Nintendo Switch’s third-party support has been magnificent in the past few months. We see publishers like Bethesda bringing their critically acclaimed titles such as DOOM and The Elder’s Scroll V: Skyrim to the platform. Even if they run at 30 frames per second or look graphically low, the games’ performance is stable and frame issues are rare. Now, the Crash Bandicoot trilogy remake, the N. Sane Trilogy, once held to be a PS4-exclusive, has landed on the Switch. And by far, it’s one of the great games to pick up and play on the go.
I’m not just amazed by the Switch’s huge support from third-party publishers but also its ability to run the newest games in the market.
Reviewed: Nintendo Switch
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PC
Developer: Vicarious Visions, Toys For Bob
Publisher: Activision
Release Date: June 29, 2018
MSRP: $39.99
Review code provided by Activision.
Just to give a short overview of what the game is all about, especially for those who haven’t played Crash Bandicoot all the way to Crash Bandicoot: Warped, the game is simply a 3D platformer that came out in the late 90s exclusively for the original PlayStation. With Naughty Dog, the studio behind Uncharted and The Last of Us, as its first developer, Crash’s popular difficulty didn’t just make the franchise famous but also a benchmark of platformers back in the day.
In this present time, fans have been asking for a remake or a reboot of the franchise, Sony got the first dibs of the remake when they announced it at E3 2016. When N. Sane Trilogy came out on the PS4, the game looked incredibly amazing. The massive graphical overhaul made the first 3 Crash games look fresh for long-time fans and newcomers to the series.
But aside from the impressive visual treat, Vicarious Visions (Toys For Bob for the Nintendo Switch version) didn’t just make the game from the ground-up but also made the levels more difficult. As you calculate your jump and think you’ve landed perfectly on the platform, one slight mistake can lead you to lose lives. Because if you played Crash before, you can tell that in N. Sane Trilogy even the slightest slip from the edges can cause Crash to fall. It’s a lot difficult now, however, if you get used to properly time your jumps right, you’re perfectly safe but it’s going to take a lot of trial and error before you can do a perfect run in all levels.
Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, and Crash Bandicoot: Warped are already playable from the get-go, even the unreleased Stormy Ascent and Future Tense are also available.
Since this is merely a Nintendo Switch port review of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, you can read a more in-depth review right here (PS4 version).
Playing Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy on the Nintendo Switch doesn’t deviate the experience much from the PS4 and its PS1 version. You rarely get frame drops while playing, while some of the graphical details are blurry, you can still appreciate how the game closely looks like the PS4 version on the handheld mode. It’s highly impressive that a system like the Nintendo Switch can run a game beautifully without any game-breaking hiccups.
It would have been a great addition to have an option to switch from next-gen looks to classic though. Hopefully, Vicarious Visions will have this feature in a future patch, who knows?
I’m really glad that Activision and Vicarious Visions ported N. Sane Trilogy to the Nintendo Switch; because playing the game on the go, especially that the game has arcade mechanics, is definitely a kicker and worthwhile.
