Penta Penguin

Penta Penguin is a character in the Crash Bandicoot series. He's based on the penguins in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back who walk aimlessly and then take a moment to spin. Those penguins also appear in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex and Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure. Penta Penguin may also be seen in the boss fight against Dingodile in the game Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, though it is unconfirmed that this actually Penta and not another penguin. However, it is unlikely because the boss battle took place in the Ice Ages.

Penta is later seen in Crash Team Racing, where he is an unlockable character via a secret button combination in the main menu. This is the only game where the name Penta appears. Penta also possibly appears in the Snow Bash minigame in Crash Bash, though it is unconfirmed that this is indeed Penta. He also appears in Dansu! De Jump! Na Daibouken.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Penta Penguin's model is used for the penguin enemies in the snow levels in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. While it can be presumed that Penta is any one of these penguins, it has never been confirmed if any of these penguins are actually Penta.

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
As described above, a penguin appears in the boss fight with Dingodile, which may be Penta. He is threatened to end up burnt by Dingodile. However, when Crash is warped there, Dingodile's attention is turned away from the penguin and he runs away. Later, after Dingodile is defeated, he comes and jumps triumphantly on Dingodile's body.

Crash Team Racing
This is Penta Penguin's first confirmed appearance. He is only unlockable via cheat code. If players hold down R1 and L1 and press down, right, triangle, down, left, triangle, and up, at the main menu, he will become a playable character. In CTR's PAL and NTSC-J versions, he is the only racer with maxed out stats, the same as Nitros Oxide. In the NTSC-U version of the game, Penta has the same stats as Polar and Pura, and he is good at turning but doesn't have much speed. His appearance looks a bit different from the other games; in Crash Team Racing, he is black, he has a scarf, his eyes are closer together, and his beak is smaller.

PAL and NTSC-J Version
Speed: 5/5 Acceleration: 5/5 Turning: 5/5 Difficulty: Expert

NTSC-U Version
Speed: 2/5 Acceleration: 3/5 Turning: 5/5 Difficulty: Beginner

Crash Bash
A penguin believed to be Penta appears in the level Snow Bash. He sleeps in the center of the area and when someone wakes him up, (by throwing something at him or spinning/kicking/shooting at him) he will feel very upset and will start to spin around the whole area, destroying everything. Once he is finished, he will spin back into the middle and fall asleep again. If the other players are defeated before he finishes spinning, he will stop automatically and fall asleep. His design was changed in this game; he is taller and he is dark blue.

Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure
Penta Penguin's model would also be used for the penguin enemies in the snow levels in Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure, though like Cortex Strikes Back, it is unknown if any of these Penguins are actually Penta.

Manga
Penta makes an appearance in Dansu! De Jump! Na Daibouken. He tends to be very greedy since most of the time he's a merchant selling items for high prices. He has a girlfriend named Gurin and is head over heels for her and will do anything to win her affections. He is later seen in another chapter selling jet packs when Crash and Cortex decided to go into space to find the Power Stones much faster.

Trivia

 * Penta's name might be a pun on the phrase "pent-up", the definition of which means "repressed or suppressed, especially of emotions or impulses". This is plausible because he is suppressed in the game unless players know the super button combination.
 * Penta also means "Five" in the Greek language.
 * Penta is one of the only three characters players cannot race against as a computer controlled character (apart from Fake Crash and technically N. Tropy as he is only computer controlled in Time Trial mode as a ghost).
 * In the NTSC version of CTR, Penta's data is largely unfinished. Examples of this include him being protected by Aku Aku, but having Uka Uka show up in the item box. Also, as well as penguin noises, the sounds he usually makes, Penta also makes various statements which are actually incomplete coding. For example, sometimes when boosting, Penta will say "Penguin Yay One" or "Penguin Yay Two", which are unfinished statements that were not coded into the game. This is fixed in the PAL version.
 * Penta's in-kart model in CTR is somewhat different from his Cortex Strikes Back, Warped model and out-of-kart model.
 * Penta Penguin is one of five racers not to reappear in Crash Nitro Kart, the other four being Papu Papu, Pinstripe, Komodo Joe and Ripper Roo. Also, Penta is the only of the non-returning racers who wasn't a boss (however, all of them are secret characters).
 * Penta is the only secret character to have Aku Aku as a mask during a power up.
 * After winning (or losing) a cup as Penta in CTR, Penta's appearance from Warped returns in the first, second and third cup. His victory theme was the same as Ripper Roo and Papu Papu.
 * Out of all of the characters that appear in CTR (other than the masks and Fake Crash), Penta is the only one who does not have a text entry in the closing credits.
 * Penta is also the only character to have different statistics in CTR. In the NTSC-U version of the game, he has the same stats as Polar and Pura. However, in the PAL an NTSC-J version, he has the same statistics as N. Oxide.
 * The beta version for CTR claims that Penta became a weather forecaster, and kept predicting another Ice Age.
 * Penta makes an appearance in the CTR intro, when Polar appears (behind him), though he's hard to spot as he's very small.
 * If Penta was one of the numerous penguin enemies appearing in several games, then him and Fake Crash would share the same trait by being good, evil and neutral (good in CTR by being protected by an Aku Aku mask, evil by being an enemy, and neutral in Warped and Crash Bash because he held no malice toward anyone nor did he act as a protagonist).