crash bandicoot: the huge adventure lacks an identity. it lacks innovation. in many ways, this game was made purely off of brand recognition and "hey you guys liked the crash trilogy? here's more of that, just lower quality!". believe it or not, i do not mean this as a condemnation of the game. if anything, i think it's probably the game's greatest strength; this game is a recreation of what the crash games on the PS1 did, just entirely in 2D. considering the limited capabilities of the GBA, that is impressive to me.
the imitation isn't a 1:1 however. many people would accuse this game of being an impostor, but among us diehard crash fans, it seems more like a flawed impersonation than anything else. slide jumps only let you jump if you're on solid ground. double jump inputs are very finnicky. death tornado spin doesn't work a solid 20% of the time you try to use it to hover. sure, it's aping crash trilogy, and every attempt to make it that is going to have hiccups, but this is stuff that really takes me out of the game, especially when it compounds.
and there are other nitpicks in the design of this game that make it lesser than for me. everything being 2D is fine on paper for me, but what makes it difficult to enjoy at times is how poorly communicated platform boundaries are. every platform is slanted to create the illusion of a third dimension, but all it does is create difficulties determining where the platform ends, which is especially precarious in a game with such stiff platforming like this. crash feels like he has no aerial mobility. i wonder if the intent was to make him feel like simon belmont from the original castlevania. this becomes an especially big problem in the snow levels, which are arguably the worst part of the entire game. the ice physics on top of the lack of adequate aerial mobility fused with the lack of proper platform communication magnifies the difficulty of the levels by a factor of 8. that's not even touching on the chase sections in those levels, which are arguably the worst in the entire franchise.
i have a lot more negative than positive to say about this game, but mostly because all the positive i have to say about this game is "it's crash bandicoot on the GBA". anyone who was interested in this game was sold on that premise alone (myself included, lol), and anyone who wasn't either didn't play the game or didn't enjoy it. this is probably exactly the type of game you should've played when you were 8 and on a road trip and didn't have access to your big boy consoles. it's an entry to the series, not an awful one, but certainly not a remarkable one either.
final note: megamix was cool. shame that his fight was just an autoscroller.
the imitation isn't a 1:1 however. many people would accuse this game of being an impostor, but among us diehard crash fans, it seems more like a flawed impersonation than anything else. slide jumps only let you jump if you're on solid ground. double jump inputs are very finnicky. death tornado spin doesn't work a solid 20% of the time you try to use it to hover. sure, it's aping crash trilogy, and every attempt to make it that is going to have hiccups, but this is stuff that really takes me out of the game, especially when it compounds.
and there are other nitpicks in the design of this game that make it lesser than for me. everything being 2D is fine on paper for me, but what makes it difficult to enjoy at times is how poorly communicated platform boundaries are. every platform is slanted to create the illusion of a third dimension, but all it does is create difficulties determining where the platform ends, which is especially precarious in a game with such stiff platforming like this. crash feels like he has no aerial mobility. i wonder if the intent was to make him feel like simon belmont from the original castlevania. this becomes an especially big problem in the snow levels, which are arguably the worst part of the entire game. the ice physics on top of the lack of adequate aerial mobility fused with the lack of proper platform communication magnifies the difficulty of the levels by a factor of 8. that's not even touching on the chase sections in those levels, which are arguably the worst in the entire franchise.
i have a lot more negative than positive to say about this game, but mostly because all the positive i have to say about this game is "it's crash bandicoot on the GBA". anyone who was interested in this game was sold on that premise alone (myself included, lol), and anyone who wasn't either didn't play the game or didn't enjoy it. this is probably exactly the type of game you should've played when you were 8 and on a road trip and didn't have access to your big boy consoles. it's an entry to the series, not an awful one, but certainly not a remarkable one either.
final note: megamix was cool. shame that his fight was just an autoscroller.