The video game developers, Toys for Bob, have been enjoying many plaudits for their recent entry into the Crash Bandicoot series; Crash bandicoot 4: It’s About Time. As the title suggests, the game ignores a plethora of Bandicoot titles and follows on from 1998’s Crash Bandicoot: Warped.
Warped, along with its two predecessors, was developed by Naughty Dog. The company is known today for the Uncharted and Last of Us series. Naughty Dog created the Australian Bandicoot with hopes of him becoming PlayStation’s mascot. The PlayStation was competing with the Nintendo 64 at the time, and Sony felt that the console needed a mascot to rival Mario and Link.
Despite not quite reaching those heights, the Bandicoot isn’t too far off and has an impressive catalog of over 20 games. Crash has amassed an army of loyal fans over the decades, who’s interest in the series has led to many weird and wonderful stories surfacing about the early development.
10 Japanese Alterations
Sony ran into an issue when marketing Crash Bandicoot as their gaming mascot. Japanese audiences weren’t warming to the design. With Sony determined to make Crash as marketable as possible, they altered his design in Japenese editions of the game.
Crash’s appearance was changed to be softer and more cartoony. This wasn’t just in the first game either, Japanese versions of Crash Bandicoot still feature the altered design today.
9 A Scrapped Cutscene
The perception of Crash Bandicoot could have been very different. A cutscene was originally intended to appear in the first Bandicoot game that was reminiscent of Saturday-morning cartoons.
The musical cartoon was put onto YouTube by producer David Siller on the 17th of July 2015. It is still on the site and currently has just under half a million views.
Siller explains the reasoning for the removal in the video’s description; “Once UIS licensed the game to Sony for publication, Sony did not want it utilized since they were heavily pushing the “3D” agenda”.
8 A Gem Of An Afterthought
During the development of Crash Bandicoot, playtests of the game highlighted a fundamental issue, it was a bit boring. This was predominantly because of hardware limitations at the time. Naughty Dog couldn’t include many enemies on screen, leaving unwanted empty spaces.
The game’s crates were subsequently added to the game to fill these spaces and add challenge. It turned out to be a key change as the crates, and in particular, the crate gems, are an iconic feature of the Bandicoot games.
7 An Unfortunate Nickname
Boxes aren’t Crash Bandicoot‘s only iconic feature. The camera angle being placed behind Crash, or in front of him during chase scenes, was unique at the time. Most developers were utilizing gaming’s new 3D capabilities at the time, creating games with free-camera movements like Super Mario 64.
Crash Bandicoot‘s fixed camera gave the game an unfortunate nickname during development… The “Sonic’s ass game”.
6 Character Inspirations
Inspiration for video gaming characters has come from many different places. Some come from expected places, like Nathan Drake being based on action hero Indiana Jones. While some are more unorthodox, like the world’s most famous gaming character being based on an Italian plumber.
Crash’s love interest Tawna falls under the unorthodox category. Despite being a cartoon Bandicoot, she was inspired by 90’s Baywatch star Pamela Anderson.
5 Original Design Changes
Speaking of design inspirations, Crash Bandicoot‘s design could have been very different. As the name suggests, his design is based on a Bandicoot. Bandicoots are small, furry marsupials that are predominantly found in Australia.
However, Crash’s original design was for him to be based on a different Australian marsupial, a wombat. His name would have been Willie the Wombat.
Interestingly, the Crash part of Crash Bandicoot‘s name originates from him spinning, or crashing, into crates.
4 Stormy Ascent
People who have played the N. Sane Trilogy will recognize the name Stormy Ascent and possibly have a few stress-induced flashbacks. The tricky stage was added to the first game in the N.Sane Trilogy as DLC.
Stormy Ascent was created by Naughty Dog and was originally planned to feature in the first game. However, it was removed for being too difficult, as Naughty Dog was concerned that players would find it too frustrating. The other DLC stage Future Tense, on the other hand, was a new level developed by Vicarious Visions.
3 Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment
Despite Stormy Ascent being removed, many gamers still found the original game to be too challenging. To compensate for this, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back featured dynamic difficulty adjustment.
Dynamic difficulty adjustment in video gaming is when a game becomes easier or harder without players manually changing the difficulty settings. This is usually done to ensure that players don’t become disillusioned by a game if they find it too easy, or frustrated if they find it too hard. Famous examples include Mario Kart giving players in last place significantly better items to use than players in first place. Along with Resident Evil 4 adding more enemies into the game if players are doing well, or removing some if they’re struggling.
The dynamic difficulty in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back predominantly comes in the form of Aku Aku. If players continuously die in one area, they are given a protective Aku Aku mask to help them out. Another key change is during the chase levels. If the player is struggling, the chasing boulder or bear will slow down.
2 Fake Crash
If players found Fake Crash in Crash Bandicoot: Warped, then they can fairly claim to be pretty good at the game. Collecting all of the gems and crystals in the third game would cause the peculiar-looking iteration of Crash to appear in three of the game’s levels; Toad Village, Makin’ Waves, and Hog Ride.
The imposter Crash is based on a poorly made, unlicensed toy of the Bandicoot that was found in Japan.
1 A Secret Demo
The Crash Bandicoot and Spyro The Dragon series have gone hand in hand for many years. They both started life under Sony Computer Entertainment, and are now both published by industry giants Activision.
The pair have frequently appeared in one another’s games, and even had two GBA crossover titles; Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto’s Rampage and Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy.
One other connection was a secret demo in the original Spyro The Dragon game. By pressing L1 and Triangle on the menu screen, players would be taken to a playable demo of the Crash Bandicoot: Warped stage Tell No Tales.
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