Crash Bandicoot: Ranking Every N. Sane Trilogy Boss Battle
Neo Cortex, Pinstripe, Tiny Tiger... who's the champion?
The original Crash Bandicoot trilogy came during a golden time for console mascots, providing not one, but four genuine contenders for best game of the 90s (including Crash Team Racing).
Since then though, Crash had a fall from grace. None of the follow-ups came close to the magic of the original three, and like Tamagotchis, inflatable furniture and Newcastle UTD being title challengers, Crash looked to be resigned to 90s history.
Enter the N. Sane Trilogy, all three original Crash games lovingly recreated for modern consoles.. It brought the games to a new audience and recaptured the imaginations of all the 90s kids who'd played in their youth. After a stellar reception critically and commercially, Spyro The Dragon was greenlit for the same treatment with Reignited.
Spyro's rebirth is set to launch in November, so what better time to take a look back at the bosses who made N Sane Trilogy great? Here, they're ranked on how memorable the character and arena is, how well they fit their place in the story and obviously, how much bloody good fun they are.
16. Koala Kong - Crash Bandicoot
None of the boss battles here are bad. Let's just get that out of the way. There's nothing inherently wrong with Koala Kong, it just doesn't really stack up to the rest of the rogues gallery, and someone has to be bottom.
Kong was one of a few characters in the first game who didn't return for the rest of the N Sane Trilogy, and based on his boss battle you can see why. He has arguably the least personality of all the creatures, with the American Graffiti style end-game summary telling us he opened a group of tanning salons. Which seems a strange decision on a tropical island populated only by scientifically enhanced animals.
His boss battle offers little in the way of interaction too, with Kong on the opposite side of a mining cavern, chucking rocks and TNT crates at Crash. The battle does at least have some semblance of a difficulty curve, but that comes more from the mining carts than from Kong himself.
Overall it's a little bland and forgettable; certainly not indicative of Crash's boss battles or the N Sane Trilogy as a whole.