Tiny Tiger

Tiny Tiger (Japanese: タイニータイガー / Tainītaigā) (erroneously named Taz Tiger in the pause screen of the North American version of Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back) is a Tasmanian tiger initially created by Doctor Nitrus Brio. He is often seen working for Doctor Neo Cortex, the main antagonist of the series. Before Crash of the Titans, Tiny was essentially a carbon copy of his spiritual predecessor Koala Kong: incredibly powerful and muscular, but overall unintelligent. Tiny's intelligence has since increased, giving the character a new depth and personality. Out of all of Cortex's animal minions, Tiny makes the most appearances in the series, physically appearing in eleven games and vocally in one game over the course of eleven years, undergoing incredibly drastic changes in appearance in the later games.

Pre-series history
It was implied in at least two instruction manuals that Tiny was Doctor Cortex's first foray into genetic alteration. However, this conflicts with what was established by Naughty Dog, who confirmed that Ripper Roo was Cortex's first serious creation, and Tiny was actually created by N. Brio to destroy Crash. It is assumed that before his creation, he was a normal Tasmanian Thylacine.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Tiny made his debut in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back as the third boss of the game. Created and under the orders of Doctor Nitrus Brio, Tiny attempts to stop Crash from gathering Crystals by crushing him under his feet inside a space station. There is no floor in the room they fight in, but rather an endless chasm, with nine mechanical platforms set up in a three-by-three fashion to save both of them from falling to their doom. However, all of these platforms are faulty, eventually malfunctioning and deactivating. Crash uses this to his advantage, and tricks the gullible Tiny into jumping into the resulting gap that is created by these faulty platforms. Crash must repeat this strategy two more times to defeat Tiny. Every time Tiny falls with a platform, it returns up with him. As an often unseen detail, while Crash is already celebrating his victory with his own trademark dance, Tiny is actually returning up even after running out of hit points but appearing exhausted, lying on the platform which, in turn, after having brought up Tiny finally ends up falling beneath the tiger's weight. His theme song for this game can be found here.

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
In Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, it is revealed that Tiny survived his previous fall. His, Cortex, and N. Gin's battle all took place in space, so it's likely one of the two brainwashed him to join their side of evil. Here, he serves under Uka Uka and Doctor Neo Cortex, attempting to take whatever crystals Crash and Coco have gathered and bringing them to Cortex in the Colosseum of Rome under his orders. Crash encounters Tiny in the Colosseum chained to two columns (a la Samson), which he snaps free from with ease. Tiny then proceeds to try and crush Crash under his feet, just as he did in their last encounter. When Tiny tries to impale Crash with his trident, the trident becomes stuck in the ground, leaving Tiny open for attack. Tiny then summons numerous lions to try and eat Crash. After this cycle is repeated two more times, Tiny is knocked out, Cortex giving a speech to Crash and Cortex afterwards said "Tiny was a good fellow. He hated everyone and everything, but a good heart nonetheless." and warning Crash to be more "reasonable" with his minions. His theme song can be found here.

Crash Team Racing
Tiny is a playable character in the Crash Team Racing, driving a Lime colored, high-speed, low-control kart. His home track in the game is Tiny Arena. In the intro he attempts to "fix" his kart with a mallet. Like Dingodile, Papu Papu and Doctor Nefarious Tropy, he excels in speed but is not good at turning.

Stats
Speed: 5/5

Acceleration: 2/5

Turning: 1/5

Crash Bash
In Crash Bash, Tiny is summoned by Uka Uka to battle against Aku Aku's team (Crash and Coco), alongside Cortex, N. Brio, Dingodile, Koala Kong and Rilla Roo. However, he is switched over to Aku Aku's team along with Dingodile, as Uka Uka's team was too big. His evil counterpart is Koala Kong.

In the Crate Crush levels, Tiny can kick other players or crates which is very short ranged, but he makes up for it with an excellent throwing distance. Because of his massive size, Tiny also moves quite slow.

In the Polar Push minigames, Tiny can give a powerful charge, whenever he charges into smaller players (like Crash) it is possible they will fly off the edge of the arena. Tiny's charging meter however, takes a short minute to fill up again.

In Ballistix, Tiny can deliver a double shockwave to deflect the balls.

In the Crash Dash levels, Tiny is much harder to be pushed around.

In the Tank Wars levels, his shots are short-range, but deal a large amount of damage. In these levels, Tiny's weaponry are spiked cannon balls.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
In Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, after Bash, Tiny is an attendee in Uka Uka's bad guy convention, not speaking a single line in the entire game. His sole action in the convention is attempting to clutch a hologram of Crash Bandicoot. He later serves as an obstacle in certain levels, literally standing in Crash's way in an attempt to hinder him, as well as operating various flying vehicles in levels involving planes or spaceships. In "Smokey and the Bandicoot", he is one of the racers that Crash must beat, he also appears in Medieval Madness, where he tries to block Crash's way.

Crash Twinsanity
Tiny has a cameo in Crash Twinsanity during Crash's "birthday party" (a gathering of past Crash villains). His full model can be seen in the Concept Art.

Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure
In Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure, Tiny serves as the third boss the game. He once again dons his gladiator attire and fights Crash near a large waterfall. His fighting style here is much like that in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, leaving Crash to beat him into submission whenever his trident is stuck to a platform. He is later merged with Doctor Neo Cortex, Doctor N. Gin, and Dingodile and becomes Mega-Mix. After chasing Crash down a space station hall, Mega-Mix is left inside the space station, which explodes with the villains in it.

Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced
Tiny makes a cameo as a playable character in the multiplayer atlasphere mode.

Crash Nitro Kart
Tiny is a playable character in Crash Nitro Kart, driving for Cortex's team in a high-speed, low-control kart. In the game's story, Tiny is seen playing checkers with himself and later attempts to assist Doctor N. Gin when the tower they're standing in is abducted. At the end of the "Team Cortex" side of the story, he, Cortex, and N. Gin are teleported to Terra, where Tiny gains the respect of the inhabitants (much to Cortex's annoyance). Though it came in use the get the trio back home.

Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage
In Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage, Tiny acts as the second boss, attempting to obliterate Crash in a frozen tundra with a tank, which Crash destroys. He is not seen for the rest of the game.

Crash of the Titans
In Crash of the Titans, Tiny is seen in his new form when Cortex gave him protests regarding Cortex's replacement alongside Doctor N. Gin by commenting positively on Cortex's stationery. Tiny is the one in charge of the mining operations seen in Episodes 5 through 7, responsible for destroying a large portion of the jungle and obtaining minerals from the volcano for the purpose of gathering materials for the Doominator. When Crash confirms these operations, Tiny confronts Crash directly and voices his displeasure in both Crash's antics and the fact that he wasn't invited to Crash Tag Team Racing. He then orders his Titans to defeat Crash, promising the mutant who accomplishes this task half the day off on Tuesday. When Crash confronts Tiny with the Shellephant, Tiny decides to reveal the whereabouts of Crash's sister, who was kept in Doctor N. Gin's Weapons Factory at the time.

Crash: Mind Over Mutant
Although Tiny doesn't appear physically in Crash: Mind Over Mutant, his voice can be heard during the credits, in which he attempts to correct Crunch when he mixes up his metaphors.

Crash Boom Bang
Tiny has a cameo appearance in Crash Boom Bang, appearing in the "Silhouette Quiz" minigame.

Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2
Tiny appears as a playable Character in this game. In the game, he drives Crash's Crikey car from CTTR and is given his old look again.

Personality
In his earlier appearances, Tiny was depicted to be a fierce but unintelligent creature. He is extremely loyal to Doctor Cortex, following his every whim without question, but is somewhat clumsy, as demonstrated in Crash Nitro Kart, in which he flattens Dingodile while rushing to assist Doctor N. Gin. Unlike Crash, who is somewhat smarter than him, Tiny is capable of speech, but often speaks in the third person, reflecting his low intelligence (Crash! Coco! Stole the pretty crystals! Tiny take them back in gladiator arena!). He was also very sadistic, especially towards Crash when ever the time came to fight him that he had the pleasure of trying to kill him. A statement made by Doctor Neo Cortex in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped reveals that Tiny is not truly evil, but is only doing what he is told by Doctor Cortex because of being unintelligent and lack of ability to think for himself. Nevertheless, he is depicted as a megalomaniac, and believes that Crunch is a "soft-hearted copycat". In Crash Nitro Kart, the people in Terra see Tiny as a god. This is shown in Tiny Temple and in the final Team Cortex cutscene.

However, in Crash of the Titans, Tiny underwent drastic changes in both personality and intellect: his intelligence has increased to an average level above that of Crash. He is no longer a beastly monster who constantly bellows his desire to smash certain objects; rather, he is a considerate individual who continues to battle Crash due to his unhappiness with being just a bit character in the series. He has grown something of a liking to Crash Bandicoot, describing him as one point as "stupendous and fantabulous". While this incarnation of Tiny is considerably less evil than in the past, he is still willing to aid Neo Cortex in his time of need, specifically when the latter faces replacement in Crash of the Titans.

Physical appearance
Before Crash Twinsanity and Crash of the Titans, Tiny appeared to be an orange, muscular creature with sharp fangs and pointed claws. He was often seen wearing spiked shoulder pads, metal bracelets, a green leopard-spotted loincloth, and red sneakers. Due to the circumstances of the boss fight against him in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, his attire is updated to include a gladiator helmet, an armored left arm, two belts criss-crossing his torso, and a trident at hand. For an unexplained reason, Tiny also dons this attire in Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure.

Tiny's species has varied over the years. The aforementioned erroneous name "Taz Tiger" suggests that he may have been a Thylacine (also known as a Tasmanian Tiger), although his behavior is very much that of a common tiger. Design-wise, he resembled a mix of the two species, although he lacked the stripes both of them had. In Crash Twinsanity, Tiny is deliberately redesigned to look like a Thylacine, where he had lighter fur, a smaller head and stripes on his back(due to oversight, his tail isn't part of his model). This was taken to the other extreme in Crash of the Titans when Tiny was redesigned again to resemble a modern tiger of unknown subspecies. Tiny is fully clothed in this redesign, donning an attire that resembles that of a U.S. Marine. According to the Nintendo DS version of Crash of the Titans, Tiny is 2 meters tall (6 feet, 6.744 inches) and weighs 90 kilograms (198.45 pounds), putting his body mass index at 22.5 (normal range).

Abilities
Tiny's most notable ability is his superhuman strength; this strength allows Tiny to rip through metal surfaces, break free from bondage without assistance and lift heavy objects. Despite his ridiculously skinny legs, Tiny is known for his incredible jumping prowess, as demonstrated in the boss battles against him. Tiny uses this power along with his heavy muscle mass to crush any of those unfortunate enough to be under him at the time. While Tiny doesn't fight Crash directly in Crash of the Titans, he is shown to still be capable of impressive strength, performing such feats as easily lifting Crash off the ground by the arm and sufficiently harming him with but a flick of a finger. In the Game Boy Advance version of the same game, Tiny is shown to be skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and can even shoot purple fireballs from his hands.

Portrayals
In the Naughty Dog games, Tiny is voiced by Brendan O'Brien and Dee Bradley Baker in the English versions (though Tiny doesn't actually speak until Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped), by Nathan Jones in the French versions, Luca Bottale in the Italian versions and by Fumihiko Tachiki in the Japanese versions. In Crash Bash, Tiny's voice consists of both samples of his roar in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and Komodo Moe's laugh in the same game. In the English version of Crash Nitro Kart, Tiny is voiced by John DiMaggio, who would later go on to voice Uka Uka in the Radical Entertainment games. Masafumi Kimura, who would later voice Crunch Bandicoot in Crash Tag Team Racing, voices Tiny in the Japanese version of the game. As of Crash of the Titans, Chris Williams, who also voices Crunch Bandicoot in the same series, voices Tiny in the style of boxer Mike Tyson. In the Nintendo DS version of Crash of the Titans, Tiny is voiced by Nolan North, who also voices Doctor N. Gin in the same series. Jean-Jacques Morteau voices Tiny in the French versions of these games and Luca Sandri in the Italian versions.

Trivia

 * In Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, in the BETA and NTSC-U version of the game, when in his boss fight, in the pause menu his name is "Taz Tiger", which was Tiny's Provisional name.
 * In the Crash Bash manual, there's a picture of Tiny Tiger holding what appears to be a Nitro Crate. The crate, however, was missing the word "NITRO", so it's unlikely to be a Nitro crate.
 * In Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure, Tiny had Dingodile's theme, Dingodile had N. Gin's theme, and N. Gin had Tiny's theme.
 * Despite his enormous size, in CTR he is only the third largest character on the track, first and second being Nitros Oxide and Papu Papu respectively. However Tiny is still the second largest character on the podiums. The only reason Nitros Oxide appears the largest on the track is because he and his hovercraft have been largely over-sized.
 * Tiny, along with Dingodile, Polar, Pura, Fake Crash and Doctor Nefarious Tropy, are the only returning characters of Crash Team Racing and Crash Nitro Kart that didn't return racing in Crash Tag Team Racing, although Tiny was still mad about not being invited to that game.
 * Since Tiny was created by and worked for Doctor Nitrus Brio in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, it's unknown why he works for Cortex in his later appearances. It is assumed Cortex tricked Tiny into thinking he's his master or as shown above, he was brainwashed by Cortex or N.Gin.
 * In Crash of the Titans, Tiny said that he's "still mad about the last game" in which he did not appear, referring to Crash Tag Team Racing. However, Crash Boom Bang! was the last game to be released before Crash of the Titans, in which Tiny DID make an appearance, though Crash Boom Bang! is seemingly non-canon to the original series.
 * Tiny appears to be a Bengal Tiger starting from Crash of the Titans.
 * However, in Crash Nitro Kart 2 he seems to have his normal form back.
 * He seems to be learning how to speak in the previous games, although by Crash of the Titans, he can speak perfectly.
 * In Crash of the Titans, Tiny seems to be more practical then the previous games, as he isn't obsessed with beating Crash as much as he used to be, and doesn't wear his loin cloth.
 * In ironic contrast with his name, Tiny is actually not very tiny at all. This is a common gag within the cartoons and movies involving gangs that have large muscular or burly guards, the name is used to trick protagonist and act overly cocky before the character finally reveals themselves.
 * Tiny is one of the very few characters who have blatantly broken the fourth wall in the series. This trait is also seen with Coco, Dr. Cortex, Ebenezer Von Clutch, and a generic enemy type in Crash of the Titans. He is also the character who has broken the fourth wall the most.
 * His appearance in Crash of the Titans has received the most negative reception with fans.
 * Tiny seems to know information of the future and the past. In Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Tiny is seen in the future with new technology, but in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, he is seen in a gladiator arena in the past.
 * Because of his earlier appearances in the franchise many fans confused Tiny as a lion or either thought it contradicting to why he got his name as such no way resembling a Tiger. This is because in the Crash games before the mutant genera remodeling, all the crash characters were modeled after real Australian native animals, and Tiny was made to resemble the Thylacine; an extinct marsupial nicknamed the Tasmanian Tiger. However not many people really knew what this type of animal was and by the time of the games release the Thylacine had long been extinct. To avoid confusion in the newer games, the character was remodeled to look like an actual tiger, even though this was a drastic change from the original design.
 * Tiny Tiger is seemingly more intelligent than his spiritual predecessor Koala Kong, because he unlike Kong, is capable of speech.
 * By the time of Cortex's and N. Brio's action to plunder the world, Thylacines were long since extinct with the last one (Benjamin) dying 60 years ago (1936) so it is specifically unknown how N. Brio was able to create Tiny in the first place.
 * Because with the uncertain sightings and whether the Thylacine survived extinction, Tiny is the first ever and only cryptid character to appear in the Crash games. He is also the only animal character to have an endangered species.