They could never make me hate you, TWoC.

I love Crunch, the ball rolling, and the OST so much.

The soundtrack is honestly the sharpest and best thing about the game, it goes hard.

The lack of music for Death Route and the weak soundtrack for the bonus stages is ultimately compensated for by the simple fact that all the game's stages have their own music, and the soundtrack is incredible, perhaps one of the most underrated.

23:37 - Someone said something about the duality of Wrath of Cortex and It's About Time's canon following Warped that stuck with me.

They said that IAT continues on from Warped's 100% ending, and WoC follows the incomplete ending (didn't collect all gems, time relics, etc).

I've adopted that as my own headcanon.

Your analysis of Crunch is a curious one, it is probably the first time they did something that in depth with the whole experiment lore past the first game. It's even more amusing when you look at Crash and how often he's taking orders from the other heroes (hell in OG Crash 2 and 4, Aku and Coco even have the same rude pushiness as Cortex, a whole 'Did he REALLY escape?' query :P).

It's probably why I like the other understated detail of the story in WOC, the heroes' synergy. This is THE game to really emphasise Coco as the brains to Crash's brawn, handing him all the tools and apparatus to help win while still trying to do stuff on her own despite lacking his brute force and experience. There's even a little 'underdog' arc with Coco that got cut a bit from the beta version, what with her animations showing her less adapt to roaming around than Crash (eg. being the Bambi to his Thumper on ice), and the beta layout having her first 'playable' level a fake out where Crash had to save her. Each level with her feels increasingly more challenging while taking advantage of her own niches, and culminates in the final ending where she get to return the favour and save her brother with her tech smarts. Adding to that the smaller cuter design for Coco in this game, it really felt like they wanted to make her a sweet little underdog who wants to break out and help her brother as an equal, a contrast to Crunch and Cortex's dynamic. I get it's kinda derivative of other 'sidekicks' like Tails, but I think I kinda prefer this take of Coco over the modern one. This one feels like Crash's little sister.

I also agree to the use of the other villains in the levels, along with the ominous presence of the Elementals via the natural hazards. It can be underwhelming at times, but I like how this game feels more high stakes because of how much the villains seem to be actively trying to stop you getting any further.

Wrath of Cortex didn't do as well as we hoped, and—

With J reviews and you doing this makes me happy for Crash's 30 anniversary.

My experience with the game is that my brother had it but the game wouldn't work. It would just get trapped on that loading screen of Crash falling, FOREVER.

So over the years I had to play it at different neighbors houses. I enjoyed the game, but it didn't wow me like the OG games did. I did like some of the level design though.

I hope we see Crunch return in a mainline game again.

You are the only person i have ever heard point out the warp room is a VR room in the context of the game. That always annoyed me as a kid, i took my crash plots seriously

You really nailed exactly how I feel about this game. I still find myself loving it despite its shortcomings. I had the exact same Christmas as you too lol

One thing I wanna note is that Crash Bandicoot was not the only game series Traveller's Tales was given and was forced to rush games out the door.
It happened with Sonic The Hedgehog too. They were going to make an F1 racing game, but Sega was desperate for a game for their failing Saturn, so TT had to turn it into a Sonic game.
The result was Sonic R. The characters in that game controlled not like Sonic characters, but more like race cars, because that's what they were meant to be.

Their attempts at hard work go back even further. Look at all the cool stuff they did on the Sega Genesis. You had Mickey Mania, Toy Story, and even Sonic 3D Blast. Seriously, they were a force to be reckoned with back in the day when it comes to technical stuff. One of the founders of TT, Jon Burton, has his own YouTube channel named "GameHut" where he goes over many of the tricks the team did for their games.

You could say that many of their games, TWOC included, didn't have the best gameplay out there, but you can't say they didn't try. They gave it their best shot, and I think they did amazing with what they had.
The studios they made games for treated them like shit. Not enough development time, concepts they had to scrap. I think they should be ashamed for not giving this studio more time to make the games as good as they wanted.
Traveller's Tales deserved better.

Wrath of Cortex is probably my favorite game of all time. It's one of the few games in the series that I can consistently get the platinum relics on every level.

Hi guys, happy I could get another video out. This script was fun to write because I really had to balance how much I critiqued the game while also highlighting things that I think the game does well. I try to make sure that I never stay on one topic too long and definitely never want to make sections feel like a rant. I’m really enjoying making what to me seems like some organized retrospectives that feel personal to myself with each game. I’m still learning things after each project and hopefully getting better. I really appreciate you all and the support for these videos.

No matter how people feel about this game and it’s flaws I still try to look at it fondly cause it’s where the birth of my favorite Crash character began. Here comes the Crunch! 🥰

The masks were my favorite part of the game along with Crunch. They were so threatening, powerful, and challenging fr

Gotta love how it's still noticed as a warped clone even though the final cut barely has the warped crew in it.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex is a decent enough game, the problem is that Naughty Dog’s games were so insanely detailed and (mostly) polished that any attempt less than great would feel off and a little weak.

For example, in Crash Bandicoot 3/Warped: in the Pura levels, if you jump off the Great Wall and hit the side of a building so Pura slams into it (which is over pits) Coco’s model will literally shift over to actual land so she can dismount and shake her head. When literally any other game would have her do the death animation over a pit. You have to go out of your way to do this, but some programmer accounted for that.

TWOC’s lack of attention to detail isn’t quite as bad as some make it out to be but it’s definitely noticeable. My favorite example is how Time Crates aren’t broken by chase obstacles despite them literally being in 5 out of 30 levels.

Another really good one is the third warp room and the Double Jump. You just get that power, but you get a Coco stage that doesn’t let you use it, a Atlasphere that doesn’t let you use it, a jeep stage that doesn’t let you use it, and a jetpack stage where the intro doesn’t let you use it, and a boss that is half in a mech. Granted, Warped has vehicle levels that don’t let you use powers either (2 in its third warp room) but still. Also, the original PS2 release’s loading times were the stuff of infamy, even if it wasn’t entirely the fault of the developers due to a potential lawsuit from Namco over loading screen minigames at the last minute.

As for the graphics, my biggest gripe isn’t the different art style, it’s actually the lighting. A good chunk of levels in this game are overly dark, and while it helps the game stand out as a moody platformer, at the same time, it feels less like I’m playing a fun cartoony platformer.

I agree that the Coco levels and the soundtrack are a highlight for sure. The OST is borderline ridiculous but also amazing.

TWOC is mostly a fine game, it’s just the parts that are really bad (the water levels with the submarine, the mech in Droid Void - in Crate Balls of Fire it’s okay, and everything about Smokey and the Bandicoot’s jeep) are so laughably unpolished it can’t help but feel lesser, even when the original trilogy had its share of problems.

Great video dude! for real i can still play this game and enjoy it! aside from those water levels... ether way it was fun to hear someone talk about this game and point out why it still has that crash charm even if its flawed and clearly needed more time to cook.

I have such fond memories  of this game I’ve been hesitant to ever replay it because I don’t want to ruin those naïve childhood memories. There were some really frustrating moments but I played as much of this crash as a kid than the first two games. Great video!

6:12 It looks unfinished because it doesn't have finish. 1.The lighting is garbage 2.The geometry is untextured 3.The characters looks like corpses

This is the game that truly could've done with the remake thing. There is soooo much creativity put into this game. The levels are so unique and cool. It might be a bit rough around the edges (hence why getting the N. Sane treatment would've been such a nice thing) but it's really not as terrible as people made it out to be back in the day. I'm glad it gets more appreciation these days. Now we just need to work on getting that for Spyro's 4th game as well 😂