The modern gaming landscape is abundant with remakes and remasters, varying in their faithfulness to the original material. It`s rare for an original creator to publicly comment on a reimagined version of their work. However, Andrew Gavin, co-creator of the iconic Crash Bandicoot series, recently shared his insights on the 2017 N. Sane Trilogy via LinkedIn, highlighting a seemingly minor yet “most important 30 milliseconds” change that significantly impacted the gameplay experience.
Gavin, a co-founder of Naughty Dog, offered extensive feedback on the updated versions of Crash Bandicoot 1-3. While acknowledging that the remasters “nailed the visuals” and appeared “great [and] faithful to the original,” his primary concern revolved around the fundamental jumping mechanics. He controversially stated that the development team “completely botched how jumping works.”
In the original Crash Bandicoot games, the height of Crash`s jump was directly proportional to how long the player held down the jump button. This allowed for nuanced control, enabling players to execute precise short hops or maximize jump height for longer leaps.
According to Gavin, this crucial variable jump mechanic was omitted in the N. Sane Trilogy. Instead, it was replaced with a simplified system where every jump automatically reached its maximum possible height. He hypothesized that the remake developers either overlooked this fundamental design or underestimated its importance. Faced with levels becoming unplayable due to the fixed jump height, their solution was to make all jumps default to maximum height.
This alteration, Gavin asserts, fundamentally undermined the precision and feel of the game`s movement. He described jumps in the remaster as “huge and floaty,” making “precise little hops between platforms… awkward.” Ultimately, he concluded that the core jumping mechanic in the remake feels inferior to the 1996 original, despite being developed on significantly more powerful hardware.
Players interested in experiencing these changes firsthand can find the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy widely available on various modern gaming platforms.