I'm worried Crash Bandicoot 4 was so difficult, that it may have killed the franchise

[PeakPointMatrix]

(I beat the game, but not 100%)

I love Crash Bandicoot. I was thrilled the sequel was announced, and that the incredible Toys for Bob were at the helm. They poured a lot of heart, care, and polish into every square inch of this game. It shows.

What I soon came to realize is that... they made it way too hard. More difficult than any of the previous Crash games. The base game alone spikes in difficulty beyond the toughest levels in the original trilogy incredibly early on. This isn't mentioning the 100% portion. A grueling trial of inverse, no-death, perfect run, gems to earn in every stage. Difficult stages, which can run for 7 minutes+ sometimes.

I know this level of harsh difficulty is RIGHT UP some of your alleys. But my concern is more with the mainstream fanbase. The bulk of fans from the PSX days were likely looking for the base game to at least peak at around Crash Bandicoot 2 levels. The fact that the base game spikes its difficulty so early on makes me worry that the mainstream crowd may have quit the game at the first quarter and gotten scared away from buying a sequel. I could even forgive the 100% run remaining at the current difficulty. But the base game is completely disregards the average difficulty the original trilogy was known for.

Toys for Bob despite all their good intentions, leaned WAY too hard into the "Road to Nowhere" difficulty meme, making a game that is almost 75% on that level or beyond. The original games were not known for their teeth-grinding difficulty, and it puzzles me that they bet the farm on creating one of the most difficult 3D platforms ever made.

If we ever get a shot at another sequel, I desperately hope they balance the difficulty to be more in tune with the originals. You can leave the hardcore stuff for 100% runs, but even then the requirements were never that brutal in the original games, so I wouldn't mind if that were made easier too.

TLDR: The originals weren't known for being this brutally hard, and I'm afraid the difficulty of the base game alone scared away the lion's share of fans from returning.

 

[Lord Fanny]

I really didn't think it was that hard just to beat the main path. 100% was pretty hard, though, I gave up on that. I doubt it had much impact one way or another

 

[NuclearCake]

The sales killed the franchise and not the difficulty.

When not going for full completion the game is fine difficulty wise and about on par with the original trilogy.

Then again biggest problem with the game was how tedious the game was to fully complete. Worst 3D platformer in that regard since DK64. I would rather they not make more of these if Crash 5 is anything like this. Good base game but an absolute terrible one when going for the full completion.

EDIT: Those are not good poll options.

 

[RisingStar]

Don't worry, Activision killed the franchise themselves with how every studio has become a COD studio now.

 

[RochHoch]

Activision would have killed it no matter what

But yeah, the game was a total chore to play with all the collectibles and shit. I couldn't put up with it

 

[Hoggle]

It was straight up demoralising. I could die a dozen times in a bonus room and spend twenty minutes trying to clear a level only to be told to go back and try it again and this time try harder to find the hidden box I missed. Levels were too long, boxes hidden in an almost spiteful manner, high difficulty, a lot of levels had numerous frustrating sections, bonus rooms required insane precision to get all boxes, crazy hard gem challenges (hit zero boxes in a level), 100% required not dying in a level and speed running every level…

So it was a combination of a bunch of design elements that lead to an ultimately frustrating experience, and yeah, I can imagine that hurt it's sales. I initially loved the game and the art and controls were brilliant, as was a lot of the level design, but I never even bothered to finish it because of the inherent frustration of failing every level I finished. If I need a walkthrough for every single level then I'm just not going to bother.

 

[Dolobill]

If I could just focus on clearing the stages, I think it wouldn't be too bad. Unfortunately my brain can't do that in a platformer and I'm always trying to get all the things. Banging my head trying to get certain collectibles only to still miss the 100% on the stage burned me out pretty quick.

 

[Syntsui]

It's only hard if you try to 100% it. Almost no one tries to do that shit, it's irrelevant to the game's future sales.

 

[Desma]

I honestly though the base game was pretty easy. Any difficulty came from trying to 106%

That Slide Double Jump is way too good

 

[Kinsei]

The trophy completion rate on playstation platforms shows a good chunk of people beat the game.

The games isn't super hard. Really only the last two levels stand out as being really difficult if you're not going for 100%.

 

[Wrestleman]

Going by your poll, I'd say Any% it was what I'd call "just right". I don't really agree with your portrayal of the curve either honestly, I would say it takes it a good long time to get anywhere near Road to Nowhere and by the time it does it's almost over. I actually got let down by the difficulty because people were telling me over and over the final level was killing them into the triple digits and I think I got through with less than 50 or 60 deaths? Which for an endgame level in a game with quick respawn is not a number I'd consider high, but YMMV obviously.

This thread's going to turn into the "it sold bad" / "COD studio" thread of the day though because of the phrasing of the thread title I think lol. We'll just put the fact they literally got on camera and said they were making more Crash stuff aside, I guess. And despite your effort to make it about the base game any %, that's going to get sidestepped too.

I'm one of the sickos who likes 100%ing the game though. (Not 106%, but I have never liked time relics, even back to Warped.)

As usual with Activision stuff, I'd like to draw eyes to the efforts of the ABetterABK workers' group and particularly the Raven QA strike that's ongoing:

https://twitter.com/ABetterABK

https://www.gofundme.com/f/abk-strike-fund

 

[Jawmuncher]

I felt the difficulty for a normal playthrough was fine. If you failed a lot in a certain spot, the game would typically give you a pity checkpoint after all.
With that said, 100%ing the game was definitely a lot of work and the bonus levels could be a bit more challenging than one would expect.

Overall, I don't think difficulty impacted Crash 4 sales. I think it was just Activision once again knee-capping themselves. Why the game wasn't on all platforms the same day is beyond me.

 

[Hoggle]

I don't like lumping the crate collecting into the 106% difficulty. I'm fine with the no death and speed run challenges being hard, but when it's as frustrating as Crash 4 made it to collect all crates in a level then I think that's a pretty big problem.

 

[Ashes of Dreams]

My feelings aren't represented in the poll.

I found just going through the levels to be way too easy to the point of being dull. It was fun but it needs to be harder.
Going for the 100% is the most obnoxious tedious overly difficult slog I've played in awhile.

 

[Cipher Peon]

I beat the game on Retro mode and loved it. Its difficulty was a fresh change of pace so I would be happy with the sequel being equally as difficult tbh

 

[fontguy]

It was straight up demoralising. I could die a dozen times in a bonus room and spend twenty minutes trying to clear a level only to be told to go back and try it again and this time try harder to find the hidden box I missed. Levels were too long, boxes hidden in an almost spiteful manner, high difficulty, a lot of levels had numerous frustrating sections, bonus rooms required insane precision to get all boxes, crazy hard gem challenges (hit zero boxes in a level), 100% required not dying in a level and speed running every level…

So it was a combination of a bunch of design elements that lead to an ultimately frustrating experience, and yeah, I can imagine that hurt it's sales. I initially loved the game and the art and controls were brilliant, as was a lot of the level design, but I never even bothered to finish it because of the inherent frustration of failing every level I finished. If I need a walkthrough for every single level then I'm just not going to bother.

Click to shrink...

I've been wondering. Is there even any reason to collect the boxes at all if you're not trying to collect every. single. one?

 

[Listai]

The poll needs an option to make 100%-ing the game less onerous. That's the frustrating part.

Gameplay wise the difficulty wasn't anything over the top.

 

[Wrestleman]

I also wanna go on record as being more of a weirdo and say that I think the game teaches you the very limited variety of ways it hides the hidden crates very early in the game and never ventures outside of those few gimmicks so I also never found finding the crates that difficult or frustrating. I tended to enjoy the search lol. I would agree they didn't need to do as many per level as they did sometimes but that's probably the only thing I'd come close to agreeing with the idea of "leaned too far into the meme" on.

The crates I hated the most were the ones in the tire stacks in the first or second N.Gin level, because you can lock yourself out of getting them if you don't know where they are before you get on the bonus platform. Those are the only few crates I personally consider downright egregious, because there's no real tell for them. A lot of the hidden stuff has tells or can be seen from far away as you come up to them. They don't do that here, which is the one bad instance of not sticking to the 'rules' of how they're hidden.

 

[RoboitoAM]

Well I know on PC it sold like shit cus of always online DLC.

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

My feelings aren't represented in the poll.

I found just going through the levels to be way too easy to the point of being dull. It was fun but it needs to be harder.
Going for the 100% is the most obnoxious tedious overly difficult slog I've played in awhile.

Click to shrink...

The poll needs an option to make 100%-ing the game less onerous. That's the frustrating part.

Gameplay wise the difficulty wasn't anything over the top.

Click to shrink...

Added to poll. Uhg but twice accidentally lol. Oh well.

 

[Billfisto]

I bounced off the game pretty hard. It's gorgeous, but it just seemed spiteful.

 

[Kinsei]

I've been wondering. Is there even any reason to collect the boxes at all if you're not trying to collect every. single. one?

Click to shrink...

The wumpa fruit gems. They're much easier to get than the one for breaking every box, and you can get almost every single unlockable skin without the all boxes gem if you collect the others so there's incentive to go after them. Of course there's also the incentive of lives on retro mode.

 

[PaulloDEC]

The base game isn't that hard. There's a few tough levels at the very end and that's about it. I've found most Mario games more difficult.

The percentage of the audience who even attempt 100% would not be statistically significant imo. Certainly not enough to hurt sales.

 

[Micro]

I heard about the difficulty, which led me to avoid it. I also avoided the remasters after watching YouTubers play the first one. Just looked more frustrating than fun, honestly.

Whether this is actually the case, I'm probably more likely to give my attention to other games now than look back to Crash. Maybe I'll give them a shot one day, we'll see.

 

[Merc_]

I don't think lower difficulty or higher sales would have changed its fate. Toys for Bob were going to end up in the COD mines regardless.

 

[Danby]

The base game isn't that hard. There's a few tough levels at the very end and that's about it. I've found most Mario games more difficult.

The percentage of the audience who even attempt 100% would not be statistically significant imo. Certainly not enough to hurt sales.

Click to shrink...

I dont think it hurt sales, but I just had fun getting 100% on crash 2 and I would never ever try to do it for this game.

 

[LebGuns]

Although Crash 4 didn't do so well, it's mostly dead because activision has decided to be mostly a CoD publisher and put all the studios on that, including Toys for Bob. Also, the $60 price point did not help when they sold 3 games in a collection for $40.

 

[purseowner]

I played about a third of it and thought the difficulty was better balanced than the originals.

And as others have said, the difficulty is not what killed the series.

 

[krae_man]

There's a fine line with difficulty with this type of game. Crash 4 needed to be more like Kirby(easy to beat, some challenge to 100%).

Instead it was reasonably easy to beat, dark souls is easier to 100%.

People want to 100% games like this. Regular, I just want to put on a podcast and clear some of this out people.

It's like if Nintendo made a made a Mario 64 sequel you couldn't 100% unless you were a hardcore Mario 64 speedrunner.

Which I guess they kind of did with Luigi U and that didn't work out. You'd think Activision would have noticed that one.

 

[Dark Ninja]

It was fine the sales killed it. Definately lots of people skipped on the game for other releases. People kept bringing up the price as well. Same dumb argument "2D" isn't worth full price nonsense.

 

[Hero Prinny]

I think the difficulty of the level themselves were fine. The issue I had with them is that they felt too long which doesnt make it as fun to just jump in and out of the game. I felt like most stages could've been split to 2 stages, some could've even been split to 3. Gem placements were complete shit and ruined the pacing of every stage too. 100%ing the game was way too hard though. I liked the game so much when I originally played it that I wanted to keep playing to try and 100% it but it was just way too demanding.

Really wish they would've gotten to take the lessons they learned from 4 and made 5 cause 4 is such a great game 😞

 

[HustleBun]

How does the Crash 4 difficulty compare to base Tropical Freeze?

 

[TheWildCard]

Been playing this recently, base game isn't that bad, but going for anything else is insanely crazy, I am surprised they wave that stuff in front of your face so much considering how few players are going to be able to pull that stuff off.

But yeah people passing on the game at release/balking at the price did the most damage. Shame in most other ways Crash 4 is exactly what I'd want in a modern Crash game.

 

[Hoggle]

I've been wondering. Is there even any reason to collect the boxes at all if you're not trying to collect every. single. one?

Click to shrink...

Nope. And that's the problem. The boxes are a huge part of gameplay and level design because they make you attempt certain challenges in a level.

If my only purpose in a Crash game was to run from the start of the level to the end of the level then it's removing a pretty big reason for me even playing the games.

 

[Hero Prinny]

How does the Crash 4 difficulty compare to base Tropical Freeze?

Click to shrink...

I think crash is easier however there were some difficulty spikes that felt really unfair in crash4 which did frustrate me more than any stage in tropical freeze did

 

[Protoman200X]

There's a fine line with difficulty with this type of game. Crash 4 needed to be more like Kirby(easy to beat, some challenge to 100%).

Instead it was reasonably easy to beat, dark souls is easier to 100%.

People want to 100% games like this. Regular, I just want to put on a podcast and clear some of this out people.

It's like if Nintendo made a made a Mario 64 sequel you couldn't 100% unless you were a hardcore Mario 64 speedrunner.

Which I guess they kind of did with Luigi U and that didn't work out. You'd think Activision would have noticed that one.

Click to shrink...

But Luigi U was a piss-easy platformer, even by Mario standards?

 

[Jump_Button]

Dont think it was that hard but maybe make it more easy to unlock stuff and keep the super hard one's after you finished the story

 

[Kinsei]

How does the Crash 4 difficulty compare to base Tropical Freeze?

Click to shrink...

Just beating the game is easier. Some of the optional flashback stages are harder than what is seen in Tropical Freeze.

 

[Hero Prinny]

It's like if Nintendo made a made a Mario 64 sequel you couldn't 100% unless you were a hardcore Mario 64 speedrunner.

Click to shrink...

Thats actually a really good way of putting it. I like that the base game was a reasonable difficulty and like you said, i wanted to 100% but it was too sweaty

 

[Kaswa101]

I bounced off the game pretty hard. It's gorgeous, but it just seemed spiteful.

Click to shrink...

This. And I loved the original games, even some of the PS2 ones lol :(

 

[SimplyComplex]

I thought the base game was pretty balanced. Some levels were too long and maybe a bit more difficult than the original trilogy but nothing crazy.

I don't believe the Crash franchise is dead either. Spyro is definitely dead but Crash got 3 games released in the span of like 4 years. There's rumor of a new game as well right? It's likely just on hold for a bit

 

[Specific Power Ranger]

Yes it is too hard but that's not the only issue. The age rating is too. That game isnt really scary, but upon release it was rated pegi 12. Considering that a lot of people playing this game would probably do so to play with their kids, that's way too high. This factors back into the difficulty again too, as kids will have an even more difficult time completing levels. There are also way too many crates and unlocking the skins in later levels is a nightmare.

That said, the base gameplay is very good.

Spoiler

also road to nowhere is a lot easier on the original crash 1 than in the remake

 

[Strings]

I don't think it was too hard (outside of the final bit of the final level which is inexplicably difficult), but moreso annoying. Like, I love 1-3, but the levels were at least 50% too long and felt like they were built with dumb gotchas in mind in this entry.

 

[Deleted member 10795]

I bought and bounced off Crash 4 this week. It just didn't feel right to me at all. Ignoring the 100% stuff, I just thought the levels were too long, tedious and difficult.

I have a son who is the same age as I was when I started playing the OG trilogy, and I couldn't shake the feeling he'd have no chance with this. Will see how he gets on this weekend.

 

[Deleted member 10335]

.

 

[Chibs]

I don't really have an issue with the main game, I think Crash 1 is harder for example.
But 100 percenting? Yeah, straight up nightmare and just not fun at all.

The only one I ever 100 percented was Crash 3 and that was honestly pretty much perfect. It was tough, but not impossible and all felt quite fair.

 

[MatrixMan.exe]

Getting 100% is extremely difficult, particularly the relics, and some of the collectibles are hidden a little too well to the point of being obnoxious. But I don't think the critical path is that hard outside of a handful of later levels. Opinions though.

 

[Big Yoshi]

I Gave up on crash 4 after the mad max style boss, it just felt demoralizing hardcore struggling through every level then the game saying "you fucked up, real ones hit these boxes".

But I also never really enjoyed crash that much so maybe I just don't get it. (Do love CTR though)

Spoiler: sad spoiler

and now we will never geat a real spyro 4 :'(

 

[Blent]

Except for that last level, I was happy with the base difficulty. But it was the final level, so I can accept that.

The 100% stuff was just not fun or rewarding to me. It was a problem because the original trilogy was never malicious like that, so there was no need to be that way in the fourth one. I will say that I really liked how they included cryptic clues to the coloured gems in the levels themselves, but the box gems were obnoxious.

I haven't 100%d Crash 4 and I have no intention of doing so because of it.

 

[Iztok]

Crash was always hard, wasn't it?
Or is 4 comparatively much harder?