Grab your Aku-Aku mask and chow down on some Wumpa fruit, because Crash Bandicoot is back. But since we’re about to be hurled through the multiverse in Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, now seems the appropriate time to look back at Crash’s adventures through time and space over the years in the N’Sane Trilogy. From hopping between islands to crashing through time periods, the iconic hero has come a long way from his polygonal days in the mid-nineties.
Crash Bandicoot
Life was pretty peaceful for Crash Bandicoot until Dr. Neo Cortex captured him and mutated Crash into an anthropomorphic being so he could lead the villain’s army of Cortex Commandos. Luckily, our hero escaped when the mind-altering Cortex Vortex rejected him and he jumped through a window to evade the villain’s clutches.
Crash wasn’t about to go all ‘I never asked for this’ Adam Jensen-style, though; Crash is a bandicoot of action. After meeting Aku-Aku (a witch doctor mask housing an ancient spirit) Crash travelled across the Wumpa Islands to Cortex Castle to save his girlfriend, Tawna. Cortex intended to brainwash her into becoming the leader of his army, so he could take over the world, obviously. But not if Crash has anything to say about it. Not that he can speak in full sentences.
From accidentally waking up Chief Papu Papu and scrapping with Ripper Roo (Cortex’s first experiment) to trading blows with the hulking Koala Kong in a mineshaft, Crash meets several bosses blocking his quest.
Eventually, he finally faces the big bad, Neo Cortex, on top an evil-looking airship. Crash finally knocks the villain out of the sky by spinning Cortex’s own plasma bolts back at him. And we never saw him again… Until the sequel, of course.
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Fast-forward to a year later, and Crash is hanging out with his sister, Coco, before Cortex kidnaps him. Plot twist! He’s not dead! Supposedly he’s turned over a new leaf and needs Crash’s help to round-up 25 crystals so he can stop a planetary alignment which would destroy the world. You know, just a typical Tuesday.
But Doctor N.Gin counters Cortex’s proposal and asks the hero to collect 42 gems so he can blow Cortex’s space station up instead, threatening Bandicoot with obliteration if he doesn’t. Looks like Crash is caught between a crystal and a gem-place, huh?
Every five crystals Crash collects, he’s able to face off against a villain and his first explosive fight is actually a rematch against Ripper Roo, who covers the map in TNT and Nitro boxes. But at twenty crystals, Crash takes on N.Gin and hurls Wumpa fruit at his ship, before it ultimately loses power and gets sucked into space.
Finally, when Crash has all 25 crystals, he gives them to Neo Cortex, who (unsurprisingly) reveals his real plan: to use the planetary alignment and his Cortex Vortex to take over the world.
Typical. Luckily for us, Crash gets a shiny new jetpack to shoot through space with and spin Cortex into the outer reaches of the galaxy. Bye-bye bad guy. Bad news? The Cortex Vortex is still in orbit. So once Crash assembles all 42 gems, he enlists N.Brio to shoot it down. But when he does, something – or someone, is set loose in the chaos…
Crash Bandicoot: Warped
When the wreckage of the Cortex Vortex fell to Earth it smashed into an ancient temple, freeing an ancient spirit, Uka Uka, Aku Aku’s evil twin. To stop the villainous mask and Neo Cortex from collecting 25 crystals, Aku Aku takes Crash, Coco, and Polar to Dr. N.Tropy’s Time Twister so they can assemble them all before Uka Uka does.
Cue time travel shenanigans. Like with Crash Bandicoot 2, for every five crystals the dynamic duo save, Crash takes on one of Cortex’s henchmen.
After collecting 15 crystals, Doctor N.Tropy returns to his Time Twister machine and fights Crash using different time periods to try to kill the hero. At least he’s inventive? But after knocking the villain out, Crash wins the Death Tornado spin, which is probably what he’d also call his rock band if he had one.
After collecting 20 crystals, it’s Coco’s turn to do battle with a boss: she soars through space in her ship shooting Doctor N.Gin’s hulking mech-monster. After eventually blowing his ship to smithereens, Coco wins the Fruit bazooka for Crash. Cute. But Crash’s final fight in the Time Twister’s core is when things get really interesting. We see an incredible battle raging between Aku Aku and Uka Uka that Crash has to dodge to keep attacking Neo Cortex. Once he knocks the evil-doer into the very heart of the Time Twister, Cortex, Uka Uka, and N.Tropy are thrown back in time as babies in the prehistoric age. Surely they can’t cause trouble there, right?
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time
But in Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, things are about to get worse. When Neo Cortex and N.Tropy break free from their time prison, they rip a hole in the fabric of space and time, causing havoc across the multiverse. Luckily, Crash and Coco get mysterious new quantum masks which let them control time, gravity, and reality itself. And if like us, you wondered where Crash’s girlfriend was in the previous two games, a heroic version of Tawna will show up from another dimension to help in their fight against evil. And what a fight against evil it is shaping up to be! With a variety of dangerous new worlds and villainous schemes, can Crash and his band of do-gooders stand up to an onslaught of evil!? … Uh, maybe?
