So I've been making my way through Crash 4 recently, and I'm nearing the end of the campaign. I've never been the biggest fan of the series, but I have enjoyed Crash 4. While it certainly has its faults, I think Crash 4 is a great example of how to revive a long dormant franchise in a way that respects the originals and expands upon them. One sentiment that I keep seeing online when looking up discussion or reviews for the game is that it's rather difficult.
Toys for Bob has some truly talented artists working on their recent platformer projects.
Now, first I want to say that I agree with that overall assessment. While on the default Modern mode (unlimited lives) simply completing the game's missions (ignoring optional completionist objectives) is perfectly doable for anyone with medium-to-high platforming skill levels, I can't even imagine trying to complete this game on Retro. The notion of having limited lives and getting sent to the beginning of a level once they've been extinguished in this game sounds like an absolute nightmare scenario to me. No fucking thank you.
That said, I can't help but feel that much of this game's difficulty often boils down to problems that arise as a result of the game's various camera angles.
The Crash games have always shifted between placing the camera behind Crash's back or off to the side for a pseudo-2D perspective. Sometimes the camera will be a bit higher above Crash while at other times it will be tightly locked behind him. Either way, I've found that especially in the behind-the-back segments (which are the most common) I end up dying about 75% of the time due to difficulty judging depth because of this rather suboptimal camera angle. Sometimes you can't judge a jump because a box or enemy obscures the ledge, other times you'll just miss what should've been a simple, easy jump onto a box because the camera angle just makes it unnecessarily hard to properly gauge the distance. Granted, 3D platformers have historically struggled to varying degrees with camera perspective and camera control, but Crash 4's camera issues border on reminding me of the early 3D era when nobody had figured out camera perspectives in 3D.
Not my gameplay, but you can see here how judging the distance from enemies is made harder than it should be by the perspective.
Like, I can't remember a 3D platformer from the last 10-15 years that gave me much trouble in terms of judging distance due to camera placement. Crash 4 is the only one, excepting the N. Sane Trilogy which simply mirrored the camera angles of the original PS1 games.
Again, I'd like to reiterate that I don't think Crash 4 is insanely difficult to complete by any means. It's not. It's just that deaths feel somewhat unfair or undeserved far more often in Crash 4 than they have to me in any platformer in recent memory. A good platformer makes you feel like every death was 100% your fault, but more often then not a death in Crash 4 is met with confusion from me. Am I alone in this? If not, what would you like to see as an improvement in this regard in Crash 5?
Toys for Bob has some truly talented artists working on their recent platformer projects.
Now, first I want to say that I agree with that overall assessment. While on the default Modern mode (unlimited lives) simply completing the game's missions (ignoring optional completionist objectives) is perfectly doable for anyone with medium-to-high platforming skill levels, I can't even imagine trying to complete this game on Retro. The notion of having limited lives and getting sent to the beginning of a level once they've been extinguished in this game sounds like an absolute nightmare scenario to me. No fucking thank you.
That said, I can't help but feel that much of this game's difficulty often boils down to problems that arise as a result of the game's various camera angles.
The Crash games have always shifted between placing the camera behind Crash's back or off to the side for a pseudo-2D perspective. Sometimes the camera will be a bit higher above Crash while at other times it will be tightly locked behind him. Either way, I've found that especially in the behind-the-back segments (which are the most common) I end up dying about 75% of the time due to difficulty judging depth because of this rather suboptimal camera angle. Sometimes you can't judge a jump because a box or enemy obscures the ledge, other times you'll just miss what should've been a simple, easy jump onto a box because the camera angle just makes it unnecessarily hard to properly gauge the distance. Granted, 3D platformers have historically struggled to varying degrees with camera perspective and camera control, but Crash 4's camera issues border on reminding me of the early 3D era when nobody had figured out camera perspectives in 3D.
Not my gameplay, but you can see here how judging the distance from enemies is made harder than it should be by the perspective.
Like, I can't remember a 3D platformer from the last 10-15 years that gave me much trouble in terms of judging distance due to camera placement. Crash 4 is the only one, excepting the N. Sane Trilogy which simply mirrored the camera angles of the original PS1 games.
Again, I'd like to reiterate that I don't think Crash 4 is insanely difficult to complete by any means. It's not. It's just that deaths feel somewhat unfair or undeserved far more often in Crash 4 than they have to me in any platformer in recent memory. A good platformer makes you feel like every death was 100% your fault, but more often then not a death in Crash 4 is met with confusion from me. Am I alone in this? If not, what would you like to see as an improvement in this regard in Crash 5?
