Crash Bandicoot 2 Cortex Strikes Back (PS1) Review | Video Game Thoughts.
That red gem in Snow Go! Okay, so since I never advanced or beat Crash 2, despite it being the very first video game I owned and therefore the one I had for the longest time, one of my biggest memories with this game was playing it, looking at that gem, and trying everything I could to jump to it. It was the biggest mystery of my childhood, how to get that gem. Only to find out years later I had to land on a panel in Air Crash? What? I should also mention the cover of the game.
Crash 2 had this 3D cover in addition to the normal cover. I'm not sure why more games don't do this. It would be annoying for all games, but in moderation it looks nice. Also, to write this review, I went back and played Crash 2. Beginning to end. I finished it. It was the first video game I owned and today as I write this, January 9, 2016, I can say I have beaten Crash Bandicoot 2 Cortex Strikes Back. I can't talk about this game without talking about nostalgia. It's great going back to this game. It is my very first video game ever. It's great playing through Turtle Woods and knowing how to get those boxes in the underground area next to purple ostriches because I know how to slide jump now and I couldn't when I was little. I can't play Snow Go without thinking of the red gem like I said, but also without thinking of my mother, who I used to play Snow Go with so much when I was little. I can't play Crash Dash without remembering how terrified I was of the boulder. Or how my cousin who recommended this game used to tell me to use the analog sticks and I was afraid to because I thought the analog sticks were less precise than the d-pad . Or how I never understood why Aku Aku doesn't stop Crash from drowning in levels like Hang Eight, I mean I know Aku Aku can't protect you from all hazards and if you fall down a pit or in lava it makes sense but you're falling into water in some levels, can't the mask made of wood not work as a raft or something? Nostalgia aside. This game, like a good sequel, takes everything Crash 1 did well and improves upon it, and that's saying something considering that Crash 1 was spectacular. First of all, there's a lot more level variety, right there in the first five levels. The boulder levels return, but we now have snow levels and the jetboard vehicle sections.
Crash 1 did start to change up the green forests and temple designs of the levels, but it seemed to me that was towards the end, or rather I never really saw the game change drastically because I never got to the end but I have watched videos on youtube of the end and I can see the level environments change. There are also a lot of nice additional animations. For instance, during boulder levels, Crash will now look back and make a scared face. Or the polar bear levels, which replace the hog levels, whenever the polar bear runs on ice, it will actually go flat as it slides on the ice. These were little things that don't change the gameplay at all, but are nevertheless nice touches. Really my only issue with the level design is that it's hard for me to get a grip on the perspective in 2D levels, and sometimes I moved too much toward the screen since I'm not used to being able to move toward the screen in 2D levels and therefore I ended up falling off ledges. Crash still controls great, though now we have the addition of analog sticks. And you can use either the analog sticks or the d-pad while leaving the analog sticks turned on . I remember I said that I was so happy to play Crash 1 and see that the controls were as great as I remembered them. That was mostly the case in Crash 2, except for the jetpack. Now to be honest I never got this far when I was younger. But the biggest problem is how imprecise the jetpack feels. There's no way to move as freely because Crash feels a bit out of control. Another issue about the jetpack is something I really dislike but I'm not sure about criticizing the game for this. I really dislike it when up makes the character go down and down makes the character go up. I know that's done in a lot of games when the character is allowed to fly, but at least some games let you choose to change the scheme back to up being up and down being down. I instantly remembered the underwater levels in Croc Legend of the Gobbos. It's better control-wise definitely, but still. I don't think imprecision of the jetpack lends itself to the PS1 Crash games, which are to me all about platforming around obstacles with precision. If the area was more open and had less obstacles, I might have been okay with jet pack's controls, but Rock It for example is a very traditional Crash level in terms of being a corridor style level with many obstacles and I'm just no fan of the jetpack. It's a real shame because the jet ski and the polar bear controlled great in previous levels. That said, I did get used to the jetpack and even I started to enjoy the jetpack levels a little. I guess that's the only problem. I didn't even feel like I needed to get used to other vehicle levels, though admittedly that could be because I played the other vehicle levels when I was little and still remembered how to control them. Whereas the jetpack was more of a learning curve and less intuitive. The difficulty is also something that bears mentioning. Like Crash 1, Crash 2 throws out wumpa fruit and extra lives pretty freely. But, unlike Crash 1, Crash 2 also lets you save whenever you're in the hub area. Now, I challenged myself more in Crash 2. Not to say Crash 2 is harder, it's just I actively tried to get all the gems in Crash 2 where I gave that up as a lost cause in Crash 1. As a result, by the seventh level I was mostly out of my extra lives. But I got the red gem! And I got through the Death Course in Air Crash! And I lost the rest of my lives trying to get to that one platform in Air Crash where you have to slide jump over the jetboard to another platform to get to four boxes. I actually did it by having Aku Aku and running into the nitro boxes, which makes Crash jump just enough to get onto the platform, but it took a game over and a lot of attempts to do it. After getting to the end of Air Crash, I saw I was missing a lot of crates. And then I looked it up online and saw you have to get to the secret warp room from level 14 Bear Down, and at this point I gave up on getting all the boxes. It was--no. You can't do this to me. It took me how many attempts to get through Air Crash and then it turns out I can't even get all the boxes from within the level itself-- Look, I'm not saying this is unfair. It's quite an interesting challenge, actually, since it involves jumping on platforms that you clearly can reach but normally would not attempt to. For the most part, the challenges associated with getting all the crates are good puzzles integrated into a very platforming heavy game. But I just can't do this. At this point, I had to say, "I am not good enough at video games to do this particular task." Congratulations to those of who can. Maybe some day I can join you, but that day is not today. From that point on, I concentrated on getting as many boxes as I could and finishing the level. This game does do something I don't think I ever noticed Crash 1 do, and I lost a lot on Crash 1.
Crash 2 will, if you lose enough times in a row, give you a free, pity Aku Aku mask whenever you respawn until you finish that particular level. In fact, if you keep losing in a row even with the pity Aku Aku mask, the game will even turn normal crates into check point crates. I honestly don't know whether to feel good that I have a better chance, or bad that the game pities me. Either way, when the game starts throwing pity Aku Aku masks at you, it's usually a big impetus for me to realize I need to start doing better. You know when a level has me thoroughly frustrated? When I get angry that the game didn't respawn me with Aku Aku because I know I have no way to finish this level . So my previous issues with Crash 1 had to do with Tawna, whose role I thought didn't make sense, and the fact that indigenous people were used as enemies alongside animals. This changes somewhat. In Crash 2, we have Coco, Crash's little sister, and I think she's a decent character. At least she tries to help Crash by warning him about Cortex. Cortex is pretty obviously evil, but given that Crash has been characterized as a bit of a dummy, Coco's warnings are probably useful to Crash, so that's good. That said, where did Coco come from? I mean, Crash stopped Cortex in the first game, so Cortex wasn't making new mutated animals until Crash 3 when he made Dingodile while working with Uka Uka. I can accept this change just because we know Cortex mutated a lot of animals in the first game, so maybe Crash just took another mutated bandicoot under his wing as his adopted little sister. Also in this game, I don't recall any indigenous enemies. I do recall the lab assistants, who would return in Crash 3. I do want to say that my complaint was that indigenous people were portrayed in the most stereotypical way possible. I would have had no issue with indigenous people being enemies in the game, just as I have no problem with the white lab assistants being enemies. I have an issue with their stereotypical portrayal. You can have an indigenous enemy and design that character with respect for the human dignity of real life indigenous people. You can design a character without resorting to the crutch of stereotypes. You just need creativity and a respect for human dignity.
