The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy was a great gift for platforming fans, reviving a series that was famous for its unique levels and challenging gameplay. These remakes brought all of that difficult back, but by adding Crash Bandicoot 3’s time trials to the first and second games, they added a whole new set of hard tasks for both new and nostalgic players.
Beating the N.Sane Trilogy and finding all the collectibles is hard enough, but beating each level incredibly fast while hitting time boxes is a task that few gamers could complete easily. If you feel brave enough to try getting every Relic, these are the trickiest time trials that you’ll have to be prepared for.
10 Hog Wild (Crash Bandicoot)
It might seem odd that such an early level is so difficult, but Hog Wild is an incredibly strange stage in the original Crash Bandicoot. Since you ride on a warthog with little speed control, the level can often feel far longer than it is, as missing any time box means slowly going through the entire level over again.
On top of this, many of the hit-boxes of enemies and hazards are quite wide, upping the difficulty in ways that can feel unfair and broken. It might not be the most difficult on its own, but getting the Relic changes this level into a frustrating mess.
9 Flaming Passion (Crash Bandicoot 3)
Most of the Relics in Crash Bandicoot 3 are slightly easier than the ones in the first and second games of the N. Sane Trilogy. This is partly because powerups like the Double Jump and Crash Dash increase your airtime and speed, but the levels are much more oriented to fast completion since time trials were in the original PlayStation version.
That said, this doesn’t mean this game’s time trials aren’t difficult. Flaming Passion’s flying carpets and rooftops might not be too difficult to jump over, but there’s a huge amount of enemies and timed hazards that can be exhausting to keep up with.
8 Gone Tomorrow (Crash Bandicoot 3)
The futuristic levels of Crash Bandicoot 3 might be visually iconic, but in terms of gameplay, they can be exceptionally difficult. Many enemies require you to use the slow and frustrating Fruit Bazooka, and others can have unclear and unpredictable attack styles.
Time trials make this differently frustrating, as a Platinum Relic more often requires you to dash over and around the larger enemies. This game’s power-ups help you jump much further, but you’ll still be taking several skips everywhere you can, and any of them can ruin a good run if you misjudge your angle.
7 Fumbling In The Dark (Crash Bandicoot)
There are tons of levels in the original Crash Bandicoot that require you to wait for doors or moving platforms, forcing you to stop and carefully time when you jump. Later games allow you to skip these with dash jumps and power-ups, but it’s easy to forget that Crash had far fewer moves in his first appearance.
It’s easy to recognize this in levels like Fumbling in the Dark, where you’ll often have to hope that you’re moving fast enough to catch each moving platform at a convenient time. There are several leaps of faith in this level, and you’ll need both perfect timing and a ton of confidence to get through it quickly.
6 Pack Attack (Crash Bandicoot 2)
The hog levels are far from the only levels that feel painfully slow in the Crash Bandicoot series, as Crash Bandicoot 2 had its own gimmick stages. Most people fondly remember running from boulders and riding bears, but the jetpack levels are a much more frustrating affair that makes for a slow and awkward time trial.
Pack Attack is the harder of the two, and it’s already quite difficult in normal play thanks to its odd camera angle and strange controls. Getting the Relic in this level is going to require mastery over this gimmick, as well as memorization of this astonishingly long space station.
5 The Lab (Crash Bandicoot)
If you thought waiting for platforms was frustrating, wait until you have to open doors and pull up platforms for yourself. This is what The Lab is all about, where you have to hit boxes to open doors and seal ramps that will close quite quickly if you don’t run through immediately.
There are plenty of timed hazards here, just like in Fumbling in the Dark, but because you have so many boxes to hit, this level can be significantly more involved. Because of the closed doors, it can even be harder to see enemies coming, so memorization is just as vital as your speed.
4 Road To Ruin (Crash Bandicoot 2)
Road to Ruin is as tricky 2 as it is thanks to its narrow paths. This wasn’t as difficult in the original version since the game only involved a D-Pad, but controlling Crash in the N. Sanity version with an analog stick can make it incredibly easy to fall off.
If that didn’t make a time trial hard enough, getting to the end fast enough also involves jumping diagonally to skip small sections of the level. When playing it right, this can easily make any gamer feel like a speedrunner, but if you don’t have those skills right away it can feel uncomfortably precarious.
3 Bug Lite (Crash Bandicoot 3)
Bug Lite combines all the hardest parts of the other time trials and creates a uniquely difficult stage. Disappearing fireflies, timed doors, several enemies, and strange camera angles that shift you diagonally as you run are all here, but this time in a single package.
Thankfully, this level is easier if you know when to take a hit, as it provides you with several masks right before a long series of Nitro Crates. Taking a hit from an enemy or getting squished by a timed door, you can still likely get the Platinum Relic if you just keep going.
2 Slippery Climb (Crash Bandicoot)
Slippery Climb’s challenge comes in its moving platforms, but what makes it so odd compared to others is that this is one of the few levels where you might not die often. Thanks to the vertical nature of the level, you’ll often fall onto platforms you were already on, forcing you to just climb back up to where you lost your place.
In a time trial, though, backtracking and dying are pretty much identical. Falling and needing to restart the level yourself, rather than just respawning at the beginning, can be especially anger-inducing, Thanks to its length, this level can take ages if you can’t beat it on your first few tries.
1 Spaced Out (Crash Bandicoot 2)
As the last level of Crash Bandicoot 2, this stage is already bound to be difficult for anyone. There are tons of moving hazards, large obstacles, enemies with shields that you need to slowly push past, and pillars that block the way and risk crushing you if you don’t match their patterns.
This level was not initially built for time trials, and while these remakes do a lot of work to make time trials in this game feel natural, this particular stage goes from hard to harder as you have to dash jump constantly through bigger and longer obstacles. This level isn’t exceptionally long, but getting a perfect run will surely take plenty of your time.
NEXT: Crash Bandicoot 4: 5 Bosses That Should Make A Return (& 5 That Can Be Ignored)
