The value of platformers comes from level design. Crash certainly had great level designs. What youre saying is basically like "super mario sucks because all you do is jump and run the whole game"
Placing it next to Super Nintendo's Super Mario World is like placing catfood on the same table as Thankgiving dinner.
Believe me, I suffered through more than 15 minutes of the game.
I'd argue Crash is often held in high regard more because at the time in the mid-nineties it was assumed a console _had_ to have a big mascot franchise in the mould of Mario or Sonic, and Crash was a great character design. Many people seemed to be excited that Sony "finally" had a Mario competitor. I certainly felt at the time that Crash was going to grow into this role for Sony, which didn't really happen.
Basically, I remember the main character kind of just hovering in place, and performing slow levitating jumps, while the scenery flies by.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK-h4M4Aetg
Looks like my memory is halfway correct, since I forgot about the side-scrolling levels, which I thought were from one of the follow-up sequels, and not the original game.
Ugh, the music and sound effects. Still horrible.