Prior Retrospectives:
Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
Crash Team Racing
The Crash Retrospective continues with this party game set within the Crash universe. This follows Crash’s drift into the track with CTR, so we have another spin-off in the Crash series. With Naughty Dog not making this title, does the quality suffer, or does the title still offer a fun experience?
This game is a bit personal to me as it was one of the earliest games I played on the PS1 and this was my first Crash game.
History:
After production of CTR, Naughty Dog washed their hands of the Crash IP and Sony worked with Universal one last time to cash in on Crash’s name sake during the PS1’s few years on the market. After agreeing to a deal with Universal for CTR, they had the rights to another Crash adventure and both Sony & Universal thought a party game was the best direction to take the franchise in, after seeing the success of Mario Party on the Nintendo 64.
They hired Eurocom Interactive to develop the title, with Carney Games overseeing production to keep things in-line with past Crash titles.
One very interesting thing to note about Crash Bash is that the game is feature-complete inside Spyro 3. Insomniac Games were buddies with Naughty Dog and Sony, so when they heard Crash Bash was in production, they agreed to put a demo of the game inside their final Spyro title, Spyro: Year of the Dragon.
Eurocom put the demo in Spyro 3’s coding and you can unlock the demo by holding L1, R2 and Square, with the game booting up into a small little demo of a few mini games to play alone or with another friend. The follow code works in most versions of Spyro 3, even the one up on NA PSN (not sure about the EU version). But…..you COULD enter this code on the menu screen after the first loading screen: Left, Right, Left, Right (x2), Left, Right (x3), Left, Right (x4), Left, Right (x5)
After entering this code, you click the Adventure mode and when you press start, you see the ‘Cheat Menu’. If you select it, you unlock debug mode for a very close to complete build of the game with most of the mini games selectable from the menu to play as. You lack a few things from the final game (option to play as other character, the Crystal/Relic/Gem challenges) but its more or less the full game, inside another game. This was discovered years later well after the games launch.
The game released in 2000 and people enjoyed it, and with that, Crash’s run on the PS1 was complete and the torch was passed to Travelers Tales to make the next mainline Crash title; Wrath of Cortex.
Second Thoughts:
Edson was nice enough to cover things I glossed over or missed, so thank you man for the information!
"Insomniac didn't agree to put the demo in, Universal put the demo in like they did the last games, because they owned the IP. The Spyro 3 demo does have "all" of the games but the vast majority of them are broken, glitchy, vanishing platforms, duplicating obstacles (random nitro appears right on you boom) and textures in many are missing. It's an interesting cheat however. Spyro 3 itself is already a content rich game.
The first part of the story is more of a Mortal Kombat thing. It was literally a tournament between good vs. evil for the actual world, which they themselves cannot fight over. The fight in Crash 3 was just trying to help Cortex take over with the time twister machine. Also they aren't split exactly as good vs. evil, one important part of the story is that Aku Aku only had Crash and COCO and Uka Uka had to many players, so they made a wager to see if Evil could win without cheating and Tiny and DIngodile were places in the good team.
Id's struggle to call this a Mario Party clone.
You can pick 2 characters and play Adventure mode with a friend. Which arguably makes the game easier to unlock all the games than by yourself, arguably. You forgot MP information, it's not just one mini game, you can also do a CTR and choose cups where you can play multiple mini games for a winner take all, and even get a nice cutscene for the winner.
The minigames themes repeat but you'd have to be insane to think that all the mini games witht he same theme play the same. I mean you can have uka uka changing people and melting the stage, to throwing bombs at people ON FOOT in the same polar stages. I also know many many angry people who would have loved Pogo Padlock to be like the other levels with the pogo theme. Another example are the Foxes or the Tank games, not even remotely similar outside the tanks. Then you have crustal challenges which even changes the level designs, I'd say this game has a fleshed out single player.
The Pogo theme description is lacking, there are 4 types of stages, the original, which just has you paint tiles and hit boxes to add to the score. The second, which DOES NOT HAVE PURPLE BOXES AT ALL, and you have to make squares. The third, which has Ripper Roo come in and place TNT(and Nitro) boxes on the field, and Pogo Padlock, which people are mxed on (but are not mixed on that Crystal challenge), where basically if you step on your own block it resets like a later level of Q*bert, getting hit by a missle will steal squares, and there's a lock that floats around that can lock your tiles so no one can change them and you can walk on top of them.
Crate themed games are games that involve tossing regular crates, TNT crates, and spinning or hitting, or zapping people into Nitros. One interesting thing is if you use a standard attack on an enemy they don't have invincibility frames unlike when you hot them or spin them into a crate, so if you say use Crashes spin on someone and immediately throw a crate at them that's to hits. You can also do that to guys carry crates which causes them to throw the crate in the air and hit them.
The first Crate level is standard. The second brings in power ups and power downs, like Aku Aku/Uka Uka making you invincible, or that timer that counts down when you get the 100 TON power up, which you want to use physical attacks on opponents to transfer it because once the timer goes out you get crushed. TNT and Nitros also blow up the ground making wholes, so this can really change things up. The third Crate level has a Penguin in the middle that spins slowly then moves faster expanding it's radius hurling everything at every one. Of course you actually have to hit the penguin as it's asleep. Also Ice Physics. The 4th is basically a power up round where you get all kind of different powers to blast people, and considering how much wumpa is in this stage you'll likely be using that instead of crates. BTW one features in all crate mini games is that wumpa recovers health.
The Ball themed levels are about basically getting the balls into the goals. WHich if an opponent gets to many in making his counter reach zero, he is out, and his side is replaces with an electric barrier, which balls bounce off of making changing up the game. The second allows you to grab them, and then position yourself to shoot them. The 3rd, brings back N.Gin, who will randomly appear on screen and randomly fires balls everywhere. You also have shields that if you can grab them quick enough before your opponent, can if you position yourself, magnetize balls away from you. The third is on a questionable stage where you are on a flying platform, and each side can have engine failures titling the stage making balls move in arcs. This is especially irritating with that crystal challenge.
The Tank games, Medieval games, and the Dash games all have 4 games with different changes ups with the same theme. The Tanks games which depending on character have different abilities, is about blowing up the others with your main weapon or mines. Later, the stages change up by having dynamic stages that change over time, and then having guys attack the players. DASH is about racing around and trying to be first place, with turbo power ups and missiles that can spin guys out, even out the ring, these start getting stage obstacls that change things up and even a giant goo monster. The medieval games can range from popping baloons, to riding dragons to hit a moving target, they are all different.
The Bosses need more description since Adventure mode is a story, PaPu, The Bearinator, the Komodo Brothers, and Oxide are apparently neutral, whether place by the ancients to stop or test the teams or not I'm not entirely sure. PapuPapu has a force field, which requires you to kill the magic crash clones to let down, from there you can throw, or even spin crates at PapuPapu, of course oddly you don't defeat PaupPapu, he does himself.
The Berinator has you ride on the plar bear, waiting for him to drop a missle you can shoot at him, He shoots canons at the stage which makes it smaller each roung, and then sens robotic dogs with missles, which after you dodge those you have to knock them off. The Komodo Brothers have a giant huge maching many ave issues with which ranges from missiles to maces. Once you defeat it both come out and fight you in their tanks, which luckily the game considers a checkpoint.
Oxcide is a chase, through space while you are blasting debris, sort of similar to the Crotex Crash 2 final boss but actually challenging in comparison. In which at the end you fight him one on one in ballistics. This fight is random and can be easy or very hard depending on uh... Nothing because it's random. Once you get him to Zero, you see the ending of which ever side you won with. As compared to the original trilogy? The models are literal direct rips from Crash 1 and 2 with some unique animations. Of course 3 and CTR look better but it's basically on bar with 2.
As for the endings, Uka Uka was after the Crystals, which were in short supply during Crash 3, to take over the world (which makes sense as he's tried this before), so if he wins it's all over and Aku AKu tells Crahs and CoCo to run (where? they are on a floating Island, and this MAY not be the last time we see it hint hint.) For the good ending, which seems canonical, AKu Aku takes the Crystals and sends them away, and then sends UkA Uka away somewhere.
Some additional things to mention are gems, which usually are similar to the main game but with challenges like doing something with less time. The Crystal challenges usually change up the game and even change the design of the level. Relics are obtained by defeating the "champions" 2 times in a row. Which is basically hard computer A.I. (which I think in some levels also cheats but eh...) There's also another tier of relic, the platnium, which is even harder. I feel you used wikia for some of this. Also Fake Crash is playable in the japanese version. Not much of a thing going on with him though in terms of story. He is basically Crash. The Icons in character select are changed to look more cartoonish and animeish. The Crystal, Relic, and some gem challenges are easier, and they even show some secrets from previous crash games.
Also, Crash Bandy Kuu appears as the intro AND IT DOESN'T FUCKING STOP!!!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PUKLoPHCpc
Also it's called Crash Bandicoot Carnival over there. (sometimes) Oh and one more thing, in Crash Bash as I mentioned before you can choose to characters, if you choose a good and evil character for both and get to the end, then there's a cutscene where you must have a match to the finish in a final secret Crate Crush stage. Which determines your ending."
Story:
The plot of the game is that Aku Aku & Uka Uka are 'fighting' about the balance of good and evil, with Uka Uka saying "Lets fight!". Aku Aku say no, as the ancients forbid the masks fighting. Yes, the battle they had in Crash 3 wasn't a 'fight'.....nooooo, that was just them butting heads for a bit. Anyway, they warp a number of characters from the Crash series (Crash, Coco, Cortex, Brio, Tiny, Dingodile, Koala Kong) and a random character.
They are split into good vs. evil and compete in a number of mini games to save the world! Yep, bare-story more or less but for a party game, not really needed.
Gameplay:
With my comments in the history section, you would think this is a Mario Party clone, and it is to a degree. But unlike Mario Party, the Mini games take center stage, not the boards.
In Adventure mode, you pick one character and they go across a number of warp rooms which house one of five mini games to play. You have four ways to complete them; normal run, two modifiers and the relic run. This gives each mini game a lot of replay value overall, but we will touch on that in a bit.
The MP modes is just you picking one of a set of mini games and after you select it you and two or four players play the mini game. The selection is limited at the start, as you have to unlock them all before playing them. How do you unlock them? Playing Adventure mode of course.
CTR did this as well, but the big difference is two things; the Adventure mode there was more fleshed out then in Crash Bash and you could use cheat codes to unlock everything if you wanted to.
Crash Bash, you have to play through everything to unlock all the mini games. What makes things worse is that the same kinds of mini games repeat over and over again. The most common ones? Pogo Stick, Create Tossing, Polar Bear Riding and Hyper Pong. Those aren't the official names but will call them that for the purpose of this Retrospective.
Other mini game styles include popping Balloons inside a clock, riding a tank to shoot down the competition, riding in a hover craft and the boss fights that are a lot of fun.
Mini Games:
The Pogo Stick game has you bouncing around all over the place to 'paint' a series of tiles and when you smash a purple box, it tallies the places you marked and that is your score. You keep doing this until the time is up and then the one with the highest score gets a trophy. Do this two more times with assistance with speed shoes (to go faster) and missiles to stun foes, and you complete the mini game.
Create Tossing is you killing your foes using TNT Crates, melee attacks (different for each character), Basic creates and power ups in the level. Very fun and they go quite fast.
Polar Bear Riding is great fun as it was built in mind with the three-round system they made for the game. They go very fast, the polar bears have different dashes depending on the character picked and they mix things up for some styles of the mini game. One for example, you shooting bombs at each other and if they hit you once, you lose the polar bear.....but you can still move around. Get hit again, you lose the round.
Hyper Pong is very fun, as it is literal pong, but the pinball's can move rapidly over time. It can be very hectic and out of the four mini game styles, this is the most fun to me.
The bosses are all very interesting, with them being based on past bosses in the Crash series. One has you fighting the Papu Papu guy from Crash 1 again, with you throwing creates at him until he dies. Between him summoning foes and the tiles moving all around, it was fun fighting him.
Another fight was against two wizards, which you saw in Crash 2 as well. You fight them in the tank and it works very well for a boss fight. I used the cheat inside the games demo from Spyro 3 and honestly got a great laugh from testing this out; the boss icons for the wizards? They were Homer and Bart from the Simpsons. Such an odd and out of place cameo but they likely never expected people to see that. Anyway, the boss has you shooting missiles you get from the crates all over the arena and after three waves of attacks, they split up into two tanks.
I played the game alone both when I first got it and when I played it for this Retrospective, so was not able to comment on how the game feels with friends. But I enjoyed my time with it greatly. Just keep in mind that the mini games do repeat and they DO get stale after a while.
Presentation:
This game is a step down from the Naughty Dog games, as the character models do not look as good compared to the original trilogy. But for a simple party game, the game has great presentation.
Load times having a great beat when loading, bright colors and strong designs for the mini game locations and very good performance make this a solid looking PS1 title.
Musically, Crash Bash shines really bright with one of my favorite scores in the Crash series. Melodies from Crash 1-3 get remixed in creative ways and the beat & sound of Crash is present here in spades. Very solid soundtrack and one I tend to randomly come back to when writing.
Menu Theme - Warp Room - Crash Ball - Bearminator - Dot Dash
Overall:
Crash Bash is a very interesting game, as it marks the series passing hands from Sony to Universal completely. After this, Sony and Naughty Dog moved on to other projects and while that is sad, Crash looked to be in good hands at Universal.
Bash is a strong party game that while repetitive at points, looks great, feels right and is a bash to play alone or with buddies. Its the only game in the Crash series not on the PSN store, but it is in Japan and you will be able to experience a lot of the game if you own Spyro 3.
The next game in the Crash Retrospective is the first major platformer in the series not by Naughty Dog; The Wrath of Cortex. This one will be up very soon, so hope you all look forward to it!
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