Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back - Prologue & Intro Stage
93Taking place directly after the original Crash Bandicoot game, the plot picks up after the first game's first ending where Crash has defeated Dr. Neo Cortex, and escaped on his blimp with his girlfriend Tawna. Said girlfriend is (majorly) never seen again.
Cortex's defeat has him land back on the lower region of his own island, but he somehow falls into a dark cave. Within this cave, this villain, who can be compared to Dr. Eggman, discovers a new treasure more valuable than Gems: A Crystal. Specifically, this was a Master Crystal that Cortex discovered, but he couldn't do much from here since the flare he lit went out.
Fast forward by one whole year, and Cortex now has a brand new version of his Cortex Vortex. It's big enough to be a spaceship and has a laser powerful enough to brainwash the entire Earth, being powered by the Master Crystal he found. He also replaced Dr. Nitrus Brio with a different lab assistant: Dr. N. Gin.
Take note of this Cortex Vortex spaceship is floating right over Australia. ALSO, take note of how much deeper Cortex's voice is compared to how he sounded in Crash 1. It sounds much more fitting for him.
N. Gin tells Cortex that they need not only the Master Crystal's energy to power the Cortex Vortex's laser, but also 25 Slave Crystals. Since they have no more operative on Earth, Cortex decides to rely on an enemy instead. The only enemy he ever had at that point.
We return to N. Sanity Island, the first island of the first game. That bandicoot girl right next to the sleeping Crash is his little sister: Coco Bandicoot.
For Sonic fans, think of Coco kind of like a "female Tails". She's cute and smart with machines, just like Tails, and Crash being Coco's big brother is like Sonic being Tails' big brother figure. Coco and Tails also happened to debut in their respective series' very first sequel, going on to being important, popular allies.
Coco's just playing with her laptop until its batteries die. She has Crash go back home to get some more. From how she says that, it looks like she doesn't approve of her brother being lazy and sleepy all day.
How Crash moves and looks here is a step up from Crash 1. His new moves are the High Jump, Body Slam, Crawl, and Slide, all of these involve using the Circle button in some way, which was just another Spin button in the first game.
Aku Aku now automatically follows Crash as soon as he's broken out of his crate, instead of having to be picked up after being released. Some secret areas do still have the collectible item form of him, though.
When I first played the Crash series, I started with Crash 3, then went to Crash 2, then Crash 1. Going from Crash 3 to 2 wasn't too much for a deal for me back then, but recently, after having completed Crash 1 again and moving up to 2, I see a MUCH bigger impact of improvement between the two games.
Anyway, eventually through the intro stage, Crash gets swept up in an unavoidable whirlwind, which takes him into what is known as the Warp Room.
A drone from the first game appears and makes a hologram of Cortex's head. Said head tells Crash to go through the 5 swirling doors within the warp room and look for a crystal in each of them.
From our perspective, we all know what Cortex is up to, but the thing is that Crash... DOESN'T. I'm sure he's really wondering why his arch-enemy suddenly needs his help.
All will be revealed to him later on, but for now, Crash's 2nd adventure has just begun.
--------------
See this in its N-Sane Trilogy form, here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1XsVGefyKM
Other Videos By Carls493
Other Statistics
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back Statistics For Carls493
Currently, Carls493 has 899,689 views for Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back across 41 videos. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back has approximately 2 hours of watchable video on his channel, making up less than 0.11% of the total overall content on Carls493's YouTube channel.