Crash Team Rumble Review

The online multiplayer scene in videogames has gone through many iterations, from the early days of Halo: Combat Evolved on the original Xbox to the chatroom explosion of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to the present day with the recent release of Splatoon 3 on Nintendo Switch. But perhaps the game that brings people together the most out of all of them is the Super Smash Bros. series, specifically Melee, which was released in 2001 all the way back on the Nintendo GameCube. Then there is the cult favourite Power Stone, which turned the Smash Bros philosophy on its head and brought competitive fighting into a 3D space. So when Crash Team Rumble was first announced to be a 4v4 team multiplayer title that takes place on small, confined maps requiring players to battle it out and eventually get enough Wumpa fruit to be crowned the winner, the comparisons seemed almost inevitable. But does it fall into the same trap that many other titles end up in? And does it bring enough new ideas to the table to warrant this bold new direction for the Crash Bandicoot series? Well, let’s find out.

Developed by Toys for Bob, which is the team behind the most recent platforming title in the series called Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, Crash Team Rumble does something a little different and brings the franchise into the world of online multiplayer and levelling up systems for an audience that has been far from starved for stuff like that. Unlike some multiplayer games, your goal isn’t to knock out your opponents one after another and eventually become victorious. Instead, the objective is to collect 2000 Wumpa fruits that can be around the map while also attempting to communicate with your three other teammates and gaining enough powerups to gain an advantage. It’s a simple premise, and the developers changed enough of the formula, that this one doesn’t feel like it's treading old ground, which is a good thing. However, some surprising oversights managed to leak through the cracks.

For example, getting in touch with your teammates in the heat of battle is very difficult because all you have is a lame ping button. So when you’re getting mauled by an onslaught of enemy players, you have to fend for yourself because your only option is extremely unreliable. Let’s contrast this with Splatoon, which has the “Booyah!” and “This Way!” buttons on the D-pad. This simple solution perfectly compensates for the lack of voice chat on the Nintendo Switch. It’s not always practical, but it’s still a lot better than Rumble’s solution, which is a last-ditch effort that eventually leads to an avoidable death. Another problem is the lack of a leaderboard or fair matchmaking system.

At the beginning of the game, you’re restricted to three characters: Crash Bandicoot, Tawna, and Dingodile. This is a fine way to start, as it incentivises players to keep playing for hours on end, constantly unlocking stuff and eventually becoming god-like. The problem is that the first few hours are incredibly hard, so they could easily turn players off from Crash Team Rumble if they weren’t expecting such a rude awakening. Plus, when you are getting better, have some decent cosmetics and settle on your preferred character — you still run into unfair fights that are decided by a powerful booster in the first few minutes. Hopefully, these issues can be fixed with a future update, but it would’ve been nice if they were solved beforehand because they put a sour taste on the first few hours of my playthrough.

But Crash Team Rumble is still a ton of fun, even with all those negatives. It controls really well, and the stages look great on a base PlayStation 4. They’re all so vibrant and colourful, and Toys for Bob brought those pretty visuals over from the last title, which is very much appreciated. These visuals also add to the gameplay because they’re very pretty and provide visual clarity for the player.

Every match is a blast whether you win or lose, and it’s so chaotic, wacky, and infinitely replayable. An option to play couch co-op competitively in the online mode still would’ve been nice, though. But this review would be incomplete if it didn’t mention all the returning music tracks from past Crash Bandicoot titles you can unlock throughout your time with the game, some of which can be set as your victory theme. You’re unlocking new stuff so fast that almost every battle feels rewarding, whether you win or lose. It seems like the XP system has been cracked to the max, which is great because, in a game like this, you never want to stop unlocking stuff, so that was a great choice by the developers. The time between matches is also super short, and despite some brief loading times that pop up occasionally, there is almost zero downtime.

If the multiplayer hiccups were fixed before release, then Crash Team Rumble would’ve been even better than it is right now. Unfortunately, your first few hours with this title could be very rough, depending on your skill and luck with the baffling matchmaking system. However, the core gameplay is a ton of fun and so replayable that I could definitely see myself playing it for hours on end. This is a game that both Crash Bandicoot fans and cooperative multiplayer enjoyers will get a kick out of.