LogFAQs > #967761799

The graphics are pretty cool.

The level design... it's by no means bad, but it could be better. I consider "Off Beat" to be on par with some of the best levels from the original trilogy, but that's the only level in Crash 4 that stood out to me in a purely positive way. Aside from that though, while the levels certianly aren't terrible, they don't generally feel all that special either. The wire-grinding mechanic is very overused IMO. I was actually worried that the quantum masks might be overused and feel out-of-place prior to playing the game, but when I actually played it, I found they fitted in pretty well and for the most part were used reasonably.

The difficulty... it's definitely hard. But for the most part, it retains the "hard but fair" aspect of the original trilogy - the only thing I would say went too far, was the last part of the final level, where you have to rapidly activate/deactivate quantum masks, while near-constantly falling, and very frequently changing which mask you have - at least as far as simply completing the game goes. The collectibles though... yeah, I just didn't bother.

The playing-as-other-characters thing was interesting, though I kind of feel like it should have been relegated to optional levels only.

Overall - I would recommend it, just don't expect it to be as good or as "Crash-y" as the original trilogy or the first two GBA games. It's still good, just not original trilogy good.