Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back/YMMV

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  • Anti-Climax Boss: The final fight against Cortex. It's a "Get Back Here!" Boss where Crash chases Cortex through space using the jetpack, and you have to catch up to Cortex hit him. He never attacks you; the only challenge comes from the time limit—which isn't much of an issue since you only need 3 hits to win—and the bombs and asteroids in your path, the latter of which don't even damage you, only setting you back from hitting Cortex.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The secret route entrances tend to be this. Most of them are given away by abnormal level design (a pile of Nitro crates in the form of stairs, for example), and are pretty easy to find. However!
    • One gem is only found behind a fake wall with your only clue being an empty room full of Nitro crates.
    • An another one requires you to perform a belly flop on top of a certain enemy plant in "Digging It", and this one has no clues about it whatsoever, so unless you go through the level destroying these plants, (which you have very little reason to, as they can be runned past pretty easily) that route can be a pain to find. This plant is the only thing on a small platform, but the platform fits the level design so it doesn't stand out.
  • Disappointing Last Level: The final warp room introduces the jetpack mechanic, which is featured in two of the last five levels. In contrast to the rest of the game's free-flowing fast-paced platforming, the jetpack uses a completely different control scheme to the rest of the game, is awkward and finicky to use, and requires the player to move extremely slowly and carefully around tightly enclosed areas. Additionally, the camera is positioned directly behind Crash rather than above him facing downwards, as in the other levels, which makes discerning the relative positions of obstacles even harder than it ought to be. The final boss battle against Cortex is based around the jetpack mechanic — as in, the mechanic that was only introduced five levels ago in a game 25 levels long. And the final boss battle is extremely anticlimactic — Crash just chases after him and spin-attacks him three times, and he doesn't even attempt to defend himself or fight back. The only thing that makes the battle challenging is the awkward jetpack controls and the limited time to finish him off.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Ripper Roo, the Komodo Brothers, Tiny Tiger, and especially Dr. N. Gin.
  • Even Better Sequel: Many agree that Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped are much better designed and more enjoyable than the original game, representing the pinnacle of the series, introducing most of the characters fans are familiar with.
  • Gameplay Derailment: Trying to grind some more lives on Turtle Woods? You think the moment when you fall into pit with cyberrats is annoying? Well, there is a legit way which, if doesn't work at first, is possible to pull off with some skill: just jump above the pit through the faux-walls. In fact, this trick was one of the many objects of this game's tool-assisted speedrun, kindly demonstrated here. The same moment in "Un-Bearable" is also avoidable, but this time, with a simple slide jump.
  • Growing the Beard: This game is seen by many as this for the series.
  • Hell Is That Noise: The bees in Diggin' It and Bee-Havin' make a distinctive buzzing which, if you're coming from the opposite direction, should make you scrabble for the nearest cover.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • So you decided to play it safe and avoided destroying any crates next to the nitros, thinking that you'll be getting them anyway since triggering the green !-block at the end of the stage causes all of them to explode? Too bad, since that only affects the nitros and nothing next to them. Time to start the level again.
    • The game is really big on the whole backtracking thing through some of the levels, but some of them really don't account for Crash having to do that like the boulder levels in which the camera pans out away from Crash so the player can see what he's doing. Many of the really hard gems in the game come from Crash having to backtrack a lot in highly dangerous levels that the player can't easily anticipate the hazards coming.
  • That One Level: "Cold Hard Crash", a nightmare if you're trying to get the "destroy all crates" gem. You have to play through the first half of the level without dying to reach the Death Course, a difficult, checkpoint-free path covered in crusher traps and nitro mines, almost entirely on slippery ice. When you reach the end of the death course, you need to activate a switch and do the course BACKWARDS to get the new crate the switch spawns at the beginning of the level, at which point you take the platform back to the main level and complete it. Oh, and there's a single, hard-to-find crate hidden just offscreen. Missed it? DO THE WHOLE THING OVER AGAIN.
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