Is Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex Underrated?
If you were gaming in the 1990’s, Crash Bandicoot was the de facto mascot for Sony’s
PlayStation.
His popularity reached the same levels as Nintendo’s Mario, and Sega’s Sonic.
He was a pretty big deal.
An entire trilogy of platformers, along with a racing game and a party game, would wrap
up Crash’s rein of terror on the original PlayStation.
The new generation of consoles had now arrived and gamers were eager for Crash’s next gen
debut.
However, the original developers of the series, Naughty Dog, had moved onto other things,
and it was up to Traveller’s Tales to satisfy a longing fanbase.
Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex debuted on the PlayStation 2 in the fall of 2001,
with an Xbox port following in the spring, and finally a GameCube port by EuroComm in
the fall of 2002.
All three versions of the game were met with underwhelming reviews.
EGM gave it a score of 5 out of 10, stating “it’s almost identical to its predecessors.”
GameSpot gave the game a 6.6 out of 10, stating “a lack of innovation and a reliance upon
the tried and true make Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex more of an upgrade to the
PlayStation games than a new experience.”
And finally, Game Informer gave a score of 7.3, with a slightly harsher critique “Every
little morsel of platforming goodness in The Wrath of Cortex has already been done to death
on the Playstation.”
So, is Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex really this underwhelming?
Let’s dive in.
Personally, I’m not much for story elements in my platformers and Wrath of Cortex does
a decent job keeping things nice and simple.
Crash is the Hero.
Doctor Neo Cortex is the villain.
And Crunch is the super weapon Doctor Neo Cortex creates to defeat Crash.
Crunch is powered by four elemental masks, Earth, Water, Fire, and Air.
The only way to put the four ancient elemental masks back to hibernation is by collecting
the 25 crystals conveniently found in the game’s 25 levels.
It’s the classic good versus evil, and is honestly all I really need.
The gameplay itself is infact, classic Crash Bandicoot.
Despite having to program the game from scratch in just twelve months, Traveller’s Tales
did a bang-on job matching the feel of the original games.
Crash can jump, spin attack, slide kick, crawl, and do a belly flop.
Each move has a satisfying feel and each move has a purpose.
The level design follows suit.
Like the adventures before it, the game is a mixture of third person platforming, with
plenty of side scrolling elements, giving a nice mix of old school and new school.
While around half of the game are these traditional platforming levels, there are a lot of other
gameplay types as well.
There are an abundance of chase levels, and even chase levels featuring vehicles.
If I’m honest, the vehicles all pretty much control like Crash, but I do enjoy the change
of pace from jumping, to reacting.
Also included are flying stages, which seemed kind of lame the first time I played them,
but are honestly rather short and mildly amusing.
Minecarts, which again, are all about reacting.
An underwhelming racing stage.
An aggravating helicopter stage.
And mech levels, which shifts the emphasis to targeting and shooting.
My favorite addition however, are the ball stages.
Here, Crash is in a giant metal ball and has to carefully navigate around obstacles.
The levels themselves are really the star here, and the constant elevation changes with
the excellent physics make these a ton of fun to play.
My least favorite are the water stages.
Here, Crash is either in a scuba suit, or a submarine, but I don’t find these particularly
enjoyable.
You have to move through the levels slowly to avoid bombs dropping from the top of the
screen and blowing you to bits.
They are real pace breakers and I don’t find them particularly fun.
I’d rather be fishing.
As a whole though, besides the helicopter stage and water levels which represent a fraction
of the game, there is a good mix of traditional platforming and fun diversions to keep the
game feeling fresh throughout all 25 levels.
This is further enhanced by the hub world.
While each of the 5 worlds has 5 levels, these don’t represent a theme.
It’s fairly random when you are going to get a jungle level, ice level, and so on,
and I kind of like how Traveller’s Tales decided to mix things up.
Of course you don’t have access to each world at the beginning of the game.
After clearing the first 5 levels, you face off against crunch and one of the elemental
masks.
The first fight is a ball cage match, where you have to bump into rocks to change them
to your color.
Do this three times and Crunch is defeated.
Upon defeat, you gain access to a brand new move, and the next set of levels.
The first is a sneak move.
Admittedly, this is rather lame.
Basically you can sneak along nitro boxes without causing them to explode.
It’s very situational and a bit uninspired.
The next fight is a tricky platforming stage forcing you to jump and duck over and under
incoming fire.
I found this to be pretty frustrating back when I reviewed the Xbox version of the game,
but playing this through again, it’s not so bad requiring a nice mix of skill and memorization.
After this, you earn a double jump which is insanely useful, as you can imagine.
The third battle with Crunch takes place in the mech suit.
You simply dodge incoming projectiles, hop in the mech, and hose down the fire elemental.
Pretty easy stuff.
Defeating this elemental will unlock the death tornado spin.
It allows Crash to spin for an extra long time as well as gives him a hovering ability.
I can honestly say I never used the hovering mechanic, but did use the extra long spin
time on areas of the game where Crash is hanging.
Not game breaking by any stretch, but helpful none the less.
The fourth boss encounter is a shooting level.
If I’m honest, I still don’t really get this boss.
I believe Aku Aku is guiding you where to hit on the giant Crunch, but the hit detection
seems off and the battle goes on for way too long.
Still, the attack patterns are fun to learn and dodge, so all is not lost.
Defeating this giant gains you access to the fruit bazooka.
The fruit bazooka can be game-breaking at times, as you can destroy nitro boxes, stage
hazards, and enemies at a distance, reducing some of the challenge of the later levels.
Speaking of later levels, one of my few gripes with Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
is the difficulty curve throughout the adventure.
Mainly, there really isn’t one.
Wrath of Cortex is fairly easy and straightforward through a majority of the the adventure.
I don’t feel the final block of levels is all that different than the first block in
terms of challenge.
Now, there are some levels which gave me a hard time, but these are scattered throughout
the game rather than clustered towards the end.
I feel Traveller’s Tales could have done a better job shifting levels around to make
the difficulty curve more linear.
Perhaps this would have broken the ability mechanics, and they did have just twelve months,
but it is something that has always bothered me.
That said, I really do find myself enjoying Wrath of Cortex.
The controls are spot on, and while I still occasionally misjudge a jump everything does
feels responsive throughout.
From Crash’s momentum, to mid-air jumping controls, the levels do a wonderful job being
aware of Crash’s inherent limitations and the game never asks you to do anything ridiculous.
I honestly can’t ask more from a 3D platformer.
Just give me solid level design that works with the controls, put a limit on cheap deaths
and frustration, and let me, well, platform.
So after making your way through all 25 levels, grabbing the 25 crystals needed to put the
elemental masks into hibernation, we finally move onto the final boss.
At this time, Crunch has already become powerful and no longer needs the assistance of the
elementals who are now sleeping, or whatever.
The final boss is easily the most challenging in the game, as it should be, but won’t
be too hard for veterans to figure out and defeat.
It does a nice job mixing in the earth, air, water, and fire gimmicks we’ve come accustomed
to while also requiring use of the fruit gun and double jump.
After finally taking down Crunch and Doctor Neo Cortex, we are awarded the speed shoes
enabling running, Uka Uka reveals the elementals can be resurrected yet against using gems.
And roll the credits.
For me, this is where the adventure ends.
My attention span is rather short and I still have a large backlog of games to get through,
so attempting to 100% this game just isn’t in the cards for me.
This type of thing didn’t appeal to me as a kid, and still doesn’t to this day.
However, I’ll give a quick rundown for the uninitiated.
Gems are awarded for breaking every single crate in a level.
This can be a daunting task but with the 5 new moves at Crash’s disposal, it becomes
a very manageable affair.
Relics can be earned by racing through the stages and setting a fast time.
The speed shoes greatly aid in this endeavor, and there are new crates which freeze time.
This I find more appealing than breaking crates, but perhaps I’m just conditioned to this
gameplay style after decades of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Finally, some levels have colored gems which can be found in secret areas.
All of these side quests help unlock 5 secret levels as well as the true ending.
Wrapping things up I should talk about the soundtrack and graphics.
As expected, the music is terrific.
There is a nice mix of the classic jungle tunes, techno, orchestrated sounds, and even
some new age all layered together, or played separately, creating a great soundscape matching
each of the level’s themes.
The graphics too are strong, and as advertised, look like a high-res makeover of the PlayStation
originals.
Textures are sharp, and though the game is mostly dark, the colors still look vibrant,
oversaturated, and really leap off the screen.
All of the enemies are animated nicely and have a nice contrast compared to the levels
around them.
It is really everything you could want from the next generation of Crash.
Now, if you haven’t noticed yet, I am playing the GameCube port, which unfortunately has
some frame rate issues.
More often than not, the game runs at around 30 frames per second, occasionally dropping,
and sometimes even rising to a buttery smooth 60 frames per second, but more often than
not it’s 30.
The Xbox and PlayStation 2 ports are almost always a silky smooth 60, making the GameCube
the worst of the bunch.
Unless you only have access to a GameCube, you really should skip this particular version.
So with all of that out of the way, we arrive where we started.
Is Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex underrated?
Well, yeah.
This is a fantastic game, and playing through it yet again, even the lowly GameCube port,
I’m reminded how fun Wrath of Cortex really is.
Sure, back in 2001 gamers were thirsty for a new experience, but 15 years later, in the
age of remakes and reboots, it really seems more acceptable.
We’re constantly clamoring for HD remakes of classic titles, and we tend to complain
when a game strays too far from a predefined formula.
In this environment, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex is pretty much everything
you could want.
Taking a step back, and comparing it with other 3D platformers of the era, it still
holds up.
Level design is thoughtful, controls are tight, the length is just about perfect, the game
can be challenging, but is always far, the boss fights are satisfying, and the game doesn’t
force you to repeat stages, instead making multiple playthroughs optional if you want
a 100%.
Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex plays it safe for sure, but in playing it safe it
also commits very few flaws.
Once in awhile the camera would pan weird making landing a jump hard, but that’s honestly
it, and I’m really just nitpicking at this point.
If for some reason you haven’t given this one a chance yet, you really should, I think
you’ll be pleasantly surprised.