Having finally lost patience with Cortex's failures following his previous mishap with the Planetary Minimizer, Uka Uka decides this time to turn to Dr. Nefarious Tropy. The master of time already has a plan in the works, having enlisted N. Trance, the master of hypnotism from the fifth dimension. The duo abduct the three bandicoots and brainwash them to do their evil bidding. A misdirect with Tropy's vortex leads Crash to escape however, leaving him to fight and rescue his possessed friends...and another mysterious associate.
Followed by Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage, which maintained the same gameplay in a Spyro the Dragon crossover, albeit with more mini-games.
Tropes Used In This Game:
- "Arabian Nights" Days: The Arabian levels, which first showed up in Warped, make a reappearance. They feature flying carpets as platforms, and magic genies as enemies.
- Badass in Distress: Crash is spared from N. Tropy's vortex after Aku Aku uses his magic to pull him out. In turn, Crash has to rescue Coco and Crunch from brainwashing.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: N. Trance's key shtick. He brainwashes Coco, Crunch and Fake Crash to do his and Tropy's bidding.
- Build Like an Egyptian: The Egyptian levels return from Warped. They take place mostly inside tombs filled with mummified enemies and assorted death traps.
- The Bus Came Back: After not appearing in the first GBA game, Tropy returns and replaces Cortex as the main antagonist.
- Cliffhanger: The game ends with Uka Uka, frustrated at Cortex and Tropy's failures, declaring that he will face Crash himself next time. This is Left Hanging, since a sequel was never developed.
- Continuity Nod: When Crunch is defeated and rescued from his hypnosis by Crash, he mentions that this is the second time he's been brainwashed. This refers to his debut appearance, when he was evil at first.
- A Day in the Limelight:
- N. Tropy, who was merely the third boss in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, returns here as the main antagonist, making this one of the few games where the conflict is driven by someone other than Cortex.
- Fake Crash finally gets plot importance instead of being a joke character.
- Disc-One Final Boss: N. Trance is the final boss you'll face if you didn't find all the gem shards.
- Earn Your Fun: The game's multiplayer mode hosts an impressive number of levels and characters to choose from. You have to unlock all of them in single player mode however.
- Evil Genius: Coco, expectedly, attacks you in an advanced battle mech after becoming Brainwashed and Crazy.
- Fake Difficulty: Though slightly improved on from Huge Adventure which downright abused this in several places, the game has a big Screen Crunch issue where it is not always clear where Crash is supposed to land after a jump and is forced into a leap of faith situation. This especially goes for Time Trial mode, which removes the main thing the developers did to compensate for the small screen in the guiding wumpa fruit.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: Fake Crash was already a somewhat ambiguous character. After being captured by N. Trance, he attacks Crash. Following his defeat he helps him defeat N. Trance and even obliges in taking a photo of the bandicoots after their victory.
- Instant Flight: Just Add Spinning!: The upgrade Death Tornado Spin lets Crash glide around if he does multiple spins in the air, just like in Warped.
- Lethal Lava Land: The game features volcano levels, in which Crash has to traverse lava rivers by riding small platforms and avoid the magma flow with his helicopter jetpack.
- Marathon Level: All platforming levels from the second warp room onward are notoriously long by Crash standards, assuming you are going for 100% Completion. They all feature alternate paths that must be explored in order to obtain the gem shards, after which the player has to backtrack and make it through the normal route in order to obtain the box gems.
- Mirror Match:
- Fake Crash has Crash's moveset and replicates his every move.
- 2 player races pit two versions of Crash against each other.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: Uses the same engine and graphics as The Huge Adventure (which itself is essentially a 2D rehash of Warped), albeit with new levels, a couple different gameplay modes and multiplayer options.
- Never My Fault: N. Tropy angrily blames N. Trance when they discover they brainwashed the wrong Crash, despite him being the one who kidnapped the bandicoots. N. Trance is more than willing to call him out on this.
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Nintendo Hard: The latter parts of the game are pretty unforgiving, especially the gem shard pathway, comprised of three advanced levels and a very enduring face off with N. Tropy. - Once More, with Clarity: To devise a plan for conquering the universe, N. Tropy uses his powers of time to peer into the future. He sees an image of himself standing together with the Bandicoots, and interprets this as the Bandicoots joining the side of evil, which leads him to summon N. Trance to initiate the game's plot. After N. Tropy is defeated, the Bandicoots take a picture with a captured N. Tropy to celebrate their victory - the same picture that N. Tropy had seen in his vision.
- Promoted to Playable:
- You take control of Crunch for the first time in the series via two of the game's Atlasphere stages.
- Coco is promoted back to playable after being an NPC in The Huge Adventure.
- All major characters are playable in the multiplayer Atlasphere mode, including the main antagonists, N. Tropy and N. Trance.
- Put on a Bus: All previous villains other than Uka Uka and N. Tropy are not present besides cameo and multiplayer appearances. Tropy's own bus ride in the previous game is the direct reason that Uka Uka replaces Cortex with him.
- Recycled Soundtrack: As with The Huge Adventure, the game remixes a fair amount of tunes from Warped.
- Signpost Tutorial: In the first "tutorial" stage, you'll find "hint squares" that will teach you how you do things.
- Slide Attack: The upgrade you get after beating Crunch will let you do a much faster and longer-reaching sliding attack. It's hard to control, however.
- Space Zone: Coco's levels take place in outer space, as she tries to outrun an incoming fireball using a rocket-powered tug.
- Spanner in the Works: When Tropy abducts the bandicoots, Aku Aku manages to drag Crash out of the vortex. The resistance leads to Fake Crash being sent before Tropy instead, with the latter failing to notice the difference until it's too late.
- Sphere Factor: The Atlasphere levels, taken from The Wrath of Cortex where the player character rolls around inside a ball. Crash only gets one stage while Crunch gets two stages. Multiplayer sports a battle mode for the function with practically every cast member playable.
- Spring Jump: One of Crash's unlockable moves is a Rocket Jump, which propels Crash much higher than a standard or even Double Jump, albeit at the cost of forward momentum. Naturally this has to be used cautiously so as not to collide into vertical obstacles.
- Sprint Shoes: An upgrade you get after beating N. Trance. Just like in Warped, it helps you in the Time Trial runs.
- True Final Boss: N. Tropy is the true antagonist and can only be fought by beating three Nintendo Hard levels which are only unlocked if all gem shards have been collected.
- Villainous Breakdown: Similar to Warped, N Tropy starts off smug and assured, though as more holes in his plan appear, he begins to throw a tantrum, arguing with N Trance over who got the wrong Crash, and ultimately retreating in a panic when N Trance is defeated.
