Slippery Climb

''Very good! You've managed to reach Cortex's castle, but can you climb to the top and find the Red Gem?'' - Level description

Slippery Climb is the twenty-fourth level (including boss fights) and is the seventh level of the third island in Crash Bandicoot. In this level, Crash must traverse the outside of Cortex Castle while avoiding a gauntlet of traps and tricky jumps. There is only one checkpoint crate in the whole level. It is the only castle exterior type of level in the game. The Tawna bonus round in the previous level, The High Road, saves at this level.

Level design
Slippery Climb takes place during a stormy night on the exterior of Cortex Castle. Crash must reach the top of the castle by jumping through a series of moving platforms and elevators. The majority of this level requires the player to performed time jumps in order to reach other platforms. There are also times where a bird must be jumped on to reach other platforms. Some of the the enemies that Crash will meet include lab assistants that will throw beakers at him and evil hands that will try to swipe at him. Crash will be able to collect tokens for a Brio bonus round. The red gem can be obtained from this level if the player successfully breaks all of the crates without dying.

A removed level called Stormy Ascent featured a similar theme to Slippery Climb. However, the level was removed from the final production of the game due to time constraints and a difficult learning curve.

Types of crates

 * Aku Aku Crate
 * Arrow Crate - iron (Brio bonus round only)
 * Basic Crate
 * Bounce Crate
 * Checkpoint Crate
 * Crash Crate
 * ! Crate (Brio bonus round only)
 * Iron Crate (Brio bonus round only)
 * Outline Crate (Brio bonus round only)
 * ? Crate
 * TNT Crate (Brio bonus round only)

Stage parameters

 * Aku Aku Crates: 1


 * TNT Crates: None.


 * Other Crates: 30
 * Tawna Bonus Round Crates: None. (NTSC-US) 11 (NTSC-J)
 * Brio Bonus Round Crates: 19
 * Cortex Bonus Round Crates: None.

Password
This corresponds to a save file at this level (68%, 0 keys, 14 gems).

Trivia

 * In the Japanese version, this level was switched with Sunset Vista in the level order, and this level contains a clear gem instead of the red gem.  Also, in the Japanese version, this level contains a Tawna bonus round, which is not included in the other versions.
 * In the prototype there are more platforms and the level was harder than the final version.
 * The gem's clearness often causes people to confuse it for a pink gem.
 * This is the first level of the game and the entire series to contain Lab Assistants.
 * This is the only level to contain a non-Tawna bonus round (in this case Brio) without also containing a Tawna bonus round. Interestingly enough, the cut level Stormy Ascent which has the same theme as Slippery Climb was supposed to be the other such level. That level was going to contain a Cortex bonus round but no Tawna bonus round.