History YMMV / CrashBandicoot2CortexStrikesBack

** Whose side is Tiny on? Ripper Roo and the Komodo Bros are easily N. Brio's henchmen, and the N. Gin boss battle is where Cortex's charade definitely starts to fade. But while Tiny could be N. Brio's helper trying to stop Crash, the first in-game hint as to Cortex's true nature is that the boss battle takes place the first time you see a space level; the rest of them take place almost exclusively on Cortex's spaceship in the fifth warp room. And in all games afterwards, Tiny is suddenly Cortex's most [[UndyingLoyalty Undyingly Loyal]] henchman.

* BestLevelEver:

%%** A glitch involving the bonus areas in Hang Eight and Plant Food make getting their second gems, which involve [[SpeedRun speed-running]] through said levels, ''much'' more manageable.

%%** "And now, I have to do it... [=AgAAAAaaiN=]!"
%%** Crash telling Cortex to "Take a twelve step program off a ten step pier". [[labelnote:note]]In other words, he's telling him to jump off a cliff.[[/labelnote]]

** [[SlippySlideyIceWorld "Cold Hard Crash"]], a nightmare if you're trying to get the [[OneHundredPercentCompletion "destroy all crates" gem]]. There's ''155 crates'' in this level, more than any other level in the game by far. You have to play through the first half of the level without dying to reach the DeathCourse, a difficult, checkpoint-free path covered in crusher traps and nitro crates, almost entirely on slippery ice. When you reach the end of the death course, you need to activate a switch and backtrack ''all the way to the beginning of the area'' to get the new crate spawned there by the switch, at which point you take the platform back to the main level and complete it, because the Death Route's exit takes you to a later segment of the main level (and it's very easy to slide off and exit by accident). The last segment of Nitro crates in particular requires such precision jumping to get through normally that most guides recommend [[CuttingTheKnot abusing Aku Aku's invincibility instead]]. [[GuideDangIt Oh, and there's a single, hard-to-find crate hidden just offscreen in the bonus stage]]. Missed it? DO THE WHOLE THING OVER AGAIN. Thankfully, this issue is rectified in the ''[[VideoGame/CrashBandicootNSaneTrilogy N. Sane Trilogy]]'', so the crate is more visible on-screen.

** "Piston It Away" in the final warp room is just as bad, if not worse. There's a DeathCourse about 1/3 of the way into the level, and just like in "Cold Hard Crash", it has crates in it. But unlike the one above, this Death Course leads to an ''alternate exit'', so doing the whole thing means missing all the boxes on the normal path. So how do you get the Gem? Simple. Go through the entire level the normal way, then ''backtrack all the way back to the Death Course''. Bear in mind, the entrance to the Death Course disappears if you die once in the main level, so you have to do all this on a NoDeathRun too. Also, [[GuideDangIt several jumps are tricky to make backwards without leaving certain enemies alive or using glitched jumps.]] This level is so crazy that {{Speedrun}} videos often have to point out: [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer "No, this is not a Speedrunning trick, this is how they ACTUALLY INTENDED you to 100% this level."]]

** "Bee-Having". Grenade spitting plants, swarms of bees that chase you, two-faced moving statues, [[DropTheHammer hammer-wielding]] Lab Assistants, and a TON of Nitro boxes make this an extremely tricky level to finish. [[spoiler:And there's the secret area hiding the Purple Gem, which is accessible only by [[ViolationOfCommonSense jumping on top of a stack of fake Nitro]]]].

* MagnificentBastard: [[TheIgor Dr. Nitrus "N." Brio]] is at his finest in this game. Starting off as the assistant to Dr. Cortex, Brio creates the Evolve-O-Ray to mutate animals into minions to TakeOverTheWorld. After Brio and Cortex are thwarted by Crash, he becomes a barista only to discover that Cortex has resurfaced and, realizing his chance at getting revenge on his [[BadBoss abusive boss]], creates an army of his own to stop a gullible Crash from gathering the power crystals for Cortex. Secretly hacking into his holograms, Brio also encourages Crash to gather gems instead, predicting that he would gather both so that he can power his own laser, which ultimately ends up destroying Cortex's space station.

%%** A glitch involving the bonus areas in Hang Eight and Plant Food make getting their second gems, which involve [[SpeedRun speed-running]] through said levels, ''much'' more manageable.

** "Diggin' It" suffers from same problems and more when you're trying to [[OneHundredPercentCompletion get all boxes]]. It also has Death Route with boxes on it halfway through the level, but unlike Cold Hard Crash, it is not a sidescrolling level, so during {{Backtracking}} you have to run [[CameraScrew towards the camera]]. To top it off, you have to backtrack through segments with bees made by indestructible [[MookMaker hives]] and while the bees themselves can be eliminated, because of the direction they come from the only cue when to spin them off is the buzzing sound.

* HeartwarmingInHindsight: Crash trusting Dr. Cortex comes off as extremely foolish, but with the flashback levels in VideoGame/CrashBandicoot4ItsAboutTime revealing that the two did care for each other before the events of the first game, Crash's trust comes off as giving a father figure a second chance.

** To some players, the [[ScrappyMechanic jetpack]] levels in the final warp room also count.

** "Plant Food" can be this if you're trying to get the Yellow Gem. Much like "Hang Eight," there's a time limit. However, if you're in a hurry, the Jet Board can be tricky to control, particularly with all the mines and Nitro crates floating around. Most notably, the final Jet Board section has you wedged between two man-eating plants in a narrow passage. If you make it to that point without a mask, you can forget about the Yellow Gem as you have no choice but to take the hit - there is almost no time to kill the plants beforehand. Finally, even if you do make it to the exit of the level, if the timer ends, the Gem vanishes right under your nose if you don't reach it on time. Have fun racing to the end all over again!

** "Plant Food" can be this if you're trying to get the Yellow Gem. Much like "Hang Eight," there's a time limit. However, if you're in a hurry, the Jet Board can be tricky to control, particularly with all the mines and Nitro crates floating around. Most notably, the final Jet Board section has you wedged between two man-eating plants in a narrow passage. If you make it to that point without a mask, you can forget about the Yellow Gem as you have no choice but to take the hit - there is almost no time to kill the plants beforehand. Finally, even if you do make it to the exit of the level, if the timer ends, the Gem vanishes right under your nose if you don't reach it on time.

* HeartwarmingInHindsight:
** Crash trusting Dr. Cortex comes off as extremely foolish, but with the flashback levels in VideoGame/CrashBandicoot4ItsAboutTime revealing that the two did care for each other before the events of the first game, Crash's trust comes off as giving a father figure a second chance.

** Sewer or Later. This served to be the start of Creator/NaughtyDog's obsession with [[DownTheDrain sewer levels]], and what a way to start it off. [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic Fantastic music]], a great contrast between the filtration and boiler sections, and a rather lenient usage of [[AtTheCrossroads branching paths]].

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Whose side is Tiny on? Ripper Roo and the Komodo Bros are easily N. Brio's henchmen, and the N. Gin boss battle is where Cortex's charade definitely starts to fade. But while Tiny could be N. Brio's helper trying to stop Crash, the first in-game hint as to Cortex's true nature is that the boss battle takes place the first time you see a space level; the rest of them take place almost exclusively on Cortex's spaceship in the fifth warp room. And in all games afterwards, Tiny is suddenly Cortex's most [[UndyingLoyalty Undyingly Loyal]] henchman.

* WhatAnIdiot: Crash is sensible enough to hesitate in forking over the 20 crystals he has currently collected to N. Gin, as he is suspicious of Cortex's true intentions. However, shockingly, he is foolish enough that even after N. Gin tries to kill him for this (which should have confirmed Crash's suspicions completely), he still agrees to find the remaining five crystals afterward.

** Death-Warping. Once you collect a crystal or gem, it will remain in Crash's inventory as long as he remains in the level, even after he dies. Since extra lives are handed out like confetti, simply killing yourself the moment you get a gem from an alternate path seems far more appealing than backtracking manually. This also allows you to get the purple gem in Bee-Having without getting through the rest of the secret path and get 2 gems at the same run from Turtle Woods, Hang Eight, Plant Food, and Spaced Out when you normally need separate runs for each of them. You can also reduce the number of runs needed for Air Crash from 4 to just 2 by dying after getting the Death Route gem.