My experience with Crash Bandicoot is opposite to Spyro’s in 1 strange way: while I hardly played the GBA Spyro games, — ’cause just look @ them — I hardly e’er played the PlayStation Crash Bandicoot games, ’cept for faint memories o’ playing Crash Bash when I was li’l & rather recently trying the 3rd. Unsurprisingly, my short experience told me that the PlayStation games were probably superior to the GBA games ( as well as probably any other Crash games ), much as I’m certain the PlayStation Spyro games are superior to… well, any other Spyro games.

But this is a GBA tribute, not a PlayStation tribute, & it’s the month for the ugly cousins to shine, so let’s look @ the GBA games. I actually almost forgot ’bout this & ne’er would’ve come close to writing ’bout it if not for my bizarre decision to talk ’bout the… less grandiose games for the GBA.

The Huge Adventure ( XS in Europe ) & N-Tranced

Truthfully, these games aren’t too bad. They stay as true to Crash as the Game Boy Mario games stayed true to Mario: they play somewhat like Crash, just a li’l worse & much less advanced in aesthetics or gameplay. They’re OK Crash games, much like the Super Mario Land¹ games were just OK Mario games — nobody in their right mind would e’er say they’re better than Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World.

My lack o’ experience with Crash Bandicoot isn’t any deterrence from it, but simply a lack o’ thinking ’bout it. It’s too bad, since after trying it out, I’ve become quite fond o’ how simple, & yet how clever & fun, the crate system is: to 100% a level, you need to destroy all the crates. This requires some strategy, as some crates require other crates to reach them; destroy the necessary crate without reaching the other crate & you’re hosed. There’s also different types o’ crates: crates that take multiple bounces to break, crates that must be spun into to destroy.

There are also dangerous TNT & Nitro crates. TNT crates hurt you if they explode near you, & explode in your face if you try breaking them with a spin attack or belly flop. You have to jump on them to start a downward timer to blow them up, as well as any surrounding crates. However, crates with power-ups & extra lives that are blown up with TNT don’t give their presents if you blow them up this way, adding a risk-&-reward treatment to TNT. Lastly, Nitro blocks hurt you if you touch them @ all & require hitting a green metal box with an ! — usually located @ the end o’ the level — to destroy them all.

The 1 annoying thing is that the 1st game oft requires you to have an ability you learn later to 100% a level, forcing you to go back & complete it as a form o’ cheap elongation. That this game has the Yoshi’s Island style o’ making you get everything in 1 go, rather than the Donkey Kong Country style o’ letting you get collectibles in as many or few trips as possible without having to beat the level on each grab, makes it e’en mo’ annoying.

I’m also not so fond o’ some o’ the gimmick levels, ’specially in N-Tranced. While the shoot-out with the blimps in the 1st game are rather cool, most o’ the gimmick levels in N-Tranced are pointless & slow @ best. @ worst, they’re an abomination: the autoscrolling races where you’re running from a polar bear / shark on a smaller bear / jet skis are borderline trial-&-error, since you hardly have time to see anything before it hits you. ¿What idiot thought making you head toward the screen was a good idea?

N-Tranced also has some Super Monkey Ball levels where you have to roll round an isometric area in a gerbil ball, running o’er crates, dodging other crates, & trying not to fall off the platforms till you make it to the end. These aren’t too bad, ’cept that the controls & physics are so wonky that you’re pretty much forced to go slowly & that some o’ the barrels on the 2nd 1 are hard to see thanks to the perspective. But the worst part is simply that the levels go on for way to long & get repetitive. N-Tranced also has some dumb level where you’re Coco racing from the sun. It’s basically a lazier version o’ the blimp shooter levels from The Huge Adventure, but stupidly easy.

Also, Coco’s icon is amazing:

Despite this, I’d say N-Tranced is definitely better than The Huge Adventure. It’s less plagued by The Huge Adventure’s problem o’ not letting you 100% a level till later & generally feels mo’ refined. Its level themes are also much mo’ interesting: I’d much rather hop round Arabian carpets & space stations than the same jungle, water, & pyramid levels that The Huge Adventure is filled with.

That said, both have finicky controls & physics & have questionable level design. Sometimes they expect you to fall into seemingly bottomless holes to find crates, & the double jump takes a while to get used to, as it has a much shorter period after your 1st jump for how long you’re able to make a 2nd jump than any other game I’ve played.

Part o’ the problem is the graphics, which aren’t good. They’re pixelated CGI, but without the quality or heart o’ e’en the GBA Donkey Kong Country games, which is proof that Rare employed mo’ artistry in those games’ graphics than people give them credit. While the Donkey Kong Country games had gorgeously colorful backgrounds rich in detail, Crash’s graphics are just dirty & tacky. It’s hard to ’splain, but they just look… off. & not in an interesting way. They’re just so ugly — just look @ them. Worse, ’cause they’re pseudo-3-D, it can be hard to determine collision, making it easy to miss crates & fall into a hole.

The cutscenes also look terrible, but that’s mo’ comical than frustrating.

The bosses blow. They fall into “Rareware Boss Syndrome” worse than Rare themselves. Literally every boss I’ve fought so far is, “Dodge boss’s attacks, wait for boss to hurt themselves in the stupidest way possible or just turn off their barrier for no reason, hit them”. The 1 exception I found was gainst Fake Crash in N-Tranced, which is a broken mess. Trying to pass Fake Crash without getting hurt is finicky, & bullshit. ¿Why do I get hurt by him but he doesn’t get hurt by me? — we’re fucking clones for fuck’s sake. Also, shit falls from the ceiling @ random & is pretty much impossible to dodge in the split second you have to realize it’s happening ’bove you, while trying to pay attention to both you & your clone, without running into some other hazard. It’s like a bunch o’ obnoxious children poking me with dozens o’ fingers, & it’s annoying. Augh, fuck off.

Thinking on it, I’m surprised by how much nostalgia has waned for this game. Though I don’t remember if I e’en played N-Tranced, I do remember having nostalgia for The Huge Adventure. I remember young me beating the game ( probably with save states ) & using the run move you get after beating the game to try beating the time scores on each level. Now it just feels kind o’ ho-hum. They’re all right games in limited doses. After a while they get tiring, though.

Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto’s Rampage

I have e’en less experience for Crash & Spyro’s bizarre crosso’er pair, Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto’s Rampage & Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy. I only remember that ’twas a bunch o’ minigames.

Though the time when I did play it before, I mainly played the Spyro 1, since I always preferred Spyro, since this article’s focusing on Crash, I tried that 1 this time.

& I must say, it’s better than I remember the Spyro version being. Some o’ the minigames are e’en quite fun. Surprisingly, the funnest is a 2-D version o’ those awful levels from the other GBA games where you’re stuck going constantly forward on a polar bear; ’cept here you can actually see what’s ’head o’ you, so it’s not just luck-based bullshit.

Some are mo’ middling, but harmless. There’s a game where you have to blow sheep to ashes with a rocket launcher to keep them from touching some nitro crates… I guess. It’s amusing @ 1st, but it can go on for a bit & so far I had to play it 2 times in 3 worlds. The tank minigames have clunky controls — for some reason you can’t steer & move forward @ the same time — & you move way too slowly. There was 1 minigame that’s basically an earlier version o’ the rocket barrel levels from Donkey Kong Country Returns, but much easier & much mo’ padded out — & thus less fun. Most o’ these minigames go on too long & could be quite fun if they were just shortened.

Then there’s the bullshit minigames. I didn’t find too many; but the game forces you to beat every minigame to pass each world, so you still have to deal with them. The 1st world had a clunky game where you have to shoot a bunch o’ minitanks falling from the sky from touching some crystal ball @ the bottom. You also have to avoid being shot, which is basically luck, since the tanks that shoot you are right in front o’ your face, making it impossible to see a bullet ’fore it hits you. You can move to the bottom & lift the crystal ball thing, but if it comes to that, you’re pretty much screwed, anyway. The tanks fall so quickly that you’d ne’er have time to drop the ball ’gain & resume shooting; & ’ventually a tank’s going to shoot you with no way to defend yourself while holding the ball.

In general, this minigame tried to do too many things & didn’t think them out all the way. Would’ve been better had they just kept it to shooting the tanks to prevent them from reaching the crystal ball. Also would’ve been better without the cheap shots.

The other awful minigame is 1 they did in all 3 worlds: you have to move some inflatable raft through water while avoiding whirlpools, spike bombs, & other dangers. The whirlpools suck you toward them & kill you instantly if you hit their heart.

While the 1st game was OK, — but, ’gain, went on too long — the others are obnoxious. The 2nd had these torpedoes out o’ nowhere that are underwater, & thus seem like they’re harmless @ 1st. Trying to dodge them in the narrow corridor in which they appear is, as far as I know, impossible: you move with tank controls, so you can’t move horizontally without turning & then moving straight, & then turning back forward ’gain, ’cause you’re too big while sideways to avoid getting hit by any torpedoes on any side. The only way I knew how to pass without getting hit was to just wait till they randomly stopped spawning. What crap.

The game has collectible cards, which you can find hid in places or can be bought by that smarmy bastard bear, Moneybags. They’re cool, I guess.

The story is hilariously awful. The pre-rendered slideshow cutscene graphics are e’en worse. I’ll just show the greatest hits:

In fact, the graphics in general are as crappy as the other GBA Crash games — which makes sense, since it’s obvious they outright reused resources from those games.

Like the other GBA Crash games, I’d say Crash Purple is all right. In fact, I’d say ’twas mo’ fun than them.

That said, let’s be honest: we’d probably all be better off playing the original PlayStation games.

Music

The only song worth listening to is the main theme from The Huge Adventure, which is super good, since it’s just based on a popular song from Warped. The rest is forgettable.