don't mess with his spin.

hey everyone! sammy here! well it may have taken to game 34 but i finally got to play a game for the winter jackpot series! and mr. wheel has certainly given me a good game. i get to check out crash bandicoot n. sane trilogy!

logically i start with the first game. the original crash bandicoot! looks like we meet our villain of the game. dr. cortex. seems like he wants to send crash into a vortex... dr. cortex sending crash to a vortex... cortex... vortex... anyway... looks like his little sidekick is worried because the vortex isn't ready. sure enough, it wasn't. and crash was able to escape. so instead they focus on... well honestly i don't know if it's his sister, girlfriend, or just a female bandicoot. from there, we jump right into the game... but first... i need to fix these damn graphics. i don't know why the resolution was set to 1920x1200. clearly 1920x1080 is the better one here. i don't like black bars on my screen. this first level gets me familiarized with the game. as crash, i can spin to break boxes. and also take down enemies. like crabs. i can also fall into pits... i mean i shouldn't... but i can do that. there's also boxes that contain tiki head thingies... i'm sure i'll find out what those do. and it doesn't take me long to do so. looks like collecting 3 and you're temporarily invincible. move out of the way crabs! crash is on the way! i beat the level and... the game makes me feel like shit. oh why reward me? it can just tell me how many boxes i missed instead! thank you for making me feel good about my fucking self game! anyways, to the overworld map... it's... well not really confusing. but i needed time to understand it. i had a couple options. sure i could go to the storm ascent... but i don't know something tells me it's a little too early for that? i mean i could be wrong but i do exit out and enter the jungle rollers. very quickly i am invincible again. taking down skunks in my path. this level makes use of these stone wheel things that roll left to right. ah... the jungle rollers. it's not hard to avoid them. it's more harder to avoid the pits than anything. thankfully this game doesn't short me out on lives. so i like that. oh yeah like a tip told me, don't spin the tnt. jump on it instead. this level also has these plants that look like they want to eat me and also boxes containing girl bandicoot head tokens. collecting 3 of which and i can play a bonus level! these are full of goodies including extra lives and boxes to break. at the end i can meet my girl... friend... for like... 2 seconds before she's swept away by cortex.

i didn't miss nearly as many boxes here as i move to the great gate. this is the first of many... i wouldn't call them 2d levels. more like 2.5d. in a sense where it's in a 2d view but still a 3d like environment. turtles too slow to take me down here. monkeys just have bananas on their mind. and those spike log things? what are they supposed to scare me? really the only... "threatening" but not really enemy is the shield broccoli. its shield does bounce me back. but if you are able to jump on top of it, you can stun it and take its ass down. no slippery platforms can defeat me either as i reach another bonus level. one that i fail miserably. thankfully there are indefinite retries. no sweat as i eventually pick up my 3 lives. i did leave some boxes though since i didn't know how to crush them without falling to my death. no matter. i just beat the level. right now i'm not going for a full 100 percent. boulders is the next level. looks like crash is facing me here. and i can see why. it's indiana jones up in here! i could've beaten the level my first try. but i was too tempted by an extra life, that i just got splattered. i do better my next go. i collect the diamond at the end as i ended up crushing all boxes. hell yeah! upstream the next level. it sure is a very aquatic level. not too hard. but i still am careful as i avoid the piranhas and jump across the thin pads of the water. there's also these... well... they're horrifying but it's these weird toothed plants that want to chomp me down. but only when i step on them. thankfully i have plenty of time to escape. though the blue ones are always chomping no matter what. so i need to be careful with those guys. i approach another bonus level where i finally realize i can bounce on these boxes like springs. i guess that makes sense for the very bottom boxes that then lead to a pit. papu papu is the next level. more like a boss fight. more like the easiest fucking boss in the world. just wait for it to bend forward and jump on it 5 times and... dead. bro didn't even put up a fight. the next... well space i head to on the map. it's not a level but it's coco's time machine... is coco our girlfriend or just another girl in the game? either way, i let her join the team. i can swap to her any time i want... but only from the overworld map. rolling stones is the next level.

while not quite the same, it's very similar to the jungle rollers. once again making use of those stone wheels. the overall layout of the level feels nearly identical. like a copy and paste and then a shuffle around. the only differences about this level is that i find a weird ass frankenstein head token looking thing. i guess just like the girlfriend tokens, i can also collect 3 of these for... i don't really know what honestly. along with that, this level is definitely more on the challenging side. jump landings feel a little more tighter especially having to deal with those stone wheels. i lose... probably more lives than i wanted. but i am still able to beat the level. only 24 boxes missed? hah. no biggie. i'll just move to hog wild! that hog sure is wild. boxes stand no chance. all i have to do is be careful of the spike logs. the first part of the level is easy. but then it gets tougher when the shield broccoli get involved. just one hit and i fly off my hog. it can be tricky to tell where you're going to avoid them. i ended up taking a tactical death on one of my runs because i missed a box. i wanted another perfect score. eventually i am literally jumping over... okay that's disturbing. it's impaled wild creatures spinning on a wheel. fucking gross. first 2 were easy to get by. last one not so much. the last one is definitely a timing one. eventually, after a lot longer than i wanted, i make it past the final broccoli... and realize i still missed a box. well so much for a perfect score. native fortress is the next level. it's another 2.5d level. more piranhas, monkeys, turtles, and spike logs to deal with. nothing i can't handle. it's child's play. after being blown up by tnt and also taking a bullshit death to some fire i clearly avoided... i reach yet another bonus level. only 5 boxes to crush here. but i get 2 lives out of it. after taking like... 5 hours to scale a vertical section of the level, i make it to the bright blue sky section of the level. more of the same here. including being embarrassingly eaten by a piranha... seriously? yeah there's no other way to describe this section other than... it's hell. everything is out to get me and i swear it feels like every damn jump is tight. it gets worse when there's these 3 fire bumper things in a row. i swear they are way too damn fast for me to get past all them.

really it only comes down to just holding left at that point. that's all you can do. but that's not the worst part. now there's another vertical section to deal with. granted i made it look harder than i needed it be. to be fair i got greedy and wanted every single apple the section provided. i almost thought i maybe could've stood on those spinning platforms when they were straight up. but that didn't seem to be the case. i'm amazed i beat that level. i thought i was going to be stuck there until the end of my stream. up the creek is the next level. also known as... upstream again... no seriously it is the same level... apart from the times that i drown. the bonus level here has 30 boxes to break and 2 lives to get. afterwards, i beat the level and call it a night there. i have to say... this game isn't half bad... as... frustrating as it may feel, it's pretty fun! it definitely has a croc vibe. short and fast paced levels... even though i made some of the levels feel long. it sure was fun being able to scream "woah!" and smash some boxes.

it wasn't fun when the game told me why i was a failure in each level.