Crash Boom Bang!

Crash Boom Bang! is a Crash Bandicoot game published by and developed by. It was the first Crash Bandicoot game on the and the second Crash Bandicoot party game, succeeding Crash Bash.

It would later get a Japan-only sequel in 2007 for mobile phones, Chokkan♪ Crash Bandicoot.

Story
The game's story centers on a multimillionaire named the Viscount who uses the characters of the series to unearth a powerful object dubbed the "Super Big Power Crystal". The characters must beat their way through mini-games and challenges in order to eventually find the "Super Big Power Crystal" and whoever finds it wins $100,000,000.

The race starts in Port Town, with the winners traveling in a boat to a large desert. Legend has it that four stone tablets are buried somewhere in the desert, and the contestants are sent out to dig for them and bring them to the Viscount. According to the stone tablets, the actual location of the Crystal is hidden somewhere on the ancient map. Before he can investigate the matter further, Doctor Neo Cortex swoops in and snatches the map. As the two struggle for the map, they tear the map to shreds.

Cortex sends his loyal Lab Assistants to find the pieces of the map scattered throughout the big City and bring them to him. Now that the contestants know about the map, the Viscount decides to reveal his true intentions: the Super Big Power Crystal can grant a single wish who whoever obtains it, and the Viscount is willing to give a large sum of money to those who help him find it. Finding the Power Crystal is impossible without the Final Key, so the Viscount boards his plane to travel to the North Atlantic Ocean in search for the Final Key. But the plane is full, and only a select number of the contestants are able to board. Propelled to the skies by an explosive volcano, the contestants are able to board the Viscount's plane.

On the Viscount's ship, the Viscount tells the group the story of an explorer who found the Final Key, but was unable to find the Power Crystal. That explorer was the Viscount's grandfather. As the explorer sailed back to his homeland to recollect his thoughts, his ship crashed into an iceberg and sank, taking the Viscount's grandfather to a watery grave. The Viscount tells them to dive to the sunken ship and retrieve the Final Key, much to their shock, considering the near-freezing temperatures. Despite this, the group is able to find the Final Key before freezing to death. With all the pieces of the puzzle at hand, the Viscount victoriously enters the Tower, where the Super Big Power Crystal awaits its owner. Just as the Viscount is about to make his wish, Crash steps forward and makes his wish of a large pile of Wumpa Fruit, much to the Viscount's grief.

Gameplay
Crash Boom Bang! 's stages resemble board games, as each play area is split into a number of squares. The game takes place among four players, with the computer assigned to spare players. All players simultaneously roll dice. The number each player rolls is the number of squares they move forward. Depending on the type of square that the player lands on, Wumpa Fruit (which is used as points during the race) can be won or lost, an item can be obtained, a special event might be triggered, or a mini-game might commence. If a player lands on a fork in the road, the player will have to select the desired direction with either the stylus or the control pad.

In the Adventure Mode, the characters compete in a race for the Super Big Power Crystal. This race is made up of six stages, each containing smaller sub-maps. The host of the race, the Viscount, sets a task for each stage. This task must be completed before the player can continue to another map. The player with the most points is the winner of the stage. The overall winner of all the stages is the winner of the Viscount's race. In the Festival Mode, the gameplay is fundamentally the same as in the Adventure Mode, with the exception of the ability to select stages to play freely. In the My Room mode, the player's character has his or her own private room in which the player can play minigames that have been collected in Adventure Mode, view a collection of items obtained in Adventure Mode, or create a Motion Panel, a unique in-game communication tool can allow customized messages to be sent mid-game to help friends or distract other players' gameplay. The decorations in My Room are different for each character.

Crash Boom Bang! features forty mini-games that can be played alone or remotely against friends. Balance, timing, and intelligence are required to win these mini-games. Players not taking part in a mini-game can bet Wumpa Fruit on the winner. Betting players can assist or obstruct players in the mini-game by using the Motion Panel. If a player has a special item, the player can access the Shop screen from the Bet screen and buy or sell items.

Playable

 * Crash Bandicoot
 * Coco Bandicoot
 * Pura
 * Pinstripe Potoroo
 * Tawna Bandicoot (unlockable)
 * Crunch Bandicoot (unlockable)
 * Doctor Neo Cortex (unlockable)
 * Fake Crash (unlockable)

Non-playable

 * Viscount
 * Aku Aku

Cameos

 * Uka Uka
 * Dr. N. Gin
 * Dr. Nefarious Tropy
 * Tiny Tiger
 * Polar
 * Lab Assistants
 * Crash Boom Bang! Girls

Reception
Reviews for Crash Boom Bang! have been mostly negative. Craig Harris of IGN gave the game a 2.0 out of 10, criticizing the confusing design of the boards, a lack of a tutorial, and the minigames. However, Harris did praise the game for having a decent amount of multiplayer content.

Frank Provo of GameSpot gave the game a 4.3 out of 10, praising the game for including fan favorites and some minigames, but criticized the game for being "cosmetic", several minigames being "dull and uninspired", and having a bare-bones presentation.

Anthony Dickens of Nintendo Life gave the game a 3.6 out of 10, positively remarking about the music and menus, but heavily criticized the repetition of the minigames, and echoed similar statements about the boards.

Eurogamer's Lesley Smith gave the game a 3 out of 10, heavily criticizing the minigames, controls, and graphics.

Review aggregator Metacritic gave the game a 37 out of 100, indicating "Generally unfavorable reviews".

Sales
Crash Boom Bang! rarely has any sales. It is the worst selling Crash game ever with only 90,000 copies sold.

Gallery
See: Crash Boom Bang!/Gallery

Trivia

 * As developed by Dimps, Crash Boom Bang! was the first Crash Bandicoot game that was made entirely in Japan.
 * Sometimes Pinstripe will look like he's going to launch a Kamehameha, an attack used by several characters from the manga and anime . It's worth pointing out that Dimps already had several Dragon Ball games under their name at the time.
 * Like Crash Tag Team Racing, Crash Boom Bang! uses a different Crash model in its Japanese version.
 * The American and European box art shows Crash, Coco and Cortex in their Twinsanity designs and Crunch in his Tag Team Racing design, but in the actual game the characters have their Japanese designs.
 * The game marks the first time Tawna is playable.
 * The Viscount is called Viscount Devil in Japan, and he was still referred to by that name in Western press releases. The "Devil" part of his name refers to his species the Tasmanian Devil, but it ended up being omitted from the game outside Japan to avoid religious associations.
 * The Viscount's grandfather's story about his ship colliding with an iceberg and sinking, along with Coco's line "Sounds like a movie", is a reference to the infamous passenger liner, and most likely James Cameron's.
 * The ghostly girl in the Tower board is a reference to the 2002 supernatural psychological horror movie . She looks exactly like the character Samara Morgan.
 * There is a band which shares the name Crash Boom Bang.

Commercial


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