Crash Team Rumble (2023)

[Sonicka]

@LegoFedoraThat’s a good point about CTR:NF’s shop. 

Once the servers do go down (or they drop support) - will the shop and it’s cosmetics just be uploaded to the base game (like Square are apparently planning with Avengers?)

The Wumpa Coin currency is still earned offline anyway (just at different rates to online play for obvious reasons), so i would hope they drop it all onto an offline shop so you can just purchase whatever and readjust the offline earning balances or cosmetic prices.

[Jango]

A look at one of the game's arenas topped with a cool Turtle Woods remix.

[Sonicka]

Well, I enjoyed the Turtle Woods remix at least. XD

I appreciate that this is just a simple fly through of one arena with one character instead of multiple friends and foes battling - which might have been a better thing to demonstrate the level in all honesty (I still don't really understand what this game is), but something did feel very off here - even with the way Crash's scripted ass flew through the air.

So, was Wumpa League at one point ever considered to be a mobile only game or was it always supposed to be an addendum to Crash 4? Either way - here it is I suppose. I'll await with bated breath. 

[DaBigJ]

This looks like a Crash 4 mod, and I don't mean that in a good way tbh

[Jango]

2 hours ago, Sonicka said:

So, was Wumpa League at one point ever considered to be a mobile only game or was it always supposed to be an addendum to Crash 4? Either way - here it is I suppose. I'll await with bated breath. 

It was supposed to be Crash 4's multiplayer mode, according to some insiders... It pretty much feels like it.

[Sonicka]

6 hours ago, Jango said:

It was supposed to be Crash 4's multiplayer mode, according to some insiders... It pretty much feels like it.

Ok cool, I thought as much.

I suppose now it is whether Crash 4’s multiplayer mode has a much legs to be its own thing - and based on the above and the previous trailer, I’d say no. It should have been a sweet extra to the base Crash 4 experience.

Beyond the obvious exploitations of an MTX system, I am struggling right now to see how this could have been massively fleshed out from what it originally was. 

I guess Kirby games do also revel in their own small multiplayer game releases (based on ideas or mini games from their mainline series) from time to time as well, so I am interested to see how well this measures up in comparison.

[Jango]

4 hours ago, Sonicka said:

Ok cool, I thought as much.

I suppose now it is whether Crash 4’s multiplayer mode has a much legs to be its own thing - and based on the above and the previous trailer, I’d say no. It should have been a sweet extra to the base Crash 4 experience.

Beyond the obvious exploitations of an MTX system, I am struggling right now to see how this could have been massively fleshed out from what it originally was. 

I guess Kirby games do also revel in their own small multiplayer game releases (based on ideas or mini games from their mainline series) from time to time as well, so I am interested to see how well this measures up in comparison.

They're probably gonna use this to farm more cash with MTX, as everyone's already guessed. If Rumble really was meant to be a, supposedly *free* Crash 4 post-launch update that never happened because the whole Activision-Blizzard usual shit, I see them looking at Toys For Bob's unfinished work and thinking "yeah, we're gonna release this anyways, but we'll fill it with in-game purchases to cover the expenses". TfB got to finish the game and Activision-Blizzard to milk more Crash since well, On the Run just died (and apparently Crash 4 didn't sell as good as N.Sane or CTR).

I don't doubt the game could still be lots of fun, it's a TfB game and they have a good track record on making games that are simply fun, but part of said fun will be spoiled.

[Sonicka]

The potential for fun is there - especially with TFB helming it. That being said, Activision Blizzard are publishing, so fun comes at a price. We could also be looking at a skeleton crew, or the leftovers from TFB working on this if the restructuring of personal is to be believed. 

I'll always hope these projects turn out fine - but I'm so skeptical nowadays. 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Ugh, this situation reeks of Resident Evil REsistance vibes, except this time, the multiplayer game doesn't even have a single player game to latch itself onto.

13 hours ago, Sonicka said:

The potential for fun is there - especially with TFB helming it. That being said, Activision Blizzard are publishing, so fun comes at a price. We could also be looking at a skeleton crew, or the leftovers from TFB working on this if the restructuring of personal is to be believed. 

I'll always hope these projects turn out fine - but I'm so skeptical nowadays. 

It's often best to approach titles from Activision-Blizzard with a sense of caution, sadly.

[DaBigJ]

Some gameplay leaked apparently

Spoiler

 

This looks....

And that's all she wrote. It absolutely looks. It's a game, it exists, and it's Crash Bandicoot I guess

[Sonicka]

CGE has a slightly longer gameplay reveal on his channel also:

I mean, Sure. It looks exactly what it was (probably) originally designed to be, a multiplayer add-on mode for Crash 4. 

From this alone I can’t see any value in any full or partial retail release.

This demonstration so far just highlighted that I have very little interest for what looks to be something I’d play for 30 minutes then put it down. 

The unknown factor is MTX - but regardless of this being in there or not, they may as well throw this into the FTP domain. I’d rather that than actually buy this as a multiplayer game that likely won’t be supported long term.

Edit: More info revealed:

 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Maybe there's some better gameplay vids that show off more of what this game has to offer. Maybe there' hopefully a story campaign or something. But as it is, this game looks lame.

There have been games that looked far better that died out, drowning in the genre that this game appears to inhabit, and aside from it being Crash, it doesn't really seem to have anything of defining value. Not helped by the utter lack of info we've gotten on this game.

[Sonicka]

 

Yup, they are selling this for a budgeted (if you can call it that) $29.99… or $39.99 for the deluxe package with extra cosmetics.

It appears as though this game is also going to include all manners of season and battle pass scenarios just as feared.

I’ve no idea if the seasonal content or battles passes are available work like CTR:NF or are paid extras for access, but IMO these should not exist in games you are purchasing, especially at this price as it devalues the overall experience and is content that can be missed out on. Live service be damned.

6 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

Maybe there's some better gameplay vids that show off more of what this game has to offer. Maybe there' hopefully a story campaign or something. But as it is, this game looks lame.

There have been games that looked far better that died out, drowning in the genre that this game appears to inhabit, and aside from it being Crash, it doesn't really seem to have anything of defining value. Not helped by the utter lack of info we've gotten on this game.

Agreed, and at the very least CTR:NF had a load of offline single player and multiplayer content for the base experience, I’m not sure really what more can be provided here unless they have more to show? I don’t see the value of it’s worth presently. 

[StaticMania]

Neat.

[DaBigJ]

This bullshit should be a $5 addon to Crash 4 at most, not a $20+ game

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

I would not put it past Activision to kill the franchise if/when this game fails. Because they can never seem to stomach the fact that they themselves are the problem.

[LegoFedora]

17 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

I would not put it past Activision to kill the franchise if/when this game fails. Because they can never seem to stomach the fact that they themselves are the problem.

Oh that's absolutely going to happen. I hope you all enjoyed NSane, Nitro Fueled, and (what's possible to enjoy with it anyways,) Crash 4.

See you all in another decade when they give Crash another shot with another set of 1-3 remakes.

[Jango]

Now that we have the confirmation about season passes and such, it's definitely a bad choice not releasing it as a F2P game. Despite all the bad reward mechanics that were in Nitro-Fueled, you had the choice to not spend one cent beyond the retail price and still unlock everything, but a season pass definitely implies you'll 100% miss stuff if you don't buy, which is how these types of games are anyways, but most of them are F2P, so people usually don't care.

But this right here? Yeah, nah. I'll admit the game actually looks engaging enough for a few minutes of fun, but other than that... It's the same reason I don't like DLCs in fighting games. At the end of everything you've basically bought the game 3 times over. 

So yeah, this is coming. Moving on.

[Sega DogTagz]

Games like this need heavy player base involvement.

 

This looks D.O.A.

 

 

yikes.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

I think a really big tell is the utter lack of energy in the marketing. What have we gotten? Pictures of characters that we knew were already going to be in the game. The footage we've seen? Completely lackluster, without any oomph put into it. It's like they know they've got a stinker on their hands and are just sending it out to die.

Also,

Locking a retro Tawna look behind pre-orders. Miss me with that bullshit.

[Sonicka]

I assume they (Activision) just didn't want to waste any more money from whatever effort/energy was poured into this already - someone on the dev team must have sold a really good pitch to them to even get this released in this manner. The lack of marketing is likely down to lack of care from the publisher or willingness to expend any more cashflow.

It's sink or swim time for Crash now, and it really sucks that Toys 4 Bob are outputting this one like this - I feel the internal restructure has a lot to blame for what is going on.

CTRumble should simply have been FTP from the get go, or released with PS Plus monthly subscription (like a lot of other new online service games do to drum up some interest / player investment). Or, better yet it would have been great to see work on a Crash 5 / CTR 2. I love crash, but I genuinely can't see anyone being interested enough in this for it to survive for very long. 

Of course, it could just be that this is a side project from the team and they are busy with this rumoured new Spyro title, but it still sucks.

[Jango]

A few hands-on impressions:

https://gamerant.com/crash-team-rumble-new-players-gameplay-generations/

[Sonicka]

It would be remiss of me to slate credibility of Digital Trends after their Sonic Frontiers review (different authors after all), but IGN and a couple of others have had similar positive previews of CTRumble. 

Apparently this is one of those “you have to play it to get it” sort of experiences. 

In any case of this being good, the downsides here for me is the multiplayer 4v4 team aspect - it’s going to be hard enough finding 4 people with this game to play that I know to battle another random lot online, but I’m never that comfortable teaming up with random players either. I’m the type of person that would preferably play games like FFXIV with an NPC party than with friends. 

It might actually be that there is an option to play with or against bots as well, but then that sounds like it will take away the apparent “fun” of the online room. 

Presently, it just seems more like a weird game genre mix that probably just isn’t for me. Which is a shame as I love Crash. 

[DaBigJ]

I don't care if the game is 'good' or not, I'm not paying $20+ for a game that should be free on digital stores

[Jango]

On 12/9/2022 at 12:34 AM, DaBigJ said:

I'm just gonna put my cards on the table right now

*It'll be F2P

If I'm wrong I'll eat a shoe