Crash Bandicoot/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Badass Decay:
    • Crunch started out as a gruff, musclebound bandicoot with a cybernetic arm who sports army pants and boots. He went from being Crash's defiant Evil Counterpart (despite being mind controlled by Cortex the entire game) who can change into powerful elemental forms in his debut in The Wrath of Cortex... to being an annoying, Dumb Muscle Mr. T knockoff (in a BAD way) who spends much of his screen time blabbering Mr. T quotes and being useless in general from Crash Tag Team Racing onward, and is an utter wuss in comparison to his original depiction: He keeps a pink Teddy Bear stashed at his home... Justified in that Crunch is attempting to atone for his past villainy by being a positive role model to children, if in a strange, haphazard fashion.
    • Arguably Coco as well, while her intelligence made her arguably more The Hero than Crash in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back due to stopping Crash from basically handing all the crystals over to Cortex in his Batman Gambit and growing into a full blown Action Girl in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped and Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, later games dissolved her role mostly into a bratty Damsel in Distress almost as dimwitted as Crunch. Granted she arguably suffered from Positive Discrimination in early titles though the change in character was still pretty extreme.
    • Let's not forget Tiny Tiger. Tiny started out as an angry, roaring monster who talked in Hulk Speak. As time went on, they started showing off his stupidity more for comical moments, such as in Crash Nitro Kart. And then in Crash of the Titans, he somehow transformed into a Bengal Tiger from a Tasmanian Tiger, got his intelligence upped, and began acting like a campy Mike Tyson knock-off who idolizes Crash, and only attacks him because he's hired to do so.
  • Broken Base: The fandom. Oh, dear God, the fandom. There are the fans who refuse to acknowledge any of the games not made by Naughty Dog and hate the later games, the fans who embrace the series as a whole, and those who only like the newer games and constantly hate on the Naughty Dog games.
  • Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch: The series receives this treatment a lot. Ever since Naughty Dog quit developing the games, people all over the internet have been saying "LOL CRASH SUX NAO!", but most of those people haven't actually played any post-PS 1 era Crash games and are just complaining because the new games look different from the originals.
    • Although it doesn't seem to suffer nearly as much from this as certain other 3D platformer franchises... especially among people who considered the original games average in the first place, and thus have lower expectations.
  • Contested Sequel: As noted in Broken Base above, pretty much every post-Naughty Dog Crash game is this at best. Now possibly averted with the N. Sane Trilogy being a faithful remake and the two DLC levels "Stormy Ascent" (where the Bonus Round was created entirely by Activision/Vicarious Visions) and "Future Tense" being seen as a good show of later possibilities.
  • Critical Dissonance: Given their poor fan reception, it may be a surprise to hear that Crash of the Titans and Crash: Mind Over Mutant were given generally positive reviews from critics, and that the games won industry awards for their writing.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: Crash Twinsanity deserves special mention, as the entire soundtrack was done a capella.
  • Demonic Spiders: Bats showed up in later levels of the original Crash Bandicoot game in one of those really tricky, walls coming-in-and-out and floor-disappearing at random moments, side scrolling levels. Fortunately, these enemies were pretty much limited to the game's Scrappy Levels.
    • Sludges in Crash of the Titans. They are fast, do tons of damage, and do a near-impossible to avoid counterattack nearly every time you hit them, and they usually come in groups.
      • Battlers are also a pain in the behind, as they constantly block, come in large groups, and have a very powerful special attack which they love to spam.
    • TKs in Crash: Mind Over Mutant. They have ranged attacks which are impossible to avoid, a annoying melee attack that they are invincible while using and has a large area of effect, and can throw you off your titan.
  • Die for Our Ship: The moment Pasadena made a cutesy comment at Crash in Crash Tag Team Racing, all hellfire was unleashed in the fandom. Tawna finally reappearing the following game after (officially stated to have a fondness for Pinstripe) didn't help.
  • Discredited Meme: In Crash: Mind Over Mutant, Cortex chastizes his minions for forcing "i can haz cheezburger", calling it a stupid meme. Guess he's not fond of LOLcats.
  • Ear Worm:
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • Dingodile is considerably popular thanks to his intro, design, accent and being one of the few of Cortex's mooks who's not (as much of) an idiot.
    • Crunch Bandicoot is very popular, despite having no major role in the games since The Wrath of Cortex. The only reason he's even in Crash Twinsanity is because the fans begged for him to be put in.
    • Cortex is also very popular, and was also due to get his own game, Cortex Chaos, also featuring other villains from the series, but it currently seems to have been put on hold or even canceled altogether. Shame...
    • Most of the other villains are also incredibly popular, especially Brio, N. Gin and Tropy.
  • Even Better Sequel: Pretty much everyone agrees that Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped are much better designed and more enjoyable games than the original game. Some might go so far as to say that Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped is better than Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. Certainly, the critics thought so.
  • Fandom Berserk Button: Calling the wumpa fruits "apples" or "peaches" is the bane of any Crash fan's existence. Except Japanese ones, as in Japan, they are officially called "apples".
  • Friendly Fandoms: With Spyro the Dragon understandably. There's a friendly rivalry at worst.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: The Wrath of Cortex has Coco evading a small tsunami in an Asian-themed level.
  • Iron Woobie: Crash is a cheerful little nut considering all he puts up with throughout the series. Where do we begin? Mutated torturously by Cortex and then branded a failure and kicked out, went through hell to rescue Tawna in the first game (who abiding by official bios, coldly dumped him for Pinstripe, ironically one of Cortex's loyal minions shortly after). Led on a wild goose chase by Cortex in the second game, victim to endless revenge schemes afterwards, often with his beloved baby sister as a pawn, and often put in the middle of any conquests by other evil doers in-between. All with a ton of cruel and unusual cartoon slapstick abuse throughout.
  • Japan Loves Crash Bandicoot: And how.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Nina Cortex. Especially in Crash: Mind Over Mutant.
  • Jumping the Shark: Everything after Crash Team Racing.
  • Mis Blamed: It is often thought that the mediocre reception of Crash: Mind Over Mutant caused Radical to kill the franchise. However, Radical was already working on not one, but two Crash games up to 2010. Not long after Radical was bought out by Activision, Activision laid off the entire team behind the upcoming games, cancelling their production.
  • Moral Event Horizon: In the fourth game, Cortex decides that instead of just killing Crash, he'll wipe him out of existence entirely. It's pretty small potatoes as to what the two N. Tropys had in mind though.
  • Narm: Most of The Wrath Of Cortex's cutscenes, especially the ending. Crunch tries his best to be dark and brooding, but it just doesn't work out in a Crash game. Later titles got the point and made him Denser and Wackier.
  • Not So Crazy Anymore: In Cortex Strikes Back, when Crash confronts Ripper Roo, he's calmly reading a book, and seems to attack Crash only out of annoyance for disturbing his reading. He starts acting insane and laughing maniacally again once he gets hit by an explosion.
  • Only the Creator Does It Right: The Naughty Dog games are considered the best entries in the series, while the post-Naughty Dog games tend to be loved or hated to various degrees. The two exceptions would be Crash Bash and Crash Twinsanity, though even those have reasons for being so beloved: Crash Bash was the first game not made by Naughty Dog, and is designed to be played by up to four people; Crash Twinsanity was made by a developer who imitated Naughty Dog's games in spirit if not in formula.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Though Coco wasn't void of fans early on, she tended to get slammed by critics and fans of the games for her playable appearances, due to her weaker gameplay mechanics and the fact she was probably the least cartoony and expressive of the entire cast, making her considerably less fun to play as than Crash. Starting with Crash: Mind Over Mutant, Coco was made a full alternate skin selectable from Crash and more effort was put into her animations and personality. It says something that not only did Vicarious Visions push hard to make Coco fully playable for N. Sane Trilogy, but the fan base went ecstatic over the announcement.
  • The Scrappy: Tiny in the Radical games is probably the best example the series has. Instead of being a hilarious Dumb Muscle with a loyalty to Cortex with a memorable tasmanian tiger design, Tiny was subjected to the heaviest redesign of any character, being a bengal tiger instead and losing practically all of his old character traits in favor of being a Mike Tyson patische. He was widely derided for not only not even being the same character but being very unmemorable in general relative to his old self. Not even the biggest Radical fans will ever defend him, and many tend to use him as one of the first examples of that era's characterization problems.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: While Coco herself is a fairly popular character with fans, her playable appearances (which mostly play as a weaker variant of Crash) tend to be rather underwelming. Fixed somewhat in Crash: Mind Over Mutant even if you have to activate (and/or deactivate) the game's co-op mode to play as her, and playing the story makes a lot less sense.
    • A fair few of The Wrath Of Cortex's vehicles gain similar criticism, particularly the mech. Clunky, hard to manuever and easy to get hit as, it likely would have been easier and more fun to play the majority of the game as Crash himself.
  • Shipping: Crash/Pasadena. It does seem to make a large part of the character's fanbase.
  • That One Boss: Wa-Wa the Water Elemental in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, Doctor Nefarious Tropy in Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced, Doctor Neo Cortex in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, Madame Amberly in Crash Twinsanity, Uka Uka in Crash of the Titans.
  • That One Level:
    • "Sunset Vista" in the original Crash Bandicoot game. So hard that the Japanese versions of the game moved it to a later level.
    • Not to mention the Dummied Out "Stormy Ascent".
    • And "The Lab". The freaking, gosh-dang Lab. The less said about it, the better.
    • Tomb levels in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped.
      • Both "Tomb Time" and "Sphynxinator" are somewhat hard, but rather acceptable given your progress: "Tomb Time" is only a bit harder than the other stages in the second world while "Sphynxinator" is very hard. However, the real offender is "Tomb Wader", that just has to be one of the most difficult levels in the game, even considering the final tomb level, "Bug Lite", that is set during nighttime. Simply put, "Tomb Wader" keeps filling the place with water (and we all know the way Crash deals with it by now) and emptying it back again. That level basically takes the S out of Scrappy Level.
      • Also, to get the crate gem in "Tomb Time", you had to backtrack. We all know how fun that is. The same goes for "Diggin' It" (and possibly "Piston it Away") from Crash Bandicoot 2. In fact, most levels that feature backtracking can be That One Level.
    • Each of the racing games have theirs:
      • Crash Team Racing has Papu's Pyramid, N. Gin Labs and Hot Air Skyway (although that is made easier with the shortcut).
      • Crash Nitro Kart has Clockwork Wumpa and Hyper Spaceway, with an honorable mention to Thunder Struck.
      • Crash Tag Team Racing has Rings of Uranus, Uranus Mines... in fact, all of Astro Land is irritating. Particularly Rings of Uranus, where the time trial crystal almost requires tool-assist.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: The general opinion of the Crash games after Crash Team Racing, although the newer games are gradually getting better reviews.
  • They Copied It, So It Sucks:
    • Crash Bash and Crash Boom Bang! are considered to be bad Mario Party clones by many.
    • Crash Nitro Kart and Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex are often seen as watered-down PlayStation 2 versions of Crash Team Racing and Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped respectively. Ironic for The Wrath of Cortex, which was originally to be a more innovative free roaming platformer before remaking it in fear of the changes not recieving well.
  • They Just Didn't Care: The plot of Crash Tag Team Racing is very much this. Aside from making little sense by itself, the plotline has practically nothing to do with Crash aside from having several returning characters in it . The plot also ignores some things previously established in the series by having several Talking Animal characters running around for no reason whereas all the animal characters in the series are supposed to have been experimented upon and mutated by Cortex and other scientists. Oddly, the game seems to inspire less They Changed It, Now It Sucks complaints than Radical's later games, Crash of the Titans and Crash: Mind over Mutant, which are in every way much more faithful to the series.
    • This is arguably owed to the Radical games following a Rule of Funny depiction much more than the earlier titles. Crash of the Titans is slightly more story-centric though Crash: Mind Over Mutant takes the random comedy Up to Eleven. All three games have met critism for such changes however, especially concerning the redesigns of the cast.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Crunch Bandicoot seemed all set to be a cool powerhouse for the bandicoots following The Wrath of Cortex. However, his appearances in most games after were minor, playable only in racing and party games (and the Atlasphere stages in N. Tranced) which play identically for every character. In the Titans games, he exists as little more than a gag character and is pretty easy to forget he even appeared.
    • The series was notorious for utilising several popular characters that never got used outside one or two usually minor appearances. Even within the first game, Tawna, Pinstripe and Koala Kong practically disappeared afterwards, never getting real development.
  • Villain Decay - It seems to get worse each new game...
    • Dr. Neo Cortex in today's games is nowhere near as malicious and sinister as his Naughty Dog depictions were. He and most of the other Doctors (notably N.Gin) are also a lot less intelligent and a lot more comical for a bunch of mad scientists now.
      • Played with in Mind Over Mutant. He's just as campy and deranged as ever, if not more so, but in terms of role, he takes revenge on his trecherous niece, overthrows and humilates his abusive boss and pulls an effective Not-So-Harmless Villain moment one on one fight with Crash, not to mention, lack of pants aside, makes a clean escape, avoiding his usual end of game Humiliation Conga.
    • Uka-Uka went from being a Manipulative Bastard to being a Pointy-Haired Boss between Warped and Wrath of Cortex.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The original trilogy had impressive animation considering the relatively low tech.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Crash_Bandicoot/YMMV?oldid=1865864"