When the first "Crash Bandicoot" game was launched for the original Sony PlayStation console back in 1996, it seemed to me and many other people at the time that it was mostly an attempt to c(r)ash-in on the popularity of Mario and Sonic in order to create an iconic character for the PlayStation. (Sorry about the pun.) If that was the intention it certainly worked very well, with the game proving to be extremely popular and with "Crash" becoming the PlayStation's unofficial mascot for a while.
I have to say that I actually liked it a lot, it had some original gameplay elements as well as the standard platforming ones, and was great fun to play. I thought the sequel that was released in 1997, "Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back", was even better. The third and final game in the original PlayStation series, 1998's "Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped", was a near-perfect game and is rated as one of the best platform games of all time by many fans and critics, which certainly ended any remaining thoughts about Crash being a derivative and unoriginal character. Crash is now a multi-platform franchise in much the same way that Sonic is, with a variety of games being available for all the modern consoles.
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