Yeh I share the same experience with CreatiVision BASIC around 2001. Very limited from every point of view. But at least you could redefine chars and play music quite easily, which not all BASIC interpreters had.
It really is a VTech catalogue. From memory, the whole scan is available on the CreatiVEmu website in the 'scans from the 80s' section. I also have the original here and I am selling it together with other paperware.
I believe the CreatiVision was not successful for a number of reasons. Firstly it never found a distributor in USA and UK. Secondly all games on cartridge were developed in-house and without official licenses (e.g. Donkey Kong, Pacman). The BASIC interpreter was quite crap but as you mentioned, the ...