#granted she did get a drastic design change later... I wanted to draw The Classic version before I redrew the other version !!

[jazzy-art-time]

It's somewhat healing to draw the fursona that you used as a child !!

[banduckoot]

Why I Like Radical’s Crash Bandicoot Games: A History

I know the general consensus for Radical Entertainment's Crash games isn't terribly positive. However, I own CTTR, Titans, and MoM, played them to completion, and I can safely say I quite enjoyed them all. In fact, I think the flack Radical gets is rather unnecessary.

A bit of backstory: I was a 90's kid who was terrified of video games until I turned 12, not to mention I was a Nintendo nut during my early years, so I didn't exactly grow up with Crash. My half-sisters had a Playstation, and the first Crash game, but no memory card, so what little original Crash I did play, I could never get very far. The game was hard even back then.

Fast forward to my early 20′s, when my friend @cammiluna became obsessed with both Twinsanity and CTTR. She loved Cortex and Nina in particular, and would draw a bunch of humorous fan arts and comics of the Crash characters based on the humor of Twinsanity and CTTR. Sadly, all that art she made can no longer be found because all the Crash purists - the ones who despised Radical’s work - wouldn’t stop making negative comments on deviantART and the like about how much “new Crash” sucked, and she got sick of their shit, so she took it all down.

Meanwhile, all of Cammi’s art led me to picking up CTTR, and Titans, and MoM. CTTR wasn’t the best racing game I’d played; I was heavily spoiled by Mario Kart. While the clashing mechanic was awesome, it was clear to me that the game was somewhat rushed and unfinished. The music was also a bit sub-par. However, I did enjoy the characters and the story; they made me laugh and smile. My only complaint about those two things were (A) Crunch being a Mr. T knockoff and not much else, and (B) Willy Wumpacheeks being such a weak twist villain.

Crash of the Titans threw me off at first because of the drastic character design changes, and it was shocking that they’d turn the game into a beat-em-up. However, I was like, “I’ll give it a chance, it could be fun”, and I do not regret my decision at all. It was a lot easier for me to get into than Classic Crash, and beating the snot out of enemies was satisfying. Not to mention, getting to control large super-mutants made me feel powerful. I played the Wii version of the game, so using the Wii-mote was a lot of fun! I loved the designs of the Titans, and was having fun coming up with headcanons about these new mojo mutations. Not to mention, I found the character portrayals in the game hilarious, Cortex and N. Gin especially.

Mind Over Mutant held the same positives for me as Titans, but I suppose as much as I enjoyed the cutscenes, the constant shifting art styles between them did throw me off. There seemed to be no real reason for them doing it; they just did that because they could. But the story and characters entertained me all the same. And beating shit up was as fun as ever. Not to mention, getting to see N. Brio’s return, and voiced by Maurice LaMarche of all people, made me so giddy! (I’m a huge Pinky and The Brain fan, plus Mr. LaMarche’s work in general makes me happy.)

I think what I enjoyed most about all of Radical’s games were the credits. All those names, with messages for their friends and family members spoken by the game’s characters. It made the games feel like it was made by real people with feelings and hearts, and not just spat out by some random company. Which, as you can imagine, made things more heartwrenching when I found out Radical’s employees got fired.

Cammi would later tell me (multiple times) that she spoke with the director of the Crash Radical games, and found out that had the series been allowed to continue under them, they would have brought Tawna back, as well as other old characters. They had a story plan set up, and now we’ll never get to see it. Granted, we did end up getting N. Sane Trilogy and CTR: Nitro Fueled years later, but personally, I still really want to know what happened to Cortex after he retreated into space in his underwear with that random sandwich-eating Znu.