PixlBit

So after the small success of The Huge Adventure, it was only natural that Crash would get a sequel on the GBA with Crash N-Tranced. I played this one before Wrath of Cortex, so this was the first Crash game that started to make me a lot more lukewarm to the series. This comes from two main problems: Repeating Huge Adventure's biggest issue and a lack of effort.

Like Huge Adventure, it is mostly a rehash of past Crash areas. The one exception is the new volcanic areas. These are kind of like the island areas from Crash 1, but there's a lot more lava everywhere, so they at least do something to differentiate themselves. Aside from these though (and I shit you not) every platforming level is either Arabian Nights or Ancient Egypt. Talk about a lack of variety.

Well, there are different kinds of levels. The game unfortunately includes the ball rolling from Wrath of Cortex. These levels aren't that bad, in fact in moderation they are a little fun. But like Wrath of Cortex, they put in a few more than they should so they get really tedious.

The other new levels include flying in space, wakeboarding, and one level (and a boss fight) where you ride on a magic carpet in a 2D shooter. And that's it. The variety from Warped has been completely forgotten, the variety's even worse than 1. At least 1 paced its new level areas so they felt new when they got to them it felt really new and fun. It had more types of levels too, just less distinction between most of them. I'd still take 1's variety over it anyways.

The story is also really half assed. It's about Uka Uka seeking N-Tropy which is an awesome idea, who has the idea to make Crash and company evil, which is another great idea. Aku Aku keeps Crash from being mind controlled, however, and they receive a fake Crash instead. Then until you fight the bosses, you see nothing from these guys. You don't get to see them be evil, the premise just goes to waste. 

A lot of the game feels half assed in that regard. They're not really trying to introduce anything new or flesh out what they have, they're just going through the motions. And it really shows, resulting in the first Crash game since 1 where I never got all the gems/relics. And 1 I only didn't do that because getting all of them is ridiculously tough, some day I'll get them all.

The only thing that I really enjoyed about this was that the upgrades were pretty creative, at least the first two. There's a super slide and a super jump that allow Crash to slide much further and jump much higher respectively, which leads to some interesting new platforming opportunities. Unfortunately it then rehashes past Crash power ups after this, so there's not as much creativity as I'd like from new power ups.

At the time, N-Tranced was easily the weakest of the Crash games. It's not terrible, but it's just mediocre in every way, and I expected more from Crash.