Overall 8.7 Graphics 7 Sound 6 Addictive 6 Story 6.5 Depth 6.5 Difficulty 9
7.9
Crash Bandicoot: Ripto's Rampage star4z
Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage is an unassuming title. It makes you expect something like Crash, where the main antagonist from Spyro is the main bad guy; typical marketing scheme. However, this game is more than that. The fact that Crash and Spyro work together to defeat their arch enemies is an unsurprising plot, but the companion game, Spyro Orange, creates for interesting story interaction. Playing through Spyro's homeworld as Crash is an interesting experience.
The graphics of this game are pretty amazing for the GBA. Though this game is a sandbox side-scroller, the game achieves an amazing level of three dimensions for the Game Boy Advance, as the platforms are all three-dimensional. Not much is lost in the conversion from the three dimensional games to this two-dimensional one. All the characters look much the same as they do in the three-dimensional ones, and the cutscenes look very advanced for the generation. The platforming sections are basically (artwise) the same format, but each world has its own background pattern, and style of platforms. The lava animations are pretty good for the time. The textures for Spyro’s homeworld are the most impressive, but the other textures live up to a good, albeit slight lower standard of quality.
The sound quality of the game is pretty good, but the sound effects can be overly repetitive. The music is average quality for the system, and not especially well written. The game includes spoken sound effects, such as “Yow!”, but nothing in the way of narration, which, admittedly, is usual for the GBA.
The gameplay of this game takes quite some getting used to, but once you have beaten the game, the platforming sections are pretty easy. The platforming sections include traps such as jumping lava (very lifelike, you can be sure), swinging axes, falling icicles, and lab assistants with flame throwers. I was a little disappointed at the unreactiveness of the enemies: They all worked on timers that told them to walk, fly, or whatever, and do an offensive move at some random point in their timer. For example, a cliched ultra large venus fly trap random snaps on a timer, a lab flame assistant turns on the flame thrower every so often just for fun, and the monsters walk in circles or fly up and down. The moving platforms, jump (up arrow) boxes, and plain (but sometimes short/ tiny) floating platforms can pose a challenge at times, teaching you to save at mini-games. Thankfully, the one-way trips posed by the breakable crates in the traditional three-dimensional Crash Bandicoot games are only present in the crate smash and crate step games.
The mini-games range in difficulty from very easy to extremely hard, even within a level. The polar bear games take more practice than others, but are moderately leveled. The jetpack games are very easy, with little practice necessary. I beat the hardest level in arcade and achieved getting both the purple and silver levels. The helicopter games are really, really hard. They takes tons of patience. The sheep slaughter games are relatively easy, as long as you system is responsive, and you keep your eye out for black sheep. The bat flying/ rocket launcher game is pretty easy to beat, but getting all the boxes to achieve the necessary silver gem is a very hard chore. The weightlifting games are unnecessary to beat, but they are beatable up until the last one, which I could not beat while hitting the ‘A’ button with both index fingers alternatively. The crate smash and crate step games take some patience, but can be completed with some time. Freefalling is insanely easy early on, and pretty hard at the end, but beatable. The bosses aren’t very hard, they only represent slightly more advanced versions of the other mini-games, albeit with slightly different objectives. For example, the Tiny boss level was a variation on the tank game, the Nina boss level is a variation on the bear game, and the Ripto level is a variation on the bat game. A few of the boss levels are unique, like the Spyro level and the final boss. The Spyro battle is especially memorable, and I felt disappointed that it was not available in a harder version anywhere, though I think it’s cool to play on multiplayer.
Graphics 9 Sound 6 Addictive 8 Story 6 Depth 9 Difficulty 9
Review Rating: 4/5
Submitted: 10-16-13
Review Replies: 2
3.5
Wow! they really went a HUGE step back with this one.... RedHotToddy
After 2 amazing crash adventures for the GBA. Vicarious visions decided to make a cross over game between crash and spyro. Now to be honest, when I hear the phrase "Cross over game" the first thing that comes to mind is 2 video game characters kicking butt together. Crash and spyro joining forces to save the world from evil, we dreamed of it day and night, then, it finally came to us! But all we got was a collection of poorly put minigames that are so difficult, not even a expert gamer like me can beat them! Ugh....let's just cut to the chase....
Story-7/10
The story behind this adventure is that cortex and ripto (Spyro's nemesis) join forces to rid themselves of their respective adversaries Crash and spyro by genetically modifying Ripto's riptoc minions and disguising them as crash and spyro, leading the two to believe they are against eachother. The 2 heroes are alerted of their respective world's predicament and they are sent to get rid of the disguised riptocs. Crash and spyro eventually encounter each other between wumpa jungles and dragon castles, believing eachother to be a disguised riptoc. However, they soon discover that they have been tricked into fighting each other by cortex and ripto and decide to team up against them.
Gameplay-4/10
Crash purple is a minigame collection, and a poorly put together one at that. Most of the minigames are VERY difficult, requiring alot of skill to beat them. One level requires you to blast a large amount of sheep, this mission takes FOREVER! One more last thing! It is VERY difficult trying to get 100% on all of these minigames! I remember having to redo this one minigame over 50 times before getting 100%! Each world is put together by a hub, each being split into 1-2 sections. At the end of each world, you will fight a boss, such as tiny tiger, spyro, Nina cortex. These bosses are pretty easy and don't require much strategy to complete....
Graphics-5/10
OMG...I'm getting really tired of seeing all the same sprites used for every single crash GBA adventure! I'm starting to like crash's sprite a little though, but still! The backgrounds and scenery are OK.
Sound-6/10
If theres one good thing about this game, it is the soundtrack. While it is OK, it does get quite repitive in a few segments. Such as the polar bear riding levels. And the sound effects are sub par. WAIT! I forgot! Crash makes SOME noises when certain things happen, such as dieing, he makes a "Whoa!" noise. He's been doing this since crash bandicoot 1, so it never gets stale!
Addictiveness-4/10
This game gets boring SO quickly! I just stopped at world 2! I couldn't stand to play anymore....
Depth-4/10
Hey! Guess what? Did you know what? THIS GAME HAS MULTIPLAYER? THAT'S RIGHT YOU CAN PLAY THIS GAME WITH A FRIEND! Everything that you went through by yourself, CAN BE DONE WITH ANOTHER PERSON! TWICE THE TORTURE! And....there is a card trading feature you can do with your friends....I never found use of this.... so yea.
Difficulty-9/10
Yes! I gave this game a 9 on difficulty! Because the game is that hard! You will rage! I would've given this a 10, but no, that's kinda going to far...
Overall-3.5/10
After 2 awesome crash platformers for GBA, I can't see where they went with this one. I mean, this game COULD'VE been good, but that IS if they put ALOT of more work into this! Anyways, that has been my review on this game...BYE.
Graphics 5 Sound 6 Addictive 4 Story 7 Depth 4 Difficulty 9
Review Rating: 1/5
Submitted: 06-19-13
Updated: 06-20-13
Review Replies: 3
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