Despite the relatively cool reception of Crash of the titans, Radical Entertainment immediately after its release began the next part of the adventures of the tireless marsupial. It was decided to continue the development of the idea of the last game. The release of the project took place a year later, in the second half of 2008, and also received mixed reviews from critics. The game was praised for excellent, humorous video inserts, but at the same time cursed ill-conceived gameplay and uniformity. For the most part, the bumps that Crash of the titans had made moved here as well. Do you need to play Crash: Mind over Mutant? Now we'll find out!
Plot
The introductory video starts pretty creepy. We are stuffed with all the possible cliches from the horror movies - shaking camera in the manner of "Witches of Blair", running in the foreground shadows, a sharp edit. Finally, Crush runs into the frame and hits one of the monsters between his legs. He's in pain, and the bandit can't stop laughing (I thought that kind of humor had already degenerated ten years ago). Well, then there's a slice of gameplay footage to a fervent main musical theme. So far, it's not impressive.
The next video follows the style of the opening scene from Crash of the titans. On some canvas in the form of shadows the images of the island and some factory pop up. Then we see a flying saucer with Dr. Neo Cortex and his niece Nina. Angry at her niece, Cortex kicks her in the back of a big shoe and puts her in an evil school. Then the doctor meets his old acquaintance Nitrus Brio and together they plan another insidious plan to capture the world. Brio shows the scientist a cunning, secret conveyor belt that produces helmets that can control the mind of the local beast. All the creatures on the island, including Coco and Crunch, fall under the radar. The only people who are not affected by brain-control devices are the Aku-Aku and Kresh wooden mask (for obvious reasons). Now all hope for them.
The tie is a little pulled by the ears, but for the sake of justice, Crash: Mind over Mutant and does not try to be serious. Moreover, with each new scene the events begin to develop more and more madly, until, at last, they reach their apogee. We should definitely stop at the stylistic performance of the clips. The fact is that each new plot is given to the player in a unique style, parodying this or that part of the pop culture. For example, one video here is made in the style of a wrist puppet theater. The other is reminiscent of old TV programs with the addition of unnecessary junk, like "Shop on the couch". The third clearly refers us to "Animatrice", and the fourth parodies black and white horror films in the best traditions of Friedrich Murnau and Robert Wine. Finally, there are styles that refer to iconic anime and even "South Park"! In short, the visual design of the script is titanic. The old films show the ripples and beeps of the film, and the anime deliberately reduces the frame rate. Besides, the animation can make you laugh wildly, even if you don't quite understand what you're talking about. This is aerobatics!
Gameplay
The differences from the basic gameplay in Crash of the titans here are minimal. Crash is still waving his orange cams, making complex combinations of blows to stun a big guy and sit on his neck. In this case, the enemy has unpainted stars above his head. When they finally paint up, the bastard falls into a stupor, and the bandit can use this moment to put the Aku-Aku mask on the mutant's face and take control of it. During prostration, the mutant performs all your movements and its power can be directed against its own kin. There are many types of mutants in the game, both externally and functionally. Usually, a mutant is a large crossed monster of two or three animals. The bigger it is, the harder it is to ride it. Some bastards have immunity in the tattooed handles of Kresh, so to fight them, you have to find someone smaller and saddle them first. You have to understand that as soon as you move on to another mutant, the past dies instantly. It is clear that each type of mutants has different indicators of strength and speed. For example, one mutant is extremely enduring, but harmless at long distances. The other, on the contrary, can shoot at long range and has an enviable maneuverability, but is completely harmless in close combat.
Besides mutants, the island is populated by small minions. They cannot be saddled, because they are killed in one fell swoop and are unlikely to be useful in battle with, say, Scorporilla. But if there are several dozen of them, they are a real threat. In such situations, it is better to climb on some big guy and make a total fuss. Mutants have a special scale, which is filled in the faster the more enemies you kill. When this scale is filled in, a special technique of inhuman destructive power is activated. By the way, in Crash: Mind over Mutant from now on you can put a monster in your pocket like a Pokémon! Thus, you can get any of the collected mutants at the right moment and use its unique abilities. Cool, but absurd!
The main delicacy of the bandit is still vampire fruits, and they are still rare. With their help our hero can increase his stripe of life. Yes, for those who missed the last release: Kresh now doesn't die from a single collision with the enemy (it would look stupid in the genre of "beat them all"), but has the usual for most modern games strip with health. If this strip is empty, you lose a life. Lost your life three times - you have to go through the level again. In addition to fruits, the game in every possible way motivates to collect scattered in a huge number of balloons, mojo. It is thanks to this substance Cortex mutilated most of the animals on the island. If you collect a certain amount of mojo, Kresh gets an extra life. And also, unlike Crash of the titans, with these blue balls you can pump the skills of the main character. There is, however, one nuance here. If you collect mojo, being on top of a mutant, actually points are credited to it, not to you. Thus, you can pump up your live "transport", increasing your skills of fighting or running. This brings an amazing variety of situations into the game.
As in Crash of the titans, there is a cooperative mode here. While the junior versions of the game still give the second player a mysterious Crash clone, the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii versions allow us to control the protagonist's sister. Which, by the way, has once again changed its design. Coco changed his hair and put on the pilot's glasses. Why did you do that? Whatever. But I wouldn't advise you two to play together if you wanted to get a real challenge from the game, because it's much easier to get mutants and mojo in a cooperative.
However, the gameplay isn't as great as it sounds when you read these lines. Below we will talk about the drawbacks. The most important of them is the need to constantly return to the places where you have already been. There are a number of games, where you can explore the familiar terrain over and over again, as it was the first time, because each time you discover something new. Tomba is one of those games! 2 and partly Song of the Deep. But not Crash: Mind over Mutant. Here it becomes a real torture. Imagine the situation: you've been sneaking through the jungle for five minutes to climb up to an icy island, and there you meet a character with an exclamation point above his head. You approach it and start a dialogue (or rather a monologue, because Kresh can't speak), from which it becomes clear that you need to go back to the very beginning and get such a thing. And similar missions meet at every step! Thus on your way regularly meet pesky minions which do walk even more unbearable. Such a detail at once crosses out all the advantages of the gameplay described above.
Finally, I'll mention that the new part of the bandicoota hasn't been divided into minigames. The passage to them is carried out through the collection of a special golden stopwatch at the level. However, the mini-games themselves are still boring and consist in collecting a certain number of mojo for a while, or in destroying the crowds of opponents.
Music and sound
Music is not very different from its predecessor. It is clear that Mark Baryl is responsible for the soundtrack again. I can't say that he's a bad composer, but he's not able to compose bright and memorable themes at all. The music is well arranged and has a clear style, but it runs past the ears at the speed of sound. Nevertheless, it perfectly harmonizes with the picture and allows you to feel the virtual world of the bandicoota better. The only thing that really bothers me is the presence of hip-hop bit in several tracks. It is obviously out of place there and makes the music from fairy-tale and weird more like a cheap minus to the album of the country repertoire. But the sound here is in full order. Actors get into their roles perfectly, that's why it's more pleasant to watch the videos in their native language, even though you don't understand half of the speech. All characters have their own distinct manner of speech, which gives their characters individuality. As in the previous release, in Crash: Mind over Mutant you can eavesdrop on minion conversations that discuss something stupid about modern life. Several thousand such dialogues have been recorded (this is not a joke!). Basically, to prevent the player from hearing the same dialogue twice and questioning the belief in the world of the bandicoota. Moreover, even the same lines were said several times by the actors in order to achieve a realistic effect. The background noises look convincing and do not confuse at all. Just a balm for the ears. I take off my hat!
Afterword
Crash: Mind over Mutant is a game, which is an interesting way to develop the ideas of the previous creation of Radical Entertainment. There is a huge open world, wonderful dialogues, energetic music, curious design of mutants and absolutely charming animation. Unfortunately, the whole idyll is spoiled by the ill-conceived gameplay, which makes Crash go through a new adventure, holding his teeth together. Battles with mutants are still monotonous (although there are a couple of really interesting species here), and Kresh is still far from the bandit we remember from the Naughty Dog games. But the most important thing is the endless return to the same places. I can name about a dozen games where this feature was a great idea to take at least the recent Rise of the Tomb Raider. But here it's just annoying. Well, people don't like to play games that annoy them. Of course, you can try to put up with it and close your eyes to such misses, but you'll have to go through a long course of therapy. If it weren't for the wonderful work of the animators and actors, this game wouldn't be worth your attention.