Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

Before even attempting any of the gold relics, beat the game first. Beating Cortex gives you the Running Shoes. This allows you to hold  to run faster whenever you want. I'm not even sure if the gold relics are possible without these shoes, but save yourself tons of frustration by first beating the game before attempting any of these.

Unlike the first game where you could just move at full speed and get the gold relics, this game often requires you to make use of some real speedrunning strategies to get gold. In other words, you'll actually need some dexterity and skill with the controls to be able to manage most levels.

The most important mechanic you'll be using is long jumps (as well as extended long jumps). To do a long jump, if you haven't by now, you press  to slide, and immediately after you start sliding, you press  to jump. This gives you the forward momentum of the slide combined with the height of the jump, plus extra height. It allows you to go farther and jump higher than a normal jump. However, there is a way to get even higher and go even further: slide with , then immediately jump with , and then immediately spin with . It's pretty much one quick fluid motion of   . You absolutely need to spin as early as possible, while on the way up. This allows you to get a bit higher and go a bit farther. This is not only handy for some jumps, but pretty much mandatory for the levels with the pits you fall into, fighting off the moles until a mushroom spawns for you to bounce out and continue. The extended long jump lets you jump over these pits entirely, and I honestly don't see any other possible way to get a gold relic on those two stages. The first level is the first one with these pits, so you'll get some practice right away on getting the timing right. Thankfully, you only need to jump over two of the three pits to manage gold, but it's still a tough first level to get gold on (much like the first level of the first Crash game).

I highly recommend watching the following video for any levels you're struggling with. Many have various ways to take shortcuts thanks to the long jumps. Some levels are pretty easy, but others seem to be incredibly tight. The ones where you ride on the polar bear are especially challenging because you need to mash  to dash constantly, making sure you still hit all the yellow boxes, and it's still really tight. Either way, expect to practice each level a bunch. Some levels will fall quicker than others, but you can expect multiple retries on each level to get the timing right. Full credit to PS5Trophies for the following video guide.