Crash Bandicoot came back big in the past few years with the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. This triumphant return is continuing with the recently released Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, the first new game in the series in almost ten years.
The new title brings back everything people love about the first three games on the original PlayStation by Naughty Dog, including the extreme difficulty. The ten levels below are the hardest the game has to offer from the main path. They are either difficult for the raw platforming challenge or the difficulty in obtaining all the gems.
15 Ship Happens
Of all the characters in Crash 4, Cortex is the most difficult to control as his jump height is pathetic and his dash can be hard to gauge the distance on. This makes his level in the snow area of Crash 4 all the more difficult.
This was many people’s first experience playing as Cortex due to it being included in the demo of the game and it’s a doozy. As you create platforms out of enemies and bounce around for the first time, you realize why Cortex created experiments for the platforming madness. The revised layout for Crash’s section is also a challenge with tricky close calls with Kapuna-Wa and slippery ice platforms.
14 Jetboard Jetty
Jetboard Jetty is an outlier in not only Crash 4 but the entire series as it features a mini-boss at the end of the stage. But that’s not the reason why this level is difficult.
Your crouching and sliding skills will have to be on point if you wish to clear the side-scrolling sections where you navigating on a raft (especially for the green gem route). Combine that with some deceptively difficult portion on the jet ski and you have a brutally difficult level in the Salty Wharf dimension.
13 Off-Balance
Aside from being a very appropriate name for a level in this hard as nails game, “Off-Balance” is a stage that pushes your wall-running and Akano abilities to the limit.
As one of the longest levels in the game, it’s very likely that a lot of practice will be required for the less than 3 deaths gem. But with its tricky jumps and its need for pixel-perfect timing, this level will absolutely keep you off-balance at all times.
12 Food Run
While it is one of the most beautiful looking levels in the game, the first stage in the Sn@xx dimension gives you a good idea of the difficulty you can expect in the final stretch of the game.
While the controls in Crash 4 are usually spotless, the sections with long floating buses will definitely get on your nerves a little bit as you have to balance that with the inverted gravity of Ika-Ika. The tricky side scrolling sections with floating TNT crates will also make you wonder if the food in this dimension is worth all the hassle.
11 Rush Hour
The game manages to add gameplay variety without taking away the core platforming mechanics by having the player control other characters like Tawna, Dingo Dile, and Neo Cortex. “Rush Hour” has the player use both Dingo Dile and Tawna in sequence, providing the most challenging level for both of them. Knowing when to use the grapple hook as Tawna can cause much grief when going for all the boxes.
10 Bears Repeating
Snow levels are a staple of the series, with Crash Bandicoot 2’s best stages often taking place in the cold. “Bears Repeating” is a fairly intense platforming challenge from the start, but the hardest part is when Crash rides Polar, calling back to the second game in the series. Living through it is quite simple, but breaking all the boxes is particularly frustrating as it requires more precision than in the earlier entries.
9 Stowing Away
The space levels introduce Nitrous Oxide, the villain from Crash Team Racing. He plays only a small part in the narrative, but it is nice to see him included in any respect. This level can be tricky for the puzzle in the middle involving the moving platforms.
When spinning the metal boxes, it is easy to get crushed after activating them. It is also hard to avoid burning metal which disintegrates the character upon touching it.
8 Crash Landed
After spending some time in space, the characters crash land on a mysterious alien planet. This level is huge and introduces numerous new enemies and art assets which are reserved only for this stage. Not only is the platforming difficult, including numerous slippery floors, but it also includes an extended section of riding a small alien similar to riding Polar, making the box gem equally as frustrating.
7 Dino Dash
It would not be a Crash Bandicoot game if it did not include at least one sequence of the player running towards the screen while being chased. Several instances of this are scattered throughout the levels, but “Dino Dash” includes the most difficult one by far. When running at normal speed, only a few errors will cause the dinosaur to catch up and take a life.
6 Run It Bayou
The hardest part about this level is easily the end. About halfway through the level the player must stand on top of a boat while avoiding nitro crates and ducking under obstacles aiming to knock Crash into the swamp. After defeating this challenge, the player then must ride the jet board downstream, dodging more explosives in the process. As if that is not enough, many may also have trouble finding the yellow gem at the very beginning of the stage.
5 Crate Escape
The last level before traveling back in time to 1996 is “The Crate Escape.” Players control Cortex for the majority of this stage, switching to Crash or Coco for the climactic finale where one tries to climb aboard his ship.
Most of the Cortex levels prior to this one offer some room for error when trying to figure out the puzzles. One wrong move here is almost instant death for the villain.
4 Toxic Tunnels
The mine carts in “Toxic Tunnels” bear the image of Koala Kong, an appropriate homage since his boss fight in the debut entry involved the very carts in this level. In addition to these, the rotating cylinders with electric coils running over them make this level a particular pain. Some of the extended platforming sections also require good timing. Maybe one made it through the gauntlet, but a moving platform is not there to catch the player at the end, causing instant death.
3 Draggin’ On
“Draggin’ On” is not as hard as many of the other levels on this list when it comes to simply progressing through it. The challenge required to nab the blue gem puts it on this list, however. In order to obtain this collectible, players must beat the level without breaking single box, similar to the method of retrieving the blue gem in Crash Bandicoot 2 during the “Turtle Woods” stage. It is a long level, and no checkpoints means death brings the player to the beginning of the stage.
2 Cortex Castle
The last level is truly one of the most difficult platforming challenges in any mainstream video game. “Cortex Castle” takes almost every mechanic introduced in the game and forces the player to use them to perfection. The last stretch in particular forces players to use two different mask powers often in the same jump. As if this was not hard enough, the Flashback Tape is near the end of the level, forcing players to reach that point without dying if they wish to obtain it.
1 Seeing Double
How can one of the hardest levels in platforming history get any tougher? Well how about having to control the fiddly Dr.Neo Cortex AND having to manage that gauntlet in the last part of the level?
As previously mentioned, Cortex’s platforming sections can be challenging on his control alone but when you pair that with tricky enemy placement and some hard to gauge distances, it can make you rip your hair out. And all of that is before a remixed version of Crash/Coco’s portion at the end. After this, the final boss fight with Cortex seems like a breeze.
