The game was too short to name – 1990 to 1995 – but I couldn’t keep track of it. The only thing that stood between my team and victory was a chubby crocodile with a vacuum. I danced and jumped around him as he bounced me back and forth like a loose piece of cat fluff with his big belly and Luigi’s Mansion-esque vacuum cleaner. It only took me a few moments to deposit my wumpa fruit and victory would be ours. I had my blinders on and that was a mistake. The opposing team’s Wumpa Fruit counter quickly filled up to 2000 and the game was over. My team was defeated, but I was still hungry for more of Crash Bandicoot’s favorite fruits.
Crash Team Rumble, like Crash Bash and Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled before it, is a frantic multiplayer twist on the notoriously difficult 24-year-old platformer franchise. Two teams of four compete in a race to see which team can collect and deposit 2,000 Wumpa Fruit first. It’s a simple formula enhanced by streamlined controls, making for a delightful, bite-sized, and competitive multiplayer experience.
This simplicity is one of Crash Team Rumble’s most alluring qualities. There’s a barrel of DNA straight out of the Crash Bandicoot main series. Running, jumping, and attacking feels like another run through Cortex Castle. Controlling Crash – or one of nine other starting characters from the series – feels wonderful.
With these elements alone, you can enjoy Crash Team Rumble. All you need to know is to navigate the map, collect wumpa fruits (either directly from the ground or by smashing crates), drop them at your team’s capture point, and dodge any enemies that want to fight. You’ll learn all of this within seconds of jumping into Crash Team Rumble, but there’s much more depth to be unlocked as you explore all these fast-paced berry-picking rounds have to offer.
Much of the added complexity falls by the wayside as you jump, collect gems, and use Dingodile’s vacuum to levitate in the air for a few seconds. The three character classes – Scorer, Blocker and Booster – can sometimes become little more than neat organizational units, since each character can take on any role with creative effort.
Your team’s requirements will naturally change over the course of a game, so you may need to complete all three requirements in a single game. Dingodile is classified as a blocker, although I found myself scavenging for gems and powering up my wumpa-collecting teammates instead of just blocking for several games.
The fun of single player crash bandicoot games is in the execution. You must learn every inch of a map to conquer and unlock all of its mysteries. It’s easy to move on to the next level or a new game once all the crates are smashed and the boss is defeated.
While Crash Team Rumble builds in part on the single player Bandicoot games, the end goal couldn’t be more different. The only bosses you defeat are other players, and that often doesn’t come through perfect execution. It’s chaotic, chaotic, platform-heavy matches that get to the point.
Abilities, gems, and relics add significant layers of complexity to Crash Team Rumble. Claiming multiple gems, typically three diamond-like platforms positioned next to each other, will reward your team with additional Wumpa Fruit for each batch deposited. Auxiliary abilities can be dropped almost anywhere on the map. Also collected relics can be used to unlock special stations throughout the map.
Outlining many of these abilities and relic stations would ruin some of the fun of exploring them. Unlocking a spiked vine ball for the first time and rolling it onto the enemy spot like Miley Cyrus made me disproportionately happy, and you’ll probably feel the same way when you discover some of these crazy tools. Different team compositions, map-oriented squad movement, and well-timed item deployment all add up to considerable strategic depth – so much so that some players may find it intimidating.
There are incentives for these hours, as with most modern multiplayer games. As you play, you’ll unlock the entire cast of characters and abilities, and earn cosmetics as part of the game’s Battle Pass. While it’s worth giving Crash a whole new wardrobe before sending him out to pick more fruit, players who aren’t looking for a Battle Pass-driven multiplayer mode may get frustrated.
Crash Team Rumble could be seen as a natural difficulty level in the Crash Bandicoot series. However, it requires a very different kind of preparation and offers a different reward. Crash Team Rumble’s take on multiplayer platforming madness is unique, with enough depth to keep you hooked even after hours of gameplay. If you are looking for a new interpretation of the long-running series, you should give it a try.
