Quantum Leap - Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time - Part 2

Dr. Cortex and Dr. N Trophy are still ripping space-time apart as they work tirelessly to achieve their plans and enact revenge. With two of the quantum masks accounted for, and two more to acquire before we can mend the rifts, our journey continues.

It's About Time.

While I'm certainly not the first person to make the point, it's worth repeating how much work players would need to put in to achieve full completion: 106%. In his excellent video on the topic, Caddicarus outlines in detail what the requirements are, but that it took 68 hours to achieve them. For reference, my own complete runs of Crash 2 and Crash 3 took about 5-7 hours each.

I don't wish to regurgitate the contents of his video to you, so instead I'll add on to his point. Judging by both what I'm seeing for myself and what I'm hearing from people who have tried for full completion, it is even more difficult here than it was back in Crash 1. The Crash fan community has mostly gathered in support of this new game from Toys for Bob, but this is the most consistent criticism of their efforts.

At the same time, it's important to remember that Crash 1 was also lambasted for it's unreasonable difficult as well. That was why the second and third games toned down what it took to perfectly beat the game. I hate that Toys for Bob had to learn this lesson the hard way, but this can be a valuable learning experience. If they take the franchise forward, which they absolutely should be given the opportunity here because they've more than proved themselves, I have no doubt that they'll keep our feedback in mind.

It would have been easy to rest on the laurels of just doing everything the old games did without thinking about how they could be brought into a modern era, but that's not what happened here. Toys for Bob made the bold choice to experiment with ways to update the formula or otherwise change it around to keep things fresh and exciting. While this particular attempt to re-imagine what full completion is didn't succeed, there are many other innovations that did.

I'm happy this game exists.