Read part I https://zen.yandex.ru/media/id/5d81fe968600e100ac9a1102/bagged-in-a-trance-5d8891e05ba2b500b0fd1020
Gameplay
As in the third part, after passing the level here are additional modes in which you can collect the remaining jewelry. In order to get the gray stone, you have to break all the boxes at the level. The task seems simple only at first - very soon you will be convinced that part of the boxes are well hidden from the eyes of the average man in the secluded places, and in order to get the cherished pebbles, you will have to explore every millimeter of virtual space. On some other levels, you can find fragments of colored stones. There are only three colors - green, red and blue. The collection of four fragments of the same color opens up a secret level, and the collection of all twelve - the last location and battle with N. Tropy.
Finally, in Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced you can pass the levels for a while, earning relics. To do this, you need to return to the passed level and touch the icon of the stopwatch. As soon as you do this, the usual wooden boxes will be replaced by numerical ones. By breaking these boxes, you freeze the time for a certain number of seconds. The biggest form is three seconds. At the end of the level, you can get a sapphire, gold or platinum relic, depending on how good the result is. It is clear that the platinum relic is the hardest to get - don't even try to run after it until you defeat N. Transa and get the boots and speedboats.
After each defeated boss, just like in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, you get a super ability. The abilities are completely eliminated in the third part: after the massacre of the first boss you will get an advanced slide; after the victory on the second boss you will get a double jump; after the destruction of the third arsenal of Crash will be replenished with an improved whirlwind, and so on. The lack of any kind of innovation and timid adherence to the covenants of the classics makes the game completely meaningless. It can only be of interest to someone who has never had the first Playstation, but suddenly there was a GameBoy Advance.
Okay, it's not that bad. There's a Crunch that you can control at levels with the ball that repeat Crash Bandicoot: the Wrath of Cortex. There are levels in space where you can control Coco from behind. Finally, there are water-surfing levels where the camera takes a front view. All this dilutes the general running and gives time to take a breath.
You should say a few words about the bosses. The fact is that most of the game we are fighting not with the usual villains, and with his friends, whom the antagonist has set against us. Crunch was the first one to be given out. We fight with him flying on a plane carpet in the eastern world. Crunch himself uses a jetspack. He flies, turning to us and aiming at us with a pistol. Our task is to dodge a hypnotized bandit and let him run into Nitro himself, hanging in the air. The second boss is the evil Coco. In this fight, we fly on some controlled propeller, and Kresh's sister is in an air submarine and drops torpedoes down. At the same time, her transport is surrounded by electricity, which is only occasionally disconnected. It is at these moments that Kresh needs to get close to her and splinter her sister to make her feel better. After each shot Koko changes his tactics slightly, making the fight more difficult. The battle with Fake Kresh is particularly curious. We are placed on a strange level, the right part of which is completely copying the left as if a mirror. Fake Cresh repeats every movement of Cresh, only in the reflected direction. At the level there are retractable stakes that work in the reflected part of the level with some delay. Our task is to make Fake Cresh hit the stakes. It's not that hard to do that. Rather, it's the ingenuity of the fight that makes us happy. A fat plus to the moneybox of Traveller's Tales. I won't tell you about the other bosses - at least something should remain a secret!
The design of the levels, unfortunately, repeats in most cases what has already been seen in the third part. As you go through the funny marsupial time to visit the streets of the east, the Egyptian pyramids and the prehistoric era. All this has already happened in the past games. Why copy the same thing, almost completely excluding their own ideas, it is not clear. Nevertheless, if you close your eyes to a few annoying moments, the game is quite capable of bringing pleasure and even falling into the soul. But this is only if you don't play very often and don't play games at all.
Music and sound
I'm tired of saying that again. Yes, the music is almost entirely taken from Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. Only tracks are shuffled among themselves. In the eastern levels we expect to hear familiar oriental motifs, and in prehistoric prehistoric ones. However, due to technical limitations of the console, the arrangement has become much less qualitative. However, I was probably overwhelmed when I was talking about "the whole". The tracks, though the same, but slightly processed, that is they are some kind of "remixes". Unfortunately, this does not add any artistic value to them. The new music went to the levels with the bosses. That's where the true mediocrity of local composers comes to light. Compared to the rest of the music, it looks like cheap craftsmanship of unskilled fans. Absolutely insane melody that won't get in your head under any circumstances - this is how these tracks are perceived. In order not to thicken the colors at all, I'll notice - most of the compositions still set the pace well and are a pleasant addition to the picture. As for the sound, it is made at a good level and does not create unpleasant impressions. Background noises fit perfectly into the atmosphere and help to feel the surroundings.
Afterword
Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced is a game that parasites on other people's ideas. Only N. Trans and a couple of second-rate melodies are new here. Everything else is somehow taken and reworked from the previous parts of the game. At the output we get a kind of a team of solyanka of everything and everything that just can not carry the number in the name. Most of the locations and music are taken from Naughty Dog games, and what's invented from scratch looks awfully ugly. But even so, if you stop comparing it to its predecessors, it looks good for GameBoy Advance, squeezing out a great picture and having a fun gameplay. The low complexity is likely to attract a younger audience, while the older players will prefer to go through the familiar classic games again.