Never before have I felt like I'm being abused by a game quite like Crash 4, a title which I truly believe hates everyone who plays it.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time considers itself a direct sequel to the original Naughty Dog (+ Kart racing spinoff), retconning every other game that's been released. Now to start, I think this is a good idea, with the success of the N. Sane Trilogy it was a good jumping off point to start fresh. That's where the good ideas end.

Okay, that's a little unfair. Crash 4 has lots of ideas, tons of ideas, one might say it has too many ideas. I might say this. Because it's true. And only a fraction of those ideas are good. This game is unbelievably bloated, from it's excessively long levels, past it's cast of playable characters, to the downright obscene amount of gems and collectibles there is to gather, Crash 4 has a serious weight problem. Part of the joy of the original games came in it's simplicity, and what additions it had were gradually introduced, creating a superb sense of flow that had you mastering Crash's movement by the end of each game. In the later levels of the originals there was a marvelous fluidity to how you play. Here, I felt like I was trapped in the ADHD fever dream of a toddler, I never felt fully in control of Crash or any of his allies or abilities since I never got enough time with any of them, I felt panicked in some places when insane gauntlets were thrown at me.

There's just too much going on, each time I played a side mission with any of the playable allies I had to re-remember how to play, each time I used one of the masks I had to re-adjust to their style of play, and the games design doesn't help. Crash 4 feels like it was designed by someone who is deeply familiar with the originals if their idea of "deep familiarity" is overhearing your friend getting angry playing them in the other room. I think everyone comparing the N. Sane Trilogy to Dark Souls caused some form of brainrot in this games designers because it feels more like it's trying to catch you out than give you a fair challenge. From enemies and obstacles hiding just off-screen, to some levels requiring twitch reflexes that made me want to throw my controller at my TV. And the game is embarrassed by it, I played on "Classic" difficulty - that gives you a life system that will cause a game over if you run out and make you replay the level, the game knows how beyond excrutiating it's design is and accomodates by throwing so many wumpa fruits and lives at you that the difficulty is made entirely redundant - I never got a game over because I almost always had 70-99 lives in stock. Plus, it's checkpoints are so frequent and placed in a way that you could guarantee an unfair kill is waiting shortly after one is placed.

At the start of the playthrough, I was determined to get all the gems like I had in the other games, as well as Platinum all of the Flashback trials. By about the fourth mission I'd given up on the gems, and about halfway through the game I gave up on the Flashbacks. Getting all the gems is a trial for insane people, low death counts are bad enough with the length of the levels but finding all the boxes is just ridiculous, some are so unfairly hidden that it just didn't feel like fun, and you wouldn't find out until the end - at which point you have start the whoooooole level over again. As for the flashback tapes, I actually found the Flashbacks themselves quite fun, but towards the end getting the tapes was such a herculean guantlet that, again, it just didn't feel fun.

I think that's what this boils down to in the end, there is so much content, but almost all of it lacks any sort of fun. Who is this for? Veteran Crash fans write this off as unfair, and newcomers are going to be in for a truly horrific time. Which is a shame since the animations, cinematics, characters and writing in this have some real charm, and it has some fun call backs to the original games. The way the characters control as well is pretty solid, if it wasn't so bloated this game could be a lot of fun!

Crash 1, 2, and 3's core levels were pretty tough, but largely surmountable, and the gems were there for a real challenge - and they were! Getting those gems required cunning, observation, and mastery of the controls. Getting 100% in Crash 4 requires self hatred and insanity, which I think is taking the whole "N. Sanity" gag a little too far.

One of the few games to not only make me feel like a detective - but also prove just how bad I'd be as a detective.

Golden Idol is my favourite type of game, one that will not hold your hand through it. It makes itself clear from the get-go that if you want to succeed you need to pay attention, it will purposefully try to bamboozle you and the only way around it is to pay close attention. It's a very simple game generally - observe a scene, fill in the blanks on a scroll with the given clues, unravel the mystery of the Golden Idol.

Never before have I felt so much like a detective, I truly locked-in to this game and paid careful attention to the scene and what everyone was saying, trying to read between the lines to get to the bottom of what was going on. The amount of times I had satisfying eureka moments when a clue fell into place and the puzzle came together were too many to count, and they never got tiresome.

It's a well written story of intrigue, and has some incredible points that had me really engaged. All it's strengths it carries with it through both DLCs. My only gripe with this game is that some of the scrolls are worded in a way that you can kinda guess what words need to be placed where sometimes, and in the Lumerian Vampire DLC there were some gramatical errors that made it quite difficult to solve (Though as I understand this is only an issue on the PC Games Pass release of the game - for some reason?).

If you want to feel like the Columbo of an 18th century tale of superstitious cult murders, you should probably count yourself exceptionally lucky that the world you were born into happened to have The Case of the Golden Idol, as it's as close as you're going to get.

In the name of Hades, Olympus, you should play this game.

I don't really know where to start with Hades, there's such a cornucopia of good things here that it almost feels obnoxious. I put a lot of hours into this game and almost the entire time I was going "Heavens, there's a lot here", and this isn't "hundreds of hours of content" in the way that a lot of games will tell you where it's basically just the same side quest over and over, but instead the game just keeps springing intricate story, diverse weapon and move sets, boss fights and features, music and atmosphere, and just generally fun times on you. I have "beaten" the game and I don't think I've seen even half of what it actually has to offer.

The core loop is fairly simple, you're a little devil with daddy issues and decide to run away from home, but Papa's endless fury (and his army of the undead) keep trying to kill you and will most likely succeed. As previously mentioned - you're a little devil - and death is more an inconvenience than anything, so you pick up your weapon and try, try again. What becomes fun is that you have an arsenal of weapons, and each run you upgrade yourself with God's boons and weapon upgrades, making each run unique. As you progress you start figuring out which Boons you like, and which Gods you want to find more often, there's upgrades outside these runs that'll make it easier as the game progresses but the real progress is figuring out how to utilize your weapons and Boons to the best of their ability.

But honestly this game's strong suite is it's story. Tremendously well written, with wonderful characters and charming dialogue, the loop becomes intoxicating because you want to learn more about the denizens of Hades' domain. Zagreus' story is compelling but you get caught up in some fascinating and endearing side stories.

The only place this game falls a little short is toward the end, when I had a good grasp on some of the stronger Boons, I was completing runs exceptionally easy with most of my Death Defiance's still intact, which was a far cry from my first dozen runs of the game where I was struggling to survive Elysium. I don't know if I HATE this per se, as it definitely made me feel exceptionally strong to see how far I'd come, but it would have been nice if I made it to the end at least by the skin of my teeth in some cases.

But it's a moot point, Hades plays wonderfully, looks gorgeous, and has a hypnotic charisma to it, and I reckon I'll want to keep playing it (and the sequel when it's fully released) much, much more.