What's so special about Crash Bandicoot?

     You know that show that's sweeping the nation right now, which just started a few weeks ago on HBO and HBO Max, The Last of Us? Many who read this blog won't be surprised to find this out, probably, since I do definitely tend to write more about video game things, but this show is based on the hottest video game from 2013, and shockingly it is a game of the same title. The Last of Us is a great game that didn't really connect with me in terms of the gameplay on my first attempt, but the story is unquestionably a fantastic addition to the medium of video game storytelling, which is why I'm so happy that this show is coming out to such wide praise. The game is definitely not for everyone, though I think the fact that they're making this story into a show is good, since there are scenes that could easily work as a movie with very few changes or adaptations to the source material. This is not what I'm talking about today though. Today I'm going to discuss Naughty Dog, the studio behind The Last of Us, and specifically their first character that gained them such huge acclaim in the first place. The story is nothing special, and in fact it's pretty goofy, but the gameplay made a huge splash, and one that is still felt today. Perhaps I should have said crash though, because the first game was of course Crash Bandicoot.

Total N.Sanity

    The story begins in Dr. Neo Cortex's laboratory where, being a mad scientist, he's trying to create an army of unstoppable hybrid animals. One of the experiments, however, goes horribly wrong, and creates a bipedal bandicoot who is insane and starts smashing things. This bandicoot jumps out the window and washes up on the beach, and that's pretty much all the story we're given. From here, Crash runs around smashing boxes and getting to the end of each level on his way back up to the mad scientist's lab to stop his plans and save Tawna, a female bandicoot that Crash knows about. The gameplay is about as simple as it can be, this is a very rudimentary 3D platformer, and as such, the interesting thing that Crash brings to the table is moving forward instead of moving from left to right. You're now going farther into the screen as more and more of the level is revealed. There is a mix of perspectives, of course, not every level is the same sort of thing, with some moving from left to right, and some even moving vertically up and down. Crash had more movement options than that of Mario in the beginning, but the controls were still very simple. Use the control stick or D-pad to move Crash, press X to jump, Square to spin around (which breaks crates and hurts enemies) or press circle which changes function depending on context. If you don't touch anything, Crash will crouch, which will allow for a higher jump when you press X, if you're running when you press circle, he will slide to go a bit faster, and once you've done that, you can slide jump which gives more distance, but it's harder to be precise that way, and if you're in the air, Crash will do a bellyflop when you press circle, which allows tougher boxes to be broken. Even though these are minor changes in control scheme, it changed up the gameplay in some pretty dramatic ways, which obviously revolutionized the whole platformer genre. Crash uses the tried and true Mario, "you can only get hit once unless you pick up an item that will protect you for one hit," rule, but this time it is a bit different. In Crash, the only real power-up is Aku Aku, an enchanted tiki mask that protects you for one hit, but you can stack up to three masks to become invincible for a short amount of time (similar to the Starman in Super Mario Bros.).

Wild characters, wild times.

    Crash Bandicoot, as a series, is almost certainly better known for the personality of the character than the gameplay that the games contain, especially since the first game was a little rough around the edges. Crash is a goofy and wild character, and he deals with enemies with the same amount of nonchalance that he deals with normal life. You're not given the impression that he's overly nervous about any given situation , since it seems that he can't understand a lot of what he deals with, unless he's being chased by he's just doing what he can do to survive, while also protecting his friends and doing whatever he deems to be the right thing. Crash deals with some pretty excruciating deaths in these games. In most platformers, your character will be hit with an obstacle, they'll shrug and fall off the screen. Crash, however, gets crushed, sliced, incinerated, frozen solid, eaten, etc. So many of Crash's death animations just remind me of Looney Toons, so while they are very violent, there's definitely an element of a more goofy nature. To go back to the theme of "mutated animals," the majority of the bosses in the first game, as well as many in the whole series, are animals that Cortex has experimented on, such as Ripper Roo (an insane Kangaroo who drops TNT all around the arena) and Pinstripe Potoroo (Which is also some sort of marsupial I think but he's in the mafia and fires a machine gun at you). It's always interesting to see all of the different creations that Dr. Cortex sends out to defeat Crash, and not only them, but his various business partners, though this first outing he only has Dr. Nitrous Brio, or N. Brio for short, who was the actual creator of the evolvo-ray, the device that evolved Crash into this form in the first place. Cortex would go on to have N. Gin, N. Tropy, N. Trance, and many other punny names as helpers, all just as incapable of stopping a deranged bandicoot as the last.

    Crash has been best known for facing impossible odds, but he hasn't always faced them alone. Even though I've mainly talked about his first entry here, his sister Coco came along in the second game in the series, Cortex Strikes Back, and she's much more scientifically minded, always working on her laptop, and in the third game in the series, Warped, she even has some levels of her own when she rides on a tiger, rides on a jet-ski type vehicle, and she even deals with the N-Gin boss fight in a spaceship. Pretty cool stuff, and along with her, Tawna Bandicoot (the "damsel in distress" from the original game) came back from an alternate dimension in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's about time with a grappling hook, in what I think was a pretty cool way to reintroduce/reinvent this character that was removed after the first title in the series. Obviously that game came a long time after the first three, and was made by a different company, but that's beside the point. 

    Crash Bandicoot is a wild game series, there's no getting around it, but it's hilarious that the studio which nowadays is best known for realistic story-based shooters like the Uncharted and The Last of Us, Naughty Dog, began their journey with this hyperactive red marsupial running around the jungle and facing off against a mad scientist. While Naughty Dog themselves only developed the first three games in the series, as well as Crash Team Racing, people have always been very fond of the character since then, leading to the N.Sane trilogy coming out just a few years ago being a remaster of those three games, and then inspiring a "fourth" game in that series, ignoring all of the other games that came between them. Naughty Dog is certainly one of the most interesting studios in the video games medium, and I'm always excited to hear about what's next for them going forward. I just hope they can return to their more goofy roots eventually, even though it's clear that most people want more games like The Last of Us. 

    Thank you so much for reading this somewhat rambly post, friends. I just felt that it was necessary to look back at the roots of one of the industry's most highly praised studios. While this new show is surely introducing thousands of new viewers to the fantastic characters of Joel and Ellie, I thought we could take some time to bring up their first character, Crash. I hope you all have a great week, and check out a Crash Bandicoot game sometime, if you'd like! They're a bit harder than most Mario games, I will say, but they make for a fun platforming adventure if you're into that sort of thing. Until next week, I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed bandicoot wrangler, and I'll talk to you again soon!