Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy gets about as much right as a game trilogy of this scope possibly could. A few uneven and unoptimized classic-game remasters have been pumped out in recent years, and I’m happy to report that the Crash series’ handlers at Activision have not dropped the ball in any Activision-y way, beyond a current lock on PlayStation 4 systems. No pre-order restrictions; no microtransactions; not even corner-cutting on the game’s production.

N. Sane Trilogy lands this week with a lot of apparent love and care. It also lands with the same baggage that made Crash such a divisive platformer series in the ’90s. While that makes N. Sane Trilogy a tough game to unequivocally recommend, it also feels like the only way this collection could have come out. Developer Vicarious Visions chose authenticity over improvement, and, in the sphere of gaming history and archival, that choice matters.

Looney Tunes charisma is intact