Crash Bash

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Crash Bash (Crash Bandicoot Carnival in Japan) is the fifth and last Crash Bandicoot game on the Playstation One and the first that was not developed by Naughty Dog, who produced the original trilogy as well as Crash Team Racing. Crash Bash was the only Crash game developed by Eurocom, and since then the franchise has seen many developers and publishers.

Like how Crash Team Racing is the Crash version of Mario Kart, Crash Bash is Crash's answer to the Mario Party series. Unlike Mario Party, Crash Bash has no boards, and the vs style of play consists of playing game after game and then tallying up the points, similar to Mario Kart. There are 28 mini-games, though most of them can be clumped into groups of four. For example, there are four different games that play like four-way pong, each with different tools or obstacles. Every game can be played in either free-for-all or 2-vs-2 matchups.

There's also an adventure mode where one or two players cooperatively take on computer opponents in each of the games, and a few added boss levels. In Crash tradition, playing a level again lets you get more prizes. In this case, gems are awarded for winning a handicap match (the computer starts with more points than you), crystals for a special match where the game is changed in some way, and relics for winning 2 or 3 games in a row against Cheating Bastards.

While it has its share of detractors, some of the minigames are still quite different from anything else available to this day. The pong games in particular were very hectic, with a "kick" mechanism and permanent multi-ball. The 2-player cooperative option was fairly rare in its era, and is a less frustrating way to go through the adventure, as it forces the games into 2v2 competitions instead of the free-for-alls seen in the one-player mode. Unfortunately, it was only released on the Playstation Network in Japan, so only the PS One discs exist for the NA and EU regions.


Tropes used in Crash Bash include:
  • 100% Completion: The relics are insanely hard to get, especially in one-player, but they can boost completion all the way to 200%
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
    • In some of the racing levels, there is a glitch that allows one of your opponents to get a free lap as soon as the race starts. This glitch never benefits you, and it usually occurs during the Nintendo Hard Relic Challenges, making them all the more aggravating.
    • Invoked in the gem challenges wherein you need more points than they do to win, and in most of the crystal challenges, which generally employ a handicap against you.
    • In Tank Wars, the AI can rotate their turret faster than you. This is because of the fact they have the ability to "lock on" to you, whereas you have to rotate left and right until you get your aim down. Averted in Swamp Fox, which has Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon instead, and the computer enemies turn their vehicle around in normal speed. Even then, in that game, they usually use the force field (exclusive to that minigame) with good timing.
  • Crate Expectations: Naturally, for a Crash game. One set of games revolves around throwing and kicking crates at each other.
  • Earn Your Fun: At first, only sixteen games are available to you. In order to unlock the remaining twelve, you have to play Adventure Mode.
  • Everything's Better with Spinning: Crash has his traditional Spin Attack in some games. Coco gains her own version, here.
  • Extended Gameplay: Adventure Mode stops at the last boss as far as the story is concerned. After that, there are extra games to unlock. There are also challenges to complete, but they can be ignored once you've done the previous two.
  • Gang Up on the Human: It zigzags depending on the difficulty level - in last-man-standing games such as Tank Wars, the A Is will usually off each other just as often as they try to off you. In Adventure Mode, however, this trope becomes more noticeable.
  • Kill Streak: Some mini-games involve killing off the other three players in a level, leaving you the last man standing.
  • Mood Whiplash: Despite the game upholding the series' usually wacky tone for the most part, the two alternate endings are pretty damn serious. One has Uka Uka throw an epic tantrum before getting shot into hyperspace, the other has him gain control of all the crystals "and ALL OF THE POWER", leading Crash and Coco into exile). Naturally both fall into Canon Discontinuity.
    • But what happens in co-op when one character is good and other is evil, you ask? Why, the two of you, who have working together exclusively up to this point, are pitted against each other in a winner-take-all showdown to determine the ending.
  • Padded Sumo Gameplay: The "Panic" games involve shoving everyone else off before the time limit. While just one fall results in elimination, there are times where it's hard for one player to get the decisive shove on another, especially when it's down to two players who are moving conservatively, and in the adventure mode, draws are just like losses.
  • Rules Are for Humans: The crystal challenges will put restrictions on the human players. Some gem challenges do this too. This leads to very Nintendo Hard challenges.
  • Tank Goodness: The Tank Wars mini-game, in which you have to off the other players while riding tanks.
  • Wasted Song: Exploited; the hardly-used N.Gin boss music in Warped is used all over the place in this game.

Spoiler Tropes:

  • The Bad Guy Wins: An epic variation for completing Adventure Mode as one of Uka Uka's team.

Uka Uka: There is no where to hide from the wrath of the mighty UKA UKA!!! BWAHH HA HA HA!!!