Video Game / Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back

This time, he ain't joking!

"Well, well, well. If it isn't Crash Bandicoot! Welcome! I apologize for the crude means used to bring you here, but I'd rather expect a written invitation would've been turned down. I need your help. Surrounding you are a series of five doors. Through each door lies a well-hidden Crystal. […] Bring me the Crystals, Crash. That is all I will say for now. We will speak again!"

— Dr. Neo Cortex

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is the second installment in the Crash Bandicoot series, and the second PS1 Crash game overall.

One year after the original game, Dr. Neo Cortex, the Big Bad of the previous game, turns to Crash for help in an effort to prevent the planet Earth from facing certain doom. All the planets in the solar system will align soon, and, according to Cortex, create enough energy to tear the world apart. His solution to the crisis lies in crystals: In the aftermath of the original game, he discovered the Master Crystal, but that alone will not be enough. He needs Crash to collect 25 Slave Crystals scattered through the islands and aboard his space headquarters so he can contain the energy of the planetary alignment and save Earth.

However, Dr. Cortex's former henchman, Doctor Nitrus Brio, has also returned, with a grudge against his former boss. N. Brio would rather have Crash collect 42 Gems instead of the Crystals, in the hopes of destroying Cortex and his space station, the fate of the Earth be damned. To stop Crash, N. Brio has sent out an army of cyborgs, robots, and evolved animal henchmen across the islands.

Using an ancient "Warp Room" as his base, Crash must now go across the islands he explored in the original game (which are now experiencing a harsh winter period◊) and up aboard the Cortex Vortex, collecting Crystals and Gems, discovering secret Bonus Rooms and other hidden routes, and defeating Nitrus Brio's henchmen.

Crash Bandicoot 2 improves several elements from its predecessor and adds a more player-friendly save feature, a more balanced difficulty, improved graphics, and additional moves. It also marks the introduction of Crash's sister, Coco, who permanently replaces Tawna from the first game.

This game, along with the first game and Warped, were remade on the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PC with updated graphics and new features, as part of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy.

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Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back contains examples of:

• 100% Completion: What counts for the completion are the crystals, gems, the final boss, and finding secret levels (and, in the Japanese version, getting the 10 lives from Polar). Completing them all unlocks the true ending, which leads on to the next game.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Eel Deal, Sewer or Later and Hangin' Out levels are tunnels large enough to contain Crash, electric eels, robotic cleaners, mechanical mice, rolling barrels, tons and tons of TNT, Nitro crates, and Lab Assistants working with welding torches. Hangin' Out prominently features red-hot pipes and lava as hazards set below overhangs. They can have rather difficult alternate routes, but the level design is fair otherwise.
• Advanced Movement Technique:
  • From this game onwards, the series introduces the Slide Attack move for Crash. It can give Crash a short burst of speed, but his movement will get halted for a short moment (because it's the same button as his "prone crawling" move) before he can move again. The "advanced" technique here is to cancel his slide into his Spin Attack which eliminates the halt.
  • This game also lets you jump higher if you do it immediately after a slide. There was also a glitch where pressing the jump and Spin Attack button together results in a higher jump. The "advanced" technique here is to combine the two aforementioned techniques, which helps in speedruns, allowing you to pass obstacles quicker or get airborne items easier.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: The snow boulders in Crash Dash and Crash Crush, and Polar's parents in Un-Bearable.
• Advertised Extra: The jetpack was featured in plenty of commercials and even shows up in the game's title sequence, but it's only used in two very late levels and the final boss fight.
• Airborne Mook:
  • Cybernetic vultures appear in Turtle Woods and The Pits, and attack by swooping down at Crash.
  • The floating surveillance robots in Totally Fly are horrible invincible minor minions which have to be avoided. Combine this with the Blackout Basement conditions and the fact that Crash has only a few seconds to get past them before he's in complete darkness, and they come pretty close to being Demonic Spiders.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Japanese version of the game introduces the "Crash Bandy Kuu!" theme song, which would carry over to other Japanese Crash Bandicoot games until Crash Twinsanity.
• Amusing Injuries: After taking out one of the arms on N. Gin's mech, he shakes the other fist at you in anger. After destroying the other arm, he attempts to do so again, but only succeeds in waving the shoulder piece at you.
• Antagonist Title: The game's subtitle is Cortex Strikes Back, referencing Cortex's intention to get revenge against Crash for his defeat in the first game.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Die 6 times and the game provides you with an Aku Aku mask for protection. Die 5 more times and checkpoints become more frequent.
  • You automatically get a mask upgrade when you begin the second boss fight against the Komodo Brothers.
  • Side-paths now commonly have a second gem in them and no crates. In the first game, there was only one gem per level for destroying all crates, and all paths would have crates on them.
  • Check points now remember the crates you've broken, unlike the first game. Also the game tells you how many crates are there in each level; pressing triangle now shows you how many boxes you've broken, but you could only see the totals in the end of the levels.
  • If you die in a Death Route, the platform will stay, allowing you to repeat the route if you want. Similarly, activating a Death Route by standing on the pad will cause it to permanently activate. This makes the backtracking in Diggin' It much easier to handle.
  • Breaking crates while being chased by boulders/giant bears too hard for you? No worries, just let the boulder/giant bear crush the crates for you; the game will count them.
  • Lives are almost ridiculously easy to come by, an added boost even with the improved controls and mechanics from the first game.
• Artistic License – Space: Cortex tells Crash that the planets will align, "all 13 of them". At the time of release, there were nine classified planets (although this is probably just a joke). Plus, it turns out Cortex is full of hot air, so he might have lied about that too.
• Astral Finale: The final battle against Cortex consists of Crash chasing him across an asteroid belt in outer space. He must hit him three times (and for each hit, in turn, he must reach him during the pursuit) before the Big Bad reaches the goal, or else will fail.
• Background Boss: The battle with N. Gin works this way. The boss will always attack Crash from the background, meaning the bandicoot will need to throw Wumpa fruit at him in order to inflict damage.
• Backtracking: Crash always has to backtrack whenever he comes across a fork in the path, such as the fork in The Pits, Sewer or Later and Diggin' It.
  • The Eel Deal has an interesting case: while most paths have an entrance and an exit, the path leading to the Green Gem here does not. Crash must go down the fork, get the Green Gem at the very end, then go all the way back to the main path to complete the level.^note With the "death warping" trick, you can simply choose to die after getting the gem which brings you back to the checkpoint, i.e before the fork.
  • Piston It Away is the most notorious instance of this. In order to get the box gem, you need to make it to the end of the level to get all the boxes on the main path and the bonus stage, and then make it back to the death route platform around half way through all without losing a life, or else the platform will be deactivated.^note Alternatively, you can enter the death route as soon as you encounter it and then die to go back to the previous checkpoint, keeping the route open.
  • If you want the box gem for Cold Hard Crash, you have to get to the Death Route, make your way through it, hit a trigger crate at the very end, then get all the way back to the beginning to break the crate it makes appear. Given that the Death Route is almost entirely covered in ice and filled with crushers and nitro crates, this is significantly easier said than done.
• Batman Gambit: Cortex tricks Crash into believing that he's a good guy and that he was forced to assist Nitrus Brio in "his" plot for world domination. He tricks Crash into gathering the crystals, all needed to power a ray that will turn the Earth's populace into his slaves, by convincing him that the crystals will be used to contain the energy of an upcoming solar flux.
• Bears Are Bad News: Gigantic polar bears ambush Crash in the Un-Bearable level, chasing after him and smashing up everything else in their way. Get caught by one and it's a One-Hit Kill. Inverted with Polar, the baby bear you get to ride in that level and in three others. There's also a secret path barricaded off until a polar bear smashes into it.
• Behind the Black: Sometimes at the end of a level segment Crash will drop down to a new area. The position of the camera sometimes hides Wumpa fruit, crates, or entire hidden areas that you can only see by walking towards the screen.
• Belly Flop Crushing: Starting from this game, Crash has a Ground Pound performed in the style of an aerial flop. And it works, despite his rather slender build in comparison to most fictional characters who attempt this.
• Big Bad: It's not Brio, whatever Cortex says. You're much better off trusting the game's subtitle than Cortex here.
• Blackout Basement: Night Fight and Totally Fly, where your only sources of light are the fireflies temporarily whirling around. Downplayed with Totally Bear as there's at least a few lighting following you around, but still, the fact that you can only see to a certain distance in front of you while running at high speed still poses quite a problem.
• Bonus Dungeon: Totally Fly and Totally Bear are very tough secret levels.
• Bonus Stage: On occasion, Crash can find "?" platforms which take him to bonus stages. These are quite forgiving; there are no enemies, no lives are taken if you die, and whether you fall or are blown up, the player is plonked right next to the platform to start again. A few "Skull Route" platforms exist, which are considerably harder; not only do you have to get past the level up to that point without dying^note alternatively, you can die, but without taking any checkpoint beforehand, but the stages themselves are tougher, can feature enemies, and generally play out like extreme versions of the regular levels. Hidden Gem stages also exist, which appear only when Crash has found the relevant colored gem. They vary in their difficulty, but otherwise are much like Skull Routes.
• Book Ends: Every level (except the intro and the boss fights) begins and ends with the Warp Room. The various Warp Rooms are also themed based on some of the level locations: Warp Room 1 is N. Sanity Island; Warp Room 2 is completely covered in snow; Warp Room 3 is around the ruins of Cortex Power; Warp Room 4 is the ruins (though it looks like a mine); Warp Room 5 is (mostly) set aboard the Cortex Vortex space station, and Warp Room 6 is set on the top of Cortex's Castle.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: Two examples:
  • Tiny is invincible. The only way to harm him is to hop around on the platforms, avoiding him, until they blink red. Once they do, the player must hop Crash onto a non-blinking platform and hope that Tiny lands on a blinking platform and falls, hurting him.
  • Ripper Roo is also immune to Crash's normal attacks while he’s jumping around, just like in Crash 1. And just like in Crash 1, It's Ripper Roo's own attacks, (i.e. TNT and nitro squares) that do him in. But in Crash 2 it's even worse. In Crash 1, Crash had to at least coordinate and time the TNT crates so that they would deal damage to Ripper Roo. In this game, Ripper Roo’s attacks are what make him vulnerable, all Crash has to is avoid him, wait for him to blow himself up, and then attack while he’s now vulnerable and dazed!
• Bottomless Pits: In all the levels, even the jetpack ones, there will be some pits down which Crash should not fall.
• Brains and Brawn: Komodo Joe and Komodo Moe, apparently.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Cortex's true goal is to brainwash everyone on the planet in one shot, thus bringing them under his control.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Crash is implied to be this at the beginning and the end of the game. He's capable of tremendous feats of acrobatics, has insane amounts of stamina, can beat an explosives-crazed kangaroo, a pair of samurai Komodo dragons, an insanely strong thylacine, a Humongous Mecha piloted by a cyborg genius, and anything the woods, rivers, glaciers, mountains, ruins and space station can throw at him, and yet he'd much rather lie down on the beach and take a kip.
• Brutal Bonus Level: Everything after the Purple Gem in Bee-Having (which you get not long after you enter its secret route). It is the hardest area in the entire game, it gives you nothing, and the end platform, unlike Air Crash, Piston it Away and the like, takes you back to the last checkpoint rather than the warp room. Basically, the only reason to try to complete it is bragging rights.
• Bullet Seed: More like Bomb Seed, but still, a type of enemy plant in Diggin' It and Bee-Having can shoot exploding seeds at you.
• But Thou Must!: An inversion: Cortex tells you to give the crystals you've gathered to N. Gin, but there is no option of actually doing so. N. Gin just demands you give him the crystals and then attacks you when you don't. Another inversion is where, after you get any gem, N. Brio will show up in the projector, telling you not to get the crystals; the problem is that you can't go on without collecting crystals and beating the boss.
• Cat-and-Mouse Boss: Tiny Tiger begins the battle by chasing after Crash, trying to crush him with his leaping.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • Tiny (labelled Taz Tiger in the American version) here serves N. Brio in his plans to stop Cortex. Most games afterwards present Tiny as a consistent minion to Cortex, if not an outright devotedly loyal one.
  • Cortex and N. Gin, despite seemingly being good guys this time, are actually far more sinister and reserved in presence, their bumbling qualities far more subtle compared to later games.
• Checkpoint: If Crash opens a crate marked with a "C", it becomes the new checkpoint in case he dies. This system was an improvement over the original, since now it remembers all the crates opened before that point.
• Chekhov's Gun: Those seemingly useless gems do have a purpose later in the game.
• Child Prodigy: Assuming she is either a child or a teenager at this point in the series, then Coco Bandicoot is an exemplary computer genius. She can hack into Cortex's secret computers, so either this says a lot about Coco's computing skills or Cortex has a really lousy system protection program.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Tawna is absent in this game. Tawna's disappearance is a pretty big Plot Hole, since her fate was never mentioned in the epilogue of the last game. In reality, the designers lost interest in her^note Specifically, a marketing exec didn't like her design and forced them to change it. They hated the new design so much they just replaced Tawna outright. and came up with a flimsy excuse for her absence (she dumped Crash for Pinstripe Potoroo). In her place, Coco Bandicoot was created, who has gone on to become the deuteragonist of the series.
• Classy Cane: Ripper Roo has one of these despite still wearing his straitjacket from the first game.
• Collection Sidequest: At first, the gems appear to be this, since you don't need them to reach the final boss, but to complete the game, and to complete the story's canonical ending, all 42 gems need to be collected.
• Collision Damage: Walk into any enemies and Crash is heading up to that great Australian outback in the sky.
• Combat Pragmatist: Crash. Most notable are using Komodo Joe to hit Moe for the second boss and lobbing Wumpa Fruit at N. Gin's mech.
• Completion Meter: The game is better at this than its predecessor, showing how many crystals or gems you need to get in each level, the amount of crates you've broken, and how many they are in each level (the latter only at the end of levels), and you can also see your completion percentage by pausing the game or going to the load/save screen.
• Continuing is Painful: As the access to Death Route platforms (note: not the ones that need trick jumping or colored gem) are only available by not dying until you reach it, you're better off just quitting the level if you die while you're on the way to the platform.
• Continuity Nod: The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue from the first game revealed that, after "intensive therapy", Ripper Roo got his doctorate and became an author. This is referenced heavily in his boss fight in this game.
• Convection, Schmonvection:
  • Crash can wander around the snowy levels without anything as insulating as a thick fur coat, and the worst that he'll do is shiver if you leave him alone for a bit.
  • The theme of the fourth warp room is a mine, and Crash is separated by what looks like lava from no more than a metal grate. It's one of the few times lava appears in the series where it absolutely cannot kill you... merely because you can't touch it.
  • In sewer levels he sometimes has to walk on grates mere centimetres off a red-hot floor, but he only burns up if he lands where the floor is exposed. He's also not much affected by crossing on overhead gratings over longer stretches of red-hot piping, or in the case of one secret path, a Lava Pit.
• Convenient Cranny: Like in the first game, the Indy Escape levels have you running away from a boulder (or a giant polar bear) until you find a small shelter that lets you in but will block the boulder or polar bear.
• Cool Gate: The gates that take you into the levels are themed based on some of the levels you're jumping into, such as being covered in snow for Slippy-Slidey Ice World or covered in metal plates and cables for sewer levels.
• Covers Always Lie: Not only there is no blue warp room with Greek ornaments in the final version, but yet it also seems that it's actually mishmashed with the teleport rooms you always start and end the levels with. For example, the hologram heads never appear on the spot where you're supposed to teleport. Plus, while the ingame warps look no different to each other, having the same "twisty and twirly" look, one warp on the cover has the same door the teleport rooms usually have, along with the jetpack.
• Crate Expectations: New crates are added to this game, including one which cannot be opened except by a body slam. The Nitro crate, a crate so volatile that even touching it causes an explosion, also saw its debut in this game. Also included is the Nitro Switch crate, a green ! crate that detonates all of the Nitro crates in the level.
• Crosshair Aware: N. Gin's boss battle uses an interesting variation of this, where the places the missiles are going the hit is indicated by their shadow. In Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, they are replaced by crosshairs proper.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: The giant mice in the Road to Ruin and Ruination levels make horrible screeching sounds when you get close.
• Cutting Off the Branches: This game ignores the 100% ending of the original game, namely in regards to Cortex's fate (where he's said to have never been heard from again after Crash foiled his plans), and the appearance of Cortex's Castle in Road to Ruin and Ruination (even though it was said to have been sold by Papu Papu to a resort developer). That said, the possibility of Cortex still being around was suggested. Also, despite these inconsistencies, the game goes out of its way to acknowledge Ripper Roo's ending in his boss fight.
• Cyborg:
  • N. Gin is one of the minor examples, since his cyborg customizations are restricted to the right side of his face, courtesy of an industrial accident which is explained in the manual.
  • Most of the animal enemies are cyborgs, which is usually limited to a metal plate covering their red right eye.
  • The Lab Assistants are implied to be these, as they (at different points) are able to emit electricity from their hands and when defeated they somehow lets out electric arcs and sparks.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: "Ruination" actually uses this against you, twice. In "Road to Ruin", first there's a stack of 4 boxes with one extra crate behind it, then there's a series of scattered wireframe boxes with an ! box nearby, which causes the wireframe boxes to turn into normal crates. "Ruination" features this exact same setup both times, only this time, the stack of 4 boxes have a single Nitro behind them, and the switch spawns Nitro crates instead. You will blow yourself up if you don't see the traps coming, although you don't need to activate the wireframe Nitro trap to complete the level's box gem.
• Deadly Rotary Fan: These appears in the sewer levels. In order to pass through them, Crash has to run/slide in between the fan blades. Or spin the respawning sweeper enemies at them to reduce the number of blades.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: By the time you're midway through the game, it is easy to earn more lives than you lose, which can also overlap with Meaningless Lives; decent players can have the full 99 lives by the time they finish the third warp room 100% without jumping on Polar. Even if Crash loses all his lives, the continue screen allows you to return to that level's Warp Room with new lives, ready for another attempt. Of course, the game also becomes harder the further you go, especially for the secret routes and Skull Routes, where you'll need those lots of lives.
• Defector from Decadence: Brio isn't all that heroic, but he hates Cortex and is willing to ally himself with Crash to take him down.
• Degraded Boss: Ripper Roo goes from being the second boss (and a good candidate for That One Boss status) in the original game to being the first boss in this one. Now he can also be hurt by Crash's spin and jump attacks, which were useless against him in the previous one, and his area is easier to move around.
• Developer's Foresight: In the beginning of the game, if you enter a level but fail to retrieve its crystal (either by exiting back to the Warp Room through the Pause menu or by just flat-out ignoring it), Cortex will chew you out when you return. Three different times, as a matter of fact, before he gives up and decides you're on your own.
• Didn't Need Those Anyway!: N. Gin starts with two lasers in his mech's arms; you destroy those, and he reveals that his shoulders contain rockets; in turn, destroying those make him use a cannon he had built into the mech's chest; destroying that then blows his device up and defeats him.
• Difficulty by Region: The European version is very slightly easier: the Belly Flop has a wider radius, the shield enemies are slower, and it's easier to jump over a wall of boxes without breaking any (in a level that requires you to avoid breaking any boxes to get a gem).
• Dilating Door: Sewer levels have round, camera-shutter doors in the pipe passageways. Plus, every level starts and ends with doors in two vertically-sliding halves.
• Disconnected Side Area: Most levels are perfectly linear, but there are all sorts of level segments that are impossible to get to from their respective levels. You have to find secret elevators from other levels and eventually the secret Warp Room in order to get to them, rendering 100% Completion for those levels (breaking all the boxes) impossible until very late in the game.
• Down the Drain: The game has the sewer levels which feature electric eels, sentient electromagnets and scientists with flamethrowers.
• The Dragon: Dr. N. Gin replaces Brio as Cortex's supporter for the penultimate boss, where he tries to take Crash's crystals by force.
• Dual Boss: The Komodo Brothers are fought together, with Joe spinning around the room and Moe in the center throwing scimitars at Crash. They share the same HP meter.
• Dumb Muscle: Tiny is powerful enough to rip through metal, and dumb enough to fall for Crash's trick three times.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Remember that penguin enemy from the ice levels? Well, right after another cameo in 3, he would get in to become a standalone character, Penta the Penguin.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: While elements such as a few key main characters and gameplay mythos are now becoming present, some oddities are still present. Aku Aku is still a silent power up rather than Crash's mentor and Tiny, usually Cortex's most loyal minion, here serves N Brio to stop Cortex. Cortex himself is also at arguably his most villainous here, as he displays little to no comedic aspects that some of the more recent games portray. Also while the Crystals have now appeared as key Macguffins, the Time Relics (and the time trial tasks that earn them) have not.
• Enemy Mine: Cortex asks Crash for help in order to gather enough crystals to avert an Earth-Shattering Kaboom. Later, N. Brio tries to recruit Crash to his side. Both of them claim to be working for the common good, but this trope fits N. Brio best because he hates Cortex and would rather side with his own arch-nemesis (Crash) than work for his former employer.
• Energy Weapon: N. Gin's initial line of offense in the penultimate boss fight is to fire laser beams from his Humongous Mecha's arms. Near the end of the fight, the stomach opens up to release a larger green laser blast that can melt metal in seconds. In the Rock It and Pack Attack levels, laser beams will occasionally fire across the pathway, connecting two pairs of receptors in a predictable pattern. In the final cutscene, Brio has an enormous laser which, with the help of Crash, he uses to blast Cortex's space station.
• Eternal Engine: The Piston It Away, Rock It, Pack Attack and Spaced Out levels, which take place aboard the Cortex Vortex. In the second and third mentioned levels, you're navigating through gravity-free areas with a space suit. In the first and fourth, you're venturing across an entirely mechanic setting populated by robots, pistons, shrink rays, and lab assistants, among other hazards.
• Exploding Barrels: TNT and Nitro crates, and actual barrels in the sewer levels.
• Extended Gameplay: You can claim to have "beaten" the game after collecting the crystals and defeating the final boss, but after that the player can go back and find the gems as well.
• Fake Trap:
  • In Bee-Having, there's a staircase-like structure made of metal boxes and the normally lethal Nitro boxes. However, this time they don't blow up and the Nitro boxes don't wobble and jump like the normal ones. Climb them and you'll teleport to the secret area containing the Purple Gem. Incidentally, this was made all the more obvious in the beta version as there were Wumpa fruit conveniently placed on top of the Nitros.
  • In the Un-Bearable level, after the bear crashes through the bridge. That "bottomless pit" isn't as bottomless as you may think.
• Falsely Reformed Villain: Cortex wants Crash to believe that he has seen the error of his ways.
• Fast Tunnelling: The levels Diggin' It and Bee-Having have special red grounds in parts of those levels. Pressing the Spin Attack button while standing there will instead make Crash burrow underground; he's also able to do Spin Attack from underground by sprouting his legs out of the ground before doing so. This move makes for easy escaping obstacles (including those bees!).
• Fluffy the Terrible: Whoever gave Tiny his name had an ironic sense of humour.
• Freaky Electronic Music: The stages Piston It Away and Spaced Out, parts of Cortex's factory, are accompanied by electronic and industrial music.
• Free-Sample Plot Coupon: Cortex tells Crash that he already has the Master Crystal, and Crash's job is to find the 25 Slave Crystals that look similar to the one Cortex has.
• Friend or Foe?: Whether Cortex has really done a Heel–Face Turn or not is not revealed until the end. Brio is also slightly suspicious until the end.
• Gadgeteer Genius: N. Gin, the Mad Scientist who pilots a Humongous Mecha when facing Crash, is one of these.
• Game-Over Man: Cortex. This was later reused in the sequel. It is never quite explained why he is the Game-Over Man, though. Until you learn of his plans to conquer the world.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: The final boss, whom you must defeat before the end of the arena or else you lose a life.
• Good Is Dumb: Crash is gullible enough to be fooled by Cortex into collecting the crystals for him. He later starts suspecting about the plan, as he refuses handing the crystals to N. Gin despite Cortex's orders.
• Good Is Not Dumb: Coco is a computer genius, first hacking into Cortex's holographic projector, and then accessing Cortex's computer files to expose his plans. Crash is the opposite.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Several of Crash's death sequences reveal he wears pink boxers with red hearts.
• The Goomba: The armadillos in the Turtle Woods, The Pits and the introductory level can be beaten by any of Crash's attacks.
• Goomba Stomp:
  • Crash's second attack, which can be used if spinning doesn't work. Be careful how you use it against The Spiny.
  • Downplayed by a plant enemy in Diggin' It and Bee-Having; if you get too close, it hides in a ring of spikes and covers itself with leaves, making Crash bounce on it instead of defeating it if he jumps on it. Belly-flopping or digging underneath in special areas and spinning them will defeat them.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The crystals are needed to reach the last boss, while the gems are needed to complete the game.
• Got Volunteered: Crash is teleported away from home and essentially forced to do Cortex's work by being trapped in a set of inescapable warp rooms with only five levels, and thanks to No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom, those are no better. But Thou Must!, Crash Bandicoot, But Thou Must!!
• Gravity Screw: The majority of the Rock It and Pack Attack levels and the Final Boss fight function in zero gravity, which makes sense on an earth-orbiting satellite. However, at the beginning and the end of the Rock It/Pack Attack levels, the gravity acts as it would do on the planet surface, as if artificial gravity had just been switched off and on.
• Green Hill Zone: The introductory level, Turtle Woods, and The Pits act like this.
• Grimy Water: There are sewer levels with ankle-deep water, and an electric eel that can electrify the water at regular intervals, at which moment you have to be out of it lest you get zapped.
• Ground Pound: Crash gains a Ground Pound attack in this game, with which he can belly-flop onto unsuspecting enemies or bust open metal-enforced crates that would otherwise seem impenetrable.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • In a game where you do a lot of smashing up crates, you can only get the Blue Gem featured in the first level by making it to the end while not smashing any crates, including checkpoint ones. And you're apparently supposed to know this. The game does gives a subtle hint, however — if you obtain the Clear Gem (by getting all the crates) in the level, then play through it again, you'll notice the end-of-level "crate count" now reads (your current number of crates)/0. Make it 0/0 and you get the Blue Gem (this is also complicated by the fact that there is a crate wall halfway through the level; one of the crates is a bouncy crate, and you need to bounce off this crate to clear the wall without breaking anything).
  • The secret areas in this game are even more so, often requiring extreme acrobatic feats and/or Violation of Common Sense to reach. One requires you to fall down into a pit the polar bear chasing you recently opened, despite every video game ever telling you that pits are bad. Another has you jumping on top of a stack of Nitro crates, which you have been taught up to this point to avoid like the plague (although this one is a bit less insane, since they're set to the side of the path and are in the shape of stairs, and they also don't bounce like the others). Yet a third has you passing through an innocuous-looking fake wall in a Nitro-filled room. With bizarre requirements like these, it's no wonder future secret areas were basically relegated to Gem Paths and Death Routes.
  • A secret area in "Hangin' Out" involves a long hanging section that requires you to lift up your legs at certain moments to allow indestructible enemies to pass harmlessly below you. You have never been required to use this move before, and even the manual makes no reference to it. Newcomers to the series are thus forced to rely on trial and error in order to make it through successfully. ^note This doesn't really count as a Noob Bridge since it's in a secret area. Still frustrating, though.
  • Those annoying logs tossed at you in the "Ruin" levels and the shrink rays in the space station levels? You can spin those away safely.
  • And of course, there's the infamous offscreen box in Cold Hard Crash's bonus round. 154/155 haunted many a player during the PS1 days.
• Hair-Trigger Explosive: Nitro Crates, which explode with even the slightest touch, are introduced in this game. They even bounce randomly on the ground as a visual indicator of their volatility. One level features fake Nitro crates you can hop onto to access a secret area. You know they are fake when you realize they don't bounce.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Tiny has Shoulders of Doom, an animal lioncloth, and red sneakers.
• Hammered into the Ground: Some of the forest levels have an enemy that keeps swinging a mallet. Upon being hit by it, Crash will be pounded deep into the ground, and a gravestone grows out from where he was hit.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: After Crash allies himself with Cortex to save the world, Nitrus Brio, formerly Cortex's Number Two, assigns minions old and new to stop Crash from delivering the crystals to Cortex. When the plot turns out to be a trick by Cortex to obtain the world's power crystals, Brio gladly allies with Crash to dispose of him. While Ripper Roo and the Komodo Brothers' alignment remains ambiguous throughout the series after (they attack both sides on different occasions but never officially join Crash or Cortex), N. Brio and Tiny Tiger revert to bad guys, even allying with Cortex again later on. This is particularly odd for Tiny, who despite first appearing as one of Brio's cohorts, is retooled as Cortex's Undyingly Loyal creation.
• Heavily Armored Mook: Metal-shelled armadillos appear in the secret underground routes in Un-Bearable and Bee-Having. They can only be defeated by body slamming them, which removes their metal armor and makes them vulnerable to the rest of Crash's attacks.
• Heroic Mime: Emphasis on the "mime" — just watch Crash's animations and you'll see just how expressive his new model is.
• High-Voltage Death: This is one of the many ways Crash can die in the levels, whether from electric fences/barriers, electrified sewer water (by Psycho Electric Eels), or being grabbed by cyborg Lab Assistants' hands.
• Hub Level: Crash can access five levels from each of these hubs, or Warp Rooms, and the platform in the center of the room takes him up to the next boss fight. There is also a load/save screen in each one. This was the first game to introduce the Warp Room concept, which became a staple in the Crash series after that. There's also a secret Warp Room that is only accessible via certain subtle means.
• Humongous Mecha: N.Gin pilots one of these for the penultimate boss battle. It looks good, but see Rock Beats Laser below.
• Hydro-Electro Combo: The waters in the sewer levels are infested with eels, who electrify the water every few seconds.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Coco, N.Gin and Tiny, introduced in this game, become mainstays in later games.
• Idiot Hero: Crash is either the victim of circumstances or duped very easily.
• Idle Animation: Evident - leave Crash for a while and he reverts to his old Crash 1 animation. Now, leave him alone in one of the snowy levels.
• Immediate Sequel: Cortex Strikes Back starts right at the end of the first game's final boss fight, where Dr. Cortex has been knocked off of his hoverboard after fighting Crash atop his blimp. This leads to him falling into a cave and discovering the Power Crystals by accident, kicking off this game's plot.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Bee-Having is frequently misspelled as Bee-Havin' or Bee-Hivin'. It doesn't help that two of the other levels (Hangin' Out/Diggin' It) in the fourth warp room ditch the final G in their titles.
• Indy Escape: Crash's response to the Advancing Wall of Doom. Since you are running into the camera, this makes what should be easy-to-dodge obstacles really tricky.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Beyond being a gameplay feature, the crates that Crash finds are placed in some pretty odd locations, from temple ruins to snowscapes to sewers.
• Infinite 1-Ups:
  • In Un-Bearable, after you get into the secret area, there'll be a checkpoint crate, 2 1-Up crates floating just offscreen, and a Bottomless Pit nearby. Get the 2 life crates, fall into the pit and lose a life, respawn, and you can get the 2 crates again, so every time you lose a life, you gain two - this can be repeated ad nauseam.^note Normally, life crates will turn into Wumpa crates if Crash dies, but not for these particular two crates. May be a case of a Good Bad Bug.
  • In Bee-Having, it's possible to kill an entire swarm of bees with a slide spin, which will give you a 1-Up if you do it correctly. If you've mastered the slide-spin, you can camp at a beehive and endlessly kill the bees as they come out and watch your lives soar.
• Internal Reveal: The game doesn't try very hard to keep Cortex being the Big Bad a secret. By the end, the only one who appears to be unaware until the final boss is Crash.
• Instant Gravestone: Being killed by a Lab Assistant's sledgehammer produces a grave stone with Crash's face on it. You also get the grave stone if you run into a Nitro box while underground (those and the sledgehammer Lab Assistants can still kill Crash when he's underground).
• Instant Ice: Just Add Cold!: One of Crash's many death animations. This one comes up if you fall in the water in the "ice" levels.
• Invincible Minor Minion: Occasionally you can find these, such as in the sewer levels and in the "factory" levels.
• Ironic Name: Tiny Tiger is massive and powerful.
• Jet Pack: The fourth-to-last and second-to-last levels feature the use of a jetpack as a game mechanic. Crash has to use it in order to travel across the corridors of the zero-gravity zone. It's also an example of Unexpected Gameplay Change, as the difficulty of the commands is why these stages have been put in the fifth Warp Room. Crash uses the jetpack again in the final battle against Cortex; the control scheme is adapted to make it so Crash goes forward automatically, so the player only needs to worry about steering.
• Jungle Japes: Turtle Woods and the later levels themed after it. They take place in a rainy jungle with pits where Crash has to defeat various enemies in order to make a spring mushroom appear, allowing him to escape.
• Kaizo Trap:
  • Inverted; if you sit through the entire opening cutscene, you get to play an intro stage which gives you the opportunity to earn an Aku Aku mask and an extra life. This intro stage also has bottomless pits and enemies here and there. This effectively means that it's possible to kill yourself and get a Game Over before the game proper even starts.^note Resuming a Game Over will just skip you to the warp room, much like skipping the cutscene will.
  • Played straight in Tiny Tiger's boss battle; when you succeed in making Tiny leap over the falling platform, several other platforms will also start to fall down. Stand on the right platform (i.e the one that doesn't flash red) and you're safe.
  • Another straight example in the fight against the Komodo Brothers; after landing the final hit, you can still be killed if you touch the brothers before their defeat animation finishes.
• Kill Enemies to Open: In the daytime forest levels, there are trenches onto which Crash has to fall since his jump isn't wide or tall enough to leap past them. Once he's trapped in one, some small mooks begin appraching him. Defeating them all will reveal a bouncy mushroom Crash can use to exit the trench.
• Killer Rabbit: Armadillos, the giant mice in the ruin levels, the penguins in the ice levels, and the gophers that lurk in The Pits: They all look innocent enough, but will still harm Crash on contact.
• Knight Templar: According to the manual, to emphasize the unknown morality of the people Crash faces, N. Brio will do anything to get back at Cortex, even if he blows Earth's only chance of survival in the process. Of course, it turns out Brio was telling the truth and Cortex is a big fat liar.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Several enemies are immune to some of Crash's attacks, but not others.
  • Turtles with spikes on the sides of their shells are immune to slides and spins, but not jumps.
  • Turtles with buzzsaws atop their shells can't be stomped, but can be hit from the sides.
  • The lizards in the ruins levels have a spiked helmet to block jumps, and a deadly frill that protects against spins. Their lower bodies have no defense against sliding into them, though.
  • Armored armadillos can only be made vulnerable with a body slam, which breaks their armor and allows other attacks to defeat them.
  • The spotlight drones in night levels have a saw that stops side attacks, and can't be defeated by jumping on them, but a body slam can defeat them.
  • The walking robots in the space station levels have red-hot metal that protects against jumps and spins, but not slides.
  • The tentacle robots on the Cortex Vortex alternate between blocking jumps and blocking side attacks with their electric tentacles.
• Lag Cancel: You can cancel Crash's slide into a spin for a faster spin and to avoid the slide's recovery. Repeatedly chaining slides into spins makes you move faster than running normally.
• Large Ham: Doctor Neo Cortex, thanks to Clancy Brown.
• Last Lousy Point:
  • If you don't know what is in the secret warp rooms, some gems will act like this, but it is averted thanks to a user-friendly display above each Warp Room gate, which shows you what items you have collected from the level. The slots accept each crystal and gem when Crash collects them and gets to that level's end point, and any empty slots will mean that there is still a crystal or gem yet to be recovered. What makes them lousy, though, is about how hard it is to get some of those gems, especially the colored gems.
  • You'll also have some Last Lousy Crates in some levels. There is one well hidden in the bonus round of Cold Hard Crash, which is easy to miss as it's offscreen.
• Laughing Mad: Ripper Roo reverts to his old mad self whenever a TNT blows up underneath his feet.
• Lava Pit: One secret path in the sewer level "Hangin' Out". Normally Crash sometimes has to hang from metal ceiling grilles to make his way over red-hot sewer piping, but in that one secret path he's crossing over a molten lava pit.
• Law of 100: As usual, collecting one hundred wumpa fruit will earn Crash a new life.
• Leap of Faith: In Un-Bearable, Crash runs away from giant polar bears until they break through a wooden bridge and fall down a pit. In order to get all the boxes for the Gem, you need to jump down one of these pits to reach a secret section of the level. How do you tell? You jump down the one whose bridge wasn't fully destroyed.
• Leitmotif: Cortex, N. Brio and Coco all have distinct themes play during their projection cutscenes. Cortex and N. Brio's themes (along with Ripper Roo's boss music) are remixed from their boss music from the original game, making it something of recurring Leitmotifs for the characters.
• Long Song, Short Scene: N. Brio and Coco's Leitmotifs are only heard during their intermissions drowned out by their dialogue (Cortex also has a theme play during his intermissions though it plays during his boss battle). An alternative track for the snow levels was also made but never used.
• Lost in Transmission: Coco has some vitally important message to give to Crash, except that each time she tries to warn him, the holographic projection cuts out at a critical moment. It noticeably gets better as the game progresses, so by the time Crash has collected all the crystals, she can finally give him the full warning. By then, of course, she is too late, and Crash has to chase down Cortex.
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: This is what Cortex has recruited Crash for.
• Mad Bomber: In the first game, the explosive crates in Ripper Roo's stage were just an environmental hazard. This time, Roo intentionally uses them to attack Crash, and also uses the more dangerous Nitro crates.
• Mad Scientist: Cortex, N.Brio, and N.Gin all qualify for this in some capacity.
• Made of Iron: Cortex falls from an airship down to the factory on the island and doesn't die. In fact, it leads to him setting off the events of the game.
• Malicious Monitor Lizard: The Komodo Bros. are a Dual Boss, specifically two of N. Brio's henchmen that try to block your path from helping Dr. Cortex.
• Mama Bear: Polar's parents chase you throughout the "Un-Bearable" level, and they're not too happy about Crash using their son as a mount.
• Man-Eating Plant: There are carnivorous plants in the river levels Hang Eight, Air Crash, and Plant Food which can snap up Crash and swallow him whole.
• The Many Deaths of You: The Ur-Example in this series. The game features lots of humorous death animations, intended to prevent players from snapping their controllers in frustration from dying over and over again.
• Meaningless Lives: From this game onward, most levels have a bonus section that will usually give you somewhere around 2 lives for successful completion. Besides that, the games begin saving your life count, so if you lose more lives than you care to, you can reload your game and try again. So long as you save regularly, Game Overs are inconsequential.
• Mega Maelstrom: Whirlpools are a common obstacle in the river levels. Get too close to one and you'll be sucked into the river, costing you a life.
• Mêlée à Trois: Crash is stuck in the middle of one, as it's N. Brio's forces vs. Neo Cortex and N. Gin vs. Coco (who tries to warn Crash about Cortex manipulating him). Of course, since it's Crash who is the hero, he ultimately defeats Cortex and N. Gin, and he, Coco and N. Brio use the gems to destroy Cortex's space station. The N. Sane Trilogy version skews things even further by having Coco directly help Crash herself via time travel.
• Mineral MacGuffin: The game has Cortex trying to get his hands on 25 crystals to activate his brainwashing device, while Nitrus Brio wants the 42 gems to blow up the aforementioned device.
• Missing Secret: The level Cold Hard Crash has an icicle fall from the ceiling and trigger a TNT Crate's countdown in such a deliberate and easy-to-avoid way it's clearly showing you that can happen for a reason, like warning you that the level will be full of these later on or you'll have to contend with a hidden path or a bonus area that uses this mechanic, or maybe an early warning that enemies will appear who will trigger them on you, right? This is the only time a TNT Crate is triggered by an outside force like this in the entire game^note Not counting the Ripper Roo boss battle that happened earlier in the game, or some TNT Crates in the Polar levels that trigger their countdowns automatically when approached. TNT Crates being triggered in this way is such a deliberate act it's likely a leftover of a planned stage that was ultimately scrapped.
• Mook Maker: The beehives in Diggin' It and Bee-Having, which respawn a swarm every time Crash passes a certain point.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Another one introduced in this game: Dr. N. Gin.
• Mucking in the Mud: The levels Turtle Woods and The Pit feature pools of mud as obstacles that will slow Crash down if he gets into them.
• No-Damage Run: One half of the challenge on the time challenges on some of the river levels^note the other half of it is beating the timer. A perfect run is also required to access death routes, although you can die once they've been activated and they will remain open for the run.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Crash almost hands the crystals over to the Big Bad and dooms the planet, and following this near miss, detonates Cortex's space station, inadvertently leading to a chain of events that are revealed in the following game to lead to the release of Uka Uka, the Big Bad of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped.
• Non-Dubbed Grunts: This is the only game in the series to not have changed Crash Bandicoot's voice within the Japanese version of the game.
• Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: See Fake Trap for a hint. Go on, go have a look.
• Noodle Incident: It's All There in the Manual, otherwise you would never know what happened to N.Gin to make him a cyborg.
• No OSHA Compliance:
  • The sewer levels (The Eel Deal, Sewer or Later, and Hangin' Out) are chock-full of radioactive waste barrels and pools of electrified water. Hangin' Out also features networks of red-hot piping and pools of lava.
  • Piston It Away, Rock It, Pack Attack, and Spaced Out are set aboard the Cortex Vortex, and are riddled with pits, exposed wiring, crushing pistons, laser beams, and shrink ray traps.
• No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: Played with.
  • Crash can only proceed along a linear path with the occasional bonus stage along the way. He can also progress to the next warp room only if he has collected all five crystals for the levels in it. At least the Warp Room levels can be tackled in any order. Occasionally backtracking is required.
  • Sometimes, however, taking the secret paths in the levels will bring you to another level or to the Secret Warp Room, making for a nonstandard item completion.
• Nostalgia Level:
  • Ripper Roo's boss fight is very evocative of the same boss fight from the original game. It might even be the same level after redecoration.
  • The jungle and boulder levels (and to an extent the river ones) are also similar to those in the first game.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: If you look closely during Tiny's boss fight, you will notice that he loses health when he starts falling. Evidently the very idea of plummeting to his death gives him a heart attack. And he falls at the speed of frozen molasses.
• Offscreen Start Bonus: There are no bonuses at the beginning of levels (which is justified in that the starting point and exit of the level are represented by caves), but there are bonuses hidden behind the start of certain sections of levels. For example, Snow Go hides the Nitro switch crate right behind where the third section starts, and Hangin' Out hides a hole leading to a secret exit this way.
• Oh, Crap!: During chase levels, Crash will look behind while running to see what's chasing him. The look on his face when he turns back shows the poor Bandicoot is terrified.
• One-Man Army: Seriously, think a moment about how many Mooks Crash beats up in this game.
• One-Time Dungeon: If you sit through the intro with Crash and Coco without skipping it, you can play an "intro stage" where Crash runs into the jungle to take something Coco needs; you'll find some breakable crates and Wumpa Fruits, but no important collectables, so this is entirely optional.
• 1-Up: How the life system works.
• Papa Wolf: The Japanese name for the "Un-Bearable" level is "Escape from Papa Bear", meaning that one of the giant polar bears that chases you throughout the level may be Polar's father.
• Permanently Missable Content: Don't skip the opening cutscene — in the end, there'll be an "intro level" where Crash runs into the jungle and then gets warped against his will. Doing this isn't required for 100% completion, however.
• Pipe Maze: The sewer levels sometimes have secret passageways and forks, which all taken together would just barely pass as a maze.
• Piranha Problem: The mechanical piranhas in the river levels leap out of the water.
• Platform-Activated Ability: Starting from this game, only the colored gems can materialize platforms upon being collected, which now appear as luminous outlines that cannot be interacted with physically at first. Also, they now take him into full-fledged areas that double as Death Courses. As a side note, the Skull Pads work similarly, but they operate under a different trope to be enabled.
• Plot Coupon: The game almost entirely revolves around collecting crystals and gems. Still, that does not make it any less fun.
• Polar Penguins: Penguins are enemies in the Slippy-Slidey Ice World levels.
• Portal Endpoint Resemblance: The game uses these for the portals into the various levels, although it's more fitting to say that they're themed after the various biomes the levels share as there's not much to distinguish the levels in each set. The only exceptions are those in the fifth Warp Room (which are very industrial) and the secret Warp Room, which uses a single set of rings.
• Power Crystal: Obviously the crystals themselves, which will fuel Cortex's Cortex Vortex so that he can capture the solar flux energy, but Brio also wants the gems so that he can focus a laser on the space station and blow it to bits.
• Power-Up Mount: The polar bear (appropriately named "Polar") that appears in several levels moves very quickly and can make really long jumps.
• Press Start to Game Over: There's the "intro" level you can play in if you don't skip the intro cutscene. It has pits and enemies; it means that it's possible for you to get a Game Over before the game proper even starts.
• Psycho Electric Eel: Electric eels appear in the sewer stages to periodically electrocute the water, forcing Crash to try to find dry footing when they do so as he tries to cross the water. One level has a secret path where more aggressive eels are constantly discharging electricity, which means Crash has to completely avoid the water there.
• Pushy Mooks: The scientists in the Cortex Vortex levels use a riot shield to push you into pits.
• Puzzle Boss: Tiny Tiger is completely invulnerable and chases the player over nine floating platforms. Eventually, several of those platforms turn red, and will drop after a few seconds. You have to make it so he's on the red one when he drops, or so he tries to jump a gap too big for him.
• Race Against the Clock: If you want to obtain the gems on those river levels.
• Remember the New Guy?: This is Coco Bandicoot's first introduction, and there is absolutely nothing in the last game to suggest that Crash even had a sister. Since Tawna simply vanished from the series after the first game, Coco was brought in to replace her.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Komodo Brothers are two samurai-style komodo dragons who can make swords appear in their hands like magic. Their boss battle is the aforementioned one with one of the Anti-Frustration Features built in.
• Revenge of the Sequel: Cortex isn't happy over his defeat in the first game, so the central plot of this sequel is him planning his revenge against Crash.
• Rock Beats Laser: How does the unarmed nature-loving Crash defeat the insane cyborg doctor N. Gin, who pilots a futuristic mecha? By throwing Wumpa fruits at it, of course! Attack Its Weak Point has never failed yet!
• Ruins for Ruins' Sake: Two levels are based on this theme, and feature such horrors as frilled lizards, leaping monkeys, rabid giant mice, and lumber apes.
• Save-Game Limits: The game can only be saved at the Warp Room load/save screen, but if you pause the game, you can quit a level so that you can reach any Save Point.
• Save Point: This game set the tradition in itself and subsequent games of featuring a Hub Level from which all levels (including bosses) can be unlocked and accessed, which also allows the implementation of a save point that not only records your level completion but also all major collectibles (Gems and Crystals, as well as the Time Relics in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped and onward).
• Scary Stinging Swarm: Diggin' It and Bee-Having contain bees which pursue Crash if he runs past their hive, and sting him if he isn't quick enough or does not spin them away successfully. Judging from his reaction, Crash is allergic to bee stings. They come out one at a time in Diggin' It, making it easy to spin them there, but Bee-Having has swarms come out, which are much more difficult to spin away without getting stung and losing a life.
• Sea Mine: Frustratingly common in the river-based levels such as Air Crash and Plant Food.
• Secret Level: There are two secret levels and three secret level sidepaths which can only be accessed by a secret Warp Room, which itself can't be accessed except via secret routes in the main level.
• Sequel Hook: Cortex's Evil Laugh is heard midway through the good ending credits, showing that he is still at large despite spinning out of control in space, although this detail is missing from the Trilogy release due to all three games sharing the same credits sequence.
• Sequence Breaking:
  • It's possible to go completely over the gopher pits in the jungle levels (that normally traps you in with the gophers until you defeat every one of them) by quickly doing a slide jump spin (you slide, you jump, and you spin, in that order, in very quick succession) over it. Even if you fall in, you can still do the same before the first gopher appears.
  • You can get the Red Gem in the Snow Go level much earlier than intended (i.e. taking an alternate route to get there) by doing a slide jump spin up, then a body slam, the latter of which extends your altitude a little at the peak of the jump before the slam, enough to reach the bobbing gem. It's easier to do with the bounce crate placed to the right of it.
  • Said jump trick also lets Crash jump into the secret path in Road to Ruin from its exit instead of its intended entry (the 6th warp room), allowing him to break the extra crates in said path quicker and easier. It also allows him to get the second gem without getting the death route platform.
  • You also don't need to get the green gem to get the second clear gem in Ruination. Again, it's the slide jump spin trick.
  • You can die on Diggin' It and still enter the death route, by jumping along the side of the colossal pit at the end of the fork.
  • In Cold Hard Crash, it's possible to get the gem in the death route without falling into the pit. This can be done running to the very edge and sliding back. Crash should get the gem and return back to the ledge, allowing the player to get the death route gem and all the crates in one run without a death abuse.
  • Subverted with Night Fight as its death route forks onto the main path as normal, so you can lose a life and still enter the hard path from the exit point.
• Sequential Boss: N.Gin functions as this after clearing the fourth Warp Room. Crash first has to take out his machine's laser arms, then he must go for N.Gin's shoulder rocket launchers, and finally, Crash has to dodge blasts from the machine's core while blasting it to destroy the machine and proceed to the last Warp Room.
• Shared Life-Meter: The Komodo Bros share a life bar. Moe is invulnerable, but Joe isn't — and to damage them you have to smack Joe, which will spin towards Moe, hurting them both.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: The lab assistants in Piston It Away and Spaced Out wield enormous shields both to protect themselves and to push Crash into an explosive or a Bottomless Pit. Spinning them will only knock them a few steps back instead of blowing them away, but spinning them a few times will push them into their own death traps.
• Shmuck Bait: That huge pile of boxes you encounter during the secret path of Road To Ruin? Seems like a perfect place for a Body Slam? Sure, if you want to be blown apart by the TNT box hidden among them that is.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Establishing Character Moment in the opening cutscene: Crash is laid back and idle, while Coco pounds furiously on the keyboard and gets him off his back to fetch a new battery for the laptop.
• Slide Attack: A new feature introduced in this game. By sliding and then doing a Spin Attack, he can move much faster; jumping after sliding also makes him jump higher.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Snow Go, Snow Biz, and Cold Hard Crash are completely frozen over, but Naughty Dog evidently liked snow, because they included the Polar levels Bear It, Bear Down, and Totally Bear, and added snow features to decorate Crash Dash, Crash Crush, Un-Bearable, Diggin' It, and Bee-Having. The concept art for the game shows that the islands are experiencing winter times. This was apparently a result of Author Appeal, as the creators liked the appearance of snow during the sunset.
• Space Zone: The theme for the last Warp Room, and for two of its five levels (the others are one Jungle Japes in Blackout Basement form, and the other two are Eternal Engine stages). Those levels are Rock It and Pack Attack; in them, Crash is exploring a space vessel with zero gravity, so he has to use a jetpack to move forward. He also chases Cortex in outer space in the Final Boss battle. Other two boss battles (Tiny Tiger and N. Gin) occur in space as well, apparently on the Cortex Vortex.
• Spectacular Spinning: In addition to Crash retaining his iconic spin attack, penguins in the snow levels periodically spin at a huge speed as a means of attack.
• Speech Impediment: Doctor Nitrus Brio has an obvious stutter and an apparent inability to control the volume of his own voice. He also bursts out into barely suppressed cackles at random moments, implying he's not all there in the head, either.
• The Spiny:
  • Several varieties of The Spiny appear, to accommodate the fact that the player can perform several types of attacks. For example, a basic turtle enemy either has the sides of its shell laced with deadly spikes (making the full-frontal spin attack impossible), or it has sawblades on its back instead (which prevents players from defeating them by jumping). Some enemies switch back and forth between being unable to be spun into and being unable to be jumped on, especially in the later levels.
  • Tall enemies with fire-rimmed neck and heads appear in the later stages, requiring a Slide Attack to be defeated.
  • Variant: Porcupine enemies, if you're happen to be close, will extend their spikes and run around quickly, and Crash cannot attack them at all while they're in said state. You have to wait for them to stop and lower their guard.
• Spoiler Title: You can guess that Cortex is up to no good looking from the title alone, even if he then appears to be helpful (or trying to be). And the title isn't lying.
• Squashed Flat: In a variation, one of the many death animations features Crash getting squashed into a Waddling Head. He gets squashed more traditionally pancake-flat in the Japanese version instead, due to the former animation's disturbing similarity with killings a Serial Killer in Japan was perpetrating at the time.
• Stock Scream: The Howie scream is heard whenever Crash kills certain types of Lab Assistants.
• Suddenly Voiced: Aku Aku in the Japanese version. Crash also talked in a promotional video for the game that was shown at E3. Thank goodness he did not talk like this in the game.
• Super Drowning Skills: Yes, Crash can ride a jet board, but don't let him fall into the water! He has two animations for falling in: One plays the trope graphically straight, as Crash struggles to surface for air before finally dying. The other is actually a double subversion - he floats face-up, dazed but still very much alive (as evidenced by his eyes still blinking), but you will still lose a life for falling in.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity:
  • The Purple Gem is found in a secret area, but is easily obtainable after only three easy jumps. Everything afterwards is incredibly difficult, so it is easier to leap into the nearby Bottomless Pit and die than go through the Brutal Bonus Level.
  • The game is very liberal about doling out free lives, especially in the early stages where you can hit double-digits fairly quickly (plus, you can always go back and grind out more). That's because you will need them.
• Tactical Suicide Boss:
  • Ripper Roo is invulnerable to attack. . . until he makes himself vulnerable, and thus beatable, by blowing himself up.
  • The Komodo Brothers would be unbeatable if Moe only threw scimitars, and didn't send Joe spinning around the room.
  • Tiny would be unbeatable if the platforms in his arena didn't drop randomly.
• Techno Wizard: Coco can hack into Cortex's holographic projector, a skill which becomes useful later.
• Temporary Platform: The collapsing towers in the ruins levels. Also the platforms in the sewer levels and the hippos in the river levels.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: The Komodo Brothers, Joe and Moe. They are throwing scimitars at one another, catching them, before they see that Crash has arrived. Once the fight has started, Joe is spun at Crash, while Moe tosses his magically respawning blades at him.
• Timed Mission: The Yellow Gem and one of the Clear Gems are obtained by racing a clock to the end of certain levels.
• Time-Limit Boss: Dr. Neo Cortex. You're on a jetpack and have to reach him before he reaches the end of the hall, where he laughs, you lose a life, and you start the fight over.
• Title Scream: The title is spoken aloud if the player didn't skip it.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Tiny, just like Koala Kong before him.
• Transformation Ray: In the Piston It Away and Spaced Out levels, if Crash gets hit by a blue ray (activated by a pressure pad in the floor), he will shrink down into nothing, losing him a life. You can still control Crash while he's shrinking, but don't expect to get very far.
• Tropical Epilogue: The trope turns up as the bad ending; Crash and Coco sit on a beach with one of the crabs from the first game, and discuss what happened to the Cortex Vortex. The good ending, which is unlocked via 100% Completion, has them and N. Brio destroy the Cortex Vortex, but the weapon they use for that is in the jungle instead.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: The Polar-riding levels, as well as the jetpack levels. Downplayed with the water-boarding levels as the actual water-boarding only happens at the middle of the levels.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: During the fight with N. Gin you throw Wumpa fruit rather than jumping and spinning to attack him.
• The Unfought: N. Brio never shows up as a boss, despite Cortex insisting that he is the true enemy. This is because Cortex is the true Big Bad.
• Unique Enemy: The secret path of "Turtle Woods", the first level of the game, features two giant Ostriches that act as platforms but will bury their heads when Crash gets close, forcing you to jump on and off them quickly; not only are they unique to this area, they're also the only creatures in the game that are completely harmless.
• Victory Pose: Crash dances after completing a level with a collected gem, as well as after defeating a boss. Said dance is the popular Crash Dance, which originates in the Japanese version of the first game and is retained in several later games.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can attack or jump on Polar in the second Warp Room. Doing so enough times even grants you ten extra lives!
• Video-Game Lives: The rules of the last game carry on over to this one.
• Warmup Boss: Ripper Roo causes more harm to himself than Crash does. Lampshaded by Cortex himself.
• We Will Meet Again: Cortex screams this after his latest plan goes bust.
  Cortex: NOOOOOO! You haven't seen the last of me, Crash Bandicoot!
• When the Planets Align: Cortex claims that the Earth will be ripped apart when this happens. Oddly enough, he says there are thirteen planets rather than nine, and we never get any answers as to what these other planets are.
• Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: One of The Many Deaths of You, and Crash's "default" death animation, starting in this game. There's a variant that appears if killed by a Nitro crate where Crash is playing the didgeridoo, and a variant in the Polar levels where he'll be carrying an alive and intact Polar up.
• What the Hell, Player?: If you go into a level, but leave it without retrieving the crystal, Cortex will chew you out upon returning. He gets increasingly frustrated each time you do it, and by the third time, he's so ticked off that he cannot even yell at you, and decides to leave you on your own until you finally get the crystal.
• World of Pun: A lot of the level names are puns.
• Wormsign: You can dig into certain types of ground in some of the jungle stages that have bees, which protects you from the swarm. As you move underground, Crash's position is indicated by a dirt patch moving along the ground.
• X Must Not Win: According to the manual, N. Brio will do anything to make sure Crash and Cortex fail, even if it means dooming the planet. As it turns out, though, there's a good reason Brio did what he did: the world isn't actually in danger.
• X-Ray Sparks: Happens to Crash in the sewer levels and the Advancing Wall of Doom and bee levels whenever he hits an electric fence or is in the sewer water when the resident eel is electrifying it. His boxer shorts also become visible.

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"We are ready, Crash! Would you like to do the... h-h-honors?! Heh hah hah!"

— Dr. Nitrus Brio

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