Level Up: Crash/Spyro Superpack

Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon seem to have a lot in common. Not only have they always had the same publishers, but both are mascot type characters originally exclusive to Play Station with platforming games where a floating partner is their health and living in worlds of talking animals. It seemed natural that they would have a cross over, and in 2004, developers Vicarious Visions and publishers Vivendi Games made this a reality. They made two games: Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto’s Rampage, and Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy (Anyone else hear Pokemon ripped off with the color title by the way). In 2005, both were made available in one cartridge, the Crash/Spyro Superpack for the Game Boy Advance. Let’s take a look at it.

The game starts out with the villains, Neo Cortex and Ripto, discussing how they plan on getting rid of their respective rivals by creating genetically enhanced Riptocs, and disguise them as Crash and Spyro, so if they meet, they’ll fight each other. This back fires when not only do Crash and Spyro heroically team up, but they start bickering among themselves. With Crash and Spyro working together, they travel through a few worlds until eventually, they realize the best way to beat Cortex and Ripto is go to each other’s world in a very surreal moment. Ok, so the story is typical, but the moment where that happens makes it pretty much worth it. Also, between the two games, there are naturally SOME difference in the story telling, but none that makes any difference. Yeah, you’ll hear that a couple more times this review.

The game play on both sides is pretty much the same, so, having these two platforming game stars on the GBA would make you think that this is a grand Platforming adventure to test your skills. Disappointingly, it is not. Platforming represents about 25% of the game play. The other 75% is in mini games. Throughout a level, there are 5 mini games that you must beat in order to move to the next level, and though it does take SOME platforming skill to get to all 5 and the exit, a minimum is required. The mini games range from the fun break-out copy, to the annoyingly long side-scrolling shooter inspired ones. It’s suffice to say that the game play misses it’s mark, but has some fun instances.

If I had to recommend either version on top of the other, I would have to say go with Crash’s game instead of Spyro’s, mostly due to the mini-games. Crash’s games are original and have a better variety, while most of Spyro’s are the side-scrollers. Also, you’ll have to play Spyro’s mini-games 3 times to unlock the last level, which I am telling you now, so you don’t have to walk back to the start (since there’s no map system) and do it all over again, like I did the first time. Crash avoids this by having the player find or unlock gems, which means he also has more games available. Even graphic wise, I’d go with Crash over Spyro, since Crash still looks like himself, but Spyro looks like one of the Donkey Children from Disney’s Pinocchio painted purple. Granted, you can’t say that one should be much preferred over the other since they’re pretty much the same, but if you really need to just get one, and I mean REALLY need only one, go with Crash Purple.

What is with these what should be epic crossovers becoming nothing more than a collection of mini-games? Not only is there this, but when Mario and Sonic finally meet up it’s for the Olympic Games. Sorry for going off track, but it’s a concern, especially since this would have made such a great adventure game. None the less, it can be really fun; so much so that I have beaten both games twice. Plus, the pure fact that they did this crossover to begin with is reason enough to play this game. As I’ve said at the start, this was originally released as two games and later combined into one, but I honestly would not suggest you get these games separately and just get the Crash Spyro Superpack like I did. This is also why I’m only giving them one rating, and also because they’re so similar, the difference would be half a level. I give the Crash Spyro Superpack for the Game Boy Advance 7 Levels out of 10.