Format: Advance
Genre: 2d platformer
Developer: Amaze Entertainment, Inc.
Publisher: Vivendi Games, Inc.

This is officially the first Crash Bandicoot game I've ever played. Truth be told, it wasn't that bad of an introduction to the series. This one plays like an action platformer in a 2D sidescrolling style similar to metroid or metal slug. The premise is that some guy named "Neo Cortex" who seems to be the big bad villain of Crash has captured Crash's girlfriend and friends while also sending mutants to destroy his homeland. I'm assuming that this is the normal plot of Crash Bandicoot games to some extent. In this game you get a unique feature that's outlined, the ability to "Jack" enemies. Basically you take the aku-aku tiki mask and jump them while they're stunned and BECOME the enemy. It's quite comical in a sense. There are 5 continents in the game and 3 levels per continent, as well as a timed "surfing" level as it's finisher. There's also a bonus level on each continent that I never unlocked, I suspect that's a 'get 100% to unlock' bonus. I only got 95-96% for each continent. That being said, yeah, there's missables in this game and it's a bit like donkey kong country in a sense that there are collectibles. Often you have to do specific tricks or go specifically off the progression path to get these collectibles. The graphics in this game are fairly good, but the hitboxes leave something to be desired. The sound is the real kicker in this one, which is surprising considering the GBA soundchip. The levels themselves aren't all that hard because of the "jack" mechanic in this game. To sum it up, when you hit an enemy enough, it becomes stunned and you can then proceed to press the L button to "jack" that enemy to control it. When you jack an enemy, your health bar is completely refilled and you get a new health bar. Jumping from 1 jacked enemy to jacking another grants a bonus on that new jacked enemy whenever you kill something. You get these crystal things every time you defeat an enemy, but doing a double jacked jump maneuver thing, will grant more crystals whenever you kill an enemy. Your health bar fills up each time you jack or unjack as well, so there's no shortage or much risk of dying outside of very specific circumstances. The crystals unlock special abilities and powerups, which makes this an RPG-Lite. You acquire new abilities like the spin-attack, the headbutt, more health, double jump, and extra lives. My favorite was the advanced enemy attack powerup. There are purple crystals too that "increase your jack powers" that I honestly never figured out what that actually did. I do know however that picking one up gives you invincibility for a bit. The bosses can be a bit tough, but are mostly negated once you realize that each boss has a purple crystal in it that you can use to cheese the hell out of the boss(even the final boss). This was a good pickup for 20 minutes game but not without it's own flaws and issues.

All in All, A rating of 8.5 for this one is fair and accurate. My biggest gripes with it are a bunch of major issue bugs like getting stuck in walls, power balancing issues, and extended level designs. Some of the controls felt a bit wonky too. The game can feel a bit slippery and slidey at times. The hitboxes were not good.