(Originally published to Glitchwave on 12/14/2024)
[Image from igdb.com]
Crash Twinsanity
Developer: Traveller's Tales
Publisher: Vivendi
Genre(s): 3D Platformer
Platforms: PS2, Xbox, GCN
Release Date: August 30, 2004
While the mission of Crash Twinsanity is one of deviation, the game still recognizes that it’s a subsequent entry to a franchise by continuing precisely where the previous game ended. Cortex and Uka Uka are seen floating in a body of water in a block of ice that puts them in a state of paralyzed preservation, which was the outcome of achieving full completion to Wrath of Cortex. Cortex miraculously manages to drift to the humid tropical land of Crash’s residency on Wumpa Island which dissolves his frozen cell. His first idea in enacting his revenge mission is to assault the unsuspecting Coco skipping nonchalantly on her property. Cortex renders her as stiff as a taxidermied squirrel and borrows her clothing to use as a disguise, duping Crash to follow him thinking it’s his sister. Whether or not Cortex actually decided to shift his blaster to the skull setting, either outcome will likely generate ire from the ESRB either way. As one would’ve expected, Cortex sheds his ruse when he successfully leads Crash into an obvious trap with the cavalcade of Crash baddies and another mech that Cortex is gauging its functionality on with its ability to squash Crash. One might think beginning the game with Crash’s mortal nemesis as the tutorial boss sharply peaks the game narratively, but Cortex isn’t truly an antagonist in Crash Twinsanity much less the main one. Soon after, two intergalactic bird creatures appear from a space wormhole and inform Crash and Cortex that their objective is to annihilate the Wumpa Islands and pluck Cortex’s brain from his ear holes. Honestly, if they’re really capable of eradicating the island that Cortex has failed to destroy countless times, all the usefulness that Cortex’s grey matter could serve is as the protein in a pot of stew. Of course, the direness of this threat creates a common enemy between the unlikely pairing of Crash and Cortex, so they must band together to ensure that Crash’s homeland lives to witness a new tomorrow and that Cortex isn’t condemned to be a drooling imbecile (more than he already is, anyway)--hence the “twin” part of the title. The primary antagonists of Twinsanity may present themselves at what seems like random happenstance, but the narrative needed something outrageous to make the archrivals of the series put their differences aside and collaborate.
Then there’s the “insanity” part of the title’s punny portmanteau, which is the aspect of Twinsanity that jolts my jaded heart with sheer delight. Overall, I’d prescribe the Crash Bandicoot series with adjectives such as kooky and lighthearted, with the influence of iconic Warner Bros. cartoons from a bygone era being pumped into its veins. I’d prescribe the same adjectives to the varied Looney Tunes shorts, but their mirth extends beyond simple lightheartedness. The slapstick hijinks of Bugs Bunny and Company have never ceased to make me guffaw like a babbling idiot since childhood, and Twinsanity is the first game in the series to elicit the same uproarious response. Despite the creepy implications that Cortex has stripped Coco naked, his impromptu deceptive crossdressing is a classic standard from the Looney Tunes trope catalog that always deserves a chuckle–especially considering how unconvincing it is. Cortex commenting that he’s ruined the lives of so many that he can’t be bothered to remember everyone he’s wronged is a comically villainous line, and performing Avada Kedavra with his laser pistol on a humble farmer for withholding a crystal in exchange for a chore is such a dark, leftfield curveball for a franchise with a young and impressionable demographic. Barging through a burlesque house (that looks like a hen coop, mind you) with Cortex lasciviously asking “Are those real?” followed by “Mother?!” is equally as hilarious as it is inappropriate. Is this the game that prompted the birth of the E10 rating? Come to think of it, every moment I’ve listed in conveying Twinsanity’s hilarity involves Cortex in some capacity. As much as I adore Clancy Brown, his insidious depiction of the mad doctor is a tad ill-fitting for a game that relishes in silliness. Lex Lang chews the scenery in his debut as Cortex and as a result, he places Cortex among the ranks of Paper Bowser in the glorious echelons of bad guy buffoons.
The twin connotation also extends past Cortex collaborating with Crash in the narrative sense. The two are just as tightly connected as a pair of twins conjoined at the hip, or at least they are during the sections that involve using both characters simultaneously. Actually, the dynamic is less of two equal contenders combining their strengths and more like Crash using Cortex as an all-purpose tool–negating all of his scientific prowess and humiliating him to the nth degree. Hey, if Cortex wasn’t so stubborn and released his grip from the crystal that Crash was holding, maybe the orange marsupial wouldn’t be forced to use him to increase the range of his trademark spin move and swing his skull downward like a hammer. Perhaps his grip isn’t too tight, for Crash can manually fling Cortex from his grasp whenever to either pull a switch or pulverize a distant enemy with his zapper. Other forms of the Crash and Cortex collaboration include sections where Crash has to clear a path of hazards for Cortex who is otherwise occupied with either being chased or the debilitation of a swarm of bees stinging the everloving shit out of his face. In a section taking place in a sewer, Cortex will squeeze himself into a barrel and allow Crash to roll him through the looping pipe system in order to progress. By taking a long gander at Cortex’s ass (yes, that is seriously what happens), a lightbulb strikes above Crash’s head to use Cortex as a snowboard to quickly and comfortably (for him) to travel the steep and perilous slope to his next destination. In some moments, they quarrel so hard in close quarters that they will form a spherical concentration that will roll at the player’s command like the ball sections from Wrath of Cortex. While the last collaborative mechanic mentioned is the only one that’s been proven to work from a previous game, all of the ways for our boys to play together that the developers conjured up are still splendid–and Cortex suffering from a constant slew of indignities is only a fraction of the joy they elicit. The parallel bridge sections require acute reaction time to keep Cortex out of harm’s way, and the electric, madcap energy of the snowboarding sections makes them one of the most enjoyable downhill acceleration segments I’ve played in recent history.
Unfortunately, the half-baked aspects of Twinsanity’s gameplay tend to become apparent whenever either character is flying solo. Crash’s moveset hasn’t been augmented, but his general movement in his jumping and darting around obstacles has a slight hint of hesitation as if he’s lost his confidence. This caused many missteps while platforming, and they naturally led to chipping away at the life counter. In the few instances where Cortex is on his lonesome, his gameplay involves ranged shooting combat with his zapper. When the CPU Cortex uses it, he’s a sharpshooter. However, with the targeting system in place for the player, the glowing crosshairs need an unclear level of distance for accuracy. It’s a good thing then that the player is catapulted into a solo section with Cortex only a handful of times, but those few instances of running and shooting are rather uninspired. Surprisingly, the secret third playable character outside of the odd couple duo is the one with the most agreeable gameplay. Twinsanity introduces Nina Cortex into the colorful cast of Crash Bandicoot characters, a younger female relative of Cortex whose specific kinship to the evil scientist is vague. She’s playable during a single section, but the lengthy period when she zips through the rooftops of the academy she attends never inconvenienced me with any glaring issues like the other characters. Maybe the developers had to sacrifice her voice to ensure that her gameplay was solid.
For the most part, the player will have to get accustomed to Crash’s comparative lack of grace because he’s front and center throughout most of the game’s levels. Twinsanity features four distinct worlds that more or less fit the kookiness of Crash Bandicoot. The standard series setting of Wumpa Island starts the scene with Crash navigating around the tribesmen led by Papu Papu who are out for Crash’s blood for some inexplicable reason. The Iceberg Lab houses Cortex’s colossal scientific facility at the central base of the sturdy frozen formation, with penguins flying on jetpacks circling its perimeter. The Academy of Evil is the series' first crack at a Halloween-themed level, and the bizarro version of Wumpa Island called “Twinsanity Island” retains the Burton-esque aesthetic qualities of the previous world. More important than how these levels look is how Crash progresses through them. Twinsanity marks the first time in Crash Bandicoot history that a game flirts with non-linear level design, which is a monumental shift for a series synonymous with stringent level linearity. Well, this is technically true to some extent. The player is given a modest spatial range to roam around but once they find themselves on the trajectory towards one of the three levels per world, the path becomes rigidly straightforward as per usual. The free space the game facilitates mostly points towards the gathering of the multicolored gems, rewarded through discovery or a platforming puzzle section rather than breaking boxes. I recommend leaving these gems alone, and not only because collecting them this time around only rewards the player with meager extras in the menu. Straying from furthering the story can consequently punish the player with its shoddy checkpoint system. Some checkpoints are greater than other than Twinsanity, and the ones that engage the autosave sequence will catch Crash even when he exhausts all of his lives. What the game doesn’t inform the player is that each of these autosave boxes directly coincides with a specific level. For example, I finished Iceberg Lab and was curious to see what was beyond the trajectory because of a trail of wumpa fruit. Unbeknownst to me, I had rediscovered the autosave box for “Ice Climb” and was forced to retread this level and every other one leading up to it. The unfair penalty I had experienced aggravated me enough to completely write off the pinch of nonlinearity the game offers.
Inadvertently rewinding the game is merely symptomatic of the fact that Twinsanity is rife with glitches. Crash will often fall through invisible holes in platforms while jumping, and hitboxes are highly questionable. Getting too close to Coco once Cortex paralyzes her again in a cutscene not only killed Crash, but the game reverted to two autosave boxes as a result! I could only laugh at the absurdity of what had just occurred, even though the prospect of completing the previous levels AGAIN still had steam jetting out of both of my ears. It’s a shame that Twinsanity in particular is buggier than the Louisiana Bayou because the game’s difficulty curve is rather reasonable. Nothing in Twinsanity matches the strict precision of “The High Road” or “Piston it Away,” but perhaps the altered design of Twinsanity calls for different challenges. The levels in Twinsanity tend to be longer than those in the PS1 entries, so endurance is usually an element of the challenge rather than rigorous bouts of platforming. This aspect of Twinsanity’s gameplay is showcased to its fullest with the climax of “Ant Agony,” a luminescent laboratory gauntlet that stretches onward for what seems like ages. The elongated levels are probably the reason why Aku Aku’s boxes are more prevalently scattered, but it doesn’t explain why the invincibility period upon stacking three of them doesn’t account for nitro crates and TNT like before. Is Aku Aku’s magic waning with every entry? Regardless, all Crash needs is the hit insurance Aku Aku still provides and he’ll survive the long treks with moderate platformer obstacles. However, despite Twinsanity’s general lack of singular challenges, I swear that the homicidal walrus chef is the fastest pursuer of Crash thus far in the series.
As depicted in the early cutscene where Cortex leads Crash to his trap, the colorful cast of Crash’s secondary villains (and a pissed-off Polar with a baseball bat) are all here alongside Cortex to attempt another shot at thwarting the bandicoot. Once Cortex and Crash make their unorthodox bond, the other baddies still harass Crash to procure a treasure rumored to exist from the two intergalactic parrots. Only a handful of notable Crash bosses step into the ring with the bandicoot, but the few that confront him provide what are arguably their best encounters. Outsmarting N. Gin is more interesting than clogging another one of his mechs with wumpa fruit, and Dingodile’s multifaceted duel with his flamethrower is such an exhilarating fight that raises the bar for Crash Bandicoot boss fights. I do wish that N. Brio was more involved in his tag team with Entropy other than flopping around the ice crag while inflated to stall while the time manipulator recharges his shield, however. Fresh faces to the series also provide substantial fights like the sentient ancient Tiki monster and Madame Amberly, the headmaster at the academy and Cortex’s former pedagog. “Crybaby Cortex” may catch on as a mainstay series nickname. As for the twin parrots in the main antagonist role, they crawl into a titanic mech to squash Cortex and Crash when they deny the mad doctor’s apology for transporting them to the outer reaches of the cosmos when he was but a scientific wizkid. While the scope of the fight is appropriately formidable for a finale, the way it progresses is anticlimactic. The Nina and Cortex portions of this three-way shared fight are fine, but Crash snapping off the last few units off the mech’s health bar with his own mechanical marvel is too hurried and simple for the scope of the scene. Still, the ultimate fate of the parrots in the end cinematic is one last moment to make the ESRB uncomfortable for good measure.
The game that Crash Twinsanity reminds me the most of is Conker’s Bad Fur Day. No, Crash has not developed an acid tongue or a taste for alcohol; rather, it’s the tone and direction of the game that draws this comparison. Rare used the source material of a cuddly red squirrel not only to pervert him for laughs but to make a statement on the stagnation of child-friendly 3D platformers with a piss-take to send it off with a high salute. Due to the well-documented rushing of the developer's time and budget, I know they had unfulfilled ambitions for Twinsanity that connote an attempted earnest effort. Still, regardless of what their intentions were, Twinsanity still exudes a facetious and irreverent attitude if the constant jabs at the series if the fourth-wall-breaking fashion and total warping of the series attributes were any indication. Twinsanity practically serves as a “post-Crash” game that is aware of the IP’s limbo status and parodies its lingering existence. All of the patchy, glitchy blips only make a greater argument for taking the piss out of the series instead of invigorating it. Traveller’s Tales knew that Crash Bandicoot died when Naughty Dog buried it in their backyards. If the industry insists on digging him up for profit, they might as well make a Weekend at Burnies scenario out of it. Still, whether or not the game is as tongue-in-cheek as I credit it, an unruly, bonkers Crash game was the perfect direction that finally let the silly spirit of series flourish. Lord, why was Wrath of Cortex the Crash Bandicoot game I grew up with and not this one.
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