Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced

Crash Bandicoot: N-Tranced was the second game to feature Crash Bandicoot on the Gameboy Advance.

Storyline
Uka Uka calls upon the assistance of Dr N Tropy. He in turn recommends the services of N.Trance. Using a teleporter, he plans to transport Crash, Crunch, and Coco to a star base somewhere in space. However aku Aku prevents the teleportation from completing, and Crash is saved. However, the evil side is left with Fake Crash: a result of the incomplete transformation. Coco and Crunch are hypnotized and turned against Crash. Crash now has to save his friends and defeat N Trance!

Additions

 * Similar to Crash's jetboard in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, and to Coco's jetsurfer in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, Crash rides on wakeboards (revealed in Lagoony Tunes when Aku Aku speaks)


 * Instead of the usual Warp Room level selection, this game includes a map of various platforms in space. On the platforms are buttons which act as gateways to various levels.

Naughty Dog References
As seen in the previous game, this entry in the series goes on giving the GBA most of the features and environments seen in the Naughty Dog trilogy. First of all, instead of using a Warp Room, "N-Tranced" makes use of a "Warp Zone" structured like a map, in which every single portal is entered using the same animation seen in Crash 3 - except the lack of any sight of the level outside it. Then, the only element hailing from Crash 2 is the usage of the jungle levels' BGM in the atlasphere stages as well as in the very first stage, "Island Intro", which concept was already seen in Crash 2 - though it was called just "Intro" and, instead of its heir, wasn't replayable.

Then, the Egyptian Tomb (like Tomb Time) and Arabia stages (like Hang'em High) are taken directly from Warped, as well as their own BGMs, while the Volcano Island ambience hails from a non-NG game (despite its BGM being from a Prehistoric level like Bone Yard. The water levels offer the same tropical sea setting seen in Warped levels such as Makin' Waves, but here Crash does some water-skiing while being tied to an off-screen motorboat and chased by a shark; therefore, these stages act as the "escape" ones. The motorboat may be driven by Coco, but since two water stages out of three are part of the storyline in which Coco is still under hypnosis, this hypothesis is to be scrapped. The flying levels of the prequel, mixing the jetpack itself with fights against blimps, are now substituted by another kind of escapes, in which Coco, wearing an astronaut suit and tied up to a hovering "space life belt" of sorts, has to manage to escape a giant - and unseen since being offscreen too - fireball (despite the first stage in this series being called "Run from the Sun") while fighting between meteorites as well as "Lab Astronauts". The "atlasphere" concept, instead, hails from the same non-NG game said above.

N. Trance himself (or even the eponymous game) may be considered as a nice way to allow Fake Crash's, Crunch's and N. Tropy's handheld debuts, as well as Coco's debut as a boss in the whole series.

The pause menu reprises the one from the prequel in terms of structure, but is totally different in terms of appearance. The "C" symbol now features Coco's face in order to match the one seen in Warped, as well as Crunch's face. Now Crash's face is on the bottom of the emblem while Coco's stands on its top. The pause menu is now almost completely golden.

The Bonus Platforms now lead Crash to the bonus round by floating instead of just teleporting him there.

Another correction is made whenever Crash dies by falling into a chasm: in the prequel he would just become an angel/ghost, while now (reflecting the second and third games in the series) he throws up his shoes.

Colored gems are still featured, but in an entirely different way. In each Egyptian level a red "Gem shard" (1/4 of an usual colored gem) is hidden; likewise, the Volcano stages hide blue gem shards as well as green gem shards are hidden within Arabian levels. If all of the 12 gem shards are achieved and N-Trance is defeated, the last section of the map (a wooden bridge set in outer space) is accessible. This portion acts as N. Tropy's hideout, and instead of the portals, the last 3 levels are accessed through the now recreated gems (though the way the "warping" animation is seen suggests the stages are in fact the gems themselves). Each of these really hard levels has the relative colored gem to be found, as well as the normal gem and the relic. After each colored gem is achieved, the portal to N. Tropy, disguised as a gear, is accessible.

The fight against N. Tropy is a kinda faithful recreation of the battle fought in Warped, but made in a significantly longer and harder way. N. Tropy fights Crash in an arena structured just like its Warped counterpart, only set in Arabia. Tropy has a total of three hit points, but once defeated, he recovers and causes the battle to start over in an Egyptian Tomb arena with smaller platforms, now attacking at a faster rate. As soon as he loses all of his health again, he restarts the battle one last time by setting it in the Volcano environment. This time the player can defeat him once for all, but if he dies for any reason, sadly, the battle has to restart for real, as a whole.

A noteworthy goof
The Game Over screen of the game, as it was in its predecessor, still features a close-up of Uka Uka and therefore reprises the one in Warped.

But since in that Game Over screen Cortex's floating head was behind Uka Uka (as seen when, whenever the player chose "No" while the game asking him/her to "Continue?", Uka Uka would reveal Cortex's face, with the latter telling the player "Goodbye, for now."), its usage in N-Tranced just makes no sense since Cortex is NOT featured in this game.

However, at each side of the mask, Cortex's hair is still visible.

Music
As it was in the case of the game's predecessor (and as partially said above), this game's soundtrack references most of Naughty Dog's work on the series. First of all, "Island Intro" as well as the Atlasphere stages use the BGM of the jungle levels seen in Crash 2 as their own, only re-arranged in a way even different than the one heard in The Huge Adventure. The Arabian Stages and Egyptian Tomb stages, being taken from Warped, have also BGMs similar to their original counterparts but adapted to the GBA and therefore been shortened and looped.

The Volcano environment hails from Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, but it makes use of the BGM of Warped's Prehistoric levels, while the water levels use a BGM somewhat similar to the one heard in Warped's sea stages such as Makin' Waves.

Interestingly, Fake Crash's boss fight uses a weird rearrangement of the BGM of Warped's "Rings of Power" (level accessed through the thirtieth button, only found in the secret world and entered by having 25 relics).

N. Tropy uses a rearrangement of his own BGM instead.

Bosses
Evil Crunch (Crunch being brainwashed)

Evil Coco (Coco being brainwashed, listed as "Evil Coco" but not to be confused with the real Evil Coco, an unused character from Crash Twinsanity)

Fake Crash

N. Trance

N. Tropy

The boss battle against Fake Crash, instead of N. Tropy's one described above, may be considerably short (lasting only 11 seconds at the very least), depending on the player's skills. In the egyptian tomb, Crash faces his goofy doppleganger as anyone would imagine the fight: Fake Crash mirrors (literally) every single move made by Crash. Spinning doesn't damage Fake Crash, but serves as the only way to switch the sides. There are the spear traps typical of this environment, set in a mirrored way BUT NOT WORKING AS SUCH (that is, alternatively). Keeping these facts in mind is key for any player aiming to the faker's defeat.

Powerups and related glitches
Despite there are 5 bosses instead of the prequel's 4 (and, oddly, 21 crystals - neither 20 nor 25), there are still only 4 powerups and the Fruit Bazooka from Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped is still absent.

However, the Super Charged Body Slam, as well as Double Jump, are available from the very beginning of the game; the first two powerups, gained by defeating the first two bosses (being the brainwashed Crunch and Coco respectively), are the Super Slide (a faster and more powerful slide, executed by pressing R while holding L and while standing still) as well as the Rocket Jump (maybe referencing the "Moon Jump" seen in most platform games through cheat devices - this one being an extra-high-but-not-long jump executed by jumping while standing still and holding L). By defeating N. Tropy the player isn't awarded by any powerup at all.

Besides, the "power-up ? panels" appear in both "Island Intro" and "Globe Trottin'", as in-game tutorials while outside of Time Trial mode.

Sadly, this wide range of moves available to Crash, united to the low number of buttons of the GBA (compared to those of the PS1, that is), authomatically led to the overlapping of controls and to a glitch which, if the player press R right before landing, results in a (often unwelcome) slide.

Trivia and cultural references

 * Save for the game's multiplayer mode and for a line of Uka Uka's, this is the very first game in the series [not only to not have Cortex as one of the villains, but] to not feature Cortex at all.


 * Tropy's hit points are nine altogether, and therefore he shares the second place with N. Brio in Crash 1 as the one with most of them is still N. Gin in his Warped incarnation. Despite this, N. Brio is still the one with most hit points shown on screen at once.


 * Crunch says, after being defeated and returned to normal, he was "brainwashed again": maybe it's an allusion on how he wasn't fighting against the good guys on purpose during the events of Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex.


 * The name of the very first, night-time Arabian level, "Prints of Persia", is most likely a reference to the game series, of Persia".


 * The molten pocket stopwatches seen in N. Trance's portion of the map are most likely a reference to Salvador Dalì's persistence of memory". This may also reference the usage of chained stopwatches as devices for hypnotism or to the discovery of N.Tropy's hideout.