Pre-order Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is a collection of remastered editions of the first three games in the Crash Bandicoot series, Crash Bandicoot, Cortex Strikes Back and Warped. We got a sneak peek of the N. Sane Trilogy at E3 2017, and the big announcement was that Crash Bandicoot's younger sister, Coco, would be playable in all three games. Previously, she was only playable in certain levels of the third game, Warped. Even then, she was on vehicles, in biplanes, or on her tiger Pura, but now, she will be on foot. Coco had only been in vehicles before, so she has a new set of on-foot animations and death animations to call her own.

Adding Coco to the N. Sane Trilogy was a labor of love for Vicarious Visions. Coco was a fan favorite, and some team members kept bringing up the idea during periodic "game jam" sessions. They built a prototype, everyone was thrilled with it, and the rest is history.

Coco is retconned into the games because she hacked into the Time Twister to secretly send herself back in time to help Crash in his previous adventures. You have to interact with Coco in each of the hubs to unlock her, and once you do, you can switch between playing as Crash or Coco.  If you want to have the original experience with Crash, you can still do that. The developers kept in mind that this is still a remaster, so it's important that purists can play through the original game, except for the levels in the original where you played as her by default. There are some levels that are exclusive to Crash, but most are playable with Coco.

We saw three levels during our time with the game: Boulders from Crash Bandicoot, Snow Go from Cortex Strikes Back, and Orient Express from Warped. The Boulders level showed off some of Coco's death animations as the gigantic Indiana Jones-style boulder rolled over her. As Coco ran toward the camera, her personality was evident through her expressions and animations. The Snow Go level showcased the reflection technology that had been built specifically for this game. Coco tends to gracefully skate over the ice, whereas Crash's animations are more chaotic. The Orient Express level showed off the accessible gameplay and vibrant colors in the environments. The third title features a variety of gameplay that's accessible to just about everyone, but it takes a while to master the game to collect all of the crates and gems.

Time trials were introduced in Warped, but the N. Sane Trilogy adds time trials across all three games. Online leaderboards are also available, so fans of speed-running can see how well they're doing among both friends and strangers. In all, that means there are more than 80 levels of time trials and leaderboards for players to compete on. You can play all three games in any order that you want. You can start up one game and then leave it to play another; there's no defined order to it.

We enjoyed our time with the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. I'm not a speed-running fan, but I'm looking forward to playing the remastered game as Coco Bandicoot. The addition of Coco is certainly a bonus, so the remaster offers more than just a fresh coat of paint.