Also available on: https://gamebanana.com/mods/527056
Join the Discord server: https://discord.gg/hSE2apY6XR

NOTE: Version 2 will be the last one, I don't intend to make any more updates. (apart from bug fixes)

WHAT IS THIS?

A mod for Crash 4 designed to make completion and general gameplay more fair and more fun. It aims to fix the flaws and weaker elements of the completion system and level designs to make the game into a better version of itself.

• Getting rid of the bloat – N. Verted mode is now optional and Timeline levels have been shortened
• Bringing the completion requirements more in line with previous games - the harder collectibles are now optional
• Rebalancing difficulty between collectibles: finishing the story and collecting gems is slightly easier, while wumpa collectibles, relics and flashback tapes are harder
• Reducing difficulty spikes and making the game more approachable, while still retaining most of the challenge
• Making hidden gems and crate puzzles more interesting, more varied and less tedious
• Removing or tweaking unfairly hidden crates, while retaining cleverly hidden ones
• Tweaking obstacles and crates for better level flow
• Quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes
  

THINGS TO NOTE:

While a lot of things has changed, the game is still Crash 4 in spirit, so don't be afraid thinking it's something entirely different. Also, while some of the elements were made easier, this is NOT an easy mode. The intention was to make the game more fair and approachable, while still maintaining the challenge

IMPORTANT: Save files are fully compatible, progress will NOT be erased if you switch between the modded and vanilla versions. However, it is highly recommended to play on a new save because a lot of things have changed. Remember, ALWAYS back up your save games!

What's new

A full changelog is included in the mod .zip file.

2.0.5
- Flashback 2: Metal crates were added above a life crate placed very high in the level. It was very likely that the player would bounce too high, and be able to stand on top of the sidescroller boundaries (the 2D planes in the foreground and background).
- Flashback 5: The arrangement of crates near the beginning was slightly altered, because players would try to squeeze between the nitros and metal crates to reach the left area, when that wasn't the intended solution, and it was almost impossible to do so. The new arrangement makes the solution more clear, as there's now visibly not enough space for Crash to jump there (and instead, encourage players to jump to the right).
- Hungarian translation: Fixed typos and grammatical errors

2.0.4
- Stay Frosty: The crate stack on Checkpoint 3's right was moved slightly closer to the platform, as the camera would sometimes
"jump" to a different angle when the player was in a specific position.

Install instructions

Follow the instructions EXACTLY as described, or the mod WON'T BE APPLIED!

Update to the latest version of the game before installing. I can't guarantee that the mod will work with older versions.

Unpack the downloaded .zip file. You should get a few .pak files and an .mp4 file after this step.
The main mod is "00_NHANCED_V2.pak", the other files are OPTIONAL MODS. Only install what you want. (Details on optional mods below)

Navigate to this location:
{Game install folder}\Lava\Content\Paks
and create a folder called ~mods, and put whichever .pak files you want to install inside it. The tilde ~ must be there in the name!

If you want the new intro, put "NewIntro.mp4" here (if you don't, the intro will be skipped when the game starts):
{Game install folder}\Lava\Content\Movies


{Game install folder} means the following locations:
Steam version:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Crash Bandicoot 4\

Battle.net version:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Crash Bandicoot 4\

To uninstall, just remove the .pak files or move them outside the Paks folder.

Optional Mods

• Optional N.Verted mode: N.Verted mode will be available to play, as described below. (By default, it's inaccessible)
• Menu Recolor: Menus and UI elements were given a purple color to go with the dimension-hopping theme
• Optional Collectibles in Pause Menu: Shows Platinum relics and Perfection trophies (formerly N.Sanely Perfect relics) on the Pause Menu and Save Slot screen (they are hidden by default to lean into the fact that they are optional collectibles)
• Translations HUN: Hungarian translations (they replace the English ones, I couldn't include it as a new language pack, because this language is not supported by the game)
  

Credits

• SpongeBandimark for the Version 2 Intro and Logo (based on this one)
• Demedi for the modeling work with the 3D collectibles
• HAWGT and LongerWarrior for "Crash 4 Exclusive PSN ActivisionBNet Skins”
• boycalledjames for the Version 1 Logo, which is part of "Retro HUD HD".
• Trizio, StefanGose, felipesm2020, Warden201 and Dastanovich for the Italian, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Arabic and Russing mod translations respectively
• Special thanks to members of the Crash 4 N. Hanced Discord group who contributed to the project with their suggestions, feedback and supportive comments!
  

DETAILED CHANGES

Optional N.Verted mode

N.Verted is completely optional with no separate collectibles. (included as an optional .pak). Collectibles can be collected as normal, and will count towards completion in normal mode.

KNOWN ISSUE: Due to an implementation detail, the screen is not mirrored in N.Verted mode. This was necessary to make it not count towards completion.

Completion % and Ending unlock changes

The total achievable percentage is now 108%. 90% is achieved by finishing all levels, 10% by getting all gems, and the remaining 8% by getting all other collectibles.

The first ending requires 100% (i.e. all gems), while the second requires only 104%, for which the intended way is getting all FB medals and Sapphire time relics. Both endings can be unlocked by other means if the specific percentage value is reached.

KNOWN ISSUE: While the percentage values for the ending unlocks have been adjusted, a bug causes the second ending to randomly stay locked, despite having fulfilled the new requirement (104%). Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem possible for me to fix it, so as a workaround, the Ending video files are available in the Lava/Content/Movies folder inside the game’s install location, they are called "C_BonusEnd.mp4" and "C_BonusEnd1.mp4" respectively.

Below is a breakdown for the percentage value of every element:

• Normal levels: 2%
• Timeline levels: 1%
• Boss levels: 2%, except first Cortex boss (5%) and second Cortex boss (10%)
• All gems: 10% (5% for half, 5% for all)
• All Sapphire time relics: 2%
• All Platinum time relics: 2%
• All Flashback Medals (previously Platinum Flashback Relics): 2%
• All Perfection Trophies (previously N.Sanely Perfect relics): 2%
  

Gems revamp

4 of 6 gems were removed, so now there’s only 2: the crate gem and hidden gem. Wumpa collection is still rewarded, as collecting 90% of all wumpa unlocks a level’s skin (as opposed to collecting an ever increasing amount of gems). These changes were done in an attempt to make gems feel more significant (due to there being less of them), and to up the challenge of wumpa collection, as 80% was too easy to achieve.

Redesigned levels

NOTE: A full list of level design changes is included in the archive: LevelChangesV2.pdf.

Levels underwent significant changes. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the major ones:

Rush Hour was split into 2 levels

• The 2 new levels are unlocked one after the other and come between Food Run and The Crate Escape. They both have the usual collectibles, including new relic times and a new hidden gem, and count towards completion.
  

Timeline Levels have been shortened to the alternate character sections

• After the timeline event, the player is transported to the end of the Crash/Coco section, so the player doesn't have to repeat the same section
• Crates, wumpa goals and relic times were all adjusted to reflect the change
• The crate placements in the Crash/Coco section of the timeline level has been merged into the non-timeline version, including bonus rounds.
  

Crate modifications

• Hidden crates have been toned down significantly. Crates that were in stupid places or where the player could not see them (offscreen or obscured by the environment) were either: 1) removed or replaced with golden wumpas, 2) moved slightly to be more visible or 3) had wumpas added nearby to hint at their presence.
• Some crate puzzles were removed, added, or altered based on the difficulty and length of certain sections (so they are neither too short, too drawn out or too difficult). Some puzzles were also made more unique.
  

Hidden gems and colored gems

• Some gems had their location or method of collection altered, either because they were in stupid places, hidden in similar ways (offscreen, requiring leaps of faith), were too easily noticable, or didn’t require much effort to collect. They are now hidden in more clever ways and/or involve platforming puzzles.
• All crates near hidden gems that required manually breaking were removed, so the 2 gems can be collected separately.
• Some of the color gem puzzles were altered to be more interesting. Additionally, a purple gem was added somewhere in the game, with a similar philosophy to the other color gems, and the hidden gem route in Off Balance was repurposed as the purple gem route. (KNOWN ISSUE: The purple gem doesn't appear in the main collectible grid, I couldn't find a way to make it work)
  

Level difficulty, length, and flow adjustments

• A few obstacles (especially in later levels) were made more fair, e.g.: the cars in Rush Hour were slowed down, the electric panels in Building Bridges now turn off for longer, and the Minecarts in Toxic Tunnels are not instakilling.
• A few levels now have additional Aku Aku and/or Checkpoint crates, in sections that were too long or too difficult to do without them.
• Nitro crates don't „hop” anymore, as it caused unfair, and sometimes unavoidable deaths. This change was done to make gameplay more fair in general, but also to reduce randomness during time trials and Perfection Relic runs.
• Most bonus rounds that required backtracking because of Switch (!) crates no longer do so, so they aren’t artificially longer. Additionally, some crate puzzles were altered so that they are more interesting and don’t require as much trial and error and forced deaths.
• Most Gem paths (including the one in Toxic Tunnels) now don’t need to be visited to get the crate gem, as breakable crates were removed, or have nitros next to them. In turn, the hidden gem was moved to the end of these routes. This was done to make getting the Crate gems and Perfection relics in these levels less tedious and frustrating.
• A lot of bounce crates were turned into other types of crates (mostly Basic or ? crates), so as to not slow down the flow of platforming.
  

Flashback level redesigns

• Excessive crate bouncing was significantly reduced
• Obstacles are more varied and interesting, with all new puzzles
• Difficulty and section lengths are more balanced, with difficulty increasing steadily in later levels
  

Retro Mode Rebalance

• A large amount of wumpa was removed to prevent players accumulating lives without progressing to the next section (some sections had upwards of 300 wumpa)
• Some life crates were removed/changed, and some were moved into more strategic places (usually hidden or hard to reach).
  

Time Trial changes

• Flashback tapes are now collectable during TTs.
• Flame crates were removed entirely from TTs (they now turn into other types of crates), because their state does not reset when respawning at the beginning. This made runs inconsistent and luck-dependent (especially for high level play).
• Adjustments were made to levels so that finishing TTs is easier: reduced the number of crates that turn into explosives (especially ones that are in the way or are hard to see) added more Aku Aku masks, and modified some obstacles so that they're no longer instakilling (Aku Aku can save you from them)
• Crates that only turn into Nitros in TT were turned into other types of crates (mostly TNTs). This was done because of a bug that was introduced in a game update, whereby these specific Nitros don’t break time crates when exploded with the Nitro Switch Crate. Nitros that are the same in normal mode are not affected, so they remain unchanged.
  

Time Relic revamp

See mod images for the exact relic times.

The Triple Spin was upgraded to the Hyperspin. This version allows max speed to be kept as long as the player keeps spinning, instead of the speed resetting after the third spin.

Relic times underwent a major overhaul. As mentioned, only sapphires are required for the 2nd bonus ending. However, the relic times were made more strict as they were too lenient, especially the lower tier ones, which were too easy compared to the game's base level of difficulty. The performances required for each relic are as follows:

Sapphires require a careful, but overall competent run
Golds require an efficient run with good use of basic mechanics
Platinums require a skillful run, using all mechanics well, including good use of the hyperspin
Master Relics were added for pro players, and require excellent use of advanced mechanics and constant hyperspin

NOTE: Relic ghosts have NOT been adjusted, as such, they don't represent the skills required for each relic.

Other changes

Digital download and preorder skins

• The mod called „Crash 4 Exclusive PSN ActivisionBNet Skins” is included in this version, so all of the extra skins are unlocked by default.
  

3D Collectibles

• Collectibles have 3D Icons. Additionally, some collectibles have a slightly different design or color
  

Color coded outlines and brighter time crates

• Outline crates are color coded, so crate puzzles can be figured out without needing to hit ! crates, reducing forced deaths
• Time crates in solid form are brighter yellow so it's easier to tell them apart from normal wooden crates. Their outlines are also yellow, as there are instances where they need to be activated with a ! crate.
  

New Intro and Logo

• A New intro is included reminescent of the Crash 3 intro, but customized for Crash 4. A custom logo for the N.Hanced edition is also included.
  

Pass And Play removed

• Pass And Play mode was removed, because it enabled a Time Trial exploit, and because its usage slowed down gameplay unnecessarily, for almost no benefit
  

Leaderboards are disabled (due to a bug)

• Leaderboards and time record uploads are disabled. Without this change, the game would crash when On the Rails time trial is finished (Tawna's portion of Rush Hour), likely because the database entry for this new level doesn't exist.