen, they'll celebrate this victory by taking the group to the food-themed Sn@xx dimension. Dang, I was hoping this would be the end. Apparently not! But Cortex seems to have an idea building up… This world has three levels, each of which focuses on different heroes, like a series of final exams. First, Crash or Coco, with the four masks; second, Dingodile and Tawna; and third, Cortex.
After their free exploration of this second futuristic land, Cortex rejoins the others. He spots Kapuna-Wa and kidnaps her, forcing Crash and Coco to hunt him down. He uses the mask’ power to open a rift all the way back to… his own island, 1996, where he plans to prevent this endless fight between him and the Bandicoots… by preventing the creation of Crash as he exists now.
The conclusion, and my thoughts on the game as a whole, this coming Friday!
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