Crash Bandicoot was Sony's answer to a mascot problem, and Naughty Dog built him around a hardware limitation. The PlayStation couldn't render large open 3D spaces well, so they pointed the camera down a corridor and made the levels run toward or away from you. A restriction became a genre.

The character design was reverse-engineered from what would look good from behind, since that's what players would see for hours. Hence the orange fur, the wide shoulders and the enormous silhouette.

The difficulty is the other thing people remember. These games are unfair in a specific, precise way, and the crate-smashing completionist runs demand a level of memorisation that modern platformers rarely ask for.

Aku Aku, the floating mask that grants you extra hits, is the best power-up design of the era — the number of masks you're carrying is your health bar, visible and audible at all times.

This collection covers Crash and Aku Aku.