A very minor Crash
As Crash karts on modern systems, let's look at Crash carts on GBA
Some say they're the "wilderness years" of Crash Bandicoot. Freed from original creators Naughty Dog and eventually his PlayStation shackles, the erstwhile Bandicoot was able to spread his wild platforming oats across all manner of systems. And he did so, to mixed results. Crash Bash, while fondly remembered, wasn't exactly brilliant stuff. And his inaugural PS2 title Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex seemed to have a design document consisting of a single page reading "what if Crash 3 but bad". In Comic Sans.
Thankfully it wasn't entirely a Kid A-tier depression for our shirtless marsupi-pal, as Crash saw fit to grace Nintendo's Game Boy Advance handheld with a couple of genuinely decent platformers in Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure (Crash Bandicoot XS in Europe) and its sequel Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced. Both games of course pale in comparison to the Nintendo DS Trauma Center rip-off Crash Bandicoot: N-docrinologist (THAT DOESN'T EXIST - Ed).
Ahem. Yes. Sorry. Well. The Huge Adventure is a rather faithful recreation of gameplay and locations originally seen in Crash Bandicoot 2 and 3. but this being GBA, it's almost entirely side-scrolling, eschewing the linear 3D stuff of the PlayStation originals. This is no bad thing, as that essential Crash style isn't compromised in the slightest by the change. Everything's made it over - bonus areas, time trial relics, box gems, skull paths, gem paths... it's very much full-featured. There are stages presenting something other than the platforming stuff, but as with the other titles in the series these are routinely the weakest stages, the lowlight being the appalling jetpack stages which, while impressive to look at, offer a totally unsatisfying experience.
N-Tranced is more of the same, really - if you enjoy Huge Adventure, you'll have a decent time with this. It's a lot more garish to look at with extremely bright colours (presumably to counter the darkness of the original GBA screen), but overall it's more or less the same game again. A worthy addition to a series that sadly went on to be plagued with nonsense like Crash Bandicoot Fusion and Crash Boom Bang, two of the worst games I've ever played.
Hopefully the success of the N-Sane Trilogy will see a brand new Crash game hit modern consoles, though I'd be satisfied with another collection, providing it's got Crash Twinsanity on it. Maybe they'll even finish making the game this time around!
