Summary
Get the crystals scattered in various Time Zones
The Good
This is the third and final
Crash Bandicoot game for PlayStation. Once again, you play Crash who is on a mission to collect 25 crystals from different time zones, and stopping him from doing this is the usual wildlife that inhabit each level. The game plays similar to
Crash 2: destroy every box, stay well away from nitros, and find hidden gems. There are bonus areas in which there are more boxes to destroy. Once you get every five crystals, you then defeat a boss which basically are the bosses from the last game, except they are much tougher. Once you defeat them, you get a power-up, which allows you to use special moves, such as the high jump and tornado death spin.
The same rules apply as before. You are in one, big warp room. What I like about this room is that it is not crowded like in
Crash 2, and you don't have to go up or down to access different parts. You can see what lies ahead of you, whereas you could not in the last game. When you go up to an area of the warp room, five buttons will appear. If you jump on one of these buttons, you will be able to then jump into the portal. Sometimes, Crash cannot jump into the portal, and that's where his sister, Coco Bandicoot, comes in. It is nice to play two characters in the same game. Coco's objective is the same as Crash. She must collect the crystals, along with the many gems that are hidden in plain view.
But not only do you have to worry about gems and the crystals themselves, but also about getting the relics in each level. These relics can be obtained by doing a “time trial” run on that level. Here, you have to make sure that you are beating the game's best. This can be hard to do because enemies got in your way and make your halt for a few seconds. If you go over the game's best time, you don't win a relic. To make it easier for you, you can “spin attack” yellow boxes with numbers on them, which indicate the number of seconds that time will pause. But even the numbers are strict. You don't have that much seconds to spare. Once you get five relies, you're off to a secret warp room where you can access only one level. Get another five relies, and you will be allowed to access another level. I haven't got to the secret warp room yet, so I can't comment about it.
The graphics are similar to the first two episodes, both with indoor and outdoor settings. The environments include villages, temples, ruins, underwater scenes, and more. The animations are smooth.Whenever Crash earns himself a gem for breaking every box, he does the cool animation of him doing rap like he does in the second episode. I like the many ways that both Crash and Coco can die, as they are sometimes hilarious to watch.
Both Crash and Coco can use different vehicles to complete certain levels. These include jet-skis, submersibles, bi-planes, motorbikes, and you can even ride two animals, a tiger and a baby dinosaur. With the bi-plane levels, you need to shoot down a number of targets to get the crystal. With the motorbike levels, you race against a number of little shits that drive in their buggies. Out of these two, I like riding in the bi-plane.
The sound effects are good, and are consistent to those cartoon shows of the 80's. Every two or so levels, you hear Crash's bosses telling him how they hate Crash and his plans to destroy him.
The Bad
The levels where you drive a motorcycle and race to the finish line are annoying. No matter how you finish, getting second or third place in the race is irrelevant, because if you don't finish the race first place, then you don't get the crystal. The environments in these little races are boring, and only consist of desert.
After three games that were created by Naughty Dog, you would have thought that Crash finally had a voice. He does not. Yet, Crash's sister and his bosses all have their own voices. Perhaps he finally has a voice in
Twinsanity?
The Bottom Line
So in conclusion,
Crash 3 plays similar to the first two episodes. This time, you play two characters, Crash and his sister, Coco, who need to find 25 crystals that are hidden in each level in a different time zone, and defeat bosses after gaining five of them. Every boss that Crash defeats, he will be able to perform a special move, mostly to get to those hard-to-reach places in almost every level. He/she must also get hidden gems and relics, and break every box in the game, and obtain a gem if you are to reach 100% completion.
