Originally Posted by
Reddit Before I start writing this, I just wanna point out that I've been doing this all night, I'm very tired, and I have a busy week ahead of me, so I may have rushed my research a bit. However, I wanted to put this information together in case I don't have the time to later. If I messed something up, please let me know. I'm, like, 98% certain everything in this post is correct, but it's always possible that I cut a corner somewhere and missed something.
Anyway, let's just address the elephant in the room before I say anything else: Yes, they changed the jump. Yes, the jumps are harder now. But it's a much more complicated situation than "The jumps are weaker," or "The gravity is heavier." Here are the two biggest things I (think I) discovered:
1. You can jump just as far (sometimes even farther) in the remake as you can in the original Crash Bandicoot 1.
2. The awkward jumping wasn't a result of being overlooked and was, in fact, an intentional design choice.
That second "discovery" probably seems a little weird. After all, I don't work at VV, and there's no way for me to know that. But I'm pretty certain. The reasoning has to do with the difference between all three PS1 Crash games; specifically, each one had different jumping physics. Crash 1 had a floaty, symmetric jump arc. Crash 2 decided to redesign this to a heavier jump with a much quicker fall, coincidentally making the jumps in the game slightly more horizontal-focused. Crash 3's jumping ended up striking a balance between Crash 1's practicality and Crash 2's weight.
Unlike these games, the N Sane Trilogy doesn't have different jump physics depending on what game you're playing. You've probably already guessed it by now, but all three games in the remake use the jump physics of Crash 3. Yep, if you're playing Crash 3 on your PS4, there's practically no difference in your jump physics compared to the original. I like the idea VV had with this, unifying the controls and all, but it seems to have done more harm than good.
Don't get me wrong, when you're jumping as far as you possibly can in Crash 1 PS4, you'll go just as far as you always have on the PS1. However, the key phrase there is "as far as you possibly can." That means you need maximum speed and maximum height. This isn't too much of an issue at the start. Crash and Coco take a split second to accelerate to their top speed, and getting as high as possible is as simple as holding X. Unfortunately, the game will put you in tighter and tighter situations as the game progresses, and maintaining jump perfection will require a level of multitasking some players may not be able to do. After all, many players fell in love with Crash because of its simplicity.
The biggest and most notorious example of this comes from the infamous "High Road" level. In this level, the player is expected to use the small bellies of turtles to clear insane gaps. Emphasis on small. Hitting the turtle without sliding off is very difficult, so the player will be naturally inclined to position themselves on the turtle before making the jump. This simple line of logic is exactly what gets the player killed. Because they did a few test bounces before jumping across, they have zero momentum and have zero chance of clearing the gap. At this point, the player will usually label this as a failure in timing and attempt the same thing again, and again, and again, until no more lives are left.
The important part you need to know is this: The slower and lower your jump is, the bigger the difference is compared to the PS1 version. If you would like to test, jumping from a standing position using a short tap of the X button will result in the biggest difference.
"Okay, well, as long as I always get a running start and hold down the X button I should be fine, right?" Unfortunately not. It's true that if you jump perfectly, you will go the same distance as the original Crash did. The arc, however, will not be the same. There is nothing you can do about the sharp fall that occurs at the end of your jump, and it's going to make landing on platforms a lot harder for you. You know what else makes landing on platforms hard? The platforms themselves.
On top of these jumping issues, the collision of the game's platforms will no longer provide mercy. The collision for these platforms used to be square; you either made it, or you didn't make it. VV, on the other hand, decided to make the platform collisions round, so now you can kinda make it and slide down to your death anyway. The platforms aren't the only culprits of this, either. Enemy hitboxes can be just as bad. (I never mentioned a turtle in that sentence, but it popped in your head anyway, didn't it?) When it's already hard enough to accurately land on platforms, being able to slide off just makes the jump feel that much more unfair. Here's a tip, though: You can use those rounded collisions to your advantage. Just like falling on the edge won't stop you from falling, running off the edge won't stop you from running, either. That means you can be sliding off the edge of a platform and still jump if you ran off of it. If you time it right, you can jump even when there's pretty much no floor beneath you. It's tricky, but if you're struggling with a certain jump or something, maybe that will help?
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