Now, im going to say straight that im not really fan of the direction the series took after the PS1 titles, even the remakes still dont hold up in terms of absolute subtle perfection compared to the OGs. At the very least before Twinsanity there was MAYBE an attempt to replicate what the OGs did so great. However, they also suffered from a lot of bad luck. There are many reasons as to why after the PS1 titles, and especially after Twinsanity the games started to sell less and less, and Crash was not even close of being seeing by people with the greatests in history, at least as it was seen in the old days (like a mascot defining console). In few words not only Universal greed, but also the jump from generation in terms of capabilities was massive, and the devs who worked on the Crash series did practically nothing to differentiate at least a bit from the PS1 titles, innovate in the genre or do something to really take advantage of the PS2 in a way it wouldnt be possible on the previous generation minus subtle fancy effects (looking at you WOC). Crash unfortunately still suffers from the same lack of ideas nowadays, just its much less noticeable because of nostalgia and the rise of retro gaming. But regardless of that, Twinsanity was the first mainline game that tried to do something different with the series.... How it did it? Well..... Lets be quick with this review that i want to sleep.
It's rather funny that despite the open environments being Twinsanity's main attraction, and the novelty seen by people at the time, moving away from the closed corridors of past games, Twinsanity achieves far less than it sets out to do, with the linear environments being... ironically far better designed. The open areas acts like some sort of hub world but without being so with lots of unexpected points of not returns even though for most of them there wouldnt be really a reason for it. Yes, there was at least some effort put into the aesthetic of the enviroments, but its also nothing really special that takes advantage of the open setting. With boxes put together in random areas, it feels like the devs didnt knew what to do with these and were scared that we would get bored, and since things don't change much in the linear environments either, it makes these routes feel very similar to what we saw in WOC 3 years before (or well, 6 years if we include the trilogy). You dont even need to interact with these puzzles in the hub world to progress, which makes it even more arbitrary.
Besides the open enviroments being very empty and with nothing to do, it also has very poorly worked areas, with a lot of incomplete parts of the map being seen from the distance, a disgrace for 2004 standards. I'm not going to ask for the level of detail of Jak And Daxter The Precursor Legacy, it would be ridiculous, but come on, a middle ground. I saw a lot of rushed games but even Wrath Of Cortex made a better attempt to disguise it than Twinsanity.
The only moments were Twinsanity shows some originality in the platform genre or in the series as a whole in a true not gimmicky way is in the sections with Crash and Cortex, easily some of the best of the game, and if they made a much better AI for Cortex like seen in other games of the time, and better interactions with him as well as a more seamless transition (as he always teleports because the devs were so lazy to make him follow you, lol), could save part of Twinsanity, as this was genuinely very rare to see back in the day, not just on the platform genre, but in terms of NPC interaction as a whole. Idk if TT was planning that, but it could had been genuinely revolutionary for the time if they worked on it a bit more due to Cortex presence in the plot. A shame.
The plot its also a mess, the game that changed Crash humour as we know and it shows. Now, i dont have a problem with some funny jokes here and there, but Twinsanity humour compared to the previous games is just too much in your face and as an adult it just feels cringy or gaves me a reason to cut my ears. It may had some interesting ideas in the lore of the series, but it also doesnt make sense if we followed the story of WOC and it goes in circles just to be padded.
Twinsanity may had been "rushed", but i doubt the full game would had been much better and TT had the fault for it anyway, as they resetted the game development just to avoid competition. From an objective perspective this is one of the most flawed Crash games ever made, and possibly in terms of gameplay design the most outdated one ever made. Hub areas with barely exploration connected by linear routes were more common on the PS1 era, even Spyro The Dragon in the 90s felt like a more true open world than Twinsanity in 2004. But the game also doesnt play the advantages of a linear game, and not taking into account subtle design aspects like not guiding the player to the next objective, lack of checkpoints or being incredible annoying to backtrack in certain locations.
The only saving graces of Twinsanity are easily some few puzzles (especially those involving physics of objects) the cooperation with Cortex, the OST and maybe the tutorial level, which are genuinely great things. If it wasnt for that, the score would likely be much much lower since the game after Cavern Catastrophe really starts to downfall quickly, like if they lacked time to play test it.
Unfortunately this is also the game that every newer one would follow, the "jumping the shark" moment for the series. I do believe that Crash needed to be an open world after the trilogy to stay relevant, the linear formula was just being seeing as outdated in the sixth generation of gaming (even Naughty Dog would agree), but this was far from the way to do it.
