Crash Boom Bang!

Crash Boom Bang! is a Crash Bandicoot game published by Sierra and developed by Dimps. It was the first Crash Bandicoot game on the Nintendo DS 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.

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 Dragon Ball. 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 Titanic, and most likely James Cameron's iconic film of the same name.
 * The ghostly girl in the Tower board is a reference to the 2002 supernatural psychological horror movie The Ring. She looks exactly like the character Samara Morgan.
 * There is a purchasable item in the game called "Vice-Versa Reversi". This may be an obscure reference to an unused element in Crash Twinsanity, the Vice-Versa Reverser Device.
 * There is a band which shares the name Crash Boom Bang

Crash Boom Bang! Crash Boom Bang! Crash Boom Bang クラッシュ・バンディクーフェスティバル Crash Boom Bang! Crash Boom Bang!