Characters / Crash Bandicoot: Heroes

Crash Bandicoot Main Character Index
Heroes (Coco Bandicoot) | Villains (Scientists, Evolved Animals) | Other Characters

All heroes in the Crash Bandicoot franchise.

---

Bandicoots

In General

• Blue Is Heroic:
  • Crash and Coco both wear blue pants and are the main heroes of the series.
  • Crash himself drives a blue-coloured kart in Crash Team Racing, and in Nitro Kart, four of them (Crash, Coco, Crunch and Fake Crash) all drive blue-coloured karts and are good guys (Fake Crash himself is a Wild Card, though).
  • Isabella's main colour is also blue and she's protected by Aku Aku in Nitro-Fueled, thus making her this too.
  • The alternate Tawna in It's About Time has blue streaks in her hair, a blue scarf and blue jeans, and she's as heroic as they come.
• Comic Trio: The Radical era rewrote the main protagonists into such. Coco was the schemer, Crash was the dumb follower, and Aku Aku was the Straight Man. Crunch could have attributes of any depending on his mood.
• Informed Species: They don't particularly resemble real bandicoots. Flashback tapes in It's About Time show that N. Gin thought they were cats; some people say they thought they were foxes, too.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between:
  • Usually, Cheerful Child Coco is Nice, Boisterous Bruiser Crunch is Mean and Cloud Cuckoo Lander Crash is In-Between. In the Radical games however, the personalities and dynamic are tweaked somewhat. Crunch becomes soft hearted Dumb Muscle and thus Nice, Coco, now more of a Bratty Half-Pint, is Mean, while Crash is still a Cloudcuckoo Lander and In-Between.
  • Nitro-Fueled's expansion of Tawna and the Nitro Girls: the dorky Megumi and The Lad-ette Ami are the Nice, Attention Whore Liz and Hair-Trigger Temper Isabella are the Mean, with Tawna as the Deadpan Snarker but ultimately team-player In-Between.
• Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females: Played With in that the males are shirtless instead of pantsless: all of the male bandicoots (plus Evil Crash) are shirtless while all of the female bandicoots are fully clothed from neck to toe.
• Secret Project Refugee Family: Though it doesn't come up very much in the series, the Bandicoots (namely Crash and Coco, and later Crunch) are this since they were all created by Cortex to aid him in world conquest only to turn against him and thwart his plans time and time again.
• Sexy Dimorphism: While Crash and Crunch are more fully Funny Animals with minimal human traits besides being upright and having hands, the female bandicoots tend to have far more humanoid and less cartoony designs, often with very slender and feminine proportioning. Coco zigzags in and out with this depending on design, though is still always more human-like than the male bandicoots.
• Still Wearing the Old Colors: It's About Time reveals that Crash's shorts are a hand-me-down gift from Cortex and that Coco's overalls used to belong to N. Brio.
• Super-Soldier: Crash was created to be a soldier in Cortex's army of anthropomorphized animals, and was chosen to be the general of his army. The Flashback Tapes reveal that Coco was chosen to take his place after he escaped, only to escape herself.
• Town Girls: Coco is a neither, the original Tawna is a femme, and the alternate Tawna is a butch.
• Women Are Wiser: Generally, the female bandicoots are nearly always at least relatively more normal, competent and serious thinking than the males by miles. Coco Depending on the Writer is only sane by comparison, and may suffer the occasional role reversal, but even for her the default is that she has a genius IQ compared to Crash or Crunch.

The Main Duo

Crash Bandicoot

"Whoa!"

Voiced by: Brendan O Brien (1996-98, 2000-03), Carlos Alazraqui (1997)^note Cortex Strikes Back promotional video only, Chip Chinery (1999), Steve Blum (2003), Jess Harnell (2005-20), Scott Whyte (2020-present)

First appearance: Crash Bandicoot (1996)

A genetically advanced Eastern Barred Bandicoot and inhabitant of the Wumpa Islands. Once an ordinary bandicoot, he was snatched from the wild by Doctor Neo Cortex and subjected to the Evolvo-Ray as part of Cortex's plan to make Crash the general of his "Cortex Commandos", which would be used to dominate the world.

However, when Cortex's mind-controlling Cortex Vortex failed to work on Crash, he ran away from the castle, and Cortex planned to use the next test subject: the female bandicoot named Tawna. To rescue her, Crash traveled through the Wumpa Islands, defeating Cortex's henchmen along the way. He eventually stole Cortex's airship, defeated Doctor Cortex, and escaped alongside Tawna.

Nowadays, he attempts to live a quiet life on the Wumpa Islands. However, his relaxation tends to be interrupted by another world domination plot by Doctor Neo Cortex, forcing Crash to once again defeat him in order to put his life back in order.

---

• Adaptational Intelligence: Crash, in his appearance in the Skylanders Academy Netflix series, is Suddenly Voiced, this time with a proper Awesome Aussie accent, and he is much more intelligent as well. This is to the point where his actions lead to Spyro becoming a Fan Boy of him. Funnily enough, his second appearance has him slightly less intelligent than the initial episode due to certain dark magics on display, and he's still more intelligent than at any point during the home series games.
• Alliterative Name: As it turns out, his actual name is Crashworth Cortex The First, if the flashback sequences in It's About Time are any indication.
• All-Loving Hero: While he will fight anyone who is evil at the time, Crash is also very forgiving and accepting of others. This is best seen in "Crash Nitro Kart", where he is seen happily forgiving every single boss character once they show they aren't actually that bad, even giving Kronk his yoyo as a gift. "Cortex Strikes Back", "Twinsanity" and "It's About Time" even show that he is perfectly willing to work with Cortex if he believes that it's for the greater good and in the latter, he even hugs him when they join sides and is genuinely hurt when Cortex reveals that he sees Crash as his greatest failure.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: Crash was "cutened" up for the Japanese release. He even got the trademark Crash Dance created by the Japanese that originally appeared in Japanese commercials for Crash 1 and was carried back into the American versions starting with 2. Some have speculated that this design change combined with Radical Entertainment's radical character redesigns that would make such things look awkward is what's keeping Radical's Crash games from being released in Japan.
  • The Japanese covers are ironically a bit more indicative of Crash's in-game behavior and personality than the American covers. The original American covers for the original trilogy would always make Crash look much more intense and mischievous. In-game, he acts much more goofy and happy-go-lucky, and rarely seems to really know what he's doing.
• Aside Glance: Crash will turn to the camera to look at the viewer and wiggle his eyebrows whenever he's about to jump on and ride Polar or the wild boar.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Though he somehow figures his way through Cortex's schemes rather competently, he often shows a poor attention to the problems at hand, like shrugging off having his arch enemy inserted into his brain in Twinsanity.
• Awesome Aussie: A bandicoot who often has to use his wits and agility to save the world and more often than not succeeds.
• Badass Adorable: Especially in the Japanese media, where he sports a cuter design and is no less formidable.
  • The little dance he does when he wins in Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled is made extra-cute when he does it with Coco in a cutscene.
  • He is equally able to rise to the occasion whenever Cortex is trying to enact one of his schemes... and yet also run away after being scared at a minor threat. For example, he's more scared of a ghost in the intro levels of It's About Time than he is of Cortex later on.
• Badass Biker: Even if just for a few levels in Warped, by virtue of needing to be one to win either Crystals, Gems, or Relics, otherwise you have to try again.
• Belly Flop Crushing: He gains this move in the second game that lets him bust open metal-reinforced (i.e. not solid metal) crates. It's upgraded in the third game after beating Tiny, which lets him break the aforementioned reinforced crates and produce a small shockwave around him that harms nearby enemies upon landing.
• Berserk Button: Don't deprive him of his Wumpa Fruit, and especially DON'T try to harm Coco.
• Beware the Silly Ones: This dumb, silly, slapstick-prone, and kind of lazy bandicoot can be dangerous and crafty when provoked.
• BFG: His Fruit Bazooka in the third game, that you can get after beating N. Gin. It lets him fire a Wumpa Fruit to the distance, allowing him to hit faraway crates and enemies. The Wrath of Cortex also gives him one (after beating Crunch and Lo-Lo) and it becomes instrumental in the final boss fight.
• Big Brother Instinct: As dumb as he is, he visibly cares a lot about his little sister. It especially comes into play in later titles, as threatening Coco's life is often one of only a few ways the villains can grab Crash's undivided attention.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: He has thick eyebrows, though they're still nowhere near as huge as Fake Crash's eyebrows.
• Blood Knight: While he doesn't actively seek out the adventures he gets into, several commercials and game manuals claim he enjoys them a lot more than he lets on.
• Bowdlerise: Originally, the Crash Dance involved Pelvic Thrusts in the middle of it. As of Skylanders, however, the thrusts were replaced by the Running Man. It's About Time goes back to him doing Pelvic Thrusts.
• Brains and Brawn: Acts as the Brawn to either Coco and Aku Aku's Brains, doing most of the physical work while they provide directions and utilities. He sometimes has the same dynamic with Cortex during their Enemy Mine moments as well.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: While he can be rather active and moves a lot once the game starts, in the end, he tends not to have anything to do other than napping.
• Butt-Monkey: He often suffers numerous Amusing Injuries in his adventures, being killed in various brutal ways.
• Canon Immigrant: The Crash Dance was originally created for commercials in Japan. As of the second game, it became a canon Character Tic.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The defining aspect of Crash for the large part. While select post-Naughty Dog games play him up more as an idiot^note something that was to some degree the original idea in concept art for the first game, the base characterisation is less a matter of intelligence so much as Crash being... not entirely there. Whereas everyone around him takes their positions (relatively) seriously, he's a borderline cartoon character prone to slapstick shenanigans. Even in Crash's most air-headed bouts however, he is usually smarter than he looks.
• Conservation of Competence: In addition to his own intellect, Crash's dynamic also often varies according to the handling of the rest of the cast. In the original games and It's About Time, he is the one crazy bungling fool among a relatively sane and serious acting group. In the Titans series however, everyone else is even more bombastic and deranged than he is, making Crash more of a goofy straight man. Other games tend to subvert this trope and play it down the middle, with the other characters more lucid and intelligent, but not neccessarily more sensible, thus Crash is often the most outwardly zany character but with pangs of brilliance.
• Cool Big Bro: For all his buffoonery, he still often manages to be this to Coco, especially in the Radical games.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Most of Crash's moments of being legitimately crafty usually fall into this. Need a quick trip down a mountain? Slide down it on Cortex! Threatened by an enormous death weapon? Throw something like a chicken or a wumpa fruit into its gears.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Crash might be an incident-prone buffoon most of the time, but there's no denying he's a hero worth his salt several times over. While his attention span can be seriously lacking, he always bravely endeavors to protect others and do the right thing, and has triumphed over a veritable army of mutants and monsters time and again, travelling the world, into space, through time and across dimensions to save the world.
  • Generally, Crash would rather nap than do anything. But ninety percent of the game's plots are because someone disturbed that nap, and then Crash becomes a Determinator who will stop at nothing until they're gone and the threat's over. And not just the immediate threat, by the way, but until the ENTIRE plot is solved.
• Depending on the Writer: The impetus on him being the way he is. Crash is seemingly always prone to incidental shenanigans, but post-PS1 entries made it moreso a matter of him being lacking upstairs as opposed to being of a wacky demeanor.
• Disappointing Older Sibling: Not as often as expected, though there are times such as Tag Team Racing and It's About Time where Coco's patience starts to wane with Crash's buffoonery.
• Double Jump: An ability introduced in the third game that becomes a staple in many games afterward.
• Elective Mute:
  • As revealed by the epilogue in It's About Time, Crash is perfectly capable of speech with a surprisingly deep and smooth voice at that. He simply chooses not to. Though it’s questionable whether or not this is canon.
  • Among the rest of the canon, Crash either has a semi-high pitched voice when he does talk but a limited vocabulary (he has a grand total of 4 exclamations in the original trilogy), or speaks in unintelligible babble that only Aku-Aku seems to understand (most commonly seen in the Radical titles but also present a bit in Crash Team Racing).
• Endearingly Dorky: He is a goofy, not very bright but very optimistic and consistently helpful, easygoing guy who loves doing goofy dances. Even his sister is amused by his antics in N. Sane Trilogy (in a platonic sense, of course).
• Exposed Animal Belly Button: Only up until The Wrath of Cortex.
• Expy: Crash is essentially a happier, friendlier version of Taz from Looney Tunes, with both of them being obscure marsupials that are known for their powerful Spin Attack and their lack of intellect. Funnily enough, one of Crash's original names during development of the first game was Willie Wombat, which is the name of a character from Taz's Spin-Off show, Taz-Mania.
• Fatal Flaw: A ton of Crash's injuries are caused by him being reckless or oblivious. Best demonstrated in the majority of Tag Team Racing's "Die-O-Ramas".
• Flanderization: The general characterization of Crash is a Cloud Cuckoo Lander who isn't too bright but still fairly competent, however a lot of titles after the Naughty Dog developed era tend to wax and wane with his personality, particularly his intellect and relative competence compared to everyone else:
  • Due to the Black Comedy nature of both games, both Twinsanity and Tag Team Racing convey Crash more negatively, being almost abnormally dumb and sociopathically ignorant, even developing screwy squirrel traits towards hurting random people in the latter.
  • A relative Deconstruction happens in the Titans games. While Crash is even more wacky and animalistic than before, he is also more virtuous and resourceful again. Also as a result of nearly everyone else in the cast (even his Straight Men Aku Aku and Coco) also being Flanderized to be even more clownish and error prone as him, there are generally more role reversals where Crash is left holding the Sanity Ball or even displays Silent Snarker tendencies. It's About Time sticks near around this characterisation too, however since his co-stars have been reverse-Flanderized in their role as his more intelligent and far less bungling foils again, he is generally back at the bottom of the Conservation of Competence and as full-time comic relief to his more serious allies.
  • In the Skylanders Academy Netflix series, instead of Crash being like himself in the games: an goofy wordless Idiot Hero, his faithful characteristic was gone entirely and has become an generic Guile Hero with a Awesome Aussie accent and seems to be Spyro's Magnetic Hero, even when he is given some of his Cloud Cuckoo Lander traits in a episode, they are rather downplayed than anything and was a shell of his former self.
• Flawed Prototype: He was meant to be one of Cortex's great creations, but didn't pan out too well. His future self accidentally wrecking the Cortex Vortex will do that. Coco has since gone on to prove herself his Superior Successor, having all of his abilities with none (or very little) of his flaws (though Depending on the Writer she moderates it with some of her own). If the epilogue of It's About Time is accurate, Crash might actually be smarter and more sapient than he lets on, but he intentionally plays the idiot goofball to allow his little sister to shine.
• The Fool: Not the smartest guy around but somehow always comes out on top, even if he takes a few stumbles with surviving tons of injuries here and there. Especially apparent in It's About Time's story, where the majority of key plot pivots are caused by his accidental blundering, his more competent allies helping him, or his enemies blundering their attempts to stop him.
• The Friend No One Likes: Downplayed in It's About Time, where he is still friendly with most of the other heroes, but individual chemistries range from barely acknowledging him to only just tolerating him. Coco, Tawna and Aku Aku all care about him but visibly consider him an Insufferable Imbecile, Cortex, as per norm, hates his guts. His least turbulent relationship is with Dingodile, a former enemy he barely interacts with.
• Genius Ditz: Crash's intellect borders on animalistic at times, however he can accustom to nearly any new tactic placed in front of him, be it controlling new vehicles and weaponry, or even sapient creatures.
• Glass Cannon: All of his attacks, from his spin attack, to his slide, to his belly flop can defeat every enemy that isn't protected by spikes, shields or anything in that nature and are also capable of damaging bosses. Crash himself, however, goes down in a single hit no matter which enemy it is that hurts him. And the only way for him to prevent this is to rely on outside help in the form of Aku Aku masks. In fairness however, just about every character that can play in Crash's place has the same durability.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Crash has this going on with Doctor Neo Cortex from time to time. Granted, it's usually to get rid of a bigger threat like Oxide or Velo.
• Gone Horribly Right: Cortex wanted to create an unstoppable, fearless, destructive animal super soldier. He got exactly that. Pity the brainwashing didn't take.
• Good Is Dumb: Crash, though not without moments of brilliance, is often a victim of circumstances or being an Unwitting Pawn due to his simple-minded nature, but Aku Aku always makes sure to guide him to do good.
• Good Morning, Crono: Up until and including Crash Purple, most games in the series had Crash's first on-screen moments sleeping in some form. Even afterwards, the portable versions of Titans use a variant of this.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Crash wears pink boxers with red hearts, seen only in his death animations in Cortex Strikes Back and Warped. (One of the Gags of Tag Team Racing depicts him with white boxers with red hearts instead.)
• Goomba Stomp: Wherever spinning won't work, this usually will.
• Guile Hero: Crash isn't exactly strong or smart compared to most of the villains, and most of his quests to take them down are plans made on the fly. More pronounced in Cortex Strikes Back and The Wrath of Cortex where he'll use the environment or even technology to get a leg-up on bosses he wouldn't otherwise have a chance with.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Wears shoes, pants and gloves, but never a shirt.
• Happy Dance: The trademark Crash Dance, done whenever Crash earns a gem or a relic, beats a boss, or wins a race. It was originally created for the Japanese marketing, but was added into the games starting with Cortex Strikes Back.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Crash's trademark affinity for Wumpa Fruit is translated as such in Crash Team Rumble, as it inevitably gives him the most maxed out Wumpa capacity of the roster^note 140, while everyone else has 90-120, making him an extremely efficient Scorer.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Displays a rather sadistic sense of humor at times, shown especially in Crash Tag Team Racing. Also a bit apathetic at times, though that may be due more to his stupidity, hyperactivity, and spaciness.
• Heroic Mime: In early games, his only spoken words were "Uh-oh", "Yee-ha", and "Woah", which can hardly be counted as words in the first place. In the Radical-made games (and to a lesser extent, Nitro-Fueled), he babbles incomprehensibly, while Twinsanity makes him mute to the point where he doesn't even say "Woah" when he dies. N. Sane Trilogy sees him returning more towards this trope.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Throughout the series he and Aku Aku have been the closest of companions and allies.
• Hidden Depths: As mentioned above, Crash is practically braindead book-wise, though sometimes shows signs of being the most emotionally intelligent of the group. He is shown to be seriously devoted and protective towards his baby sister in Titans, and picks up on her disappointment when Tawna abandons them in It's About Time. Nitro Kart and It's About Time also show him to be a surprisingly forgiving fellow towards what should be his greatest foes, expressing kindness or cooperation in his own eccentric way. He is also one of very few characters rarely driven by hubris throughout the series, while many of his intellectual superiors, both friend and foe, are prone to being dangerously arrogant or temperamental.
  • Titans displays this perfectly: in an early level he's angry with Cortex primarily because he's kidnapped Coco and flaunting it, then gets down and dirty with the Titan that serves as the level's "boss". In the level's closing cutscene, where the defeat of the Titan has opened up a way to follow Cortex, Crash actively asks Aku-Aku if the Titan is okay and makes sure it's good to go before leaving. It's About Time then has this dynamic with two former long-time series enemies, and depending on if IAT's Dingodile is the same as Cortex's minion or a different universe one of them even sticks.
  • Also, comparing dynamics of both games, in It's About Time, Crash's comrades are recurrently snide and impatient with Crash's bumbling and don't trust him or others to do the job competently, in Titans, Crash is essentially in a role reversal, with Coco, Crunch and even Aku Aku all screwing up and getting caught, and just in general acting more fallible and silly than usual. Despite the extra grunt work, Crash at no point is shown getting annoyed with any of them and succinctly lets them each take lead after saving them, understanding they're smarter than him. Despite the "teamwork" motif between the other heroes in It's About Time, Crash seems to have a more thorough understanding how teamwork actually works.
• Humble Goal: Crash's greatest desires are dancing and napping. This is the guy who had an opportunity to be ruler of an entire galaxy but turned it down under the belief it would get boring.
• Iconic Outfit: Crash has, in nearly all of his depictions, a pair of blue pants and/or jeans and a pair of red shoes. It's About Time would establish that the pants were originally Cortex's.
• Idiot Hero: Crash is perhaps the least intelligent of the heroes in the series and Naughty Dog once referenced the development of Crash as a character that is "goofy yet heroic", and being able to portray it very well.
• Immune to Mind Control: Cortex's attempt to put Crash through the Cortex Vortex causes the machine to malfunction, with Crash apparently being too stupid to brainwash. Granted, his future self accidentally sabotaging the Cortex Vortex, as seen in It's About Time, didn't help.
• Insufferable Imbecile: Not consistently, though Twinsanity onwards, some games really like to play off of how dim witted and chaotic Crash acts around the other characters. While Cortex obviously sees him as such by default, in Crash Tag Team Racing and It's About Time even allies such as Aku Aku and Coco are getting visibly pissed off with his uselessness. Reversed in the Titans games, where Crash is usually no more incompetent than everyone else.
• Iron Butt Monkey: So much the developers put special treatment in animating every possible manner he can lose a life in the game and was all done in cartoony or brutal ways. While he's hardly the only example in the series, he is most certainly the most steadfast case, being far more thick-skinned compared to the more neurotic villains or even his sister, Coco, who loathe their comedic abuse and humiliation.
• Jack of All Stats: In the racing games, he is usually this alongside Dr. Neo Cortex.
• Killer Yoyo: He's sometimes seen playing a yo-yo, but he never weaponized it until his appearance in Skylanders Imaginators.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: Sometimes a bit more sociopathic than usual examples, though usually means well despite his clueless demeanor.
• Leitmotif: Often had the Warped or Twinsanity theme represent him in cutscenes.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: By default he's a bungling almost animalistic goof. A lot of cases trouble occurs however, he suddenly becomes bizarrely competent and crafty. The Radical games were especially prone to demonstrating this.
• Mad Eye: One of his pupils is blown out in It's About Time, emphasizing his madcap personality.
• The Many Deaths of You: Because of being a Iron Butt Monkey, he gets eaten, bombed, turned into an angel, and hammered to name a few death animations. Parodied in Tag Team Racing in the form of the Die-O-Ramas.
• Mascot: The first of many for the PlayStation brand and Naughty Dog, before Naughty Dog stopped developing Crash games and the series became multi-platform.
• Mascot with Attitude: He appeared to be one on the covers, though in the games he was really goofy.
• Nice Guy: Ultimately, Crash is actually a pretty nice guy, if a little lazy and not always thinking straight. He pretty quickly accepts Crunch's Heel–Face Turn, has a pretty big Big Brother Instinct towards any of the bandicoots or their allies in trouble (especially Coco), and will save the world from Cortex (and sometimes even for Cortex) without a second thought when it comes down to it.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Pretty much all Crash's actions in the second game only end up endangering the planet. First he is nearly tricked into handing Cortex the 25 crystals needed to power his planet scale Cortex Vortex, and then after Coco stops him, he helps Brio blow up Cortex's space station, indirectly triggering the events that will release Uka Uka. Oddly enough, Coco retroactively decides to travel back in time to help Crash do all this in N Sane Trilogy.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Likely Played for Laughs. The fourth game's secret ending reveals that Crash is capable of speaking normally, but chooses to knowingly communicate through grunts and blabbering for reasons unknown.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: It's About Time's Flashback Tapes reveals that "Crash" is short for "Crashworth Cortex the First."
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Villains have tried and failed repeatedly to faze the vacuous Crash with ceaseless threats and insults. The first time Uka Uka threatened to hurt Coco, however, off came that smile.
  • Also shown against Velo. After establishing his tremendous power and stakes, having kidnapped his allies (and in Polar's case, brainwashed them into serving his minions), Crash takes the Emperor's introduction much more seriously, and is shown standing in front of Coco and Crunch shooting Velo a Death Glare.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Started to succumb to this after Coco got Promoted to Playable post-revival. Crash is still a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, but his sister not only has all of his abilities, but is far more elegant with them, has a Gadgeteer Genius IQ and the power of speech, all of which plus a fair lack of flaws and goof ups of her own end up making her The Leader, and The Smart Guy, and The Heart of the group in It's About Time while Crash is usually....Plucky Comic Relief and The Friend No One Likes. Coco's bio for On The Run even straight up states that she could easily supplant Crash as the world's hero if she wanted to. Downplayed in the Radical and remake era, where Coco has these same traits, but is much more hot headed and less savvy than Crash in terms of Guile Hero tactics and bungles no less often than he does.
• Palm Tree Panic: His track in CTR, Crash Cove, is set around a beach.
• Perpetual Smiler: Particularly in later titles where his more dimwitted traits are emphasized.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: When you think about it, this little guy can fight off much bigger, more muscular enemies and even enemies who use huge tech just by spinning or throwing Wumpa Fruits. This is best shown in the Mutant games.
• The Pollyanna: For all that he's put up with, he's pretty happy-go-lucky.
• Power Tattoo: Temporarily in Crash of the Titans and Mind Over Mutant, he has tattoos to jack on mutants instead of gloves (except for the GBA version of Titans)
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Coco's blue. Crash is more action-oriented than Coco and more willing to react to situations with instinct as opposed to intuition. Depending on Coco's depiction however, Crash is sometimes more laid back and passive than his sister demeanour wise.
• Sapient Eat Sapient: Quite disturbingly, he's implied to have drunk Willie Wumpa Cheeks's remains in Tag Team Racing. On the bright side, he ended up inadvertently saving Von Clutch by this.
• Showy Invincible Hero: No matter what you throw at this guy, he'll almost always figure out a way to win. And golly if he doesn't make it look awesome. It also makes sense given that he's exactly what Cortex created him to be, just not brainwashed to obey him.
  • Comically Invincible Hero: A lot of it is also Played for Laughs, and he does succumb to a lot of slapstick along the way.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: He's simple minded, silent and passive, and prone to making expressive gestures, while Coco is more level headed (though also cheerful in her own way), more talkative and temperamental, and has relatively subtler gestures. Of course between Crash's occasional Simple-Minded Wisdom and Coco's own goofy side, it's shown how they're still similar in a certain way, especially in later titles.
• Silent Snarker: Has occasional displays of this, especially in the Radical titles.
• Simple-Minded Wisdom: Being a marsupial of very few words, it doesn't come out a whole lot, but Crash does have noticeable displays of intellect. He is an All-Loving Hero in Nitro Kart in particular and it shows.
• Slide Attack: He gains this move in the second game, that allows him to move under gaps, kick the undersides of some enemies, jump higher and move faster in general. N-Tranced has an upgrade for this move (Super Slide) that lets him slide much further.
• Smarter Than You Look: Even at his dumbest, Crash is thoroughly competent at saving the day, and his track record for making an ass of things isn't really much greater than even his smartest comrades or foes. Indeed, considering most boss fights are strategy based, and a large portion of Crash's foes consist of scientific masterminds (and on at least two occasions his genius IQ sister, Coco, as a result of becoming Brainwashed and Crazy), Crash outsmarts intellectuals on a routine basis.
• Spin Attack: His signature move is to spin around.
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: In some boss fights he can spin back certain boss projectiles at them.
• Spring Jump: In N-Tranced he can gain this move after beating Evil Coco, that lets him jump very high.
• Sprint Shoes: A powerup introduced in the third game (Warped), acquired after beating the final boss. This lets him run faster than usual, allowing him to finish Time Trials quicker. This is also often the last power he'd gain in other games where available.
• Spectacular Spinning: His main form of offense. The third game gives it an upgrade after beating N. Tropy that lets him do a lot more spin at once, that also allows him to slow his descent in midair and reach great distances from a jump. A few games afterward also have the same upgrade.
• Suddenly Voiced:
  • Not conventionally, but in the Radical made titles and Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, Crash speaks in an incoherent babble, with a fair few audible words heard throughout. This is especially evident in the Titans promotional movies.
  • A promotional video made for Cortex Strikes Back has Crash talking directly to the viewer. Thankfully, he does not talk like that in any of the actual games.
  • In the Skylanders Academy Netflix series, Crash makes a special appearance in the tail end of episode 10 and as a special guest in episode 11, and he is fully voiced. Here, he has an Awesome Aussie accent, is much more intelligent, and his actions lead to Spyro becoming his Fan Boy and trying to be like him.
  • In Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, Crash is revealed to be none other than the smooth-voiced and articulate narrator of the epilogue.
• Straw Loser: Due to Coco having Took a Level in Badass in the physical department and Crash, being the same level of intellect as before, It's About Time generally shifts the Conservation of Competence completely in Coco's favour in the cutscenes, with her moving the plan forward competently and avoiding slapstick while Crash screws up and often poses as an Insufferable Imbecile. Even the way he finally redeems himself by accidentally botching his own creation is through his usual stupidity and clumsiness. Downplayed in previous titles, where Coco is only academically smarter and Crash is the more central protagonist and sometimes holds the Smart Ball.
• Super Prototype: Crash was one of Cortex's earliest works, and was evolved and trained to be the peak of all his forces as their commander. Upside for Cortex is, the part regarding physical capability worked out perfectly. The downside is that the finishing touch of brainwashing him was a complete failure, and now his most capable creation is what always gets in his way.
• Taught by Experience: Implied to be the reason why Crash (in the first continuity) did most of the fighting and platforming out of his siblings; Coco may be academically smarter and Crunch may be stronger, but Crash has more actual field experience dealing with threats than they do. It's even likely that one reason Coco time-traveled to go through the same adventures as Crash in the N. Sane Trilogy was so that she could close the gap in field experience she previously had with her brother.
• Technician/Performer Team-Up: The Performer to Coco's Technician (at least on his better days). Crash is a clumsy wacky Idiot Hero, has little sense of strategy and can't even talk (usually). He is capable of spontaneous craftiness at times however and, compared to his more thin skinned sister, he generally takes whatever pratfalls he suffers in stride and keeps going. In many early games, Crash often relied on Coco to strategise and invent gadgetry while Crash was often tasked with most of the leg work as well as dealing with most of Cortex and Uka Uka's goons using his Guile Hero tactics.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Tiny guy to Tawna's huge girl.
• Token Good Teammate: In Crash Twinsanity, given that his teammates are the Cortexes. Technically, since the masks are in this too, he shares this role with Aku Aku but is much more prominent in the game's story.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Tag Team Racing, Crash was much more of an apathetic Troll, committing violent pranks and destruction on various occupants of the park and shrugging off Von Clutch's deactivation. This characterization is mostly exclusive to this one installment.
• Trademark Favorite Food: He most often eats Wumpa fruit. One of the flashback levels in It's About Time has Cortex note that during his training, he refused all other food until he was offered Wumpa fruit, which he took to with great enthusiasm.
• The Unintelligible: Became this in the Radical titles, which contrasts with his Heroic Mime status in other games.
• Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: Most games have Cortex create a new mutant or more that is designed to excel over Crash (one of his first mutants) and defeat him. Crash always proves victorious, either by defeating or befriending the new mutant (or both).
• Virtuous Character Copy: Crash ticks off a lot of boxes when you compare him to Taz. He's an obscure Australian marsupial that mainly speaks in incoherent babbling, keeps the lights on upstairs even though no one ever seems to be home, and spins around as his main means of offense. He also gets into plenty of antics that are sure to bust a gut. The only difference between the two is that Taz is a violent and ravenous jerk and Crash is a happy-go-lucky all-around nice guy.
• Vocal Dissonance: As seen in It's About Time's secret ending, Crash has a deep, suave voice when speaking normally, compared to the high-pitched babbling we usually get from him.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: In Mind over Mutant, he throws up after Nina made him and Aku Aku nearly kiss each other.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: In CTR, he sold his life story to be made into a successful movie.
• Would Hit a Girl: He's sparred with Nina several times now, albeit naturally in self defense.
  • He didn't mind fighting Coco when she was brainwashed either.
• Younger Than He Looks: It's About Time's Flashback Tapes dates his birthday (specifically, the day that he was hit with the Evolvo-Ray, as a normal bandicoot he could have been older) on July 19, which means he was at least one year old by the time Crash Bandicoot begins.

Coco Bandicoot

See Coco Bandicoot

Other Bandicoots

Tawna

"This time, no one will catch me!"

Voiced by: Debi Derryberry (2017), Misty Lee (2019)

First appearance: Crash Bandicoot (1996)

Crash's (former) love interest, a no-nonsense damsel-in-distress who made her debut in the first game. The primary goal is to rescue her from Neo Cortex who intends to brainwash her into becoming general after his last experiment with Crash failed. It is unknown what happened between the two after he saved her life. The Japanese canon implies that she left Crash in favor of Pinstripe Potoroo, but nothing came of it since.

In Nitro-Fueled, she forms a racing team of her own with the four Trophy Girls dubbed the "Nitro Squad", but nothing came of that outside of Nitro-Fueled as well.

---

• Action Girl: In the remake of Crash 1 and onwards.
• Adaptational Badass: Granted, she's still a Damsel in Distress, but the intro of N. Sane Trilogy has her put up resistance, punching out one of Cortex's flunkies before she's surrounded and subdued. She later joins Crash in his adventures in Nitro-Fueled, becoming the leader of the Nitro Squad, a team of racers whose members include the Trophy Girls, and in It's About Time, an alternate universe version of herself who was heroic and strong not only becomes one of the main characters, but she's also playable.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Her original handwave as to why she never appeared after the first one, that she dumped Crash for Pinstripe Potoroo, makes her come off as an Ungrateful Bitch and a Gold Digger. In Crash 4, however, it's merely said Crash and Coco lost touch with her, meaning they could have easily parted on better terms.
• Adrenaline Makeover: Her Privateer skin gives her a fairly radical one. Justified with the punk-like alternate dimension version of her that appears in It's About Time.
• Badass Arm-Fold: Gives one in the Nitro Tour Grand Prix Intro of Nitro-Fueled, signalling that she is no longer the same helpless damsel you had to save back in 1996.
• Bowdlerise: Her original design had her wearing an ultra-tight tank top that showed off some serious cleavage and bared her midriff, along with a pair of high heels. In-game, she has a shirt that covers more of her torso, and a pair of shoes similar to Crash's. The remake further tones down her curviness, though she's still a Ms. Fanservice despite that.
• Braids of Action: Her motorsport outfit has her hair styled into an Elsa-esque braid.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Flies to the camera on a broomstick, and winks to the player during her Witch Tawna victory animation. Outside of that, she also turns around and winks during her trick jump.
• Breakout Character: Initially a one-dimensional Damsel in Distress who vanished after the first game, Tawna became a fan-favorite after her return in the N. Sane Trilogy to the point of headlining the Nitro Tour GP in Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled as the leader of the Nitro Squad and becoming a playable character in It's About Time (albeit as an alternate universe version).
• Brutal Honesty: Unlike many racers and her own squad mates (save Megumi), she doesn't hide or use any excuses when she loses, but openly expresses her disappointment.
  Tawna: I really wanted that trophy...
• The Bus Came Back: After essentially being "retired" after the first game, she was mostly limited to sporadic cameos, though briefly returned as a playable character in Boom Bang, and again in Nitro-Fueled 23 years later.
• The Cameo:
  • Warped and The Wrath of Cortex show that Crash still has a picture of her in Bandicoots' house.
  • She also appears on the front of Moulin Cortex in Twinsanity.
• The Comically Serious: She is this in Nitro-Fueled, being the only racer in the cast to take the competition seriously and has minimal comical traits. Though she isn't above joining in the antics (as her Winter and Halloween Witch skin victory podium animations show) and some of her yelps and exclamations when failing in a race have her lose her composure in a funny way.
• Commuting on a Bus: While Nitro-Fueled brought her back, the only mention she gets in It's About Time is Coco mentioning that they lost touch with her to her own alternate universe self, and the first bonus round has a pillow with her classic token on a couch.
• Cool Big Sis: Displays this vibe in Nitro-Fueled. While her Nitro Squad teammates are more emotional, she remains mature, calm and collected, even when losing a race.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Mostly vanished from the series after the first game barring the occasional cameo, due to Sony of Japan mandating Coco as a more family friendly female sidekick for Crash. This was waved away by the original developers saying she broke up with Crash for Pinstripe Potoroo. She even sent him a break-up letter stating this in the Crash Bandicoot manga. Due to her return in Nitro-Fueled, however, it's wholly ambiguous again on the in-universe reason for her disappearance, as it's implied that she's still with Crash or at least has feelings for him and has no known connection to Pinstripe. Coco alludes to it in It's About Time by saying that they lost touch with her, while talking to a parallel version of her.
• Clothes Make the Superman: She appears to gain superpowers while wearing her motorsport uniform, as shown in her victory animation where she charges an Enhanced Punch and slams her fist into the ground, creating a pink energy shockwave.
• Damsel in Distress: The extent of her role in the first game.
• Deadpan Snarker: The racers in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled would either yelp or exclaim "Ouch!" when under attack. As for Tawna? She merely utters an annoyed grunt or a sardonic "Oh, really?".
• Disposable Love Interest: Disappears after the first game outside a few cameos. Averted in Nitro-Fueled, where she returns as a playable character and the leader of the Trophy Girls (who are now known as the Nitro Squad), with her status as Crash's love interest only being implied and largely out of focus.
• Femme Fatale: Her original concept art was intended to invoke this, though her in-game design toned it down considerably. Her modern design provides its own take, with Nitro-Fueled providing the mannerisms to match it. It's especially pronounced for her Privateer skin's victory podium animation.
• Fragile Speedster: In Nitro-Fueled, she focuses on acceleration.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Her original concept art depicts her bangs in front of one eye. The remake follows through on that concept.
• Hood Ornament Hottie: She appears as one for Nitro-Fueled...but only to show that she means business.
• Hot Witch: Her Witch Tawna skin. Granted, she was ALWAYS the former.
• Humanoid Female Animal: She has a much more human looking design than any of the other animal characters.
• Impossible Hourglass Figure: And her in-game design is the toned-down version. Her original design was even more curvy.
• Inexplicably Tailless: Actually averted in her case. Despite being a tailed animal, Crash and the other bandicoots are all tailless, except for Tawna, who has a fluffy yellow rabbit-like tail, rather than a rat-like tail bandicoots normally have.
• Informed Attribute:
  • The idea behind Tawna was that she was "Pamela Anderson with a brain", implying that she's smart. Considering that she never actually says or does anything throughout the series, her smartness is never demonstrated.
  • Nitro-Fueled may actually be the first actual implementation. Tawna's head of the Nitro Squad of racers, and she's the calm, cool, collected head and proves to be a capable racer.
• Leg Focus: She has a very long pair of legs that her shorts easily show off.
• Ms. Fanservice: She pretty much existed for this, with her rather humanoid, curvy look. Since the execs wanted to downplay this, the developers responded by leaving her out of the series after the first game. Nitro-Fueled brings it back, with her (and the rest of the Nitro Squad) wearing rather skin-tight racing gear, though it's toned down a bit.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: She lets out a small one when using an item, or wearing her witch and winter skins on the podium.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: She was outright defined by her creators as "Pamela Anderson, with a brain".
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: Downplayed. Marsupials are mammals, but still, marsupials' mammaries are different.
• Only Sane Woman: As of Nitro-Fueled, she's effectively the only member of the entire cast to not be eccentric, crazy, megalomaniacal, or any combination thereof.^*Aside from N. Tropy, but even then he is pompous at times. Even her own squadmates are goofballs. Her shirt would imply she still has a huge crush on Crash however.
• Panthera Awesome: Has an alternative tiger skin in Nitro Fueled.
• Promoted to Playable: She joins Crash and the rest of the cast as a playable character in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled.
• Satellite Love Interest: Never gained much in terms of personality outside being Crash's (former?) girlfriend. Nitro-Fueled gives her a little more personality, and surprisingly not much related to Crash save for a tee shirt with his face on it.
• Sickening Sweethearts: She and Crash are very affectionate when they're together, and she goes so far as to wear his face on her shirt. In turn, Tawna's the only thing besides eating, napping, and fighting that Crash has any particular interest in.
• Statuesque Stunner: She's twice as tall as Crash, easily able to lift him up. Downplayed in Boom Bang where she has a much shorter game model.
• Suddenly Voiced: After twenty-three years of silence and minor gameplay grunts, Tawna finally speaks in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Huge girl to Crash's tiny guy.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Plays both sides with Coco:
  • She's the Girly Girl to Coco's Tomboy as far as the older series is concerned, as Coco was explicitly introduced to be a less sexualized female companion for Crash that played up her intelligence and Plucky Girl aspects while Tawna, when she appeared, was always played for her beauty more than anything.
  • As of the reboot, it's inverted, with Tawna being the rowdy, take no prisoners Tomboy to Coco's frilly, princess-aspiring Girly Girl.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: In the reboot, Tawna is a Hot-Blooded fighter and racer who has no problems getting her hands dirty, but wears pink for her outfits, and her witch and winter skins in Nitro-Fueled have her wear bows in some way.
• Ungrateful Bitch:
  • Of doubtful canon: Supposedly, after Crash saves her, she breaks up with him, and hooks up with Pinstripe, one of the guys serving under Cortex who tried to kill Crash on his way to save her. However, this information was only in the Japanese manual for one of the games, the manga, and Naughty Dog's old website (possibly just as a joke), so it's unclear whether this is canon as of the reboot/remake games.
  • Averted in the reboot/remakes. While she still doesn't make a physical appearance in Cortex Strikes Back or Warped, she makes her return in Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled and it's implied that she's still with Crash or at least still has the hots for him, as she still wears her Crash t-shirt and doesn't seem to have any connection to Pinstripe anymore.
• The Voiceless: Even quieter than Crash in the first game. Elevated to having a few gameplay grunts in N. Sane Trilogy and Boom Bang. It wasn't until Nitro-Fueled, twenty-three years after her debut, that she would gain a proper voice and dialogue.

Tawna (Alternate)

"Sorry, I fly solo. But I’ll-I’ll lend a hand where I can. In fact, I already have..."

Voiced by: Ursula Taherian (2020)

First appearance: Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (2020)

An alternate version of Tawna. While her original counterpart is a Damsel in Distress, in her universe, she essentially takes Crash's and Coco's place as protector of the world against evil scientists.

---

• Aloof Ally: She prefers to work alone (especially after Crash and Coco's equivalents have... seemingly gotten a terrible fate), but is willing to help them secretly in the background.
• Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: She's a full-blown adventurer like Crash and Coco, unlike her counterpart.
• Anime Hair: This Tawna's tall, tri-color and gravity-defying spiky 'do definitely counts as this.
• Badass in Distress: Trying to fight the N. Tropies all by herself ends up leaving her quickly defeated and at their mercy, the other four arriving just before they can finish her off.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Played with like Coco in the same game. She is conveyed as Immune to Slapstick in cutscenes and has barely any comedic sore spots, but does the same slapstick deaths as everyone else in actual gameplay. Deconstructed in the climax with the Tropy duo, where she suffers a Curb-Stomp Battle, though this is still among very few injuries in the series that is blatantly not Played for Laughs.
• Black Bra and Panties: Death by electrocution reveals she wears a black and pink-trimmed sports bra with matching boyshorts under her outfit; zig-zagged in that she doesn't intentionally show them off.
• Cool Big Sis: She is just as cool (if not more) as her original counterpart, but is less of a team player and does things entirely on her own terms. She is especially close with Coco.
• Exposed Animal Belly Button: Tawna's scene in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue shows her relaxing by a volcano, wearing a short top that reveals her to have a belly button◊ despite Crash losing his.
• Femme Fatale: Tawna's original creators envisioned her as "Pamela Anderson with a brain", but this Tawna is the first incarnation of her to actually demonstrate that claim. She is enough of a dangerous dame that she isn't above conking Crash on the head to keep him in line.
• Forced to Watch: Her world's N. Tropy claims to have killed their iterations of Crash and Coco in front of her and took immense glee at Tawna's powerlessness.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: Besides the Running Gag that she is the one doing most of the rescuing now, she ironically gets minimal personal interactions with Crash, and what they get tends to hint he is The Un-Favourite of her friend circle compared to Coco.
• Gamer Chick: The ending of It's About Time depicts her as such. She's seen playing a two-player one with Coco, and two of the ending pictures have her owning a Nintendo Switch-like handheld console as well as cheering on "Kickass Coco" with her friends (and Cortex) at a major E-Sports event.
• Glass Cannon: In Team Rumble, Tawna is the one among the characters in the Scorer class who has the biggest focus on combat, thanks to her high Combat and Mobility stats. However, she is also among the characters who has the lowest health stat, making her combat skills a high risk. Downplayed mid-Season One patch which gave her a small health increase.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: She is equipped with one, which allows her to not only traverse levels, but also defeat enemies from a distance.
• Hartman Hips: In It's About Time, her hips are significantly wider than her waist and shoulders. Something her tight jeans heavily emphasize.
• Hero of Another Story: She isn't a stranger to collecting crystals, gems, and foiling mad scientists that try to take over the world. As such, she treats Crash and Coco's latest adventure no different than the usual.
• Inexplicably Tailless: She is one. Evidently, any bandicoot that's a major character in their dimension loses their tail, as the original Tawna actually does have a tail.
• I Work Alone: States this trope word-for-word during her first meeting with Crash and Coco. In "Stowing Away", she stops them from boarding Oxide's hovercraft before driving it herself to confront the N. Tropies alone, desperate to prevent their deaths as well.
• Kick Chick: In It's About Time, she can perform powerful kicks in place of Crash and Coco's spin attack.
• Knight of Cerebus: A rare heroic example, since her involvement in It's About Time is one of the very few genuinely dramatic plots in the series. Also, while she takes part in gameplay slapstick like the other playable characters, her character otherwise is given a much more subtle and serious air, with very minimal whimsical or bungling qualities compared to the rest of the cartoony cast.
• Leg Focus: Really shown both with her tight jeans, which highlight her very curvy thighs and her 100% epilogue still-image displaying them in full view while she's in a skirt.
• The Lost Lenore: Her versions of Crash and Coco were killed a long time ago by her N. Tropy.
• Male Gaze: A few camera angles like to show off her… generous butt, to put it lightly.
• Mirror Self: Of the original Tawna, if more shrewdly than usual. Crash's Tawna was a feminine Damsel in Distress, albeit with some Action Girl qualities and smarts. Alternate Tawna is a tomboy and a fully fledged Action Girl, her Running Gag being she often is the one saving Crash, though still needs rescuing herself odd times due to her own impulsiveness.
• Ms. Fanservice: To a much lesser degree than her main counterpart, since she's far more about fisticuffs and acrobatics. That being said, her 100% epilogue still-image shows her wearing a Summer getup that shows off her midriff and legs, she has pronounced hips and buttocks, something the game likes to show off and her slow walking animation is a sultry Supermodel Strut.
• Nice Girl: While she may be a Aloof Ally most of the time, whenever she does interact with Crash and Coco, as well as anyone allied with them, she usually proves to be quiet friendly and personal.
• Never Be Hurt Again: In her universe, N. Tropy killed Crash and Coco. She evades being in the presence of their prime counterparts whenever possible, having been used to working alone for so long and eventually steals a spacecraft they were planning to use to confront the N. Tropies so that they won't die the same way.
• Promoted to Playable: She is the first version of Tawna to be playable in any platforming game.
• Statuesque Stunner: Curiously downplayed. While she's still taller and more sultry than Crash and Coco, she's noticably smaller than the original Tawna, likely for gameplay convinience.
• Stepford Smiler: The signs are clear early on that something bad happen to her Crash and Coco as she was briefly on the verge of tears when Coco brought it up. It turns out that they died at the hands of her N. Tropy. She tries to keep their distance from them, yet always works to help them from the shadows. She also tries to keep them from confronting N. Trophy out of fear losing them.
• Supermodel Strut: As one would expect from a Femme Fatale character, her playable alternate self showcases a confident slow strut.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • While both have a tomboyish streak, Tawna's the punkish Tomboy to Coco's effeminate Girly-Girl.
  • She's also this to herself—Alternate Tawna's the adventurous Tomboy to the original Tawna's damsel-in-distress Girly-Girl.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She takes the original Tawna's recharacterization in the reboots further, with a more punk rock-looking design.
• Took a Level in Badass: It's implied that Tawna was originally just as much of a Neutral Female as her original counterpart, but Crash's and Coco's deaths toughened her up to take their place as protector of the world.
• Underestimating Badassery: She prevents Crash and Coco from going after the Tropys, believing she has to protect them. She faces them solo, only to suffer a Curb-Stomp Battle. When the bandicoots step in just in time, she admits her mistake.
• You Don't Look Like You: In-Universe case with the version of her that Crash and Coco come across during their dimensional travels, to the point that Crash examines her from every corner until she knocks him out by reflex, while Coco almost instantly realizes she's not their Tawna.

Crunch Bandicoot

"This is the creature who keeps sabotaging your master plan? Ha! You gotta be kidding. I'll exterminate this field rat in no time!"

Voiced by: Kevin Michael Richardson (2001-03), Chris Williams (2005-08), Ike Amadi (2019)

First appearance: Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (2001)

A genetically altered bandicoot who was originally created by Cortex to harness the power of the Elementals and destroy Crash Bandicoot. After his defeat to Crash, Crunch had a complete change of heart due to breaking out of his mind control and now lives with Crash and Coco.

---

• All Your Powers Combined: In his debut, he can throw fireballs, create waves, roll around in a stone ball, and turn into a ghostly storm cloud version of himself all due to the harnessed powers of the Elementals, and uses them all at once in the final battle.
• Art Evolution: Crunch becomes noticeably "handsomer" in his design in Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled when compared to previous games, and this is largely in part to the character designs becoming more refined and animations getting better.
• Big Brother Instinct: After Crash and Coco were so kind as to welcome him into their family despite being enemies at first, he does everything he can to be a good mentor to his surrogate little siblings.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: A large part of why he's so loyal to Crash and his group is because of how they welcomed him with open arms after he broke free from Cortex's mind control.
• Bicep Kiss: He does this when he wins a race in Nitro-Fueled.
• Big Eater: One of his quotes in Nitro Kart when falling into a pit has him complaining that he didn't get the chance to eat yet.
• The Big Guy: Of the Bandicoot family.
• Boisterous Bruiser: In later games due to his hyperactive personality.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In his debut appearance it's revealed he was actually under Cortex's Mind Control and was a good guy all along. He once again falls victim to this in N-Tranced, and it continues happening in later games to the point of it becoming a Running Gag for him.
  Crunch: Man, brainwashed again!
• The Bus Came Back: Has been confirmed to have his first playable appearance in over a decade in Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled. Anyone who purchases the Nitros Oxide edition will be able to play as him from the get-go.
• Character Check: He has an average level of intelligence for his appearance in Nitro-Fueled, compared to how dumb he became in the last few games before the series' initial cancellation.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Following his Heel–Face Turn, he's became increasingly ditzy and hyper in personality.
• The Cameo:
  • In the cutscene prior to the first boss fight in Twinsanity, he appears among the gathering of villains for Crash's "birthday party". Humorously, he doesn't get that the gathering is actually to kill Crash and stands there confused holding a cake.
  • In It's About Time, he also appears on monitors in Cortex's lab during Flashback Tape levels.
• Cyborg: One of his arms is mechanical. In Tag-Team Racing he also gains a mechanical ear.
• Darker and Edgier: His appearance in The Wrath of Cortex is this, as an actually dangerous bandicoot that Cortex wanted. After his release from brainwashing in that game, though, he became Denser and Wackier as the series went on (with the exception of N-Tranced, where he actually averts Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?).
• Designated Victim: Nearly all his appearances involved him being brainwashed or otherwise put out of action, likely to justify him being an NPC.
• Distressed Dude: Despite his status as The Big Guy of the Bandicoots, Crunch frequently gets brainwashed or otherwise incapacitated in most of the games he appears in, and has to be freed by Crash.
• The Dog Bites Back: Pretty much the instant he's snapped out of Cortex's mind control, he's ready to beat the doctor to a pulp. Aku-Aku is able to reign him in before he can do any damage however and after joining the Bandicoot family, it can be implied that revenge is a large part of his motivation for opposing Cortex.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Even under Cortex's control, Crunch was thoroughly impudent. His alternative plan for attacking Crash in the final boss was kicking Cortex at him.
• Dumb Muscle: Following his Flanderization starting with Tag Team Racing and later in the Radical Entertainment titles.
• Evil Counterpart: He was originally this towards Crash, being the only Bandicoot under Cortex's control. After he's gone through his Heel–Face Turn, he's basically become the Good Counterpart to Tiny, to the extent that the latter actually sees him as a softy copycat according to the Nitro Kart manual.
• Expy: Could easily be seen as the Knuckles to Crash's Sonic, though Crunch is much different personality-wise.
• Final Boss: While he's also the only boss in The Wrath of Cortex, the final battle has him team up with all four Elementals, Cortex, and Uka Uka.
• Fitness Nut: Is as obsessed with bodybuilding as the likes of Tiny and Koala Kong. One of the first scenes in the intro to Nitro Kart has him lifting weights and talking crash diets with Aku-Aku with him ultimately saying that all anyone has to do is "Eat less and exercise more."
• Flanderization: He was originally a Knight of Cerebus in The Wrath Of Cortex, mostly due to being mind-controlled, and is revealed to be a genuinely nice and caring Gentle Giant once freed from it. But as the series veered into more cartoony territory, so did Crunch, eventually being reduced to the Dumb Muscle of the Bandicoots and ultimately ending up as a Mr. T parody in the Radical Entertainment era. His return in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled discarded the Mr. T parody but kept his jock traits.
• Gentle Giant: After his unbrainwashing, he proves to be a pretty friendly and easy-going guy. The birthday party mentioned above? Yeah, Twinsanity is a direct sequel to The Wrath of Cortex, and he's already leagues away from his original personality.
• Good Costume Switch: Following Wrath of Cortex, Crunch's design overall was softened in order to convey that he's a good guy now. His dark red fur was changed to varying shades between brick red and brown, the cammo on his pants were changed from Winter print to Forest and his boots were altered to remove the spikes and made more saturated in color. All designs goin forward would work from that with his original Wrath of Cortex era design only ever being used for his cameo shot in Its About Time.
• Good Is Dumb: As a brainwashed villain in The Wrath of Cortex, Crunch was a fairly lucid and intimidating villain with minimal comical traits. After turning good, Crunch rapidly became buffoonish. Subverted in Mind Over Mutant, evil brainwashed Crunch is even more crazy and dim as normal good Crunch.
• The Heavy: He's played as a more major presence in The Wrath of Cortex than Cortex himself, as the bosses are all him in different ways.
• Heel–Face Turn: After being broken out of Cortex's mind control in The Wrath of Cortex, he turns against him and joins the Bandicoots, who warmly welcome him aboard.
• Iconic Sequel Character: He debuted in the first post-Naughty Dog platformer, The Wrath of Cortex, and has been a prominent member of the Bandicoot family ever since.
• Knight of Cerebus: Weirdly, he was originally portrayed as this in The Wrath of Cortex, being a legitimately dangerous foe with little-to-no comedic moments as well as having some really creepy-looking One-Winged Angel forms in his boss fights. Then again, that could all just be chalked up to him being Brainwashed and Crazy, as his later appearances lack the seriousness and intimidation that he had in this game.
• Large Ham: Became this in later titles, Tag Team Racing and Mind Over Mutant in particular.
  Crunch: (replying to Coco after she and Crash refuse to clean up) Okay. Guess I'll just say some catchphrases. Drink lemonade, Vitamin C.
• The Load: After being freed of Cortex's control, Crunch joins Crash and Coco on their following adventures, but he doesn't actually do much of anything useful. He makes a small cameo in Twinsanity at Crash's "birthday party", is brainwashed into attacking Crash again in both N-Tranced and Mind over Mutant, and is frozen from the neck down for the entirety of Crash of the Titans. The only times he isn't useless are when he's a playable character, which is relegated to kart races and a couple of levels in N-Tranced.
• Lovable Jock: Seems to be one in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. He's still a good guy, but is very cocky and abrasive while racing. His podium animations drive the point further by having him flex and show off his muscles if he's the winner, in a manner similar to Koala Kong.
• Major Injury Underreaction: When getting hit by an item in Nitro-Fueled, he'll occasionally remark "Neh, that didn't hurt."
• Mighty Glacier: In racing games, he usually is a speed based character.
• Motor Mouth: In the Radical Entertainment games.
• Nice Guy: When he isn't being mind-controlled; he expresses his gratitude towards Crash and the gang after the events of The Wrath of Cortex, sees them as family, and even becomes a role model for children later on.
• Never Learned to Read: Claims as much in one of many quotes spouted upon having his vehicle destroyed in a race in Crash Tag Team Racing.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Crunch's mannerisms in Radical Entertainment games are based on Mr. T's own.
• Non-Action Guy: Ironically despite being The Big Guy, he was never made fully playable in a main series game, limited to vehicles or cutscene action and thus often inactive. He got a Big Damn Heroes moment in Crash Tag Team Racing however.
• Promoted to Playable: In the main series, he first became a playable character in Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced via the game's Atlasphere stages, and was also playable in the racing titles starting with Crash Nitro Kart.
• Recurring Boss: In The Wrath of Cortex, where he teams up with different Elementals throughout the game before he uses all of them and Cortex.
• Red Right Hand: For unknown reasons, he has a cybernetic right hand. Nitro-Fueled appears to give it a purpose, as it forces Crunch to punch himself in the face to keep him in line, during his animation at the end of a race, regardless of whether he loses or wins (although the latter case got patched out).
• Smug Smiler: In Nitro-Fueled, Crunch has a perpetual smug, self-confident grin on his face.
• Spoof Aesop: He enjoys delivering these in Mind Over Mutant.
• Superior Successor: Cortex created Crunch with the direct intent of being this to Crash, being stronger, smarter and (seemingly) loyal to his master every way. This didn't quite work out however, since while Crunch is more physically powerful and sapient than Crash, he has plenty of his own idiosyncrasies to make up for it, and has also lost to Crash whenever they have been made to face each other.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's got muscles to match the likes of Koala Kong and Tiny and by far has the darkest fur color of all the bandicoots but with much less ferocious looks, especially after his Heel–Face Turn. It's part of what made him such an Ensemble Dark Horse in the first place.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Tended to think with his fists in his initial appearances but was otherwise intelligent. In the Radical games, he's a complete airhead.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Similarly to other big guys in the series like Tiny and Koala Kong, Crunch has a very large and muscular upper body but relatively skinny legs. This is even more noticeable in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, where he's much smaller than in previous games but retains his large upper body.
• Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: Cortex invented him specifically to surpass Crash in every way and destroy his Arch-Enemy once and for all. For numerous reasons, it didn't work out.
• Undying Loyalty: Pretty devout to Crash and Coco after his Heel–Face Turn. Unfortunately, the bad guys frequently get around this by brainwashing him again.
• Unexplained Recovery: His body is blown to pieces after his third encounter with Crash, yet he returns just fine for their fourth encounter... after which he's reduced to a pile of bones, and he still shows up again completely fine for the final encounter with no explanation given.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: His boss battle in N-Tranced has him fire a gun at Crash for his main method of attack. He's the first boss of the brainwashed bandicoots, making a rare example in this series of a villain trying to do it twice.
  • Averted in the true ending of The Wrath of Cortex. After being freed from mind control, Crunch is all too eager to pay Cortex back for screwing with his mind. Aku Aku puts a stop to it before he can get too far, however.
• X-Ray Sparks: In the boss fight with him and Lo-Lo in The Wrath of Cortex, he sometimes blinks an X-rayed image of himself when he's shot at. It's due to him becoming an embodiment of the storms itself. He even explodes into bones when he's defeated.
• Your Size May Vary: In The Wrath of Cortex he towered over Crash, but after his Heel–Face Turn, he noticeably shrunk to about two or three heads larger than Crash, most likely to accommodate him becoming a playable character in later entries. In Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, he's even smaller, only about a head taller than both Crash and Coco, and smaller than characters like Tiny and Papu Papu.

The Trophy Girls/Nitro Squad

In General

A group of female bandicoots who appeared in Crash Team Racing, twirling umbrellas after the race has been won and handing out the trophies to the winners. They return as fully playable racers in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, now under the collective moniker of the Nitro Squad, with Tawna as their leader.

---

Tropes applying to the group as a whole:

• Adaptational Badass: They go from handing out trophies in CTR to actively racing for them as an Amazon Brigade in Nitro-Fueled. The Neon Circus and Gasmoxia Grand Prixes outright makes them expert performers and space pirates, as well.
• Adaptational Modesty: As their original purpose was Fanservice Extra, they are treated with more dignity in Nitro-Fueled:
  • Their chests have been halfed down and don't bounce anymore.
  • Isabella, Ami and Liz don't have their chest exposed as it was in the past.
  • Ami and Liz were given longer dress and skirt, and a pair of pants to wear underneath it.
  • Liz has a lengthned top that covers most of her torso.
• Amazon Brigade: They form one with Tawna as their leader in Nitro-Fueled.
• Animesque: Unlike Tawna, their faces have big, anime-like eyes. It helps that two of them, Ami and Megumi, have Japanese names. Averted in Nitro-Fueled, where they look more in line with the rest of the characters and similar to Tawna in the actual game, but colourful anime-styled illustrations of them can be seen on the neon signs and barriers in Slide Coliseum.
• Balance, Power, Skill, Gimmick: Each one represents a racer category who fit more or less their personalities: Isabella is the balanced, Ami focuses on speed, Megumi prefers to start the fastest and Liz chooses handling to take her time.
• Characterization Marches On: In the original CTR, they had no dialogue or any real character at all. The most information one could gleam from them was during the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, which is also the only time they're addressed by name. Cut to twenty years later, and they've returned with their own unique voices and personalities.
• Clothes Make the Superman: They appear to gain superpowers while wearing their motorsport uniforms, similar to Crash, Coco and Cortex and their Electron skins. Each Nitro Squad member's victory animation includes a moment where they perform moves that emit bursts of their respective color. Ami throws some punches and flexes, Megumi kicks and twirls around, Liz performs martial arts gestures and poses and Isabella actually fires a small projectile from her hands (that vanishes quickly).
• Divergent Character Evolution: While their individual looks are different enough from Tawna's, they all acted similarly as the resident race queens of CTR, sharing the same animation. Nitro-Fueled later fixed this by giving a distinct personality to each of the girls (which is reflected in their voices, racing animations and even official renders), varying stats as playable racers, their own unique podium animations, and even holograms in Slide Coliseum showing off their signature dances.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Possibly. Female bandicoots strongly resembling them appear in the Crash Bandicoot manga, in sequences where Crash fantasizes about saving the world and becoming popular with the ladies. This might explain why the Trophy Girls have a more Animesque appearance than anyone else in the whole series.
  • A more straight example would be in pre-Grand Prix version of Nitro-Fueled, where they appear in Slide Coliseum as dancing holograms and images on the track's neon signs and barriers.
• Fanservice Extra: In Crash Team Racing, they primarily existed to provide Fanservice during the trophy ceremonies and didn't have much character otherwise. Their return in Nitro-Fueled averts this, as they're now playable and have more characterization.
• Foreign Fanservice: All of them are from — or, at least raised in, they're mutant bandicoots after all — different countries. Ami is from America, Liz is from England, Isabella is from Italy, and Megumi is from Japan.
• Fun Personified: All of them are fun to various degrees, but Megumi in particular really is just happy to be racing period.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: While Isabella, Liz, and Megumi are much daintier than Ami, they're all just as capable at racing like she does. The former two's Circus skins even give them punk haircuts, and Isabella's has spiky bracelets for her wrists, neck, waist and ankles. They also have no problem using ray guns for their space pirate skins (well, except for Megumi, that is).
• Groupie Brigade: Whenever one of them wins, an army of screaming silhouetted fangirls appears at the bottom of the screen at the podium, cheering for them and taking pictures.
• Hood Ornament Hottie: They all fit the part in their original appearance, even posing with Crash near a kart for one promotional art. In their Nitro-Fueled intros for the Nitro Tour Grand Prix, they pose near karts again, but actually join in on the races this time.
• Humanoid Female Animal: Their bodies are by far the closest to actual human women in the franchise, especially noticeable in a series where most humans that show up look cartoonishly distorted in some way.
• Inexplicably Tailless: Averted. Similar to Tawna, they're the only bandicoots (visible) tails, although their tails more closely resemble those of rabbits or hares than the rat-like tails bandicoots normally have.
• Impossible Hourglass Figure: They're very curvaceous and have narrow waists. Averted in Nitro-Fueled, where their proportions are a bit more sensible.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Their motorsport outfits show just how serious they are about racing.
• Loveable Rogue: They invoke this for their space pirate skins, to various degrees of success.
• Ms. Fanservice: It's like Tawna times four!
• Multinational Team: They appear to be this in Nitro-Fueled, with Ami and Tawna having American accents from different regions, Isabella being Italian, Liz being British, and Megumi being Japanese. Their nationalities seem to be based on the various women they're named after to some extent.
• Mythology Gag: Narrated in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue of the original CTR, Ami wanted to win her own racing trophies instead of handing them out forever. In Nitro-Fueled, she and the other former Trophy Girls get that chance as they are now Promoted to Playable.
• Outdated Outfit: Justified, seeing as they hadn't been used for 20 years by the time Nitro-Fueled was made. The only real change that was done for their regular clothes was to give Ami and Liz some pants.
• Pit Girls: They were originally a group of curvy women who carry umbrellas and appear at the trophy ceremonies.
• Promoted to Playable: Nitro-Fueled has them ditch the podium and become fully-fledged playable racers.
• Remember the New Guy?: None of them appeared in the games prior to Team Racing. However, since they're bandicoots, one can easily infer on them having been modified by the Evolvo-Ray at some point.
• The Smurfette Principle: Isabella and Liz are the only female members of their respective stat classes in Nitro-Fueled (Megumi and Tawna share the Acceleration class with Coco while Ami shares the Speed class with Nina, Passadena and Yaya).
• Statuesque Stunner: Much like Tawna, they're attractive and they tower over most of the other characters.
• Suddenly Voiced: They all started talking in Nitro-Fueled.
• Tareme Eyes: The four of them have these. It's harder to see in Nitro-Fueled because they don't keep their eyes wide open all the time.
• Theme Naming: They're all named after various women who worked at Sony Computer Entertainment at the time of Crash Team Racing's creation. Isabella comes from Isabelle Tomatis, Product Manager at SCE America, Ami comes from Ami Matsumura-Blair, Marketing Manager at SCE America, Liz comes from Elizabeth Ashford, PR Manager at SCE Europe, and Megumi comes from Megumi Hosoya, Product and Marketing Manager at SCE Japan (who is also responsible for creating Crash's iconic dance).
• Tuckerization: See Theme Naming above.
• The Voiceless: They never spoke in the original CTR.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Ami becomes a racer herself, saying that she's tired of handing out trophies and wants to win one for herself, Isabella earns a bit part on the season finale of Bay Waters, Liz poses for Bandiboy Magazine and buys her dream mansion with the earnings, and Megumi creates a new perfume line called "Odecoot".

Ami

"Can't wait for the green light!"

Voiced by: Cissy Jones (2019)

First appearance: Crash Team Racing (1999)

A green-haired female bandicoot who is responsible for handing out trophies to Tiny, Dingodile, and the other evolved animals in CTR. She returns as a Speed-class racer in Nitro-Fueled.

---

• Amazonian Beauty: She's a bit more bulky than the rest of the girls, and is happy to show it off.
• Bifauxnen: Gains a very dapper blue tuxedo and top hat in her Circus Ami skin.
• Boyish Short Hair: Out of all the Nitro Squad members, she has the shortest hair. She is also rather tomboyish, as she loves racing and her winning animation has her flexing her muscles.
• Curtains Match the Window: Ami has green hair and green eyes.
• Heroic Build: Ami has more muscular limbs and is stronger than the other girls, showing off her muscles at any opportunity.
• The Lad-ette: Ami has a more tomboyish personality than the other girls, and looking closely, she's also got a bit more muscle mass, which she's all too eager to display by flexing during her victory podium animation.
• Mighty Glacier: To emphase her Lad-ette demeanor.
• My Nayme Is: Her name is spelled like the Japanese "Ami", but pronounced like the English "Amy".
• "Staying Alive" Dance Pose: Her hologram in Slide Coliseum does a disco point.
• Tomboyish Voice: She has a slightly raspy voice.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Even though she is The Lad-ette, she still wears a dress. In addition, not only is her Circus skin the most feminine-looking compared to the others (even Megumi's), her podium animation for it also has her strut around and twirl her umbrella.
• Tranquil Fury: A downplayed variant. Should Ami lose a race she will merely cross her arms and sulk.
  • Similarly, one of her racing lines has her barely restrain her anger:
    Ami: (When hit) Ugh! Could you…?
• Took a Level in Badass: While all of the girls became racers, she's the one who showed the most improvement, as she gained some muscle, high speed stats, and a more radical haircut.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: If she loses a race for the second consecutive time, she says this with a very annoyed look on her face.

Megumi

"I've been waiting for this!"

Voiced by: Stephanie Sheh (2019)

First appearance: Crash Team Racing (1999)

A blue-haired female bandicoot who is responsible for handing out trophies to Cortex, N. Gin, and N. Tropy in CTR. She returns as an Acceleration-class racer in Nitro-Fueled.

---

• Apologetic Attacker: Unlike many characters, her racing lines mostly consist of apologizing to the others for inconveniencing them in some way.
• The Baby of the Bunch: In terms of height, she's the smallest member of the Nitro Squad, and she has the least mature personality among them.
• Badass Adorable: She's a Genki Girl and an experienced racer.
• The Cutie: Compared to the others, Megumi has the least sex appeal, since her attractiveness is more focused on her Japanese-styled traits making her cute. Nitro-Fueled emphasizes this a little further by giving her slightly chubbier cheeks and a noticeable accent.
• Fragile Speedster: To go with her Genki Girl depiction.
• Genki Girl: Her animations in Nitro-Fueled depict her as someone very enthusiastic and cheerful.
• Girlish Pigtails: Her circus skin gives her a nice pair that make her look like a harlequin.
• Graceful Loser: Should Megumi end a race in a place lower than first, she'll shrug the loss off and even congratulate the winner in the podiums if she comes in second or third. She is also notably the only racer thus far to carry out this trait.
• Japanese Politeness: She's Japanese and is by far the most polite member of the Nitro Squad, notably being a Graceful Loser if she doesn't come in first place.
• Japanese Ranguage: Downplayed. She speaks English perfectly well, but she has a thick Japanese accent, leading to her L's and R's sounding similar to each other sometimes.
• Nice Girl: Seems to be racing purely for the fun of it, and although she'll be visibly disappointed if she loses, she's also quick to shrug off the loss and be a good sport about it, clapping for whoever won at the podium. One of her idle animations also has her happily wave to whoever is next to her.
• Poirot Speak: A few of her lines are Japanese words. Usually to punctuate getting hurt, though.
• Reckless Gun Usage: She's clearly too sweet to handle a ray gun in her Raider skin, as she inadvertently presses the trigger hard enough to let out a huge laser, then it flies off of her hands.

Liz

"Now I'll make EVERY front page!"

Voiced by: Victoria Atkin (2019)

First appearance: Crash Team Racing (1999)

A brunette female bandicoot who was responsible for handing out trophies to Polar and Pura in CTR. She returns as a Handling-class racer in Nitro-Fueled.

---

• Attention Whore: Liz is very competitive, and her motivation seems to be to become famous through racing. Her introduction in the CTR TV video has her proclaim that she's going to be on the front page of every publication, and that "You're gonna see my name in lights!" when she wins. Her victory animation at the podium also has her relishing the attention she gets from the audience, and switching between various poses for the cameras.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Downplayed; she's the slowest racer of everyone in the Nitro Squad, but not for lack of trying, since she wants to show off and get as much of the audience's admiration as possible.
• Crutch Character: As explained above, people will see a slow racer better.
• Don't Look At Me: Should Liz lose a race, she will turn away and cover her face with her hand in embarrassment over her loss.
• Femme Fatale: Invokes it less than Tawna, but still apparent, as she constantly aims to get people's attention.
• I Shall Taunt You: If she gets a starting boost, she will often yell "Your Mum's an armadillo!"
• Sarcastic Clapping: Her losing animation at the podium has her giving the winner a sarcastic slow clap with an annoyed look on her face, occasionally rolling her eyes as well.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Sometimes says "Vroom!" when boosting.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: In a family-friendly sense. She's the only one out of all the girls to flaunt pretty looks at any given opportunity, casually mentions in her introduction how she'll make the front page of every publication, and tries to avoid losing races so that she doesn't look embarrassing.
• The Tease: Downplayed with Liz. When in her idle animation for Nitro-Fueled, she acts pleasantly surprised that someone noticed her, and promptly assumes a Finger-Tenting pose.
• Upper-Class Twit: Has some shades of this for some of her racing dialogue.
  Liz: (When speeding past someone) Pardon me.
  Liz: (When using an item) Biscuit, anyone?
• Your Mom: She will sometimes shout "Your mum's an armadillo!" while racing.

Isabella

"Ah, yeah, it's my battle horse!"

Voiced by: Melanie Minichino (2019)

First appearance: Crash Team Racing (1999)

A blonde female bandicoot who was responsible for handing out prizes to Crash and Coco in CTR. She returns as an All-Round-class racer in Nitro-Fueled.

---

• All-Loving Hero: She's the most appreciative of the audience when she wins on the podium, blowing kisses to them and bowing courteously.
• Anime Hair: Her older hairstyle can best be described as half-neat, half-spiky. Nitro-Fueled does away with this, but her circus skin does have her sport a mohawk.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: She gets angrier at her losses than any of the other members of the Nitro Squad, and is also fiercely protective of her kart. Even her idle animation has her grow impatient and gesticulate wildly.
• Heart Symbol: Her victory animation at the podium has her blowing kisses to the audience, which makes loads of hearts appear.
• Jack of All Stats: She's an All-Round racer in Nitro-Fueled.
• Poirot Speak: Downplayed, as she says "ciao!" during one of her racing lines, but speaks in fluent English otherwise.
• Rambunctious Italian: Although her name already implied it, her Nitro-Fueled appearance confirms Isabella to be Italian, with the hot-blooded personality to match.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Occasionally says "Vroom vroom!" when she boosts and "Beep beep, ciao!" when passing someone.
• Sensual Spandex: Isabella wears a form-fitting tracksuit that shows off all her curves.
• Sore Loser: While the other girls will be varying degrees of disappointed, Isabella will throw an outright tantrum on the podium if she doesn't win.
• Statuesque Stunner: While the rest of the squad members are pretty tall ladies themselves, Isabella easily towers over the rest, measuring from a few inches to half of a head taller, depending on the comparisons.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The Trophy Girls as a whole were this to Tawna, but Isabella resembled her the most, and was the one to hand out trophies to Crash and Coco. The Japanese version of the game even changed her eye color from blue to brown in order to further differentiate the two.
• Unkempt Beauty: Downplayed, as the left side of her hair is generally messier than the right side. In Nitro-Fueled, this is more or less a subtle tip-off to her not always being nice.
• Wrench Wench: She seems to have a deeper appreciation for the craft and machinery in the karts compared to the other girls, and is protective of her kart as a result. She also tends to make references to car care in her dialogue.
  Isabella: (When hit) Hey, watch the paint!
  Isabella: (When hit while shielded) Keep away from my kart!
  Isabella: (When using an item) That'll buff right out!
  Isabella: (When losing a race) I could really use a tune-up.

Masks

In General

• Expressive Mask: Being sentient magical masks, this is a given.
• Floating Mask: All of them are capable of floating under their own power.
• Good Counterpart: All of them are this to Uka Uka and the Elementals.
• Mask of Power: Each of these masks grant the Bandicoots unique abilities:
  • Aku Aku: Protection/invincibility.
  • Lani-Loli: Phasing through objects.
  • Kupuna-Wa: Slowing down time.
  • Ika-Ika: Gravity alteration.
  • Akano: Dark matter powers.

Aku Aku

"It is I Aku Aku, my duty is to protect you. You may summon me by breaking open these crates. Call me thrice and I shall grant you special powers."

Voiced by: David Siller (1996-1998 plus archive sounds), Mel Winkler (1998-2004), Greg Eagles (2007-Present)

First appearance: Crash Bandicoot (1996)

The guardian of the Wumpa Islands and the father figure of Crash and his friends. Aku Aku is the spirit of an ancient witch doctor encased in a floating, wooden mask. When he sensed Crash's mission to stop Doctor Cortex, he scattered copies of himself throughout the Wumpa Islands in an effort to aid him in his mission. Whenever Crash possesses an Aku Aku mask, he will be shielded from one enemy attack or contact. Collecting three Aku Aku masks gives Crash temporary invulnerability from all minor dangers. He didn't become a full-fledged character until Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, in which he had his first speaking role.

---

• Ascended Extra: In the first games, he acted more as a shield for Crash (and Coco in the N.Sane Trilogy), and when he started to be fully voiced starting with Crash 3, he mostly had lines that were exposition, and in the kart racers his lines were used for hints if the player picks anyone from Team Bandicoot. However, the first case of this trope was in Crash Bash, where he and Uka Uka were the driving forces behind the plot. But where this trope really came into play for him was in the Titans games, where he was with Crash throughout the whole adventure in both games and being his Voice for the Voiceless.
• Badass in Distress: He gets captured at the start of Titans by Cortex, with his new mojo powered mutants being able to counter Aku's magic.
• Big Good: He's the main foil to Uka Uka, and acts as the protector and mentor to Crash and Coco.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Well, they're wooden, but they're still pretty big.
• Body Sled: In Crash of the Titans, Crash can use him as this whenever he isn't jacking a Titan.
• Bottomless Pit Rescue Service: He can work as this in the racing games, bringing good racers back on track if they fall into a pit.
• Cain and Abel: Abel to Uka Uka's Cain.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: To Crash, especially in the later titles.
• The Comically Serious: Becomes this in later games, where he is more prone to being the subject of jokes, and breaking from his sagely persona to vent neuroses or sarcastic banter. One of Crash's idles in N Sane Trilogy if you have an Aku Aku mask handy with you has the two playing volleyball with a wumpa fruit.
• Energy Weapon: In Warped, he can shoot lasers from his face, which he uses to hold off Uka Uka in a Beam-O-War.
• Expressive Mask: Bonus points in that he is a mask.
• Fantastic Light Source: At least in the first game, he can act as this for the Blackout Basement levels. This also means that you'll lose your light if you get hit.
• A Father to His Men: He takes in Crash and Coco (and their pets, and later Crunch) and protects them from Cortex. Most prominent in Crash Bash should the bad guys win, where he takes the blame on himself for their victory and tells Crash and Coco to run and hide now when Uka Uka has the ultimate power..
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Throughout the series he and Crash have been the closest of companions and allies.
• Invincibility Power-Up: Collect 3 masks, and Crash becomes invincible for a while. In the racing games he also becomes this to the good characters, protecting them from attacks and hazards as well as speeding them up.
• Ironic Name: In the Japanese translation of the series, his name literally translates as "Evil Evil", which is ironic considering he's the Big Good of the series.
• Nice Guy: In most games he is a caring, gentle kind of character who always protects Crash and Coco and is more than willing to help them out. In fact, Twinsanity shows that he will gladly team up with Uka Uka if it means saving the world from even bigger threat.
• Not So Above It All: He's much more playful and flawed in the Titans series. He gets captured easily by Cortex in the first (complete with an undignified shriek for "HEEELLLP!"), and when Cortex threatens our bandicoot hero with a one-on-one combat in Mind Over Mutant, he bursts into uncontrollable laughter like Crash, even while calling Cortex "Mr. Hundred Pounds". Even in It's About Time, where he is Demoted to Extra, when he is very open to the victory feast in the Sn@xx Dimension, even being the one to ask where the food trucks are when he, Crash and Coco go on their own.
• Platforming Pocket Pal: He acts as this for most platforming games, following Crash (and sometimes others) around as he runs. Justified given that he's a talking, Floating Mask.
• Remote Body: It's explained in supplementary materials from the first few games that the masks that can be found in crates during Crash's adventures are lesser copies that Aku-Aku strategically placed across the islands to assist Crash.
• Single-Use Shield: The main use of him in gameplay is to be this; i.e when you have him around, if you get hit, you'll survive and he'll disappear. You can collect 2 of him to upgrade him into 2-use shield. In Crash of the Titans and Mind over Mutant he doesn't do this due to Crash having his own life bar.
• Spirit Advisor: He's the spirit of a long-deceased witch doctor who guides Crash and Coco.
• Suddenly Voiced: He was almost completely silent in the first and second games, only saying his trademark "Ooga booga" whenever Crash would break open one of the boxes containing him, but he otherwise never talked to Crash. Then he suddenly started speaking and took on the role of Team Dad in the third game. Averted in the Japanese versions of the series, in which Aku Aku spoke via text in the first game after Crash breaks open the first Aku Aku box, and he was even fully voiced in the second.
• Team Dad: He refers to Crash and Coco as being his "children", and generally acts as their mentor.
• Voice for the Voiceless: Acts as one for Crash in later games.
• Weird Beard: He has a green goatee made of leaves. Justified as he's a wooden tiki mask.
• Witch Doctor: He was a human witch doctor before he became a sentient Mask of Power.
• You Don't Look Like You: His new design in Titans makes his form more mask-shaped, has feathers all around it instead of just on the top, puts more patterns on it and gives him smaller eyes. The shape change was likely for practicality, as Aku has a more profound amount of physical purposes in the game, such as a shield and wake board for Crash. And since he got a new voice actor in this game, it can be easy to miss that he is supposed to be the same character as the one in the original games.
• You Monster!: Calls Uka Uka this in Titans when his brother announces Nina's plan to use the Doominator to destroy Wumpa Island.

The Quantum Masks

In General

First appearance: Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (2020)

A group of four masks who are the protectors of time and space, introduced in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time. They help Crash and Coco on their quest by granting them new abilities, such as the ability to slow down time or play with gravity. The group consists of Lani-Loli the Mask of Phase, Akano the Mask of Dark Matter, Kupuna-Wa the Mask of Time, and Ika-Ika the Mask of Gravity.

---

• Badass in Distress: All of them are captured and exploited by Neo Cortex during the final battle thanks to Cortex's machine, and earlier than that, Kupuna-Wa is abducted by Cortex by using his ray gun to force open a Quantum Rift to 1996.
• Big Goods: In It's About Time, they play a major role in assisting Crash and Coco in stopping Dr. Cortex and N. Tropy's evil plans of interdimensional domination both in terms of gameplay and story. Lani-Loli is the first one found and the most prevalent of the four throughout both the game's cutscenes and in usage.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Whenever Crash or Coco utilize the power of the masks, their outfits change to suit the mask's appearance.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each Quantum Mask has their own color to distinguish themselves from each other: Lani-Loli is blue, Akano is purple, Kupuna-Wa is yellow/gold and Ika-Ika is green.
• Demoted to Extra: They were reduced to skins in On The Run, but they do give off excellent bonuses. Crash gets Lani-Loli and Ika-Ika, and Coco gets Akano and Kupuna-Wa.
• Family Theme Naming: All of them are named after Hawaiian words.
• Good Counterpart: As a group of four masks following a theme (space and time), they're essentially a flip of the evil Elementals from Wrath of Cortex, the original fourth game in the main series.
• Good Is Not Soft: Their solution to dealing with Cortex is to send him at the end of the universe.
• Reality Warper: They each have great control over a certain aspect of space or time. Together, they're capable of safely opening and closing rifts to anywhere and any time period. They combine their powers with the Rift Generator to close the unstable rifts the N. Tropies have opened.
• Share Phrase: All of them have the same power-summoning incantation when the Bandicoots use them, "Aboo-gidi-baah!".
• Sibling Team: An incredible one at that, wielding some of the strongest magical powers in the series.

Lani-Loli

"We have to go through, find my siblings, and fix this before some putz with a big evil plan and an even bigger ego does something monumentally stupid!"

Voiced by: Richard Steven Horvitz

The Mask of Phase, and the first Quantum Mask that Crash and Coco meet. He gives his user the power to phase certain objects in and out of reality.

---

• Big Brother Worship: While it's unknown which one of them is actually older, Lani-Loli definitely thinks that his brother Akano is cool.
  Lani-Loli about Akano: Short and to the point! Love this guy.
• Cowardly Lion: Almost perpetually anxious, but aids the Bandicoots regardless and never lets his fears keep him from remembering he's one of the protectors of time and space for a reason.
• Intangibility: His power is to make certain objects in the level, whether they be crates or platforms, tangible or intangible, with each use of him switching which objects can be interacted with.
• Lovable Coward: He is a bit of a worrywart, but also a Nice Guy and a good ally to Crash and Coco.
• Meaningful Name: In Hawaiian, lani means "sky" or "chief" and is a common affix for people's names, while loli means "change". Fitting for someone who can change an object's tangibility.
• Nervous Wreck: He has a perpetually worried expression on his face and is prone to screaming. Granted, being responsible for the safety of the multiverse can be a stressful job.
• Non-Standard Character Design: His facial traits are more wildly exaggerated compared to the other Quantum Masks.
• Personality Powers: A Nervous Wreck whose ability is to help the wearer avoid certain objects by making the objects intangible, hiding them away.
• Tele-Frag: A hazard of utilizing Lani-Loli's powers is phasing while partway in an intangible object, which will cause you to lose protection if it's an explosive crate or instantly kill you regardless of protection if it's a solid object.
• Temporary Platform: During the final battle, Cortex uses him to make areas of the platforms become intangible.

Akano

"Ban-di-coot. ...Hmm. Follow."

Voiced by: Fred Tatasciore

The Mask of Dark Matter, and the second Quantum Mask that Crash and Coco meet. He gives his user a more powerful and indefinite spin that can destroy locked crates or deflect projectiles.

---

• Armor-Piercing Attack: When he's equipped, the user's spin will destroy the otherwise-sturdy Locked Crates.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Despite the rather fierce designs and horns and having destructive Dark Matter powers, he's still one of the good guys. This is acknowledged when you first meet him, Akano giving Crash and Coco a Death Glare as Lani-Loli is talking, before just telling them to follow him in the most simplest of words.
• Face of a Thug: While his expression would be more befitting of an evil mask, he's actually benevolent.
• Foil: To Uka-Uka. He's arguably even more intimidating in appearance than Uka-Uka, with "dark" powers of a different sort. That said, he's as heroic as his siblings, and despite his gruff demeanor also risks his life to help save existence from Cortex and N. Tropy.
• Inconsistent Spelling: The little apostrophe in front of Akano's name is a proper Hawaiian letter called ʻokina (itself having the letter in it) and represents a glottal stop. It also exists in the Hawaiian word for substance that Akano is named after (ʻakano)^note As a side note, it also exists in the name Hawaii itself, which is properly spelled Hawaiʻi. To avoid confusion, however, the letter is omitted whenever his name is shown in cutscenes.
• Meaningful Name: ʻAkano means "matter" (as in substance) in Hawaiian. Note that the apostrophe is not a typo (see Inconsistent Spelling above).
• Not Quite Flight: His ability is essentially a souped-up version of the Death Tornado Spin from Warped, allowing Crash and Coco to spin indefinitely and glide across large gaps.
• Not So Above It All: He gleefully joins the rest of the crew to the Sn@xx dimension for a victory feast.
  Akano: Mmm. Nachos.
• Our Dark Matter Is Mysterious: Is a dark-matter based mask fueled by enough raw power to tear apart boxes or spin without end.
• Personality Powers: A stern, fierce-looking Terse Talker whose Dark Matter powers are the most direct and damaging in combat.
• Purple Is Powerful: Akano is purple and his ability is the most offense-based of the four masks.
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: When spinning with him equipped, projectiles are reflected back at enemies.
• Terse Talker: Akano mostly uses short, sometimes one-word sentences to get his point across.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Nachos, apparently.

Kupuna-Wa

"I'm time! I see everything! And I mean everything."

Voiced by: Cherise Boothe

The Mask of Time, and the third Quantum Mask that Crash and Coco meet. She gives her user the power to very briefly slow time around them.

---

• Cool Old Lady: She is designed to appear elderly. She even acts like a doting grandmother, when Crash and Coco meet her for the first time.
• Cosmic Motifs: Her "headdress" shows the phases of the moon.
• Damsel in Distress: Is kidnapped by Cortex near the end of It's About Time in the hopes of using her to undo Crash's creation, forcing Crash and Coco to follow him and rescue her.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Months before It's About Time was even announced, she appeared alongside Crash, Coco and Cortex in the Playstation 4 It's Time to Play ad.
• The Gadfly: Loves to get her jollies by making people uncomfortable through her ability to see the entire timeline, offering to tell the bandicoots how they'll die much to the distress of her worrywart brother.
• Meaningful Name: Kupuna wahine means "grandmother" in Hawaiian. Kupuna-Wa is the oldest of the masks and acts and talks like a grandmother.
• Non-Linear Character: As the Mask of Time, she is capable of seeing the past, present, and future all at once. She immediately greets Crash and Coco like longtime friends on their first encounter, and even knows when and how the bandicoots will meet their end.
• Personality Powers: A storytelling grandmotherly mask who has powers over Time and can see all periods of time.
• Remember the New Guy?: An in-universe example - Crash and Coco have never met Kupana-Wa before until her debut, but since she can see through time she immediately greets them like old friends (much to their confusion).
• The Smurfette Principle: Kupuna-Wa is the only female mask in the group (and, by proxy, the masks overall).
• Stealth Pun: Kupuna-Wa is an elderly-looking female mask with a power based around time. You could say that she's a grandmother clock.
• Time Master: Kupuna-Wa allows Crash and Coco to slow down time to get past certain obstacles that move too fast to be traversed normally. Outside of that, she is capable of seeing all through the past and future.

Ika-Ika

Bottom Face: "When's existence ever done anything for anyone, anyway?"

Top Face: "Oh don't mind grumpy gus, he's always a downer."

Voiced by: Zeno Robinson (Bottom Face) & Fred Tatasciore (Top Face)

The Mask of Gravity, and the fourth and final Quantum Mask that Crash and Coco meet. He gives his user the power to flip their center of gravity, allowing them to walk on ceilings.

---

• The Eeyore: His "downer" personality, as depressed as the other side is cheery.
• Gravity Master: He allows Crash and Coco to change their center of gravity so they can walk on ceilings.
• Interface Screw: In the final battle, Cortex uses him to flip the entire area upside down.
• Meaningful Name: In Hawaiian, ikaika means "strength", which perfectly describes his gravitational powers.
• Personality Powers: A mask with a Split Personality who can swap the direction of gravity between up and down.
• The Pollyanna: His "upper" personality, always warm and cheerful, who's also delighted to see Lani-Loli again.
• Split Personality: He has two personalities, based on which head is right side up at the moment. One is friendly and cheerful, while the other is a constant downer.
• Two-Faced: He has two faces, one right-side up and the other upside down.

Allies

Polar

Voiced by: Debi Derryberry (2003), Misty Lee (2019)

First appearance: Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (1997)

A young polar bear who is an occasional ally of Crash. After the events of Cortex Strikes Back, he was happily adopted by the Bandicoots.

---

• All Animals Are Dogs: He makes adorable yelping noises like a puppy. N. Sane Trilogy makes him sound a bit more bear-like.
• Anthropomorphic Shift: In Crash Boom Bang.
• Bears Are Bad News: He invokes this big time with his Rustland skin, which has him use the spikes on the back of his armor to spin around like a buzzsaw and roar afterwards.
  • He himself is not, but the very large bears chasing you in a level of Crash 2 (akin to the boulders) are implied to be his parents.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In Crash Nitro Kart, Polar, Pura and Dingodile get hypnotized by N. Trance into racing for him.
• Butt-Monkey: He's often the unwilling mount of Crash Bandicoot, and Crash can also gain a load of extra lives if he jumps up and down on the poor bear's head 10 times.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Is completely absent from The Wrath of Cortex and the Radical Entertainment titles. It's About Time properly brings him back.
• Crutch Character: Polar is one of the turn-based characters in Crash Team Racing alongside Pura and Ripper Roo. Considering he's a little bear who learned how to drive by reading a book about it in the wrong sense, this is a minimum security measure.
• Demoted to Extra: After being the Power-Up Mount in Crash 2, Polar cameos in Warped and is seen getting ready to charge outside the Bandicoot's house as they race to the Time Twister. He is not seen again until the ending.
• The Dog Bites Back: In Twinsanity, Polar appears to have gotten tired of being used as a vehicle, and is seen holding a baseball bat at Crash's "birthday party".
• A Dog Named "Dog": A polar bear named Polar.
• Improbable Infant Survival: In Crash 2, none of Crash's deaths remotely scathe Polar in any way.
• Iron Butt Monkey: No matter what happens, Polar will never die alongside Crash, or even remotely show pain. He'll always miraculously survive. He'll remain unscathed by TNT/Nitro crates and, being a polar bear, is perfectly fine with falling into icy cold waters.
• Mama Bear: In Crash 2, his parents chase Crash in one level, apparently not too thrilled with him using their son as a mount.
• Power-Up Mount: Crash moves faster while he's riding Polar.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: A cute young-looking polar bear.
• Secret Character: In Crash Nitro Kart, he's unlocked by winning the Blue Gem Cup in Adventure Mode.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Is basically a replacement for the warthog Crash rode in the first game.
• Team Pet: After Cortex Strikes Back, he now lives with Crash and Coco.
• The Unintelligible: Granted, since he's a non-evolved animal Polar is pretty much this by default. In Crash Nitro Kart however, it gets taken up a notch as he speaks through a mix of barking and psychotic babbling (no thanks to N. Trance's brainwashing).
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: In CTR, he becomes the chief tester (changed to flavour scientist in Nitro-Fueled) for an ice cream company. Several daring flavors (most of them involving sea life) have been made through him.
• You Don't Look Like You: In Crash Boom Bang, Polar was suddenly anthropomorphic like the rest of the animals, and wearing a pair of jean-shorts.

Pura

Voiced by: Paul Greenberg (2003), Misty Lee (2019)

First appearance: Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (1998)

A Chinese tiger cub from the past who is an occasional ally of Coco. After the events of Warped, he was happily adopted by the Bandicoots.

---

• Anthropomorphic Shift: In Crash Boom Bang.
  • Some outfits in Nitro-Fueled can do this. Most notable is his Three Musketeers-styled outfit, which basically turns him into Puss-in-Boots during the podium animations. Unlike Crash Boom Bang, however, he keeps his general design and shape instead of becoming a case of You Don't Look Like You.
• Badass Adorable: A Cute Kitten who can fly a spaceship and helped Coco defeat N. Gin in Warped by doing so. That, and consistently proving himself to be a skilled racing driver.
• Big Damn Heroes: In Coco's fight against N. Gin, when the battle comes into the second phase (N. Gin's mech docking with a larger spacecraft), Pura comes up with a space fighter of his own that docks with Coco's. Due to graphic limitations, however, most only realize this in N Sane Trilogy.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In Crash Nitro Kart, Pura, Polar and Dingodile all get kidnapped and hypnotized by N. Trance into racing for him.
• Character Tics: As a felid, he is frequently shown licking his legs and paws.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Doesn't appear in the Radical Entertainment games.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: More hyper than actually lacking in intelligence, but he picks up on tech and vehicles as easily as Crash. In addition to being a capable kart racer, Pura's the primary gunner in the fight against N. Gin in both versions of Warped.
• Crutch Character: In Crash Team Racing and Nitro-Fueled, he focuses on turns for similar reasons as Polar.
• Cute Kitten: Cute tiger cub, but Pura still counts due to being a type of cat. He speaks in meows, hops around like a kitten, and even licks Coco's face affectionately in one of their Warped death animations.
• Demoted to Extra: In Wrath of Cortex, he only appears in the opening and ending, a la Polar in Warped.
• Gender Flip: Word of God is that Pura was thought of as female in Warped, but Crash Team Racing clarified him as a boy, and it's stuck that way ever since. It's About Time contains a nod to this, via a parade balloon of him wearing a ribbon on his tail while riding a kart.
• Hidden Depths: Despite acting like a hyperactive Cute Kitten most of the time, he seems to be the most intelligent of the pets due to frequent Anthropomorphic Zig-Zag and even being fluent piloting vehicles and tech at Coco's request. In Wrath of Cortex's opening, he even makes a sand castle competently.
• Improbable Infant Survival: In Warped, much like Polar, Pura will come out unharmed whenever Coco loses a life. (Except in one death animation which has Pura getting squashed and Coco evading major injury.)
• Meaningful Name: Pura is the Balinese word for temple, a borrowing from Sanskrit; in the original language, it means "city". This is referenced in his Adventure character select screen in CTR, where he is seen standing near a temple, while his personal stage in the same game is called Tiger Temple. Of course, the name was probably also chosen because it has "purr" in it.
• Panthera Awesome: He's a tiger cub who has assisted Coco Bandicoot during times of need.
• Power-Up Mount: Is Coco's equivalent to Crash's Polar. He's more willing than Polar, too.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Though don't think this makes him harmless, as Zigfield and Floyd found out.
• Secret Character: To unlock him in Crash Nitro Kart, you have to perform 50 boosts in a row with Team Bandicoot in Adventure Mode.
• Team Pet: Eventually found himself living with Crash and Coco after their adventure in Warped. Notable in comparison to Polar that he's both made appearances in more games and is more frequently shown with the Bandicoots where Polar tends to be more of an ally.
• The Unintelligible: Speaks entirely though meowing.
• You Don't Look Like You: In Crash Boom Bang, like Polar, he was suddenly anthropomorphic and wearing jean-shorts. This new look didn't last long, though — even nowadays, being a big thing reviewers of the game like to snark about — and he was back to his previous quadruped look by his next appearance.

Baby T

Voiced by: Ike Amadi (2019)^*Through the use of sped-up voice clips.

First appearance: Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (1998)

A freshly hatched baby Tyrannosaurus rex that Crash encounters during his visit to the Prehistoric ages in Warped. After the events of Warped, he was happily adopted by the Bandicoots.

---

• A Day in the Limelight: He's the star of the Back N. Time Grand Prix in Nitro-Fueled.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Didn't make any appearances in the series after Warped, even though the ending confirms that Crash apparently took him back into the present day. Until Nitro-Fueled came along, that is.
• Expy: Baby T.'s an obvious reference to Yoshi from Super Mario World, being a green-skinned dinosaur who can jump extremely high, acts as a Power Up Mount for the main hero, and can't speak legibly.
• Extreme Omnivore: Implied by his idle animations in Nitro-Fueled, which involve him trying to eat his own steering wheel and sniffing the air for more food.
• Mighty Glacier: For his appearence in Nitro-Fueled.
• Oddball Doppelgänger: His Fake Baby T skin in Nitro-Fueled.
• Power-Up Mount: Unlike Polar and Pura, Crash has full control over Baby T, and isn't forced to constantly run forward and avoid obstacles while riding him. Riding Baby T allows Crash to jump higher, run over tall grass without slowing down or needing to destroy it, and acts as an extra hit point.
• Promoted to Playable: Nitro-Fueled makes him fully playable.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: He's a cute baby dinosaur.
• Team Pet: Lives with Crash and Coco at the end of Warped. Though unlike Polar and Pura, the series sadly never utilized him again until Nitro-Fueled.
• The Unintelligible: Speaks entirely though growls and roars.
• Vegetarian Carnivore: Eats grass in his Idle Animation, despite being a T. rex and therefore carnivorous. In Nitro-Fueled, he also tries to eat his own steering wheel, but gets grossed out by the taste.

Shnurgle

First appearance: Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (2020)

An alien infant that Crash and Coco run into during their trip on the planet Bermugula, in It's About Time.

---

• Hufflepuff House: His homeworld getting an entire dedicated level in It's About Time is a pretty big subversion, since it was previously only brought up by Nitros Oxide in Team Racing for the sake of a one-liner comparing the other racers to the Slagvorks from it.
• Mama Bear: Grown-up Shnurgles, referred to in-game as "Mama Shnurgle" will harm the bandicoots even when riding him.
• Power-Up Mount: Both Crash and Coco can ride him.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: He's an adorable dinosaur-like alien.
• Starfish Alien: Downplayed. While mostly dinosaur-like, his two legs are his only limbs, and he has two eye stalks on his head. Adult members of his species (at least the female ones) have red ruffs around their necks, as well.
• Token Heroic Orc: Notably, he's the only creature in all of Bermugula that doesn't try to ignore or kill the bandicoots, even among other members of his species. In fact, he's downright overjoyed when he sees them for the first time.

---