Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time Review

Toys for Bob took the one shape Crash has always had, the corridor you run into or away from, and proved there was still design space inside it. The four quantum masks each rewrite a level's rules, phasing platforms in and out or slowing time, and the best stages layer two of them into a rhythm you have to read rather than memorise. Tawna and Dingodile get their own traversal verbs and their own perspective on the same events, which is a smarter way to reuse a level than a mirror mode.

The art is warm and legible, and the checkpoint density in the main path is far kinder than the trilogy ever was. Then you look at what full completion asks: every gem, every hidden tape, N. Verted remixes of everything, and platinum relics tuned so tightly that a single scuffed slide costs the run. That final tier turns a joyful platformer into a grind, and it is the reason a lot of players who loved the first ten hours never saw the last five.