The increasingly popular reboot-sequel is a hard needle to thread. You have to create a game that hews close enough to the original to make nostalgic fans happy, while modernizing and innovating enough to resonate with new players. Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time balances the two effortlessly. It impeccably preserves the vibrant look and feel of the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy, while integrating new ideas and platforming possibilities. And like the original Crash games, the hybrid of Crash's old and new ideas will test your platforming skills in interesting new ways.

Like its groan-inducing dad-joke of a subtitle says, Crash 4 is about time… travel. When the villains of Crash's past open an interdimensional portal, Crash and Coco have to collect a set of quantum masks in order to set things right. As with past Crash games, small exchanges in cutscenes between levels do a lot of narrative legwork. It's not much of a "story" per se, but Crash and his friends' charm fills in the gaps and makes you care enough to follow along.

Crash 4's time-traveling story takes you to all sorts of times and places, including dinosaur-infested jungles, futuristic cities full of flying cars, and sunken pirate ships. Every place you go feels lush, full of color and detail, with a painterly quality that's simply wonderful to run through. My favorite is the Mardi Gras world, where Crash and Spyro balloons float in the background as you hop over neon-colored flames and trumpet valves. Occasionally, you'll run through an area and the camera will pull back to let you take in the scenery. The environments never failed to impress me with their visual depth.