Unpacking the Enduring Legacy of Crash Bandicoot: A Look at Our Beloved Mid-Tier Games

By this point, the tale of Fracture Bandicoot – and the acclaimed platformer’s legendary impact on the PlayStation – has been thoroughly documented. As Sony’s PlayStation contended with the Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64, driven by the iconic characters of Mario and Sonic, the new console creators felt a pressing need for their own mascot. Enter Fracture, born from a small, emerging studio composed of just a handful of individuals, and debuting at the most opportune moment possible. Just prior to the E3 showcase in May 1995, Sony was so impressed with Naughty Dog‘s demonstration that they removed Twisted Metal from its premier lineup, replacing it with Fracture Bandicoot – positioning it right against Nintendo’s booth, where Sony’s competitor had arrived with its own new 3D platformer, Super Mario 64. Shigeru Miyamoto was seen enthusiastically trying out Fracture at the event, the game became a massive success, and the PS1 thrived from that point onward.

The mascot element is just one facet, without a doubt. However, one less-discussed impact of Fracture is the transformation in strategies it represented between Nintendo and Sony. While Nintendo chose a less graphically striking route with Mario 64 (ever wonder why PS1 graphics have surged back into modern art styles while no one seems inclined to revisit an N64 title?), those somewhat more practical graphics allowed for richer, more creative gameplay. Mario 64 became the game that opened up the platforming genre widely. In contrast, Fracture Bandicoot essentially did the opposite.

Despite their cartoony aesthetic, Fracture’s visuals were also remarkably detailed for the time, blending depth with straightforward gameplay: Naughty Dog’s developers expressed their aim back then to ride on the rising character movement and to effectively recreate a game they loved, Donkey Kong Country, in 3D, humorously dubbing the new camera feature the “Sonic’s Ass” view. A considerable amount of time has elapsed since Fracture Bandicoot’s launch in 1996 and Sony’s current era of PS4-onwards blockbuster games, with many titles released in between, yet a bridge can be traced through them, linking then to now. The divide between Mario 64 and Fracture Bandicoot effectively delineates two distinct approaches that have persisted for nearly 30 years. Simplified: on one side, a focus on mechanical innovation and creativity, at the expense of graphical prowess; on the other, a drive for technical and visual splendor, supported by familiar, proven gameplay. You can observe the divide, arguably more clearly than ever, in the first-party games of Nintendo and Sony today.

Of course, this may be somewhat over-simplifying. Yet beyond that legacy, there exists a third aspect of Fracture’s enduring influence, which I believe may be the most intriguing (and indeed, potentially the most enjoyable). This legacy stands as a rather peculiar contradiction: many people admire Fracture Bandicoot while also believing it is not very good.

For quite some time, I’ve viewed this as a kind of debate: you either like Fracture or you believe Fracture is bad. More recently, I’ve come to a rather obvious realization that I should have understood long ago, which is that it is entirely possible for both of these statements to be true. More precisely: one can appreciate a game, recognize its flaws, and still think it is enjoyable. It just exists in a specific kind of way.

Even so, it’s tempting to delve into the well-worn arguments. It’s like saying a popcorn movie is good! It’s low art! It’s ironically good! Tempting, but I don’t think any of these truly apply to Fracture. Fracture is good and not-so-good simultaneously: not-so-good because, let’s be honest, it is somewhat derivative – as many of its critics would eagerly point out, it did not actually do anything groundbreaking when it comes to platforming itself. And it could be a bit fidgety – many platformers grapple with floatiness and lack of precision; Fracture’s nearly pixel-perfect platforming, and the necessity of mastering it, feels almost too precise. Moreover, as easily forgotten with the slightly polished remasters, some of its design choices were very much of the time. These should not be dismissed as part of the “it’s merely aiming to be a popcorn flick” variety, where one might overlook them as part of the charm and move on. They are genuine concerns.

But! Here lies the magic. There exists another way something can be good – specifically how video games can be good. Scrolling through Bluesky recently – bear with me, dear reader – I spotted an excerpt from an interview with Willem Dafoe. Dafoe discusses cinema and the concept of naturalism in acting – this could easily get very highbrow, so again, please bear with me – and he shares this:

“…we don’t just want to see imitations of life. We want to see something that is beyond that. Cinema is not just about telling stories. Everybody clings to this. Telling stories, telling stories, telling stories! It’s about light. It’s about space. It’s about tone. It’s about color. It’s about people having experiences in front of you, where, if it’s transparent enough, they can experience it with you. You become them. They become you. That’s the communion. That’s the experience.”

Look, I warned you.

The point is, because I am forever doomed to contemplate this interest at least occasionally, repeatedly, it has driven me to ponder video games, and what could be their own form of “communion.” As I’ve matured and developed a more sentimental view of the things I loved in my childhood, which seem to flip suddenly to being 20, 25, 30 years old right before my eyes, the nature of that communion has become a bit clearer.

Consider the current popular video games – not just in terms of sales, or critical acclaim. Think about what’s discussed, viewed, shared, as well as played. If any algorithm has even remotely detected your interest in video games, chances are that while scrolling on Tiktok, Instagram, Twitch, or YouTube, you may have seen images of at least one in all Chained Together, or the Supreme Pitch filter, or that game where you navigate a massive truck along an impossibly narrow, awkwardly textured mountain road as a swarm of buses approaches from the other direction. Or The Game of Sisyphus. Or Getting.