Spyro vs. Crash Bandicoot: Which Remake Is Better?

Spyro vs. Crash Bandicoot: Which Remake Is Better?

Visuals and Graphics

Both the Crash Bandicoot N’Sane Trilogy and the Spyro Reignited Trilogy sport a fantastic graphical update, completely overhauling the visual quality and aesthetic of their respective games.

As impressive as the Crash trilogy was in 2017, Spyro Reignited simply takes the cake.

Crash’s levels are much more constrained than Spyros, obviously, because of the difference in gameplay. However, it’s more than just that, as Spyro’s worlds and levels simply feel more varied than that of Crash.

You have tropical islands, dense forests, arid deserts, magical mountains, and much more represented.

The tech in the Reignited Trilogy is simply impressive, and there are tons of tiny details crammed in like leaves falling off of trees, dust particles, fish teeming in underwater sections, and more.

The cutscenes of Spyro also look fantastic, and it often feels like you’re playing a Spyro cartoon. What really makes Spyro stand out is how the visual aesthetic somehow feels in line with Insomniac’s original vision, but simultaneously feels new and fresh.

Of course, Crash is no slouch either with particularly impressive rain effects, and some crazy realistic looking fur on Crash, Coco, and other characters.

The jungles of Crash look particularly vibrant, and once again characters animations are eccentric and cartoony. Both games run incredibly well, with very few graphical hitches or problems.

In the end though, the sheer variety of Spyro’s worlds helps elevate it above Crash, and the team at Toys for Bob have done a fantastic job of making each and every world still feel unique and vibrant.

Winner: Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Spyro vs. Crash Bandicoot: Which Remake Is Better?

Gameplay

Although both series technically fall into the platformer genre, Crash and Spyro are quite different games. Crash is much more intensive with its gameplay, giving you short, challenging bursts with its levels.

You need to spin and jump your way through levels defeating enemies and collecting apples, letters, and more. It’s a difficult game to be sure, but the fixed camera can be troublesome at times, making it hard to see obstacles that are coming up.

By comparison, Spyro is a much slower-paced games encouraging exploration of its levels. Spyro, and the Reignited Trilogy, fits the more traditional idea of a 3D platformer.

The first game isn’t super challenging, but Ripto’s Rage and Year of the Dragon definitely bump things up a bit.

The real draw of Spyro, however, is finding every single collectible, exploring every nook and cranny. Of course, it’s not without its issues as well, namely a camera that has trouble keeping up with the action at times.

Both trilogies do a great job of updating their respective series in terms of visuals and gameplay feel, but there’s one key difference.

Spyro feels like it could be a game released today, whereas Crash definitely feels like a product from the PS1 era. The fixed camera angles just feel very restricting, and depth perception problems can lead to some frustrating deaths.

In terms of physics, Crash can, at times, feel a little slow and clunky to control which doesn’t help with precise platforming. It’s not a huge issue, but it’s there nonetheless.  Spyro, on the other hand, feels light and quick and it’s incredibly easy to pull of precise jumps and glides.

Neither games plays badly, of course, it’s just that Spyro feels like it could stand up with the best 3D platformers of today, while Crash’s gameplay feels a bit more dated, like a nostalgic throwback more than anything.

Winner: Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Spyro vs. Crash Bandicoot: Which Remake Is Better?

Additions and Changes

Both the Spyro and Crash trilogies come with a host of changes and enhancements, on top of the visual upgrade, that make both games feel a bit more modern.

Both games sport remastered soundtracks and re-recorded dialogue for all three games, using the most recent voice actors for characters.

Spyro gives you the option of changing between the retro and Reignited soundtrack whenever you want, and adds in some slight control changes to make everything smoother, like having Sparx’s Gem Finder ability usable from the very start.

There’s also a super handy feature that lets you jump to any level you’ve already played at any time by opening up the guidebook, making it much easier to revisit areas once you have new abilities or characters.

These are all just small changes, as the overall level design and feel of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy stays totally dedicated to the original games.

Crash’s changes, on the other hand, feel much more substantial. The N’Sane Trilogy adds some much-needed features across all three tiles like unified checkpoints, manual and auto-saving, and a pause menu.

It also introduces Time Trials to the first two games, which were originally introduced with Crash Bandicoot: Warped. You can even play the majority of levels in the trilogy as Crash’s sister, Coco.

The changes brought with the N’Sane Trilogy do a great job of making the games more accessible and modern.

While Spyro’s changes are nice and its visual upgrade is fantastic, it just doesn’t benefit as much from drastic changes, as there wasn’t much that really needed to be changed.

Winner: Crash Bandicoot N’Sane Trilogy

Spyro vs. Crash Bandicoot: Which Remake Is Better?

Who Wins?  – Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Both the N’Sane Trilogy and the Reignited Trilogy are incredibly impressive updates of their respective series. They both provide an absolutely gorgeous visual reimagining with suitable gameplay enhancements to make the games more accessible.

However, in the long-run Spyro just has a better feel to it.

Elements of Crash Bandicoot still feel stuck in the past, but the Spyro game’s ability to still feel fresh and exciting is truly something amazing.

Toys For Bob has put some serious work into remaking the various worlds and characters of Spryo, just like Vicarious Visions did for Crash Bandicoot.

In the end, you really can’t go wrong with either trilogy, but the Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a case of the second effort going above and beyond even what the first one did.