24/09/2024

Crash: Twinsanity - Identity Crisis

Despite having a pretty deep affection for the orange marsupial, my history with Crash is pretty off and on - having kind of missed the PS1 as a whole, it was years and years until I played through the original trilogy, or the incredible Crash Team Racing. Sad to say, my love for the games were born in the PS2, post-Naughty Dog era - The Wrath of Cortex, Tag Team Racing, and the subject of today’s review, Twinsanity. It’s not the most well-rounded time for Crash Bandicoot, mostly due to its seemingly chaotic development, resulting in a split-personality of gameplay styles, buggy, janky gameplay and a surprisingly brief experience overall. Despite that, Twinsanity boasts some of the funniest, more irreverent dialogue on the console, an incredible soundtrack that’s almost legendary in its quality, and a solid, if occasionally frustrating, genuine Crash Bandicoot experience.

Like every Crash game before it, Twinsanity opens with the tried-and-true premise; Cortex, in a normal, totally not deranged manner (it’s true! Blonds DO have more fun!), attempts to rid himself of Crash once and for all and, in equally average manner, utterly fails. Twinsanity’s plot is nigh razor thin on detail, with the most transient, translucent cutscenes giving you reasoning for why you’re climbing a giant mountain, or spinning away tribal natives (it’s because Cortex is racist, that’s why). In fact, I’d go so far as to say Twinsanity’s story is a kind of ‘nothing’ story, if that makes sense. All the meat and potatoes rise to the top whenever the plot *isn’t* being discussed; bizarre one-liners from Cortex, usually resulting from him being punched, spun, insulted, humiliated, and so on - in fact, a decent bulk of this game’s comedy comes from the sheer patheticness of Dr. Neo Cortex, a man who has never been depicted quite this run-down and useless. Cortex’s role in this game, at least narratively, is the golden core of Twinsanity; Lex Lang, taking the role from previous legend Clancy Brown, perfectly embodies the pathetic madness that makes up Cortex, from whom the vast majority of the frankly hysterical voice acting stems from.

The bulk of Twinsanity’s gameplay feels like a more open evolution of the core, scrolling-based Crash Bandicoot action that had supported four console games at this point; playing as Crash, you’ll be platforming through a variety of different zones, collecting Wumpa fruits for lives, gems for unlockables, crystals for progression, and trying to avoid everything trying to kill you in the way. It’s almost exactly like the Crash of yesteryear, just without any of the fancy upgrades he’d get from time to time. You’ve got his basic moveset, and nothing more, and that turns the majority of Crash’s levels… well, not bad, but just more of the same, and with a distinct lack of polish Naughty Dog’s games had. Zones, or levels, depending on how you’d describe it, whilst still progressing through in a relatively more linear fashion, are decidedly more complex than previous Crash games, with little nooks here and there to hunt down the game’s prime secondary collectible, the coloured gems. Additionally, each zone is connected to its own hub area, allowing them to be re-explored and conquered of its secrets whenever you feel like it - though, navigating through the world without any kind of rapid transit can take the wind out of the sails of completion. Seriously, getting to areas like the mines, or N.Gin’s battleship are just massive pains. But, inherently, most sections of the game where you solely play as Crash are pretty in-line with the franchise thus far. Platforming, spinning fools, the kind of things Crash is known for. Sadly, whilst the previous game’s platforming styles were quite simple, that had a sense of satisfaction and moment-to-moment excitement that’s just not present here, even before the general jank that comes packaged with Twinsanity wholesale. Either I was dancing through the easiest platforming in the world, or I was being screwed by bizarre hitboxes, frustrating level design, or annoying checkpoints. The game never really finds the balance between fun and challenge, and whilst I’ve played far, far worse platformers, if this was solely a platformer featuring Crash, my love for this game would’ve been far diminished. Thankfully, whilst not everything that attempted landed, Traveller’s Tales tried to expand Crash Bandicoot into entirely new styles of gameplays, and even genres, turning Twinsanity, mixed as it is, into something totally unique in the franchise. Did it all work? Well… yeah, honestly. There’s just not enough of it.

With the core conceit of the game being Crash and Cortex truly uniting for the first time, much of Crash’s gameplay takes place with the two of them practically joined at the hip, even if you’re technically just playing Crash swinging Cortex about like a ball and chain. These chained-together sections are a bit slower, as with Cortex on hand you lose a lot of Crash’s more ‘advanced’ moves, like double jumps and slides, all that extra jazz. These sections, whilst still maintaining the platforming that’s so core to Crash Bandicoot, take on a bit more of a puzzle-like experience; one early section has them brawling so violently they become a ball-shaped dust ball, turning the game into Crash’s equivalent of monkeyball; another has Crash entombing Cortex in sewer pipes, utilizing him as a genuine puzzle item to progress. Even in the non-gimmick stages, you’ll be throwing Cortex to-and-fro to reach levers and gems alike - they’re simple, but it’s a nice break up of the normal Crash gameplay. These puzzles are never particularly hard, but the sheer visuals of what you’re doing - progressing via humiliating and brutalizing Cortex, coupled with his incredible voice work, turns them into some of the most entertaining sections of the game.

Honestly, the further the game moves from traditional Crash platforming, the better it shines; Easily the best amongst these alternate stages are the Doc Amok sections, side scrolling stages where Cortex is uncontrollably running horizontally across the area; you, as Crash, have to run parallel, disarming traps and getting him to safety. Beyond being genuinely the most hysterical moments in the game (‘Living in harmony with mother nature, the noble boar, the humble bumble bee… *screams*), they’re perhaps some of the best level designs in Crash Bandicoot… ever! Which is all the shame they only make up two levels in the game’s lineup - I genuinely could play an entire game’s worth of these levels. Beyond the Doc Amok stages, the game’s most interesting deviations, and the greatest evidence of this game’s greater ambitions, are when Crash is removed from the equation entirely; at times, you’ll directly take control of Cortex, and new addition, his (daughter, erm…) niece, Nina Cortex. Cortex’s sections take on a more puzzle-shooter take on the game, (and has the best animation in the game when he runs out of ammo), with him taking on foes at range and solving puzzles with laser bolts. Many of Nina’s stages, on the other hand, focus on grapple-based platforming, with her robotic hands being utilized to climb walls, punch foes from slight distances, and work way better in a two dimensional setting - not like we get a good variety of Nina stages, quite possibly the most insane thing about his game - just how little these fully featured characters get to shine, especially in comparison to good ‘ol Crash.

Seriously, in my memory, Cortex had half a dozen sections, and Nina had at least a few, but Cortex has *maybe* four, many of which are essentially just instanced, static fights and little more. Nina has it far, far worse - getting a SINGLE level to strut her stuff, with a segment of the final boss dedicated to her too. If anything in this game was evidence this game was rushed and cut to hell and back, it’s the fact that Cortex, one half of the game’s main duo, barely gets any time to shine on his own. Sure, it’s hilarious to see him get utterly humiliated by Crash at every turn, but his sections are a pretty decent change of pace and a unique way to play Crash as a franchise - so why is he barely in it at all? Why introduce Nina at all, when you could probably just incorporate some of her moveset into Cortex? She barely does anything in the game’s story, anyway! It’s just utterly bizarre, utterly, utterly bizarre. Sure, Cortex and Nina’s gameplay styles aren’t as fully formed as Crash, but they’re a great way to break up the game. Twinsanity is fun and all, but it just feels that the game as a whole feels totally at odds with it’s core conceit; playing as Crash and Cortex, working together - not just Crash, who occasionally swings Cortex around.

Twinsanity feels a bit like the crossroads of two different developmental visions - the game combines the relatively linear stages that made up much of the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy, with the slight, mini-game-esque diversions that come with it. But at the same time, earlier areas and hub zones have these more open, pseudo open-world designs that encourage a little more exploration and carving out those otherwise undisturbed paths. Twinsanity’s development seemed to have been chaotic, to say the least, and with this more original, different style of Crash Bandicoot more frequent in the opening stages of the game, it’s clear either budget, vision, or straight up directorial decisions made them pivot back to more traditional Crash Bandicoot gameplay… whilst still retaining a false first impression by the very first area having all kinds of nooks and crannies to explore. I don’t particularly prefer one kind of playstyle over the other, but it’s still interesting to see this identity crisis still baked into the DNA of the game. Coupled with the fact that Cortex and Nina - characters with entirely unique, alternate gameplay styles - are handed mere moments to strut their stuff implies the existence of a much larger, in-depth title, and the bevy of leaks and developmental notes that have come out post-release pretty much confirm that. On that note, in my head, Twinsanity, whilst not the longest game in the world, took me a pretty long time to beat; on this most recent playthrough, I powered through this game, earning a decent amount of the coloured gems, in less than five hours. It’s short, really, really short, and that leaves me feeling quite downcast; if this game had gone the way the devs had wanted, this really could’ve been a brave new world for Crash Bandicoot.

No single element of Twinsanity sticks out in the gaming consciousness more than its immaculate, almost utterly insane soundtrack. Almost entirely recorded in acapella, Twinsanity’s soundtrack is perhaps the most earworm inducing, toe-tapping, hum-causing soundtrack on the entire console. Seriously, despite the sheer jankiness of the game leaching into nearly every facet, the soundtrack stands tall as nearly immaculate. It sets a pitch-tone for this mad, mad, mad world. Whilst there are absolutely no low points to this game’s soundtrack, the highlights have become lodged in my brain for the better part of two decades; Slip Slide Escapade’s bouncy, looney-tunes beats are almost effectively catchy, the Academy of Evil’s spooky mood is hilariously atmospheric, and Ice Climb’s humming, toe-tapping, rising and falling melody ranks amongst the best songs on the PS2, period. And I could say that for the game’s soundtrack as a whole - like I said, there are no low points, no forgettable tracks; you show me a couple of seconds of any tracks, I could tell you almost exactly where and when it plays. Despite this fantastic soundtrack, the overall audio experience can be… lacking at times, especially during in-engine cutscenes; there’s a general lack of sound effects to accompany much of the action, especially in regards to movement and whatnot. It’s no deal-breaker, to be sure, but a lot of the cutscenes just lack a bit of ‘oomph’, because things just sort of happen, without *feeling* like they happened, if that makes sense.

Crash Bandicoot: Twinsanity is a bizarre game, feeling like the half measure of two different projects mashed together - and that output feeling half-baked at the best of times. What’s here is, whilst janky as all hell, acceptable, with the game’s more gimmicky modes a ton more fun than the core Crash Bandicoot experience. But it’s that jank - coupled with the game’s short length, exacerbated by its developmental and design issues - that holds it back from standing side to side with its earlier brethren. Crash has gone through much, much worse - just see Wrath of Cortex, or the… interesting Titan duology, but Twinsanity is a shadow of what it could be - which is to say, something incredible, buried within the jank. With a fantastic audio experience and being nigh on hysterical from moment one, Twinsanity is worth a try - but you’ll either bounce off it hard, or push through it like nothing, transitory as it is. I’m glad I played it again, but I think Twinsanity will remain just one of those weird games so endemic to the era of the PS2.