Crash is the Dark Souls of platformers
Over the weekend, the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy launched to wild success and some odd comparisons to FromSoftware’s masterpiece. While most everyone is pleased with the remaster, some people have been claiming that Crash is super difficult. I mean, it wasn’t an easy game back in the day, but I guess it has somehow become harder after 21 years.
Apparently, that claim isn’t a load of nonsense. According to a Reddit user TastyCarcass, who took a much closer look at the jumping physics, developer Vicarious Visions seems to have altered the collision box on Crash. Instead of utilizing a flat shaped hit box, like in the original games, they went with a pill shape that results in Crash sliding off ledges if he barely touches them.
On the one hand, this means you can slide off of platforms and jump in mid-air. On the other hand, it means you’re less likely to make pixel perfect jumps or you’ll fall to your doom if you’re landing precisely on the edge of something. That is a bummer.
Along with that, apparently Crash‘s jumping arc has been sped up. Twitch user DingDongVG created a short video illustrating his point and it also corroborates the Reddit thread about Crash slipping off surfaces. This means Crash jumps for a shorter amount of time, which leads to an inaccurate game when combined with the wonky collisions.
the reason jumps feel harder in the n.sane trilogy isn’t really due to falling a bit faster but because collisions can be wonky upon landing pic.twitter.com/jxbvijNU6c
— Ding Dong (@DingDongVG) July 3, 2017
So how did this happen? If the remaster is based on ports of the original trilogy, why would anything be changed? As it turns out, Vicarious Visions did not have access to the source code for the PS1 classics, so they had to rebuild the trilogy from scratch. Since modern game engines tend to utilize that pill shaped collision box, they probably threw it in without realizing how it would impact the feel of the game.
Fans reckon they’ve worked out why jumping is harder in Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy [Eurogamer]
