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It's Not As Bad As Everyone Says

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you've kept any track of Crash of the Titans, you probably know that most people hate this GBA version. Don't be fooled by critics or people with critic mentalities. Among GBA games, this one's actually pretty good. Naturally the main and DS versions are better. But this isn't so terrible.

The story begins when Crash is sleeping in a hammock outside his house on the beach of Wumpa Island. Aku Aku (a magical mask that's been around for a really long time now) communicates to Crash through telepathy that he needs Crash to wake up and rescue him from Dr. Neo Cortex, the long-time villain of the series. Crash, of course, does and rescues Aku. His sister, Coco and best friend, Crunch have also been captured. Aku tells Crash of this and teaches Crash to hijack the large enemies (Titans), the hook of the game. As you can tell, the rescue mission's on.

To hijack, or "jack", Titans, Crash must beat them with his combat moves till they're stunned. Then he can take Aku, throw it on the Titan's face, and transform into the Titan, using its powers against the other enemies. All the Titans have basic pummeling moves like Crash, but they each have a special ability that's unique to their kind. This jacking hook's really cool and fun to use, as are the Titans and their moves. Since you get to use this all the time, it's good that it's such an amazing hook.

There are also enemies that can't be jacked (Fodder), but they're only purpose is really to collect Mojo, which is a small cluster of orbs that have magical power. Crash collects these to get upgrades, like increased strength for his attacks or new moves. Though it's under-exaggerated, it's still a nice system that works well. The other collectibles are Wumpa Fruit and Tiki Masks.

Wumpa Fruit replenish health to Crash (oddly, though, not to Titans) and they grant extra lives when you collect enough of them. Tiki Masks give increased attack power for a set number of seconds (though this is hardly noticeable) and they come in three colors. Green, Silver, and Gold. Collect all of them in one Island to access that Island's arena. An arena is where you fight enemies and Titans till you get to the recently-defeated boss. Bosses can be jacked too, but this is only good for collecting Mojo and getting a hold of a Titan to help you finish off the rest of the boss' health. This is helpful 'cause bosses are tough little [...] and can be very hard to defeat.

I mentioned Islands without telling you what they are, though you can certainly guess easily enough. They're the way the game's divided up. At the end of every Island is the boss you fight and a special kind of mini-game called Crash Rush, where Aku transforms into some kind of vehicle for Crash to use to get to the next Island. There's only 5 things to do on an Island. Three levels, the arena, and the Crash Rush. "Three levels?" you're saying. "Sounds like a short game". Not exactly. Every level's divided into several sections that you have to cross before you can get to the next Island. This is kind of a bad thing, because if you miss things in the level and you want to collect everything or if you die a game over, you have to replay the long levels all over again. Would've been better to shorten the levels and not divide them into sections or at least make it so you could choose a section to play through.

The levels have multiple paths to be taken, but only one that actually leads to the end of a level. These alternate paths lead to Tiki Masks and other goodies. There's so many of them it's kinda hard to find the right way sometimes, and if you happen to go the wrong way and come to a Checkpoint, you're screwed if you're trying to collect things for 100%. You can't backtrack after that. Needless to say, a little less complication would've been better.

Crash controls loosely, making it hard to stop and turn and even harder to execute jumps. Crash jumps pathetically low and he doesn't handle good in the air unless you double jump. Fortunately, the Titans handle better and you spend almost all the time controlling them, so this isn't terrible.

The Titans are necessary to get past a lot of areas and things, but a little more attention could've been given to this whole mechanic. For one thing, if you dismount then jack a Titan, the Titan's health is completely restored. The special attack meter fills so fast once it's been emptied that you could practically fight using the specials. It's pretty hard to directly jack another stunned Titan from the one you've already transformed into, so it's a bit of a process getting switching Titans. Once you find a Titan you like, you can just keep using that same Titan, which diminishes the already low variety even more.

The audio, too, could've used some work. The music get's a little repetitive and isn't particularly interesting to listen to. There's only a handful of sounds present, like the voice clips which sound clear, but are so few.

Graphically, the game's only real problem is how big the sprites are. They're not so big that they present a problem with the surroundings, but if you're claustrophobic or you just like having a wide view of your surroundings, this might make you uncomfortable or annoyed at the very worst. The backgrounds are beautiful. As there's no voice work, everything's done with subtitles and MUGs (or icons of the characters' heads to indicate who's speaking). These are hideous, but the actual characters in the cutscenes look and animate very nicely.

Every game has its ups and downs, of course, but the ones in this game aren't so terrible as too make the game unplayable or not enjoyable. True as it is that I'm a very "different" person, I at least know a good video game when I see one (in fact, video games are what make me so "different"). This game isn't a bad one or a boring one. It's a good one weighed down by its faults. Fortunately, faults don't make up an object or a person.

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