➤ Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, the PC review 🎮

La Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time review to PC is the last one you will read, in chronological order: the new adventure of the funny peramele, born in 1996 on the first PlayStation, has now been around all platforms, always receiving very wide acclaim.

It could not have been otherwise if we consider that Toys for bob he did an excellent job of characterization, recovering the typical spirit of the character, his supporting actors and even his nemesis to put them at the service of an unoriginal but well-written plot, made up of skits that we found really funny.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, the PC review — Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, one of the funny skits.

In a nutshell (it's still yet another review of the game you read!), The events of the fourth chapter follow the original trilogy and see Dr. Neo Cortex e N. Tropy to be able to escape from their dimensional prison thanks to Uka Uka, who manifesting his powers to the maximum gives life to a space-time anomaly.

The event reveals to the villains the existence of the Quantum Masks and urges them to give life to yet another plan for the conquest of the universe: whoever controls these sentient objects has dominion over space and time, and so Cortex and his allies launch into the enterprise not knowing that Crash e Coco again this time they will try to stop them, with the help of one of the masks: Lani-Loli.

Gameplay

If from the narrative point of view Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time takes up in an impeccable way the story that had been interrupted several years ago, but that we were able to relive in the splendor of an excellent remake thanks to the N. Sane Trilogy, also side gameplay the new episode confirms itself as the link between classical mechanics and the need for modernity.

At the command of Crash and Coco, freely selectable at the beginning of each level, but with the possibility of controlling various others as well characters including Tawna, Dingodile and the same Neo Cortex, all equipped with peculiar characteristics and abilities, we will have to overcome levels that develop in three dimensions and that present the inevitable mix of crates, traps, platforms, tracks and enemies.

Proceeding in depth (with the support of a highlighted projection of our shadow to control the position during the jumps) or sideways, as in the classic chapters, we will find ourselves facing sections that are gradually more complex and demanding, able to literally make us sweat our hands as we try to reach the coveted checkpoint.

The amount of challenges put in place by the developers clearly recalls the difficulties of the original trilogy, which on the one hand makes perfect sense and hinges on a structure that makes completitionism and replayability its raison d'etre; on the other hand it inevitably creates an approach trial & error which in some cases has seen us die even forty times in a row.

Beyond the different playable characters, which are introduced during the campaign but which represent a very valid reason to return to already completed levels or face new ones, it is precisely the four Quantum Masks that introduce the news more interesting in terms of mechanics, thanks to the respective powers of manipulation of reality.

By acting on the right trigger, we will be able to make certain objects appear or disappear when we use the aforementioned Lani-Loli, rotate quickly and therefore leap much wider and "glide" with Akano, slow down time with Kupuna-Wa and finally reverse gravity with Ika-Ika. In short, we are talking about a rather varied set of special skills, capable of adding depth to the experience.

Structure

Then there is the discourse on structure, which literally reigns supreme in the case of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time. We have mentioned the theme of replayability with a view to harvesting apples, but it is only one piece of the puzzle expertly packaged by the guys at Toys for Bob, who have stuffed the game with extras capable of increasing the duration and enjoyment of the campaign. : it can be completed in just over ten hours, but only by leaving behind all the extras, which in fact double this value.

After a short introductory phase, we will in fact be able to visit nine worlds different, each characterized by a particular theme and divided into a variable number of stages. Having scored a first completion, however, we will have the opportunity to replay them in N. Vertita mode, unlock the Flashback levels and the aforementioned extra stages in which to control the various Tawna, Dingodile and Cortex.

The PC version

After the necessary review of the many merits and few defects of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, it's time to talk about the PC version and how the game has been optimized for the Windows platform. Let's start immediately by saying that the graphics it is really excellent: the amusing cutscenes give way to settings that wink at the classic ones but are not afraid to innovate, alternating with completely new and visually rich scenarios.

All this colorful abundance moves to over 100 fps on one RTX 3070 in 4K and with all the adjustments to the maximum: thanks to the almost fixed view, of course, but also to the good conversion work carried out by the Beenox developers. However, some anomalous situations are noted: during the first boss fight it even drops towards 20 fps, and strong slowdowns occur even in the most crowded and complex locations, forcing you to fall back on a lower quality preset.

Let's talk about an inconvenience that we imagine will be fixed already with the eventual one patch of day one and that we would tend not to consider as the normal consequence of the greater weight of some scenarios, given that a reduction in the frame rate that reaches 80% necessarily implies some problem. Beyond this, however, there is really nothing to complain about and indeed the scalability of the experience even on less performing configurations should be ensured.

Of course, the PC version does nothing but resume (and in many cases improve) what we have seen in the console versions of the game, without introducing adjustments regarding aspects such as the collision detection, which in several moments appears a bit slippery and devoid of the tolerances to which modern gaming has accustomed us for years now. This frustrating roughness was also probably part of the plan.

PC System Requirements

Test Setup

Processor: Intel Core i5 10400
Video card: NVIDIA RTX 3070
Memory: 16 GB of RAM
Operating system: Windows 10

Minimum requirements

Processore: Intel Core i5 4340, AMD FX 6300
Scheda video: NVIDIA GTX 660, AMD HD 7950
Memory: 8 GB of RAM
Hard disk: 30 GB of space required
Operating system: Windows 10

Recommended Requirements

Processore: Intel Core i5 2500K, AMD Ryxen 5 1600X
Video card: NVIDIA GTX 970, AMD R9 390
Memory: 16 GB of RAM
Hard disk: 30 GB of space required
Operating system: Windows 10

Comment

Tested version PC Windows Digital Delivery Battle.net Price 39,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

9.0

Readers (10)

8.2

Your vote

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time is also confirmed on PC as the perfect sequel, able on the one hand to wink with conviction to the classic trilogy, on the other hand to introduce interesting new features in terms of gameplay and structure. In the end, the latter is the great protagonist of the experience thanks to the abundance of playable characters, alternative levels and extra challenges with which it is possible to try and which increase the duration of the campaign exponentially. Both fans of the original Crash Bandicoot and new users can only get involved in this new adventure: after years of unsuccessful attempts, paraphrasing the title we can say that it was really time.