Whilst Wrath of Cortex might borrow of some things from the PS series, it's what we love about Crash that makes it good!
The game's story starts you off with Cortex and his crew of villains been given a lecture from Uka Uka about how awful they are of creating havoc and mischief. Further more, Uka Uka tells them they need to come up with 1 good plan. Whilst Cortex is being defensive and N Gin saying that Crash is too good for them, N Tropy asks Cortex about his top secret weapon he has been "tinkering" with. After Uka Uka hearing this, and asking what it is, Cortex explains that he'll need something of tremendous power to make it work, and Uka Uka suggests The Elementals, a bunch of masks that have elemental powers. Back home on N Sanity Island, Coco and Crash are having fun in the water, whilst Aku Aku and Pura are by the beach. The calm water turns into a tidal wave, and washes Crash and his sister to sea. Aku Aku then goes to talk with his brother, only to find out The Elementals have been awoken. After a fiery confrontation, Aku Aku insists you collect 5 Time Crystals in each Warp Room within the Virtual Reality (VR) Hub that Coco has built, to bring the masks back to their Hibernated State, so Cortex can't use their destructive powers. It is up to you to defeat the Elementals, Cortex and Crunch Bandicoot, the secret weapon. Now the stories in Crash have always been good, but I found this one to rival Crash Bandicoot 2's storyline, in terms of depth and interest, but knowing Konami they would do a great story for a great franchise.
The gameplay is very similar to Warped, the controls are exactly the same, so veterans of the series should be able to jump right in and play it. X is jump, Circle is crouch or slide, Square is to spin, and Triangle is to bring up the lifes, boxes and Wumpa fruits bar. L3 is to move, and you can use the directional pad if you so choose to. Like in the previous Crash games, your main goal is to collect the Crystals in the warp rooms to progress, and later to collect the gems using the special moves you've earned from the bosses. When you die you'll use a life, if you lose all your lives its game over, you can continue on the Continue Screen by selecting Yes. Alternately, you could say no and call it quits if you wanted to. By collecting Aku Aku boxes, he'll be summoned and will protect you, one box grants one extra hit, hit another box without losing Aku Aku gives you a golden glow to him, letting you have 2 hits before you die, furthermore breaking a third box without getting hit allows you to become invincible, with Aku Aku on your face. Collecting 100 Wumpa Fruit will gain you an extra life, or hitting a life box will gain you one extra life. You can access bonus rounds throughout levels, to get extra boxes and lives. You can access Gem Routes, which can only be activated by finding the corresponding Gem Colour, or Death Routes, which are only active so long as you don't die throughout the entire level.
These are only in a few of the levels, and they are fairly taxing this time, a little bit harder than Warped's, but at the same time more enjoyable. See what I mean? It's still the same old gameplay style that we've grown up with Crash. The difficulty is harder than warped, but not frustrating to the point you can't play like the first Crash game. The boss patterns are a little bit harder, making you remember the pattern to dodge and attack at the correct times. They put a weapon from Crash Team Racing and turned it into a box, The Invisibility Box, which allows you to run through lasers without taking damage, until you become visible that is, a little nostalgic feeling and fan service for you. Some of the levels have the same themes to them as previous Crash games, which aren't exactly fun to see it throughout most of the game; it's good that Konami changed the levels slightly to make them look different at least. The special moves aren't exactly original either, all except 1 was in Warped, the new power up lets you sneak over Nitro crates without them exploding, and one of the old moves is hidden in a gem route.
After a while you won't need this power up, as you can Tornado Spin right over them or simple use the Wumpa Bazooka to blast them away. For the first time you can play as Coco on land, not on vehicles mostly. She has a leg sweep and a spinning kick, which would be Crash's slide and spin respectively. The levels consist of the same ideas, nothing has really changed. You can fly with Crash, go under water and even get in a ball reminiscent of Super Monkey Ball, and except the "Super" and Monkey" and traverse the levels. One problem is the Loading times, when it was originally released it was awful, making you wait a minute or two to play one level that would take about 3-5 minutes, only to wait another minute or two after completion, this was a major problem. However, Sony fixed it later in the Platinum version by decreasing the loading times significantly, at most waiting 15 to 25 seconds. Another point, if you have the 60GB PS3, I highly recommend you play the Platinum version on it, as the loading screens are about 5 seconds nearly all the time, otherwise you're going to have to be very patient with it.
The music seems to be mix of Electronic Techno, and surprisingly these fit the levels very well. They make you think of the environment, and give you an atmospheric feel to it, making you believe the levels are what they are. The music makes the boss battles feel intense, especially the last boss fight Crunch Time. The only main problem with the music is that it doesn't loop. To some this may seem stupid, but for the past Crash games to have it, on the PS1, you'd think the bigger and better PS2 would be able to cope with it. Maybe it's down to lousy programming, but Konami and Travellers Tales have done it before in previous titles.
As for the graphics, they are evidently the crispest look for a Crash Bandicoot game (evidently for a better processor in the PS2), the animations for Crash have changed slightly but not to the point you'd be complaining about it. To think of it, I don't see why anyone would want to complain about a movement of a character. There are some technical hitches in the games, some of the later levels where you roll around in a ball has a plain backgrounds, in the distance you can see just blackness, which I find kind of silly considering, again, the other Crash games didn't just have a empty black space around the entire level. Apart from that, the special effects are great; the enemies are what you'd expect in a Crash game, some being used from previous games, others brand new. The levels are bright and colourful, the weather effects and environment effects such as fire and water are very realistic, which is a nice thing considering some people will over look this area entirely.
The duration of the game is reasonable for a Crash game, this might take you 5 hours or so, you could do it in one sit down if you wish, but this is, like Warped, one of the games you shouldn't rush through as you won't enjoy it as much. Trying to get Platinum Relics on all levels will take some time, so that could pack an extra hour or two into the gameplay, seeing as the levels are harder than in Warped, there aren't really any tricks to pull to cut corners or speed up, so beating your best time will also add into the replay value.
Overall, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (or Crash Bandicoot 4: You Give! Demon Power in Japan) is an under-rated gem(no reference intended) in the Crash Bandicoot, and platforming games. Crash Bandicoot veterans should appreciate a return of our marsupial, and anyone that can look beyond the few problems it has, should find a enjoyable and fun experience with this latest instalment.