Crash Bandicoot

Crash Bandicoot (クラッシュ・バンディクー) is the primary protagonist of the Crash Bandicoot series and was originally named Willy Wombat. He is a genetically-advanced Eastern Barred Bandicoot who lives the life on N. Sanity Island. Throughout the series, Cortex is to be his usual arch-enemy, and defeats him in to put his life back in order. Crash is often accompanied by his ally Aku Aku.

Naughty Dog era
Doctor Neo Cortex Crash Bandicoot (Character)

Crash Bandicoot
"Woah!" Crash is first seen in Doctor Neo Cortex's and Doctor Nitrus Brio's lab. He was created by them with the Evolvo-Ray, but of course, Cortex considered him a failure due to his kind nature, resulting in Cortex chasing Crash out of the castle. Crash's main objective is to clean up any pollution Dr. Cortex has left and to save Tawna, a female bandicoot and Crash's crush. He must defeat six bosses on the way: the obese tribe chief Papu Papu, the insane Ripper Roo, the hulking Koala Kong, the tommy-gun firing Pinstripe Potoroo, the stuttering Doctor Nitrus Brio and finally the evil, demented Doctor Neo Cortex himself. After Cortex's defeat, Crash and Tawna are seen together on the blimp, then the credits roll.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
A year later, Crash is sent off to get a new laptop battery for his sister Coco, but is soon abducted by Doctor Neo Cortex, who claims to have changed his ways. Crash is then ordered to gather Crystals for Cortex while fighting off opposition from Doctor Nitrus Brio, who wants Crash to gather the Gems instead. When Cortex's true intentions are revealed, Crash sends Cortex flying off into space and aids Doctor Nitrus Brio in destroying Cortex's Cortex Vortex by gathering all 42 gems.

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
When the remains of Cortex's space station crash into Earth and set the demonic Uka Uka free, Crash is recruited by Aku Aku to use Doctor Nefarious Tropy's Time-Twisting Machine to gather the powerful Crystals in their original places before Cortex does so. Crash eventually gathers all 25 Crystals, defeating Nefarious Tropy as well as Cortex, Dingodile, Tiny, and Dr. N. Gin; causing the Time-Twisting Machine to implode on itself.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
Crash, Coco, Aku Aku and Pura are having fun in the N.Sanity beach. Aku Aku is taking in some sun, Pura is building a sand castle, and Coco is riding a jet ski, with Crash attached to the back surfing. Suddenly, the earth is stunned by great disasters, such as a volcano eruption, tornadoes and tsunamis. Crash and company are caught in one of these, and Aku Aku deduces that his evil brother, Uka Uka, is behind these attacks. He goes to the Space Temple where the brothers have a discussion. There, Uka Uka shows Aku Aku that he has awoken the Elementals, powerful masks who control all the nature elements. Aku Aku is attacked by the Elementals and is forced to escape. Back in Crash's House, Aku Aku tells him and Coco about this terrible menace. He then asks the female bandicoot about her VR System, a machine that allows the user to travel to different parts of the world. Aku Aku's plan is to use the device in order to seek the Power Crystals. If five crystals are reunited, an elemental mask could be put in a state of hibernation. Coco finishes the machine and, along with Crash, she uses it to gather the crystals.

Soon they realize that Cortex is also involved in this plan, and that he will use his perfect creation -- the super bandicoot called Crunch -- to kill Crash and company. after gathering five crystals, Crash faces Crunch, who is using the power of the elemental mask of earth Rok-ko. Crash defeats him, and after gathering another five crystals he beats Crunch armed with the mask of water, Wa-Wa. Later, Crash defeats Crunch armed with the mask of fire, Py-Ro. After that, Crunch arms himself with the mask of wind, Lo-Lo, and is defeated again. Finally, Crash gathers the finals five crystals, but these are used to open a way to the Cortex's base, where Crash defeats Crunch ultimately, after being attacked with the power of all the elemental masks.

Suddenly, the base explodes, given the wrong activation of a switch. Crash, Coco, Crunch (now of good mind) and Aku Aku escape to the N.Sanity Island, where Crunch becomes a new partner of the bandicoot family. In the credits Crash is seen dancing with an affro lab assistant.

Crash Twinsanity
Three years after the events of The Wrath of Cortex Crash Bandicoot and friends continue their peaceful life on N. Sanity Island. While Dr. Cortex (along with Uka Uka) remain frozen in an icey casam due to the failure of his recent plot. Once Dr. Cortex hits the shore the ice eventually defrosts, and plots his final revenge against Crash Bandicoot once and for all. On the island Coco Bandicoot was playfully chasing a butterfly unaware that Cortex was watching her. Cortex then swaps his gun to "Paralyze" and fires it at Coco and steals her clothes. Elsewhere on the island Crash was digging burrows in the sand until he was called by Cortex (terribly disguised as Coco) to come check out something in the bay. Crash follows unaware of the trick Cortex has planned, into a battle-like ring. Where Cortex stands on it's edge and removes the disguise, he then compares himself to the fleas in Crash's fur and claims to have put together a birthday party (which is just a gather of past villians). He then begins to attack Crash and after their short fued, he reveals a 40-foot mechanical version of Crash known as Mecha Bandicoot. Crash easily defeats it which causes Cortex so much fustration that he throws himself into Crash and he two begin to engage in a Rollerbrawl. Afterward the duo comes across two familiar looking birds who call themselves the Evil Twins. Cortex mocks their power which angers them and results in Cortex's brain being snatched out and thrown to him. They then tell Cortex to run away in horror which he does cowardly. After a few run-ins with Papu Papu and the island totem god they travel to Dr. Cortex Iceberg Lab where they find themselves locked out due to the extremely cold climates of the island, Crash then follows Cortex for another entrance inside. On their way there they run into Uka Uka who is frozen in a wall of ice, Crash breaks the ice by throwing Cortex into it causing him to break free and spring to life again. Uka Uka immedately notcies Crash & Cortex working together which makes him grateful and furious, giving them two options sarcastically "Kiss or Kill" Crash willingly puckers up for the kiss but Uka Uka uses his powers to create a new body of ice and fights Crash & Cortex. After the fight he is stopped by Aku Aku and is warned about the Evil Twins, convinced to help them with their problem he re-unites with Aku Aku and the two fly off. Crash continues his journey only to be greeted by the Evil Twins again and the two prepared for a fierce ambush to greet his return. Crash & Cortex easily defeats their ambush leaving the duo angry cursing Crash Bandicoot and swearing their vengance. Aku Aku & Uka Uka questions Cortex about the Evil Twins but Cortex claims no affilation Aku Aku then makes a suggestion that if they deliver him to the Evil Twins they will spare the lives of the others. Cortex seeing no other way out turns to Crash for help, which Crash happily obliges. Crash then follows Cortex to the Psychetron Cortex attempts to use the machine, but it dosent have enough power to make the leap. Cortex then suggests that they travel to N.gin's battleship before it leaves shore but cannot find a way, Crash watches Cortex hang over the balcony and kicks him in the rear making Cortex fall helplessly on the ground for Crash to create a HumiliSkate towards the ship.

Crash of the Titans
In Crash of the Titans, Crash aids Coco in the development of a butter-recycling device. This is interrupted when Doctor Neo Cortex arrives and kidnaps Aku Aku and Coco. Crash throws Coco's machine at Cortex's airship, severing the chain holding Aku Aku's cage, which causes the cage to fall into the nearby forest. After Crash rescues Aku Aku, they discover that Cortex and Uka Uka are stealing Mojo from a nearby temple and decide to stop them. Crash is unable to rescue his sister, but manages to defeat Cortex and begins his search for Coco, interrogating Tiny Tiger, N. Gin, and Uka Uka on her whereabouts. Crash finally confronts and defeats Nina Cortex inside of the Doominator robot, liberates his sister and with the help of Coco's part averts the destruction of Wumpa Island. Feeling happy for themselves, Crash and his family decide to celebrate their victory with pancakes, which he blurts out (speaking for the first time) in joy.

Crash: Mind Over Mutant
Having been defeated by the bandicoots once again, Cortex drops Nina off at an Evil Public School, and returns to Uka-Uka to plan for his next trick. He meets and teams up with Doctor Nitrus Brio once more and introduced their new project to Uka-Uka: The NV. Meanwhile, Coco is now messing with a rather large Doominator which happens to be laying over half the island. She tries to get a screen on it working and asks Crash to go and get her some parts. When he finally gets the parts, she builds a giant TV and Crunch sees on it a commercial for the NV. Crash now has a ability to posses a counter attack meaning dogging and attacking by suprise A mailman brings one, and Coco and Crunch use it for browsing the Internet, but Crash is shocked by electricity every time he touches it. Aku Aku sends out Crash to figure out why, and the two are confronted by N. Gin. After knocking out his Ratnicians, Aku Aku and Crash see Coco and Crunch under what appears to be mind control through N. Gin's telescope. return home to free Coco and Crunch. Crunch runs off still under the spell, leaving Crash to force a mutated Coco into submission. Saving her from the NV, Coco goes on to Doctor Cortex's blog and (somewhat reluctantly) sends Crash to find Nina, who will hopefully confess her uncle's plan. Finding Nina at Evil Public School and saving her science project, she tells Crash where N. Brio and Crunch are located, where he takes off Crunch's helmet, and N. Brio goes away. After that, Crash and his sidekick, Aku Aku, go to Mount Grimly, where he frees Uka Uka, and is sent to go find his bones. After retrieving the bones from the most powerful Titans Crash returns the voodoo bones to Uka Uka at Mount Grimly. Wanting revenge on Cortex, Uka Uka trusts Crash and Aku Aku to use the teleportation systems to defeat Cortex at his new space station. Despite Cortex's cheating in his attempt to physically defeat Crash, the bandicoot repeats history once more as Cortex is defeated and the space station plummets down near Crash's home.

Crash Team Racing
Crash appears as a playable character in Crash Team Racing, in which he drives a blue, well-rounded kart. The epilogue states that Crash sold his life story, titled "The Color Orange", to a major film studio, set to be released by the Christmas season. He is a beginner racer with Medium turning, Acceleration and speed.

Crash Bash
Some time later, Crash is sleeping under a tree and suddenly is abducted and taken to the Space Temple where Aku Aku and Uka Uka have his "discussions". There, Uka Uka tells him and Cortex that he and Aku Aku have decided to engage in a competition in order to resolve all the trouble between them. Given that Aku and Uka can't fight against each other because of a promise made to the Ancients, they decide to create two teams, one formed by Crash, Coco, Tiny Tiger and Dingodile, and the other by Cortex, Brio, Rilla Roo, and Koala Kong. They will compete in games to gain Power Crystals and Gems, necessaries to bring the victory to Aku Aku or Uka Uka.

Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure
Crash and Coco are in his house, and suddenly they see the face of Cortex covering the sky. They learn, thanks to Aku Aku, that Cortex created a giant device known as the Planetary Minimizer, a machine that allows to (like the name implies) shrink any planet to the size of an orange. Coco has a machine capable of revert the effects of the Planetary Minimizer, but to make it work, she needs a large amount of Power Crystals, what are spread across the world. Crash must recover the crystals with the help of Aku Aku.

However, Cortex sends his evil allies in order to interfere with the bandicoot's plans. Upon gathering five crystals, Crash confronts and defeats Dingodile in a duel under de sea. After that, he faces Tiny Tiger in singular combat, also beating him. Later, Crash defeats N.Gin, who is aboard a mortal robot.

Finally, Crash reaches the Cortex's base, defeating him and destroying the Planetary Minimizer in the progress. However, the machine fires a bolt of electricity to Cortex and his allies, melting them and forming a freaking monster, the Mega Mix. This monstrosity chases Crash throughout the base, and finally it explodes, but Crash is able to escape in a space motorbike.

Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced
Some time later, Crash, Aku Aku, Coco, and Crunch are having fun in his house, when suddenly Coco And Crunch disappear. Aku Aku sends Crash off to investigate what's happening. Crash is then sucked into a wormhole made by N. Tropy. Aku Aku saves him and takes him to a temple in hyperspace, where he will be able to seek and recover gem shards, powerful jewels that allow Aku Aku to defeat N.Tropy and Uka Uka, and also save Coco and Crunch.

Upon gathering the first gem shards, Crash faces a brainwashed Crunch in an Arabian scenario, and defeats him, returning him to normal. After that, he defeats an evil Coco, who was operating a machine inside a volcano. Finally, he beats Fake Crash.

After gathering another group of gem shards, Crash engaged in a duel with the primary ally of N.Tropy, N-Trance, The Hypnotist, who was behind the operation to brainwash his family. Crash beats N-Trance and gathers the final gem shards. He defeats N.Tropy and his family returns to his house.

Crash Nitro Kart
"Booyah!" Crash is a playable character in Crash Nitro Kart, in which he drives for the Crash Team in a well-rounded kart. In the story, he is abducted (along with other characters) by Emperor Velo XXVII and forced to compete in the Galaxy Circuit. When Velo relinquishes his power to Crash, the latter seriously considers the possibility of ruling over Velo's empire, but decides to turn Velo down and leaves him with his empire. If Crash wins a race he will do his classic dance on the podium. Crash has a high pitched voice in this game. When Krunk is defeated he gives him his Yo-Yo.

Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage
Crash and Aku Aku fight many green and purple dragon-like monsters who are roaming the N.Sanity Island. Eventually, they find a small but brave dragon called Spyro, whose appearance is alike the monsters. Spyro and Crash fight each other, but eventually they realize they've been tricked. In fact, Spyro traveled to N.Sanity following the path of strange orange monsters, alike Crash. Crash and Spyro deduce that his most feared foes, Cortex and Ripto have teamed up, and so, to defeat them, Spyro and Crash must form a group. Coco and the Professor (Spyro's ally) need Power Crystals to open a portal to the enemies base. Crash begins to gather crystals and faces Tiny Tiger, in a duel over tanks in the South Pole, and the marsupial defeats him. Later, Crash and Spyro join forces in order to beat Nina Cortex, who has kidnapped Coco and the Professor.

Finally, Crash and Spyro gather all the crystals and the bandicoot faces Ripto in an aerial combat, and the foe is defeated. Crash is supposed to place a tracer on Ripto but he forgets. Luckily Spyro had been fighting Cortex and had placed a tracer on him. Crash and Spyro follow Cortex and Ripto to their base and fight them in space. Ripto and Cortex flee but Crash destroys their ship sending them flying off into space. From that moment on, Crash and Spyro remain as a couple of true friends.

Crash Tag Team Racing
In Crash Tag Team Racing, Crash is recruited (along with other characters) by Ebenezer Von Clutch to gather the stolen Power Gems of his amusement park and win the park's ownership. He also finds Von Clutch's lost Black Power Gem by the end of the game. Crash acts somewhat of an immature bully espicially to chickens. In the game, he is killed in mini films called Die-o-ramas, which consists of Crash getting eaten, blown up, and getting killed.

Crash Boom Bang!
Crash is a playable character in Crash Boom Bang!, in which he is brought along by Coco when she is invited to the World Cannonball Race. At the end of the story, he interrupts the Viscount's wish to the Super Big Power Crystal and wishes for a vast amount of Wumpa Fruit. These games are considered canon but not important parts of the story.

Appearance
Throughout the series, Crash has gone through drastic changes in appearance, namely the addition of tattoos in Crash of the Titans and Mind over Mutant. His hairdo also went through many changes, namely its color and how many spikes it held. Also, he wears a different pair of pants with a belt, and has footprints on the bottom of his shoes. His original appearance was a red mowhawk, darker orange fur (up until Twinsanity) fingerless gloves, blue jeans (but in Twinsanity, he wears kneepads on his jeans) and plain brown shoes (DCS, Converse)(note: in Twinsanity, he wears black shoes and has a brown mowhawk). He has also been shown to wear pink boxers.

Personality
Before being ejected from Doctor Neo Cortex's island fortress, Crash became romantically attached to a female bandicoot named Tawna, who was another one of Cortex's experiments. Crash is a very emotional character who is quick to laugh and quick to cry. While he has a danger-loving, fearless nature and loves a good fight, he prefers relaxing in the sun and rarely seeks out trouble deliberately. To the ire of Crunch and the amusement of Coco, In the Radical games, Crash is prone to impolite personal habits such as belching or scratching his posterior. Crash is also easily distracted, as seen in Twinsanity when he has to catch Cortex, but is distracted by a falling Wumpa Fruit. As shown in Crash Tag Team Racing, Crash seems to be somewhat impulsive, demonstrated in Die-o-Ramas, Crash spins a tree making it fall and crush him, and standing railing with gears behind him, and spinning dangerous equipment.

Crash's intelligence level is something of a question, since he is illiterate and Aku even made a comment that brain damage was "not much of a danger to Crash". However, this may have been a tease, especially since he is shown to be smart enough to prevent Cortex's attempts at ditching him in Twinsanity and has been able to outsmart various bosses far more powerful than himself in the past. Things he does that seem dumb could best be attributed to his obvious immaturity and impulsive nature. His illiteracy is probably just because he sees no reason to speak English, especially since Aku can understand him anyway.

Abilities
Over the series he develops several powers, and is the only character to possess them other than Coco.

Crash has been shown to possess several abilities pertaining to physical prowess and endurance.
 * He has displayed significant physical strength, able to cause considerable damage to Titans and other large creatures, such as Tiny. He also was able to pick up Crunch and slam him on the ground over and over, with little effort.
 * Crash is also very agile, able to jump more than his own body height into the air with a standard jump, as well as pull off a double jump with similar vertical lift. *crash is also possessed of exceptional stamina and resiliency, able to run and fight steadily for long periods of time (evidenced by the fact that many of his games' plots take place in a small span of time), and also take massive blows from Titans and the like, then just get back up and resume fighting with the same vigor and liveliness as before. The latter is also evidenced by the fact that he can spin at high speed for almost a solid minute before he gets dizzy, and still only stay dizzy for a brief moment.
 * Crash can run quite fast, as evidenced by his Crash Dash ability.
 * Crash is quite limber, able to twist and crouch his body into all sorts of positions. This is perhaps helped by the fact that he is a teenager.
 * Crash is also imune to Mind Control as shown in Crash Bandicoot when he is rejected by the Cortex Vortex and in Mind Over Mutant where he is shocked by Electricity when he touches the N-V.

Crash also has a couple other abilities and skills.
 * Perhaps best known is Crash's ability to spin himself at high speed, dealing centrifugal force-augmented blows to opponents and even allowing himself to float slowly to the ground. The Spin Move can also deflect projectiles.
 * Crash is no novice when it comes to fighting, possessing considerable skill in hand-to hand combat and an ability to use weapons, such his Fruit Bazooka and those in Karts, with ease.
 * Crash is also described in Mutant to be a swift fighter, able to use his speed to his advantage against larger foes.
 * Crash is a superb climber, able to hang from ledges and traverse them with great speed, and also to scale sheer surfaces with only minor handholds. On a related note, Crash seems to have a strong grip, evidenced by his hanging on to Mutants while they are running and fighting and the fact that he ripped off Crunch's N-V, which was designed not to come off
 * Crash's natural ability to dig holes in the ground was enhanced by Cortex's work, allowing him to rapidly tunnel through the earth to grab hidden goodies. This ability is usually started with a spin, making Crash look like he is drilling into the earth.

Crash can also pull off several specific techniques and maneuvers with his physical capabilities. They are:
 * Double Jump
 * Super Belly Flop
 * Tip Toe
 * Death Tornado
 * Bazooka (Super Power)
 * Crash Dash (Super Power)
 * Super Slide
 * Rocket Jump
 * Crash can pull off a Spin Jump, performed by spinning then jumping. This carries him very high.
 * And advanced maneuver is called a "Jack Jump." Crash performs this by making a titan jump, then jumping as he stores it.
 * Crash can also perform a Slide Jump by sliding and jumping which makes him move very fast and jump high.

Other Traits
In the Radical Entertainment games Crash has an extremely limited vocabulary, preferring to speak in unintelligible gibberish; and can say Nina and Pancakes. In the Naughty Dog games the few English words he is capable of speaking include 'Whoa!' Uh-oh and Boo-yah. It is implied in Crash Twinsanity that he is a chronic carrier of fleas (Because it was stated by Cortex, it might be just a provocation). He also loves Wumpa fruit and as seen in the first cutscene in Crash Twinsanity.

Portrayals
Crash is voiced by Brendan O'Brien in the Naughty Dog games, by Steven Blum in Crash Nitro Kart and by Jess Harnell in the Radical Entertainment games. In the Japanese versions of the games, he is voiced by Kappei Yamaguchi in the games up to Crash Nitro Kart and by Makoto Ishī in Crash Boom Bang!. A sample of Crash's voice can be heard here.

Trivia

 * Crash was originally named Willy Wombat and was created as a much bulkier character. During production of the first game, the marketing director of Universal Interactive Studios insisted that Crash be named "Wez", "Wuzzles" or "Wizzy the Wombat". Crash was given his final name due to his tendency to smash crates.
 * In Crash of the Titans, Crash says "Pancakes!" at the end of the main console versions. However in the GBA version, this is extended to "Pancakes? I thought you'd never ask!" for unknown reasons.
 * Crash Bandicoot is the only character in the Crash universe to appear in every single Crash game. He is also the only character to have his name in the title of every Crash game.
 * In Crash Bandicoot 2, when Crash is burned, he quickly changes to his Crash 1 model. This was changed in the 3rd game.
 * Normally Crash will die if he comes into contact with any hazards, but in Twinsanity he survives the TNT exsplosion that sinks N.Gin's battleship.
 * In the evil ending of Crash Bash Crash is smiling even though Uka Uka has won.
 * Crash and Coco's bandicoot father was killed by a box. (As mentioned by a Ratcicle in Mind Over Mutant)
 * In the 1st game, after Crash crashed through the window of Cortex's castle he said Uh oh normaly before he fell into the ocean.

Websites

 * Crash Village Website
 * Crashmania.net