N. Tropy


 * This page is about the main universe N. Tropy. For his alternate universe counterpart, see N. Tropy (female).

"Well, haven't we gotten far for a pair of fuzzy marsupials. I am Doctor Nefarious Tropy, master of time and creator of the very Time Twister Machine you see before you."

- Nefarious Tropy's intro speech

Dr. Nefarious Tropy (a.k.a. N. Tropy) is the self-proclaimed master of time and specialist in quantum warp technology. He is an old friend of Uka Uka, called upon by the latter to help take over the world in Crash Bandicoot: Warped. It is stated in the Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex manual that he can be seen disturbing the temporal flow by causing time paradoxes for laughs. He is also shown to be acquaintances with N. Trance.

Pre-series history
Not much is known about Dr. Nefarious Tropy during the events that take place before Crash Bandicoot. It is revealed in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time that he at least made attempts to contact Dr. Neo Cortex and Dr. Nitrus Brio during their experiments for unknown reasons, much to Cortex's annoyance. This is shown in the dialogue that plays during the Resilience Evaluation Flashback Tape.

The dialogue found within this Flashback Tape hints that Cortex greatly dislikes Tropy for his choice to experiment with time travel, as he mocks him towards the end of the level. Cortex also mentions while mocking him that N. Tropy finds animal experiments to be "stupid." It is also mentioned that this isn't the first time he's tried to contact the two doctors, as Cortex quickly orders Brio to tell Tropy that he is "in the shower again."

Crash Bandicoot: Warped
"Now you're on my time, you little skunk! Give me the crystals!"

- N. Tropy Doctor Nefarious Tropy is introduced by Uka Uka in Crash Bandicoot: Warped as the creator of the Time Twister Machine, a device that will aid Dr. Cortex in his quest to gather the crystals in their original places in time. He later acts as the third boss of the game, battling Crash with his gigantic tuning fork. After being defeated, N. Tropy's suit seems to malfunction, as evidenced by his clock springing outwards, which sends him to the space/time vortex. Once he vanishes, Crash is granted the Death Tornado Spin. After defeating Cortex while in possession of all the crystals and gems, the ending will occur where is possible to see the two, who have transformed into infants, fighting over Uka Uka.

His boss battle style includes a wave of what appears to be electricity moving horizontally and vertically. Then, he switches up the platforms, which form a path to him. N. Tropy kneels down to rest and he is now exposed. When he is hit he uses his time warp/teleportation ability to warp other side of the room. If Crash is next to N. Tropy while he is still attacking or not kneeling down, N. Tropy will smash Crash with his tuning fork, vaporizing Crash across time and space. (He doesn't do this in the N. Sane Trilogy).

Crash Team Racing
N. Tropy makes a return in Crash Team Racing, appearing as an unlockable character. To unlock him, the player must beat all eighteen of his records in Time Trial mode or use a cheat code. Tropy drives a light blue kart. Like Tiny, Dingodile and Papu Papu, N. Tropy has high speed and average acceleration, but bad turning.

Stats
The epilogue of CTR states that he began tinkering with his time machine again and he was last seen entering a time portal.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
N. Tropy has a minor appearance in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, in which he is an attendee of Uka Uka's convention and an occasional enemy in the game, attempting to hinder Crash's progress in Atlasphere levels by shooting at him with his tuning fork, and later racing against him in a car. He also appears in the flying levels to battle Crash's glider and Coco's spaceship. He only has one line in the whole game.

Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced
N. Tropy is the main antagonist of Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced, in which he teams up with his inter-dimensional crony, N. Trance, kidnaps Crunch, Coco and Fake Crash, and hypnotizes them into working for him. He is later defeated by Crash and is forced to take a group picture (said photo being taken by Fake Crash) with the Bandicoots, much to his anger.

Crash Nitro Kart
N. Tropy is an unlockable character in Crash Nitro Kart, where he races under Team Cortex with Cortex, N. Gin, and Tiny Tiger. To unlock him, the player must defeat all of his ghosts in Time Trial mode, much like in Crash Team Racing.

Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage
N. Tropy appears as a trading card in Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage.

Crash Twinsanity
"The rats are leaving the sinking ship. Tell us where the treasure is and we'll... let you go."

- N. Tropy In Crash Twinsanity, N. Tropy appears yet again. He is first seen after the Rusty Walrus chase in High Seas Hi-Jinks, with Cortex's old colleague, Nitrus Brio, who were seeking the Evil Twins' treasure (as Tropy found out about here). After not getting any information from Crash, they decide to "wring it out of him". N. Tropy orders N. Brio to transform, and a battle ensues. After being defeated, the now frog-like Brio springs into the air and hits the iceberg's edge, sending Crash flying back to Cortex's Lab. N. Tropy reappears in the level Ant Agony, along with Nitrus Brio and N. Gin, to steal the Evil Twins' treasure, but was burned by Spyro the Dragon after Dr. Cortex mentioned that Spyro might want his stolen gems back.

Crash Boom Bang!
N. Tropy makes a cameo appearance in the Silhouette Quiz mini-game.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
N. Tropy reappeared in the N. Sane Trilogy serving the same role as he did in Warped.

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
N. Tropy reappears in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, once again as an unlockable character and is unlocked the same way as in Crash Team Racing. However, this time the player must beat all thirty-one of his records in Time Trial as opposed to eighteen in Crash Team Racing due to the inclusion of the Crash Nitro Kart tracks. Unlike in Crash Team Racing, N. Tropy cannot be unlocked via cheat code. His ending in Nitro-Fueled is identical to his original ending, except instead of going to a rainforest, he instead arrives in a futuristic city, only to head back after coming across a Marty McFly-like character.

N. Tropy's infant version from Crash Bandicoot: Warped, Baby N. Tropy, was added as a playable character in the post-Grand Prix update, and is available for purchase from the Pit Stop for 1500 Wumpa Coins.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
N. Tropy appears in It's About Time in the opening together with Cortex and Uka Uka to escape the time prison, After Cortex had failed to destroy Crash and Coco again. N. Tropy betrays Cortex and reveals his new partner; an alternate, female N. Tropy. Intent on resetting all other timelines to create a new era with themselves as its gods, the Doctors N. Tropy attack Nitros Oxide and use his ship to get away from Crash and Coco's party.

Although the alternate Tawna gives chase on Oxide's hovercraft, she is easily beaten alone. When Crash and Coco's party arrive, the female N. Tropy reveals that she particularly enjoyed Tawna's screams when her friends were killed. The two agree to give their opponents "a fair chance" and toss Tawna towards their enemies before sending them off in new dimensional rifts.

With the help from all four Quantum Masks, Crash and Coco prevail over both doctors, and they are knocked into a dimensional hole by Dingodile; putting an end to their plans. In the 100% ending, the pair have never been heard since their defeat, but they likely have yet to give up, as indicated by the dialogue from Crash in the 100% ending that "evil geniuses are harder to squash than cockroaches."

Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!
While N. Tropy himself has yet to physically appear in On the Run!, an N. Tropy themed skin for Crash was added in season two, Running Outta Time, which was hosted by N. Tropy's female counterpart.

Personality
Nefarious Tropy is a nefarious and smug character, as opposed to the childish, outspoken temperament of Doctor Cortex, with a smooth British accent to match. He proves highly intelligent, his technological breakthroughs arguably making him the most advanced of all of Uka Uka's scientists. However, he tends to get frustrated when he repeatedly misses his target, and as a result, tires easily. This usually works to Crash's advantage and results in Tropy's many defeats at the hands of the bandicoot. Like Cortex, he is also highly pompous and foul-tempered, venting his frustrations at his associates or blaming them for his errors, something N. Trance was perfectly willing to call him out on. An antithesis to Cortex's pitifully jaded but often opportunistic nature, Tropy is an imperious and overconfident villain who often devolves into panic or frustration when events stop going according to plan, as demonstrated throughout N-Tranced when multiple oversights in his scheme weigh down on Tropy's nerves and eventually cause him to retreat in desperation.

Unlike most allies of Uka Uka, N. Tropy is not one of Cortex's henchmen, but more of an equal and occasionally a rival for the role of Uka Uka's right-hand man. This can lead to conflicts between the two prideful doctors; it is Tropy who exposes Cortex's secret weapon in The Wrath of Cortex out of suspicion he is holding out on ideas, while in Twinsanity, the two openly oppose each other for the Evil Twins' treasure, with Cortex ultimately mocking Tropy's comeuppance thanks to Spyro, who came to get back his gems from the Evil Twins. Even as infants, they both fight for usage of Uka Uka with equal footing in Warped. He seems to have an affinity for time related puns, rarely letting a sentence go by without one. He also shows glaring traits of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder).

In It's About Time, he is very flirtatious to his female counterpart and is shown to genuinely care for her. He is nonetheless treated in a much more sinister and fearsome light in this enterpretation, lacking much of the clownish and thin skinned demeanor of his previous roles, and proving sadistic and treacherous towards even his allies such as Cortex and Uka Uka when they have fulfilled their purpose in his ambitions (earning him the vengence of Cortex in particular).

In the Japanese script, N. Tropy speaks in a haughty, elitist manner albeit in a higher pitched voice in the original Warped though this progressively became deeper down the line. He also has a habit of mixing in English words in his sentences.

Physical Appearance
His outward appearance reflects an unhealthy obsession with time. Frequent travel through the cold and hostile vacuum of space and time has caused his skin to become light blue and extremely cold. He has long eyebrows and two equally long and skinny beards. His legs are long and skinny. His clothing has changed over the years, now seen as gold armor covering most of his body, except his waist. He also wears a golden-brown, smog-producing, piston-driven time machine, which appears to obscure his lab coat. He wears a tall headgear with a small silver fork. His left arm now has a huge metal glove with a clock on it. During his jumping animations in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, Tropy's hat briefly flies off, revealing him to be bald.

Crash Bandicoot: Warped
“A master of time – a minute spent with him seems like a life sentence!”
 * Manual

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
“Known for his diabolical work in quantum warp technology and his Time Twister device, Dr. N. Tropy can usually be found disturbing the temporal flow by creating time paradoxes just for laughs.”
 * Manual

Appearances

 * Crash Bandicoot: Warped
 * Crash Team Racing
 * Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
 * Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced
 * Crash Nitro Kart
 * Crash Nitro Mini Golf (cameo)
 * Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage (cameo)
 * Crash Twinsanity
 * Crash Boom Bang! (cameo)
 * Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D (mentioned)
 * Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
 * Crashmoji
 * Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
 * Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled Digital Comic (referenced)
 * Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
 * Crash Bandicoot: On the Run! (cameo)

Uka Uka
N. Tropy is shown to be a loyal and trusted ally of Uka Uka; being treated with more respect than Cortex. This is most evident in N-Tranced, where Uka Uka decides to rely on N. Tropy instead of Cortex. Much of their original relationship in Warped is retained in the N-Sane Trilogy, but during It's About Time, N. Tropy is more self-centered, caring little for Uka Uka falling unconscious as he had served his purpose of opening an escape route for their temporal prison although it may of being because he thought Uka Uka had died but felt he had no time to mourn him.

Neo Cortex
Not much interaction is shown between N. Tropy and Cortex in their appearance in the original and remake of Warped except that N. Tropy was simply called to provide aid under Uka Uka's request. Because of this, N. Tropy is the only boss that is only an ally and not a subordinate of Cortex. By The Wrath of Cortex, the two have formed a partnership due to their mutual hatred for Crash. Come Twinsanity, however, N. Tropy doesn't think too much regarding Cortex.

During It's About Time, the pair only have an alliance out of necessity in order to escape their temporal confinement. Upon doing so, N. Tropy does not hesitate to eventually abandon Cortex after his recent defeat at the hands of the Bandicoots in favor of partnering with his dimensional counterpart and was willing to eliminate Cortex along with the rest of the timelines to achieve his goal of becoming a god.

Nefarious Tropy (female)
"N. Tropy : (Flirtatiously) You manage our affairs with such poise. N. Tropy (Female) : (Flirtatiously) Naturally. As do you."

- Doctor Nefarious Tropy (Female) flirting with Doctor Nefarious Tropy Though only briefly shown, it is clear that the two Doctors work well together as a team, however, their good chemistry borders on a comical level of flirting with themselves. They are even shown to hold hands above their boss level portal on the world map further indicating their companionship show that the two genuinely care for one another.

Portrayals
N. Tropy is voiced by Michael Ensign in all his speaking appearances, excluding Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, in which he is voiced by Corey Burton (who also voiced Doctor N. Gin in the same game). Corey Burton has reprised his role in the N. Sane Trilogy and Nitro-Fueled, after which he was replaced by JP Karliak in It's About Time.

Quotes
"Well, haven't we gotten far for a pair of fuzzy marsupials. I am Doctor Nefarious Tropy, master of time and creator of the very Time Twister Machine you see before you. Uka Uka and Doctor Cortex have sent me to end this little charade, so you won't be leaving my area with the Crystals. I swear it!"

- Dr. Nefarious Tropy

"Think you're fast, eh? Well, let's see if you can beat my fastest time on this track."

- Dr. Nefarious Tropy

"Hasten your steps! By my calculations, our enemies are already moving against us. And We. Will. Prevail."

- Dr. Nefarious Tropy

Gallery
See: Nefarious Tropy/Gallery

Trivia

 * When N. Tropy makes his first appearance in Twinsanity, he and N. Brio try to force Crash to tell them where the Evil Twins' treasure is. However, the scene that explains how he found out about the treasure in the first place was cut.
 * N. Tropy hearing about the riches was supposed to be a joke where N. Tropy was watching the events of the game from the outside, but decided to join in when the treasure was mentioned. Ultimately his scene was cut since it would have been too expensive to create a high quality N. Tropy for that one shot (as it was in an actual FMV). The scene was fully voice acted by the game's voice actors and was uploaded on Youtube in its storyboard form by a developer of the game on June 30, 2018.
 * When he was turned into a baby at the end of Warped, he, like Cortex, still had his facial hair. This is likely due to oddities from the collapse of the Time Twister and not what he actually looked liked as a baby.
 * He is the only human character to have an explanation for his strange skin color.
 * Although N. Tropy does not appear in Crash Bash, some music elements of his and Dr. N. Gin's boss theme from Crash Bandicoot: Warped are remixed for some minigames, most notably in Pogo-a-Gogo.
 * In Crash Team Racing, N. Tropy is one of the three characters who are never playable in adventure mode (and plays no part in the story line). The others are Fake Crash and Penta Penguin, who is unlockable via a cheat code. N. Tropy is also the only one of those three to appear in the credits.
 * After beating his ghost in CTR, N. Tropy will say something different depending on the track. If the player beats all of his ghosts, he will congratulate the player and say that he's been unlocked as a racer.
 * Even though N. Tropy doesn't appear in Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D, one of the cups is named after him.
 * Even though N. Tropy has an Asian themed hub in Crash Bandicoot: Warped, there are no Asian-themed levels in his hub.
 * His name is misspelled as "Trophy" in some games, such as in the credits of The Wrath of Cortex. This is lampshaded in the Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled Digital Comic, when Zem states that Nitros Oxide should be called "N. Trophy" after seeing his trophy collection.
 * A villain who debuted in Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal is named Dr. Nefarious, who in turn has an item named after him [Nefarious], the Dr. Nefarious Trophy, possibly hinting Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games' close relationship.
 * Although he doesn't appear in-game, N. Tropy's tuning fork is used as one of Cortex's abilities in Skylanders: Imaginators. When placed, enemies around it will be slowed down; it can be upgraded to shoot sparks when Cortex fires his ray gun.
 * In Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, N. Tropy's helmet can actually come off while jumping through the air. Underneath it, he is bald.
 * In the German version of Crash Team Racing, N. Tropy's name has been spelled as "N. Tropie". While the change in spelling works better as a pun on the German word "Entropie", it is inconsistent to the games that came before and after as those retained the English spelling even in the German versions.