I like how the plot of this game is that Cortex is developing a new super weapon in the from of Crunch, but Uka calls a random ass geriatric board meeting to yell at the villains for not being productive enough- when N.Gin mentions that Cortex is working on something big, Cortex is like "*dude shut up shut up that's not ready yet the mind control isn't stable* uhhh ahem- yes Uka Uka, I have a cool new bio weapon yup it'll totally work" and they end up compensating for Crunch not being ready yet by throwing all the elemental masks into the mix. And the game ends with the mind control on Crunch being broken and him joining the good guys because the plan was rushed out the door before they had time to work out the kinks

do you think they we're trying to say something?

A lot of Wrath of Cortex videos have been popping up randomly lately.
Something is coming

I never thought the game was bad, just aggressively mediocre and the game felt like a rushed attempt to recreate what made the original trilogy so great.

Fun fact: the original Black Label release had 45-second loading screens! The original intent was for there to be a minigame where the player would collect Wumpa Fruit while the game was loading, but since Namco had a fraudulent patent on such things that was still being enforced at the time, they had to cut the minigame part.

The game HAS another Powerup, this being the super bellyflop. It's just hidden, not to mention if you put in the word Wombat as the Save File Name, it unlocks EVERYTHING.

The check bounced?!
Are you sure?
Well, the past few years have been kind of slow.
Wrath of Cortex didn't do as well as we'd hoped and.......fish

He was so disappointed in the game that he didn't even end the video by saying what he always does

cortex even referenced the fact that this game tanked in twinsanity

The game is a death by a thousand paper cuts. Sure the individual problems aren’t a deal breaker but they mount until the game becomes a chore to play

I think the problem with a lot of the Crash games after the originals was that a lot of studios didn't quite understand what made a Crash Bandicoot game successful.  Some thought Crash was your garden variety mascot platformer, so he was a Jack of All Trades, right?  Others had come from different eras of game development, including the infamous Amiga/European platformer design philosophy where they thought that it didn't matter about the gameplay as long as it looked good.

Originally this was meant to be an open world exploration game meant to capitalize on next-gen hardware, but deadlines and the game becoming multiplatform meant that they had to scrap that open world idea and instead build a generic Crash Bandicoot game with the assets they already made.  A similar problem befell the Spyro game also in development.

one of my biggest problems with Wrath of Cortex is how obsessed the game becomes with nitro blocks for difficulty. by the back half of the game especially, it feels like they just spam nitro blocks everywhere, and it’s kinda ridiculous. really shows how uninspired the level design was

Does anyone else have the same head-cannon as me where the Crash Bandicoot franchise splits into two separate timelines after Crash 3? I believe that WoC takes place after the Crash 3 Bad Ending where Cortex and Uka Uka get away, while Crash 4 takes place after the Good Ending where Cortex, N Trophy, and Uka Uka are stuck in the past.

I never thought Wrath of Cortex was bad just a worse version of Crash 3 and mediocre

You got to admit it's kind of impressive how after this game and Twinsanity which were both developed by Travelers Tales which they previously made the well received a Toy Story 2 game, at least they got a huge redemption arc with the Lego video game series which is still going today now renamed to Tt Games if anything you should probably blame the publisher Universal Interactive for not being a good game publisher and for rushing the developers to make a game in less than a year with a limited time and budget on a new generation console.

You should do a video on it’s pseudo cousin Spyro Enter The Dragonfly.

The production behind it was one of the most chaotic scenes I’ve ever seen for a games creation.

Constant fighting even in the games code there’s producers swearing at each other, some staff to living off peanut butter, a near murder, there’s a lot more behind the game and the product was almost as a mess as the studio behind it.

It really goes to show how keeping the original developers made an enormous difference. Jak and Daxter was amazing. The original Spyro trilogy developers went on to make Ratchet and Clank another great series. Spyro on PS2 suffered heavily until they at least reached the Legend of Spyro trilogy.

Meanwhile, Wrath of Cortex was pretty much Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly but didn't suffer technical problems and glitches at the same time. Nonetheless. It's just a giant meh and almost soulless.

For some reason I always loved this one because of the theme of the elemental masks

I can't believe you didn't even mention the music! It's like one of the only consistently great aspects of the game 😅

ValeforXD/Remy Raccoon titled his video on this game what it should have been called, Crash Bandicoot The Wrath Of Vehicle Levels

Bro didn't even mention the soundtrack. Literally the best part of the game.