YMMV / Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped

• Awesome Levels:
  • Orient Express. The Pura levels are by far the most refined of all the animal-riding levels in the trilogy, and trekking along the Great Wall of China during its construction feels so rebellious. Plus, Coco nuzzling Pura is just too precious.
  • High Time. A scale up the structures of the Arabian Nights is something that feels right at home in Aladdin. Combine this with a really intuitive Bonus Stage and a stage layout that makes Time Trials a blast, and you've got a recipe for awesomeness.
  • Sphynxinator. The Egyptian levels always had the advantage of looking badass, but this has by far the most open-ended level design without needing to resort to the backtracking of Crash 2. Between the branch at the beginning that leads to additional lives, to the Blue Gem Path leading to a Secret Gem, Sphynxinator makes you use your noggin to the fullest.
  • Orange Asphalt. Compared to levels like Hog Ride, which felt too simplistic, or Road Crash, which relied too much on blindspots, this level feels the most polished of the motorcycle levels, offering up a fair race whilst not making collecting the Gem feel like too much of a hassle. Its sunset aesthetic also serves to be the cherry on top.
• Broken Base:
  • Over time, this has developed towards the vehicle levels, particularly because they take up almost half the level count. Detractors find them unnecessary and intrusive for taking time away from the main platforming gameplay, with a few even considering Warped to be the weakest of the original trilogy on account of their prevalence. Supporters find them to be well-made diversions from the core platforming gameplay, allowing the game to stand out from its predecessors and offer something new instead of being a mere polishing of the previous games. The fact that the game's immediate successor would see an even greater number of vehicle segments would add to the debate, as some would blame Warped for originating the overuse of said segments.
  • How some people feel about the Time Trial Mode. Some see it as a neat feature that adds a lot of replay value. However, some feel like they exist to pad the game out by forcing them to play every level at least twice. While the franchise was no stranger to backtracking (especially Crash 1), in Crash 2, the player could get all of the collectibles for most of the levels in one go if they knew what they were doing.
• Cheese Strategy: There is a bug that can make the Tiny Tiger boss fight easy. When he sends out lions that charge at you in a linear line, Crash running to the topright corner will cause the lion to not contact Crash. This bug became an Ascended Glitch in the N-Sane Trilogy with it remaining intact, but with an added Visual Pun where the audience will throw (harmless) cheese at Crash if performed.
• Contested Sequel: While it is at least considered to be a good game, opinions on Warped tend to vary more widely compared to the other games in the original Crash trilogy, with fans debating on whether the game is an Even Better Sequel, on par with either of the other trilogy entries, or the weakest of the original trilogy. The vehicle levels play a big part in this divide.
• Difficulty Spike: The game gets noticeably harder in the fourth warp room:
  • The first level in it, Sphynxinator, is positively evil for first-time players. Four boxes are hidden in a place you wouldn't initially think to look, and the blue gem path is filled with oil.
  • Tell No Tales is a Coco water level that's just confusing. Good luck finding all crates.
  • It has also first plane level which, while easy, still has different controls that can take some time to be used to them.
  • Tomb Wader has not only switching water levels, making Time Trials in it much harder, but it also has a Death Route, so you need to do first half of level in one go if you want the gem at its end.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Dingodile and N. Tropy, both because of their designs, the roughness of their Boss Battles and their quirky accents. Dingodile started showing up quite a bit, and Tropy actually took Cortex's place for one game. Sadly, with the Radical Entertainment games, both developed a case of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome (Dingodile did appear as a boss in the portable versions of Crash Of The Titans, while N. Tropy's final appearance at the time, barring a brief cameo in Boom Bang!, was as a minor antagonist in Twinsanity). Both would return fully in the N. Sane Trilogy and Crash 4: It's About Time with Dingodile becoming a playable character in the latter game.
• Franchise Original Sin: One of the major complaints about The Wrath of Cortex (aside from It's the Same, Now It Sucks!) was its heavy reliance on vehicle segments. This issue can actually be traced as far back as this game, as a lot of the levels here were done on vehicles (especially the motorcycle which had four levels dedicated to it), more so than the previous two games. However, it was still nowhere near to the extent that Wrath of Cortex would end up doing.
• Game-Breaker: The Fruit Bazooka is this, since now you can aim away at the crates without personally going there, as well as hitting enemies from far away. Not so much for Time Trials, though.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • It's possible to exploit a glitch involving the game's demo to start a new game with all upgrades without having to defeat any bosses beforehand, making the game much easier.
  • It's possible to keep Baby T to the end of Dino Might! (where normally he'll throw you off before getting to the middle of the stage) by repeatedly body-slamming onto it until he stops throwing you.
  • The "jump-spin" trick returns from the previous game, and this time, the power-ups Double Jump and Death Tornado Spin also helps the trick in reaching even further distances normally not possible.
  • Death-warping, extra boxes glitch, and extra items/over 105% glitch from the previous game also reappear here.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Aku Aku's declaration in the true ending: "It is difficult to say what has happened to our enemies, but I doubt we will see them for a long time...". If one ignores the post-Naughty Dog games that didn't directly follow this one, he was right in a way.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The crystals circling Dingodile falling back into place after his flamethrower backpack explodes.
    ClangClangClang-ng-ng
  • The beginning of the N. Tropy boss fight.
    "Now you're on my time you little skunk! GIVE ME THE CRYSTALS!"
• Scrappy Mechanic: Activating the Nitro Detonator crate in a level - just like in the previous game, any offscreen Nitro destroyed like this won't take out any adjacent crates if you didn't break them. And three levels, Gone Tomorrow (level 21), Flaming Passion (level 23) and Rings Of Power (level 28) don't even have Detonators while having Nitro crates, as the game expects you to destroy them by fruit bazooka (first two examples) or plane (last one). Have fun replaying the level if you're going for the gem for destroying all crates and didn't know this.
• That One Boss: N. Gin can be this to some players. For one thing, it's an Unexpected Shmup Level, and the control is actually reversed from the regular shmup levels (i.e tilting your joystick right will make Coco fire to the left). In the second phase it gets worse because after getting used to the destructible missiles, he adds in projectiles that can't be destroyed.
• That One Level:
  • Tomb Wader, especially on Time Trial mode. Hint: Rising water levels.
  • Mad Bombers, an Unexpected Shmup Level where you have to destroy planes by using awkward targeting to snipe tiny engines on them while enemies nail you with deadly attacks. It doesn’t help that the enemy planes are faster than Crash’s, and shooting enemies from afar is hard since your plane lacks a crosshair, making it hard to tell whether you're targeting an enemy plane or thin air. It’s especially hard for Time Trials, as you are expected to complete it without dying and within a time limit, with all of the above issues working against you^note Fortunately, the remake includes a crosshair, making things a bit easier.
• That One Sidequest: Getting all of the gold or platinum relics (especially the latter) which gets you a hidden gem. Specific levels where getting a platinum is nearly impossible include:
  • Hog Ride, the first motorcycle stage, where you have to keep the boost you get early in the level for the entire stage. Turning while boosting is much harder and you have to break all of the time crates in this state.
  • Tomb Wader, since the water is constantly rising and falling and getting the relic is dependant on the water being at a certain level at a certain time.
  • Hot Coco, a jetski level, where you have to plan an optimal route through an open-ended stage littered with bombs to crush the time crates in a certain order. Break too many while on your way to hit the nitro switch and you won't have enough on the way back. Leave too many in tact and you won't be fast enough to make it back before the platinum time, which is less than 20 seconds. This is even worse in the remake due to the more slippery jetski controls.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Coco's "playability" is completely superficial, limited to vehicle levels or four or five steps of slow walking. Those getting Warped to play a fresh new character will be sorely disappointed. This is rectified in the N. Sane Trilogy, however, where her playability has been greatly expanded to almost all levels from this game (as well as being playable the first two).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The boss fight against the new time-twisting villain N. Tropy. Does he use manipulation of time to move obstacles around in previously-unseen ways, or transfer himself and Crash through different game locales as the fight rages on? No, he just shoots beams and chucks some electrified clocks at Crash.
  • Compared to other platformers, which make unique use of altering time, Warped only implements the concept nominally to introduce historically themed levels, instead of adding gameplay elements of time-travel.
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • The newly-introduced Slot Crates only appear in six levels (of 32) in the entire game. Three of those levels are in the first Warp Room, and they stop appearing altogether after the third Warp Room. A special mention goes to a Slot Crate that has a TNT box as one of options - there is only one such box in the entire game.
  • Controlling Coco on-foot. You only get to do so twice in the entire game and in both instances, it's just a brisk walk a few feet ahead to meet Pura and then another brisk walk to grab a gem and reach the Exit warp. She doesn't get to stomp a baddie, break a crate or even grab a single piece of fruit through her own power.

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