With a frantic spin and a deft double jump, gaming’s premier denim-clad marsupial, Crash Bandicoot, is back.
The spiky-haired character looks sharper than ever in the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy, where the series’ classic levels have been given a vibrant 4K overhaul on PlayStation 4.
After falling out of favour in the past decade, platformers — that is, games focused on running around brightly coloured worlds, hunting out collectible coins and gems, jumping on enemies, and often starring some kind of cartoonish critter in the lead role — have re-emerged as an important part of the gaming landscape in 2017.
The genre has a new-found relevance that goes beyond mere nostalgia. It’s unsurprising that platforming’s resurgence comes during a period of political uncertainty, distressing disasters and terrorist attacks playing on a 24-hour news cycle. There is no reality reflected in Crash Bandicoot, it’s pure escapism with a dazzling colour palette and simple objectives: explore a level and collect everything you can.
It’s an approach that was also seen earlier this year in Yooka-Laylee, a spiritual successor to Nintendo 64 classic Banjo-Kazooie, from the team who made those original games. More than a simple revamp, Yooka-Laylee offered seemingly endless collectibles — book pages, quills, butterflies, arcade coins — and gave its gameplay a postmodern edge with lashings of meta-humour about the changing games industry.
Platform games now offer a genuine alternative to everything else out there. When the genre’s popularity declined the marketplace was flooded instead with gritty first-person shooters and expansive role-playing games. Technological advances in consoles offered more scope for more technically complex games — talking bandicoots were out, realistic firefights were in.
As impressive as so many RPG games are now, with unlimited exploration across sprawling maps, platform games offer something different: tight level design. Skyrim’s vast open world of mountains, settlements, and dragons is at the opposite end of the spectrum to Crash Bandicoot’s linear corridor-based levels.
But Crash’s challenging gameplay — and it is a challenge, more than you might remember from the original games — doesn’t come from working out where to go or what your particular role in a world is, it comes from timing jumps accurately, finding hidden secrets in levels and avoiding well-placed enemies. The levels are meticulously designed to test your skill and reactions.
The basics of platforming are still sharp, but everything around them has improved. On the current crop of consoles they’re some of the best-looking titles around. As mud-flecked shooters like Battlefield 1 move further towards gritty realism, Crash, Yooka-Laylee, and last year’s Ratchet & Clank offer eye-popping colours and inventive designs, highly detailed but entirely unreal, no longer constrained to angular designs and murky tones by hardware limits.
Then there’s Super Lucky’s Tale, announced at E3 as a launch title for the super-powered Xbox One X console, which will play in true 4K at 60 frames per second. It could end up being the slickest platformer of all time.
While Crash’s return brings welcome escapism, another legendary character’s comeback is set to switch up the 3D platforming genre in new and unexpected ways. Super Mario Odyssey arrives on the Nintendo Switch at the end of October, giving the first major twist on the formula since 2007’s Super Mario Galaxy on Wii.
As well as the usual jumping, collecting and exploring, Nintendo has shown off Mario’s game-changing new ability — throwing his now-sentient red hat Cappy onto objects to control them. It sounds simple but is set to offer huge changes and challenges in the way players interact with Mario’s world.
Between Crash’s makeover, Yooka-Laylee’s meta-musings, Lucky’s good looks and Mario’s re-invention, there’s plenty of life in the platforming genre. Take a break from the real world, and get hunting those Wumpa fruit.
Follow Ben Travis on Twitter: @BenSTravis
Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy is out today on PS4