Getting the platinum on crash 1 was the definition of stress.

If you don't intend to get all gems, playing through the Crash Bandicoot games is quite easy:

Just grind/farm some extra lives on easy levels and then save your game before starting a new level.

While they aren't easy, they're not really that hard. At least I managed to beat them all as a kid (at least 1 and 3, not sure about 2). After all, I was only about 8 or 9 when I played them. Will buy it soon on X1. Very excited.

What as in too hard? Well crash ain't for the faint harded. Not played much Mario over the years but from what I've seen crash is much harder. Very rewarding though. 

Well agreed you must not have seen much mario then.

If I get it, it will likely be on Switch.

Crash isn't hard. It's cheap like Flappy Bird. It's silly to compare the two but here's an example of the skills necessary for Mario and Crash. It's also a showcase of just how far ahead Nintendo are when it comes to gameplay. Hard to believe both games released in 1996.

I bought the Switch version.

Great to have a Naughty Dog game on a Nintendo console. Great day.

Honestly Crash is pretty easy, only few levels actually present some challenge. DKC franchise is much more harder than that, and that is excluding all the bonuses stages, which I would consider in the hard category.

Now to think about it, the hardest part of Crash was the really bad controls for the first one, which I get would be annoying, since it really isn't on you. 

The naught gods are great. You'll have to catch up with the rest of their master pieces now that you have their first.