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The joy that comes from playing a well-made 3D platformer immediately makes me feel like a kid again. The PlayStation 1 was my first console, playing Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, and Croc: Legend of the Gobbos. A couple of years later, I’d play Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, and Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy on the PlayStation 2. I’ve played through these games repeatedly throughout the years, across different ports and remasters. So, it’s no surprise that after playing Team ASOBI’s Astro Bot, I began reminiscing about those older titles.
I began to feel a bit like Anton Ego in Ratatouille, as I was flooded with nostalgia rescuing all of the different bots in Astro Bot that celebrate PlayStation’s history. But, the feeling I had seeing these bots was bittersweet. While Astro Bot is tremendous and arguably surpasses the aforementioned titles, it’s hard not to think about how many of these franchises have been dormant. Thankfully, Nintendo has been keeping the 3D platformer alive, but it’s a genre that is undoubtedly underrepresented on PlayStation.
What Happened to the Classic PlayStation Platformers That Are in Astro Bot?
The PlayStation 5 has seen the release of three high-profile platformers (other than the packed-in Astro’s Playroom), with Astro Bot, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. All of these games are based on characters who were introduced in previous generations. Of course, games take much longer to make than they did back in the earlier generations. Gone are the days when Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games could churn out a title a year, which is undoubtedly a good thing to lessen the amount of crunch.
But, I still feel the absence of the platformer. Many of these franchises are dormant, like Spyro, Sly Cooper, and Jak and Daxter. Of course, we did finally get remakes of some of these games, with the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. A remaster of Croc was announced recently, and Sly Cooper was brought to modern consoles as a port. Yet, it’s been more than a decade since some of these franchises have had a completely new entry. On top of that, there’s no way to play some of the original games on modern consoles.
Activision now owns both Crash and Spyro, and the original titles by Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games are only available in their remake forms. While the N. Sane Trilogy is great, I have major gripes with the Reignited Trilogy and need to resort to busting out my PS3 or PS Vita whenever I want to play through the original trilogy. As for new titles, Liam Robertson with DidYouKnowGaming recently talked about developer Toys For Bob’s canceled pitch for Crash 5, one that would have seen Crash and Spyro working together.
Will We See These Games Again?
Hopefully, Sony continues to invest into porting older titles onto the modern consoles, because having older games to play would go a long way to mitigate the pain of not seeing some of these characters for years. All of the Jak games are currently playable on the PS5. Three Sly Cooper games are left to be ported, but the most egregious gaping hole is the Ratchet & Clank franchise. Without streaming PS Plus titles – streaming is not available in every country – you can only play Rift Apart, the PS4 Ratchet & Clank, and the newly added Size Matters, natively on PS5 consoles.
You cannot play any of the original PS2 Ratchet & Clank titles on modern consoles if you can’t stream them. The future seems even more bleak for Crash and Spyro, but at the very least you can play the remakes. Under Activision, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever see the original games ported, at least for the time being. As someone who loves platformers, I’d love to see all the major PlayStation platformers ported to modern consoles. New gamers who are playing Astro Bot could then go back and have the same love for those characters and stories that Astro Bot wants you to have.
For the time being, I’m waiting for a port of Sly 2: Band of Thieves or Secret Agent Clank, as they seem like obvious next choices for the PS Plus PS2 ports. For now, I’ll probably go play Jak. Or maybe I’ll just play through Astro Bot again.
