E3 2018: Hands-on with Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy on Switch

E3 is a fun time, there are plenty of new games announced, some not coming for another year or so and then, we get the occasional game that has been released before, but now finding new life on another system. This year, Crash Bandicoot is doing just that, releasing onto Switch and other platforms, a year after his recent resurrection, but how does the game perform on the Switch.

Without putting in unneeded words, it plays great, nice and simple, in fact, if you have already played it on the PlayStation 4, or have fond memories of it from its original release, you will love it here. Getting around is done with the left stick, and a few of the face buttons cover off your jumping, spinning, and crouching and that’s pretty much it, the game is as simple as it can be without being an endless runner.

The level that I got to play was a whole new level, not currently available elsewhere, in fact, it will be the first new level for a Crash Bandicoot game in over a decade. The level will be available inside of Crash 3: Warped and playable from the outset, so if you buy the game and want to play this right away you can. Future Tense is a hard level though, if you play it without any power-ups, you might find yourself struggling to make it past some of the earlier jumps and obstacles. As my Crash had nothing like that, I was not doing so well, but I kept pushing on, hoping to get further with each run.

One thing I did notice, as I was given a demonstration earlier by Producer Kyle from Vicarious Visions, this was done with the Xbox One version, is that whilst the visuals do match up in terms of art style and overall detail, the Switch version has lost a lot of little touches, which is to be expected. One space in Future Tense, had an enemy shooting rockets at a wall, but as Kyle would not go past that point, letting players experience it for themselves, all I got to see was a large wall, with the tank shooting. He did sneak further forward and was able to see that, what I had been looking at, was a reflection of the tank, which was down beneath the camera, not behind the glass. On the Switch, that effect is not present, the glass wall is replaced by a metal looking wall, no reflections of any kind.

It does show the limitations of the Switch, hardware wise, but at the same time, I also did not care, because I was still having fun trying to avoid the deadly lasers, the roaming spike traps and of course, the rockets. While I did not get a chance to just jump into a random level and see how far I could get, I did enjoy what I played and can’t wait for the chance to play more.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy arrives on June 29.