To me the beauty of crash was going through the level as fast as I can.Yes I agree but in this one its like they made boxes the entire point of the level. So many of the platforming sections are literally there for box collection, you'd skip whole parts of the game if you ignored them and just got to the end as fast as possible. Boxes used to be a fun bonus but now they're basically the whole challenge and drive of most sections. That's why I find it weird.
Yeah crash has always been hardCrash 1 was hard but 2 and 3 were not. This is almost Crash 1 difficulty and in fact I think if you played on retro mode (lives and checkpoint system same as the old games) it would be the new hardest crash game. I'm all for levels being hard anyway but you got to get the right kind of difficulty.
Games nail it when the difficulty feels like its earned and you've just got to get better, it feels very rewarding when you get past an obstacle/ boss or make progress as you know that it was all on you and you achieved it.
Difficulty is not good when it feels like its there just because the game is being battleship and unfair, getting past the obstacle you just feel relief that you got through the battleship and you're annoyed that it happened. I'm feeling too much like this during this game. There's some sections where I'm like okay I can do this I just gotta get it right but so often I'm just like "wtf is this the controls aren't tight enough to do this well" or "this is just too punishing it doesn't feel well designed".
The original Crash trilogy (particularly #1) nailed that first feeling, when you got through a hard level it felt frickin amazing and you were super proud of yourself. That's why I have so many fond memories of crash and I loved replaying them in N-sane trilogy. In this game I'm often thinking "phew I got through that shite and don't have to do it again".