The forgotten entry to the series of the five Crash Bandicoot games released for the PlayStation, this party game could see a brand new life with a remaster.
When it comes to closing the 1990’s on top of the game with all of the momentum in the world, only the New York Yankees could really hold a candle to what the Crash Bandicoot series was up to at the dawn of the new millennium.
After debuting as a series with the 1996 release of Crash Bandicoot, the game’s two sequels, Cortex Strikes Back and Warped, released in 1997 and 1998 respectively, skyrocketed the series’ popularity while making Crash himself a de facto mascot of the PlayStation.
With the PlayStation suddenly in competition with the Nintendo 64 for the family and children demographic, the series took another massive step forward in 1999 with the release of Crash Team Racing – a title that seemed to borrow the best elements of Nintendo’s Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing to create a unique, riveting kart racer with equally compelling single-player and multiplayer modes.
Having released four titles in four consecutive years, the series made it five straight years with a new game upon the 2000 release of Crash Bash – a noted departure from the other Crash games and an introduction of the party genre to the series.
Perhaps in response to the immediate popularity of Mario Party on the Nintendo 64, Crash Bash, at least on its surface, looked to do what CTR did so well with a different genre. The game appeared to employ elements from other successful titles in the series while creating an in-depth single-player mode that keeps it from being a strictly multiplayer title in the way many players view Mario Party games.
Due to me being a young kid totally obsessed with the Crash series, my family got this game not long after it came out, largely due to our general affinity towards the previous games and established loyalty to the series – which I’d venture to imagine was the case for most people who bought the game, with high expectations given that the series had yet to truly disappoint.
While disappointment was certainly a prevalent theme when looking at the game’s critical response after its release, I do want to be clear that I wouldn’t be advocating for a ground-up remaster of a game I didn’t enjoy. I personally think Crash Bash, while extremely flawed and increasingly frustrating as the game proceeds, is a ton of fun, with plenty of potential for improvement.
In many ways, Crash Bash‘s weaknesses can often be chalked up to the game’s repetitive nature – while all of the minigames are quite fun to play, players simply traverse through four different versions of the same four minigames throughout the progression of the single-player campaign mode – with three other minigames eventually introduced later on in the storyline.
This frustration likely won’t factor in for most casual players of the game, who can simply play with friends in the multiplayer mode and mostly cruise through the first two hub worlds of the game, when the minigames are still doable and not completely unbalanced, which quickly becomes an issue.
Though one can’t reasonably expect stellar video game AI in a PlayStation game from 2000, Crash Bash feels like a cruel nightmare in this regard, especially to players who are aiming to fully clear this game with a 200% completion at the end of the game.
Although I personally have not undertaken this agonizing endeavor as completing the other Crash games is enough of a nightmare for me, a few masochistic gamers have – with this video in particular taking a deep dive into what it takes to get all of the game’s gold relics, platinum relics and crystals, along with the extremely finnicky and difficult AI that must be battled along the way.
This alone, to me, makes this game worth a remaster. Unlike the other four PlayStation Crash games that had an amazing original product and were simply scaled up to look and feel new, Crash Bash is in need of several legitimate quality-of-life improvements that could make this title as good as it was likely intended to be in 2000.
A departure of norms in some ways was to be expected, as series creator Naughty Dog bowed out of the games following the release of Crash Team Racing. Yet even with new development, it feels like this game still could have turned out to be much better. In 2026, this can be guaranteed.
Outside of simply balancing and nerfing the late-game AI to make a 200% clear more feasible, the multiplayer mode can also use the most obvious and basic improvement possible to really make this game leap forward in the form of online play.
While the days of Friday nights filled with friends and family taking turns while crowded around a CRT are long gone, an online adaptation of a classic party game from yesteryear can help recreate those environments – even if it’s just virtually.
The game can also take some direction from the style of Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, which gives players the option to play in “Classic Mode,” which is simply a scaled-up version of the original game, or “Nitro-Fueled,” which implements new features and customizations specific to the remaster – making the game as easy to pick up for a new player as it is for an old player to return to it.
It wouldn’t be far-fetched at all to see Crash Bash aim to implement something like this in a potential remaster. While the game’s original minigames and levels would of course all be available, players having the option to explore new minigames or even new maps of existing minigames would help bring more replay value to a game that was criticized for getting old way too quick upon its initial release.
The remaster could also implement content from Crash Boom Bang!, a party game released as a Nintendo DS exclusive in 2006 – similar to how CTR: Nitro-Fueled included remastered tracks from the original game’s sequel, Crash Nitro Kart. With the addition of online play and levels that haven’t been played outside of a handheld console, a Crash Bash remaster can turn into a high-value pickup with just a few basic additions.
Furthermore, in a gaming landscape that continues to grow increasingly homogenized, it’s a given that the game would be released for multiple platforms – which in and of itself is a marked departure from the early days of PlayStation exclusivity for the Crash Bandicoot series. With the ability to release the game for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Switch 2, the game would have the reach to every kind of gamer – an advantage that can be further leveraged by offering cross-platform online play.
There’s no doubt that Crash Bash, in many ways, is an underwhelming and forgettable game, especially when compared to its PS1 predecessors. Yet beneath all of its blatant flaws is an incredibly fun, addicting party game – one that can be greatly enhanced over a quarter-century after it first hit store shelves.
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