Hey there! I’m back with another game review, This time it’s of a Solid Gameboy Advanced platformer: Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure Known as Crash Bandicoot: XS In Europe

This was the first Crash Bandicoot game not to be released on a playstation console. The game was released in 2002 and changed the view of crash, As many people believed he was the mascot of sony, While in reality The publishers of this game, Universal Interactive always owned Crash.

The Huge Adventure was developed by Vicarious Visions, Creators of some very solid games and also the creators of my favourite crash game and favourite racing game of all time, Crash Nitro Kart.

This game was also the first Game in a trilogy. The trilogy includes Crash bandicoot: N-tranced and A crossover game with spyro Crash bandicoot Purple Ripto’s revenge.

Without further Ado! Let’s get started.

GRAPHICS: 9/10

The graphics in this game are awesome! It gives you a real feel of crash, They really look like the 2d  Levels in the PS1 Crash games. The characters all have a 3d feel to them and it’s executed very well for a Gameboy advanced game. The animation is very smooth, And the backgrounds are just beautiful.

All the enemies are very well detailed and a lot of work went in to animating them as the animation is just terrific for a Gameboy advanced game. All of the stages have personalities, and are delightful to look at. Now for some Gameboy advanced games, Great graphics come with a price, That price being unresponsive controls, But this game totally does not have that. Which is a accomplishment.

The look of the characters is made by the same artist that originally created the characters, a talented guy that also worked on cartoons:  Charles Zembillas.

Overall: Overall the graphics are beautiful and really well done, My only complaint would be that there are very few times where you can not see a enemy or object, this happens rarely though. 9/10

Sound 8/10

The sound in this game Is just plain awesome and has a distinct crash theme and feel to it.

Everything is very wacky, It is composed by One of the guys that composed music for Crash Nitro Kart, Todd Masten.  If you know crash, You know that the games has lots of sound  effects, this game is no exception.

Most of the sound effects from the Playstation 1 games are here, You have the twist, and the boxes breaking, And you will still be asking yourself what aku aku says when you pick him up.

The soundtracks, are very lively and fit the game Incredibly well. Most of the tunes are great, But there are some boring ones in there, Not a lot of them though.

Let me tell you, I have a lot of songs from the crash games on my media player, and a lot of this game too, When I go to the gym I like to listen to the last boss music from this game, It’s great!  I

Overall There is not much to talk about when it comes to the sound of this game, All I can say is that most of the tunes are great and the sound effects are awesome!! 8 out of 10

Addictiveness: 9/10

 Most crash games have this, They are just super addicting.

If you read my Crash team racing review, You would have seen that I gave the addictiveness a perfect score of 10 Out of 10

There is just something, That gets me hooked.

The controls are really good in this game there are very few problems with it, It’s responsive, But It happened about 2 times that I was sure that I pressed the a button but it did not jump.

They basically took all of the 2d Crash levels of the Playstation 1 games, And made a game out of it. A very good idea. 

Now why is this game so addicting, Well it are the controls and the level design, The level design is great and totally crash.  The gameplay is crash too, You press a to jump And press b to spin, You can even unlock new moves as the game goes on. It’s pretty cool, But it’s nothing that has not been before, and that is my main complaint with this game, It’s nothing that has not been done before, It’s executed very well, But, Nothing that we have not seen before.  This game has a lot of replay ability as you can go further than 100 % complete, You can unlock stuff and I have not gotten all of the things yet I have a 111% Save file, You can get more.  And it’s really fun to do so. I have put tons of time in to this game finding stuff and replaying levels for fun.

Overall If you like crash games you will be addicted, And if you are a really big crash fan like me, You will want to look for everything. The controls are good, and the gameplay is fun 9/10

Depth 9/10

There is A lot to do in this game, Like a lot. Get all the crystals, Get all of the keys, hidden levels and stuff like that, When you think that you have completed the game if you have a 100% Save file you are very wrong as there is much more to do.

There are 4 hubs with each 5 levels, But like I said, There are more levels, Than what you see.

The levels really differ in time, Some are short and some feel like they take forever, because well this game is hard! But I’ll talk about that later. And compared to a DS game, It’s actually not very long at all, But this is the Gameboy advanced, That had extremely short games like a game I reviewed a few months back, Muppets license to croak.

You Have some different levels like the afterburner like stages, but again not anything we have not seen before.

Overall Again there is not a lot to say other than for a GBA game there is tons to do.

Difficulty 8/10

Now for the difficulty, oh boy this game is one though son of a gun.  There are some nearly impossible spots in this game, Like in one of the ice levels and in particular the afterburner stages, They are relentless. It feels like you will never get true,  This game is on a different level than Mario, This game is really hard. The game starts out pretty easy, But just becomes hard all of the sudden. Something I was not a big fan of.

Most of the time, The game is fair hard and not unfair, Like I said, Most of the time. As sometimes it can be very frustrating and unfair. That does not happen often however.

Uka Uka Functions like in most of the pre-radical crash games. If you get Uka Uka The first time you will get an extra hit point, Collect him the second time and his colour changes and you get two hit points collect him for the third time you are invincible for a little while and than you go back to having 2 hit points.

Overall Very hard, This game is very hard, but if you can take a challenge this should not turn you down.

Story 6/10

Nothing that we have not seen before, Yep I’m using that line again. As the story of this game is nothing that we have not seen before. The story is this:

In a space station orbiting the earth Uka Uka is not happy that Cortex failed him yet again, However cortex promises uka uka that he has a plan that will bring earth’s inhabitans down to size. Coco thinks that Cortex is using the crystals to power the shrinking machine.  And she asks crash if he can find the same kind of crystals which she can use to make a device to reverse the effects of Cortex his device.Of So crash is off to get the crystals.

This plot is really not original but it is still pretty fun, There are separate endings, Which I won’t spoil.

Overall the plot is not bad but it is als not original 6/10

OVERALL 8.1/10

Overall this is a really solid game with good controls however it lacks innovation. Crash N-tranced improved on this still solid game, And I will review N-tranced at one point.

The story is not original the gameplay is good, the game has phenomenal sound and graphics.

So there you have it this was my crash bandicoot the huge adventure review, I hope that you enjoyed it!!