3/5 ★ – bokonon764's review of Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex.

The spiritual successor to Naughty Dog’s original trilogy, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex is the true Crash 4. This was the first PS2 game I owned/played, way back in the day. I haven’t played it since that time period, and I gotta say…all the negativity this game receives, I think it holds up, to a degree. Sure, it’s undercooked, and can’t measure up to its predecessors, but Wrath of Cortex is a fun game. After Naughty Dog moved on to the Jak series, the franchise got bounced around a bit. Wrath of Cortex is maybe the only game of this era that I ever really loved; Twinsanity is okay, bit too much of a departure for my taste, but I plan on giving that another try next. It’s essentially the same game as Warped with updated graphics, a bit weaker design, and new shit. I played this at the same time as the IMPOSTOR AND USURPER Crash 4, and it was interesting to see the parallels and differences. Crash 4 has quite a leg up, with 20 years of tech advancement between the two releases, plus it’s just a more complete, original game; but WoC has its own special little place in the canon. So Cortex is back WoC’s biggest issues are its tech and it’s lackluster design. The tech I can forgive; it was an early PS2 game, and the Crash franchises first foray into the platform. But the design issues are a different story. This game is just uninspired compared to its predecessors. Don’t mistake me, it’s not the level’s set design…on the contrary, Wrath actually has a lot of variety in that department, and it doesn’t repeat the types of levels as often as Crash 2 and Warped. It’s more in the level’s simplicity and lack of challenge. Also, the amount of vehicles are over the top. I like the vehicle portions of these games, it keeps things fresh. Unfortunately, Wrath has some absolutely terrible vehicles. Mech and submarine, I’m lookin at you. The plane/spaceship levels are cool though, and I do absolutely love that they included Coco snowboard and scooter sections. Speaking of Coco, WoC lets you play as Coco in actual platforming levels! Warped was the first game to let as Coco, but those are all vehicle specific levels. But, for some reason, the developers in their infinite wisdom decided to make Coco much weaker than Crash. She can’t use the unlockable double jump, and perhaps the most egregious of sins, she can’t slide. Instead, she does like a sweep kick thing. So the Coco levels kinda come off playing as the same game, but with a handicap. Still, the novelty of playing as Coco is fun. The platinum relic (time attack) times are much more realistic in this game; the N. Same trilogy and Crash 4 times are just ludicrous. I actually thought about trying to 100% this game. I was trying the get the platinum relic in one of the god-awful ocean levels when I decided to quit trying. The bosses in Crash games have never been incredible. I can think of a few that are really great: Pinstripe in the first game, Tiny Tigers first appearance in 2, N. Gin in Warped…the final boss Cortex in Warped is also cool, but that’s mostly because of that dope guitar line in the OST. The bosses in Wrath of Cortex are pretty weak. So as I mentioned before, there’s this new bandicoot character called Crunch, he’s boosted by masks of his own, blah blah blah…each boss is a variation of these masks, fire, water, air, earth. In both design and mechanics, they’re just boring. I’ve always had a problem with depth perception in the Crash series, mostly during the 2D sections, but Wrath of Cortex extends that into the front running sections as well. This is quite evident in a couple of the games boss fights. I remember as a kid, I thought the graphics were insane, easily the best I had ever seen. In hindsight, the game looks pretty good for its time, but when you stare at things a little too long, it’s starts to look shitty. I don’t know, I think the graphics were so incredible to me because I went straight from the PS1 Crash games to this one, and it just looked so incredible. But really, looking at games that came out around the same time, it wasn’t doin much. Still though, the enemy renders and environments all look cool, well-designed, if not a bit rough graphically. The OST is very different from the original Naughty Dog trilogy, but shares the same spirit, with an EDM twist. Andy Blythe and Martin Joustra share composition duties. It’s one of the most surprising things about the game, how fresh and original it is, while still sounding like music from a Crash game. In all fairness, they do take some of OT composer Josh Mancell’s work and weave it into their own, most notably the excellent Warped main theme. You can take or leave this game. I like it for the most part, but I can see why people rag on it. I played the PS2 copy of this game, I’d say give it a shot if a digital version ever shows up online. For Xbox or Steam I guess, since Microsoft owns it now. Sadness.