Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex

Crash Bandicoot is BACK….to Stop Cortex for Good!

NA release: 17th September 2002
EU release: 1st November 2002
JP release: 4th December 2003
Developer: Traveller’s Tales, Eurocom
Publisher: Universal Interactive (NA/EU), Konami (JP)
NGC Magazine Score: 40%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

I’ve not had a great deal of experience with Crash Bandicoot. I played a bit of it in Uncharted 4 and I’ve messed around in the Stormy Ascent level of the N. Sane Trilogy. The Wrath of Cortex carries on from the original games, but as the deal with Sony and Naughty Dog was over, it was time for a new developer and for the franchise to go multiplatform.

My first bafflement was the lack of any introduction to the gameplay. From my understanding, the earlier games introduced stuff slowly, but here everything is here from the start. Despite being the first Crash on Nintendo and Microsoft platforms, the game presumes that you’ve played the previous ones.

In the first level, I did what I always do in platform games: try to explore and collect what I can. This led me to a crystal which was apparently not the crystal I needed to progress the game, but was just a bonus, which meant I had to play the level again. So the first lesson the game taught me was to ignore the bonus stuff and instead just take the obvious route.

The next level starts and I’m suddenly flying a plane in the middle of a battle. No reason why, nothing to show the controls (they could have shown them on the long loading screens). There are multiple vehicle sections throughout, most of them are ok, none of them are exciting and the submarine is really boring. There are also levels where Crash is trapped in a ball for no reason, which makes the controls slippery and removes Crash’s jump.

The controls are mostly fine, but Wrath of Cortex has issues regarding perspective. In the 3D sections, it’s difficult to determine the position of floating objects or the edges of platforms. The 2D sections are worse, as it doesn’t “lock” Crash into 2D movement, you can still move up and down. The big problem is that in the transition from a 3D to 2D section, you’re likely moving forward which will push Crash out of the “intended” plane so when you jump onto crates, you’ll fall behind them.

But, other than the perspective issue, there’s nothing bad there, but there’s also nothing exciting. The graphics are the same, they’re not bad, but there’s also something stiff about it. The characters are barely animated, which adds to the slowness of the game. The Wrath of Cortex exists, and that’s really it.

Fine

Ass Kittsy put it, “If platformers were music, this one would be Cotton-Eyed Joe.” Make of that what you will, but he wasn’t smiling when he said it.
NGC Magazine #75

Remake or remaster?

There should be a compilation of post-PS1 Crash games.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex.