Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage and Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy
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Crash and Spyro deserved a better crossover than this.
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Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage and Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy[1] are crossover platform games released in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance. They both serve as a tie-in sequel to both Crash 2: N-Trance/Crash Nitro Kart GBA and Spyro 2: Season of Flame, and are respectively the third/final games in the Crash/Spyro GBA Trilogy. They were developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Vivendi Universal Games.[2]
Plot
Dr. Neo Cortex and Ripto team up together to rid themselves of Crash and Spyro by tricking them into fighting each other. In Purple, you play as Crash, and in Orange, you play as Spyro.
Why They Crashed and Burned
Both games
- Elephant-In-The-Room: As opposed to being true platformers, the games are mainly just mini-game collection games with actual platforming being bound to overworld sections.
- The mini-games are very generic.
- The graphical quality ranges from decent to downright terrible.
- Some minigames are reskins of others. The only big difference in some games is that you're moving in a different direction.
- Because the minigames are the main focus, there's almost no difficulty within the overworld segments. You even have infinite lives!
- Very confusing plot as the games never explain how Dr. Neo Cortex and Ripto met each other to begin with.
- Cortex's modifications to the Riptocs in Purple only involves him putting Spyro masks on them, which is a REALLY weak plan.
- In order to open the portal to Tech Park (the final area in both games) you have to play through the minigames again. In Orange, you have to complete every minigame three times, while Purple requires you to get the crystals and gems
- Your reward for getting into Tech Park and beating the final boss? In Orange, it's a cutscene that solely consists of Spyro declaring victory and thanking Crash and Aku Aku saying that he'll see him again before the credits start. A similar cutscene plays in Purple.
- There are collectible cards in the games. This is not bad, but like Pokemon, you need to trade between Purple and Orange to get certain cards, and while this is also not bad, there's only 1 card in each version that can only be obtained by literally just linking the game to another copy of itself, which means you need at least 3 (4 if you want both games) copies to get 100%.
- Lackluster final boss. It is just Crash/Spyro flying in a spaceship shooting at Cortex and Ripto's machine. There could be a better version where Crash rides on Spyro and fires his Wumpa Bazooka or Spyro spits fireballs.
Spyro Orange
- Compared to Crash Purple, the cutscenes in this game are shorter and have less dialogue.
- The soundtrack is weaker than Purple.
- Unlike the original Spyro The Dragon PS Trilogy, Spyro does not have the ability to glide or charge. He can only flap his wings.
- Whenever you win a mini game, you are grated with an image of Spyro making a laughable expression with the words "You did it!" at the bottom.
- The basic structure and aesthetics bare little resemblance to the series it is from (Spyro: Season of Ice & Spyro 2: Season of Flame); at least in Crash Purple, the gameplay and method of progression bares some resemblance to the Crash Bandicoot games that came out before it on GBA. If the Spyro games worked well on the handheld console before with an isometric gameplay, why they couldn't do the same here?
- In the jeep minigames, the vehicle moves frustratingly slowly.
- In Crush and Gulp's boss battle, Gulp hardly tries to correctly attack Spyro.
- The game is incredibly short, beatable in around half an hour! In a cheap and lazy bid to pad the game out, each minigame needs to be beaten 3 times in order to unlock the ending, which makes everything so much worse.
Redeeming Qualities
- A crossover with Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon is still pretty neat, too bad it was done poorly.
- The soundtrack in Purple is at least tolerable at best.
- The bosses are decently fun.
Reception
Both Crash Purple and Spyro Orange received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and fans alike, and are both considered the low point of both franchises, next to Crash Boom Bang! and Enter The Dragonfly.
WatchMojo ranked Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage the 2nd WORST in Top 10 BEST & WORST Crash Bandicoot games.[3]
Videos
Trivia
- Contrary to popular belief, this is the first appearance of Nina Cortex despite what many thought that she appeared in Crash Twinsanity, this is because both games were being developed at the same time, and ended up being released on the same year.
- This would be Vicarious Visions' last game in the Crash Bandicoot series until 2017 when they remake the N.Sane Trilogy.
References
- ↑ In Europe known as Crash Bandicoot Fusion and Spyro Fusion.
- ↑ In Europe released under the Coktel brand.
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQveOgMgtTA&t=322s
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