Piston It Away

Piston It Away (ピストン はつでんしょ lit. Piston Power Plant in Japanese) is the twenty-first level in the game and the first level of the fifth warp room in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy remaster of the second game. Set in Dr. Cortex's space station, Crash is required to avoid giant pistons, shrink rays and sparky tentaclebot units in order to survive.

Backtracking is necessary to break all 69 crates and obtain the level's clear gem. This level contains a death route, but if the player takes it and finishes it right when they first encounter it, they will miss out on a number of crates past it on the main path. Instead, they must take the main path to the end first - leaving one tentaclebot alive to jump on later - and then they can successfully backtrack all the way through the level to the death route. However, leaving the sparky tentaclebot is not necessary, as it's possible to jump out of the map and back again and thereby avoiding the trouble of saving the tentaclebot (This doesn't work in the N. Sane Trilogy version). From here, all that separates the player from the gems is a series of tricky platforming challenges involving pistons, shrink rays, and floating tentaclebots. Precise timing is key.

In the N. Sane Trilogy, an easer way to obtain the crate gem is as follows: make it to the death route breaking all the crates on the way there, then take the death route platform. Immediately die in the death route. This will cause the platform to remain usable for the duration of the level, and Crash will respawn at the checkpoint crate near the platform. The player can then continue along the normal path to the end of the level and then double back to the death route. For a checkpoint on the way back, save the Bonus Round for the return trip.

Walkthrough
 Crash Bandicoot 2 Beta, Part 29 Piston It Away-0 Piston It Away - Both Gems - Crash Bandicoot 2 Cortex Strikes Back - 100% Playthrough (Part 28) Crash Bandicoot 2 - "Piston It Away" 100% BOTH Clear Gems and All Boxes (PS4 N Sane Trilogy) Crash 2 Piston It Away Platinum Relic Crash Bandicoot 2 All Death Routes Walkthrough-Piston it Away-2 

Translation of Aku Aku Hints in the Japanese Version

 * Enemies that can only be defeated by sliding seem to exist here. Hmm.
 * So, in Hanging in the Underpass, after you enter the wide water, try to go backwards?
 * The flowers that spit exploding seeds can be defeated by body press. in Warning: Explosive Pollen, try this until the end, eh?

Trivia

 * All boxes in this level contain no more than one Wumpa Fruit.
 * This level, Air Crash and Spaced Out are the only levels in this game with an alternate route that leads to an exit back to the main warp room.
 * Unlike the other two levels, the second exit needs to be taken to fully complete this level due to crates, including a Checkpoint, being on the Death Route, or else you could death warp back to the main path and finish it there.
 * Because of the crates on the Death Route, this is the only level in Cortex Strikes Back to contain two Box Counters.  The only other level in the original trilogy with this trait is Deep Trouble in Crash Bandicoot: Warped.
 * In the beta version, it's impossible to get the two gems of the level except with cheats. A coding error causes the game to freeze right before the death route gem.
 * "Dynamo" was one of the earliest names given to this level.
 * This level's title is a play on the phrase "Pissing It Away".
 * If Crash gets hit by the shrink ray without an Aku Aku mask, he will shrink before actually dying, and can even die a second time if he gets hit by an enemy (but only one life is lost). If he enters the bonus round while shrinking, he'll be counted as dying in the bonus round and won't lose a life.
 * In the N. Sane Trilogy, Crash/Coco is instead frozen in place when struck by the ray, negating this.

Piston It Away Piston It Away Piston It Away Piston It Away