Crash Twinsanity

Crash Twinsanity (クラッシュ・バンディクー5 え〜っ クラッシュとコルテックスの野望?!? Crash Bandicoot 5: The Ambition of Crash and Cortex?!? in Japanese) is a video game in the Crash Bandicoot series. It was released in North America on 1 October 2004, and is the fifth game that is not a spin-off. The story is set three years after the events of Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, where Doctor Neo Cortex and Uka Uka were left stranded in the Antarctic sea. In this game, N. Sanity Island comes underthreat by a sinister duo called The Evil Twins, forcing Crash Bandicoot to reluctantly team up with his arch nemesis and creator, Doctor Neo Cortex, who the twins seem to hold malace against, but why? Where did they come from? Can the bandicoot and mad scientist solve the Evil Twins true identity and save their world from destruction before they destroy each other? There are four playable characters: Crash Bandicoot, Doctor Neo Cortex (sometimes both at the same time), Cortex's niece, Nina Cortex and Mecha-Bandicoot.

Part 1 - N. Sanity Island
Three years have passed since the events of Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, and a frozen Doctor Neo Cortex and Uka Uka wash up on N. Sanity Beach. As Coco innocently chases a butterfly, Cortex knocks her out with his ray gun, and disguises as her to lure an unaware Crash through Jungle Bungle. Eventually, the path stops, and "Coco" reveals herself. Cortex reveals that he has organized a gathering, "like a birthday party, except...the exact opposite", with Crash's past enemies as party guests, consisting of Dingodile, Tiny Tiger, Pinstripe Potoroo, Crunch Bandicoot (who mistakenly thought that the event was an actual birthday party), Nitros Oxide, Ripper Roo, Koala Kong, and Polar (who is holding a baseball bat as revenge for all the times he was ridden on by Crash in Crash Bandicoot 2). Cortex quickly starts "handing out the presents" by throwing bombs and shooting at him. Crash beats him once again, and orders Doctor N. Gin to roll out his newest creation: Mecha-Bandicoot, a giant, robotic Crash lookalike. Ultimately, Crash beats the robot up, and the resulting explosion knocks Crash and Cortex into a cave, while Dingodile and Ripper Roo discuss lunch. Infuriated at losing to Crash again, Cortex charges at Crash, knocking the duo down a hole, leading to a cavern. As the brawl makes its way through the underground mine, Cortex eventually stumbles across a Power Crystal. Shortly after claiming it, a giant drill rises from the ground, separating Cortex and the Crystal from Crash. The drill opens, and a horde of antlike enemies flood out, taking Crates into the drill and, occasionally, attacking Crash. Crash stops the drill and meets up with Cortex, commanding Crash to back away from his treasure, or he'll go "Crystal crazy". Not listening, Crash and Cortex both grab the Crystal and fight for it, helping them complete the rest of the level. Eventually, the duo are chased by the aforementioned drill to the surface.



Once outside, two parrots who call themselves the Evil Twins appear and proclaim that they are going to destroy the island. Cortex makes fun of them initially, but to show how serious they are, they pull Cortex's brain out of his head, causing him to flee in terror, still holding his brain.



Crash eventually finds Cortex again, who pleads for his help. He states how he envies the simple life of the tribesfolk, the noble boar and the humble bumblebee, only to be swarmed by bees. Cortex, oblivious to any danger, goes on a mad dash through the woods because of the attacking bees. A beehive falls on Cortex's head during the run, and later a bear starts chasing him. Crash is able to help him avoid various traps along the way, until Cortex is captured by Papu Papu. Crash makes his way upriver, hiding from the tribesmen. Crash eventually infiltrates Papu Papu's village and rescues Cortex, who is tied to a totem pole with a Power Crystal on the top. Crash grabs the Power Crystal, thus destroying the totem, making it fall into a river along with Cortex. Angry at Crash for the chaos he caused, Papu Papu orders his tribesmen to kill Crash. After escaping from the tribesmen and reuniting with Cortex, Crash meets with a local farmer emu named Farmer Ernest. Farmer Ernest offers Crash a Power Crystal if Crash can clear all the worms out of his nearby Wumpa orchard. Cortex shoots Farmer Ernest in response, and takes the Power Crystal anyway. Unable to get past his land, they are forced to get rid of the worms anyway, so they can use the Wumpa trees to reach the top of N. Sanity Mountain.



After passing through the farm, Crash and Cortex encounter the Evil Twins again. Revealing they are from the 10th Dimension, they bring a totem god, known as Tikimon, to life to destroy Crash and Cortex. The duo manage to defeat it as the Evil Twins leave. The information the twins reveal give Cortex an idea, and he announces their next destination to be Cortex's Iceberg Lab.

Part 2 - Iceberg Lab
Crash and Cortex eventually arrive at their destination. The key to the lab, however, doesn't work, so the two are forced to go the long way round - up the iceberg it is situated on. On the way, Cortex comes across a gang of penguins demanding pay, stating that their cheque bounced since the past few years had been slow, and the Wrath of Cortex hadn't gone as well as they had hoped. Cortex then pretends to bribe them with fish before shooting one, prompting the rest to fly off, leaving behind a power crystal. Later on, the two stumble across Uka Uka, who is frozen in a sheet of ice. Surprised to see such an unlikely alliance, he transforms into a giant ice creature and tries to squish the pair of them, only to be roasted by Crash and Cortex. Uka Uka tries to leave after the fight, only to be stopped by Aku Aku, who informs him of the Evil Twins' plans, before proposing to team up themselves. Uka Uka, who is insistent that destroying the world is his job, accepts. Together again, the Aku Uka brothers travel to the 10th dimension to confront the Evil Twins themselves.

Crash and Cortex arrive inside the lab at long last, but are interrupted by the Evil Twins who have defeated Aku Aku and Uka Uka. They reveal that they knew Cortex from long ago, claiming that he ruined their lives (although Cortex has no knowledge of this) and accidently reveal that they also have a large supply of treasure. They then send their army of Ant Drones to destroy Crash and Cortex, but they are swiftly beaten, forcing the Evil Twins to retreat. When Aku Aku and Uka Uka recover, they ask Cortex who the twins are but he does not know. Aku Aku considers handing Cortex over to the Evil Twins, but Cortex, reluctantly, forms a truce with his nemisis.





Cortex then shows Crash the Psychetron, a teleportation device which they can use to travel to the 10th dimension and defeat the Evil Twins. To get there, they require six power crystals, currently they have four. Cortex proposes that N. Gin might have one in his battleship but it is about to set sail. While Cortex is in deep thought about getting down fast, Crash boots Cortex off the balcony, using him as a makeshift sledge to get down the iceberg through a long downhill slope. On the way they find a power crystal. They eventually land on Dingodile's cabin, wrecking it, but Cortex, feeling embarrased, is unwilling to go any further and states that no amount of treasure could ever compensate. Dingodile hears about the Evil Twins' treasure and secretly follows Crash. Crash ventures into the battleship and eventually finds another power crystal, and battles N. Gin in his airborne crow's nest in the process. N. Gin uses a missile launcher and some TNT crates to fight Crash but is tricked into destroying the platform he and Crash are standing on. Crash lands in a hallway filled with dangers, when the ship's chef, Rusty Walrus, comes in claiming Crash as fresh meat. Rusty chases after Crash until they reach the exit, where the two become separated. Crash ends up in an area full of TNT Crates, one of which N. Gin lands on, causing a massive explosion that sends the two flying.



Crash lands on a nearby iceberg where Doctor Nefarious Tropy and Doctor Nitrus Brio are watching the ship sink. Tropy and Brio have heard about the treasure, and order Crash to tell them more about it. As expected, Crash remains silent. Tropy then orders Brio to drink a potion that turns him into a giant and somewhat frog-like mutant. Both N. Tropy and N. Brio battle Crash for the information on the treasure but Crash defeats Tropy. Brio attacks one last time but ends up sending Crash flying back to Cortex's Lab by flipping the iceberg he's standing on. Crash returns to the Psychetron and delivers the crystals to Cortex; now they have enough to progress. At that moment, Coco appears. Believing that Cortex has kidnapped Crash, she kicks him, causing the Psychetron to malfunction, knocking her out for the second time, thus destroying the power crystals they just found. The Psychetron will have to be repaired if they want to use it, and only one person can fix it: Cortex's niece, Nina. Using his airship, they set course for Madame Amberly's Academy of Evil.

Part 3 - The Academy of Evil
Crash and Cortex use Cortex's airship to travel to the academy. While travelling, the Evil Twins appear and send a horde of Ant Drones to attack Cortex. Cortex manages to fend them off with his ray gun. Crash and Cortex reach Madame Amberly's Academy of Evil. There, they venture through the secret underground sewage system hidden under a fountain in the courtyard. On the way, Cortex gets stuck in a pipe, so Crash has to roll him around for almost the whole level. After finding a new power crystal, they meet Dingodile who tells them he's heard of the treasure and wants a cut. Dingodile uses his flamethrower on the pipe Cortex is standing on which sends him flying out of the sewer. Crash and Dingodile fight, but Crash wins and goes back up to the Academy.

After the encounter with Dingodile, Crash ventures through the Academy of Evil. He soon comes across a library that is filling up with acid; Crash has to run to the top floor of the library to escape the acid. Crash finds another power crystal along the way. Cortex appears and decides to take it from there, sending Crash back to guard the airship and make sure its mooring ropes are secure. Cortex makes his way through the halls and is chased by bugs several times but he manages to escape them. After recovering another power crystal, he reaches Nina's bedroom. Cortex asks Nina to show him what she's learned from school. Nina obliges by going through the rooftops. Soon, they see the airship floating away, due to the fact that Crash tied it to a bus.



After Nina finds another power crystal, the airship starts following her, and the swinging bus starts destroying some parts of the rooftops. Nina manages to escape it before it catches up with her. She then meets up with Cortex in the halls, who tells her to get back to the airship. Cortex carries on, before he meets up with the headmistress, Madame Amberly. The two fight, but despite Amberly's best efforts, Cortex wins. After the fight, he meets up with Crash and they all reach the airship. With enough crystals again, they decide to go back to the Iceberg Lab.



On the airship, Cortex finally remembers his past with the Evil Twins. It is revealed that while he was just a child and a student of the Academy of Evil, his first experiment involved an early Evolvo-Ray and Neo's twin parrots named Victor and Moritz. At the end of the experiment, Victor and Moritz are nowhere to be found (in reality, Neo sent them to the 10th dimension). After that experiment, he never saw them ever again and was heartbroken for the loss of his two pet parrots.

Part 4 - Twinsanity Island
Back at the Iceberg Lab, Nina and Cortex fix the machine and venture to a new dimension. In the Tenth Dimension, Cortex is seen hugging what he thinks is Crash, but is actually none other than Evil Crash. The vicious animal then kidnaps Nina. Cortex and Crash begin to chase after them; Crash again makes use of Cortex and rides him down the volcano-like a sledge to chase after Evil Crash.

They soon end up on Twinsanity Island, a twisted version of N. Sanity island. Crash sees Cortex, a tied up Nina, and Evil Crash at a warped version of his own house. Cortex demands that Evil Crash lets Nina go and takes him instead, which ends with Evil Crash chasing him. Crash follows and the three take part in another mad dash through Twinsanity Island. At the end, Cortex, Nina and Crash find the Evil Twins' hideout. In the treasure chamber, deep in their domain, they find N. Tropy, N. Brio, and N. Gin, who claim they all found the treasure first. But it belongs to none other than Spyro the Dragon, who proceeds to burn the doctors. Our three heroes reach Victor and Moritz and after a brief exchange of taunts, Cortex tricks them into going into their cage, much like he did when he was a child. Victor and Moritz then transform the cage into an epic mech and a fight begins.



Crash runs off at the start of the fight, leaving only Nina and a trembling Cortex. Nina uses her acrobatic skills to destroy the mech's power supply for the first part of the fight. Once Nina tires out, Cortex uses his ray gun to blast the mech's guns off. After Cortex has finished his part of the fight, Crash enters, piloting Mecha Bandicoot. After Crash barrages the mech with missiles, Victor and Moritz fly away, only to stumble into Evil Crash's house, where he eats them. Back at the Psychetron, Cortex states he was wrong about Crash and attempts to send Crash into a different dimension, only to have the Psychetron malfunction and send Cortex into Crash's brain, much to Coco's surprise and both Crash and Nina's confusion. Cortex screams and has a meltdown after seeing the multiple clones while Crash, who doesn't seem to be worried, just picks his ear and smiles.

Gameplay
The gameplay in Crash Twinsanity is different compared to previous games in the series. For a start, there are overworlds (such as N. Sanity Island (Hub)) that contain levels (ie Jungle Bungle), rather than Warp Rooms and the game has a more free-roam feel. That means there is also not a Load/Save screen, instead, the game is automaticly saved by activating a World Crate.

Not all has changed, Crates, Crystals and Gems are still present, although, Crystals do not really have much importance in the plot other than for Cortex's Psychetron machine, Gems are no longer earned by breaking Crates instead they have to be found, this can range from incredibly easy (the Blue Gem in Jungle Bungle) to really challenging (the Clear Gem in Twinsanity Island), the Crates serve mostly for Wumpa Fruit and Lives.

Crash's gameplay is mostly the same as before, he can still do his trademark spin attack, double jump and body slam. Like always, he is joined by Aku Aku. Sometimes you are paired with Dr. Cortex working as a team, they are both fighting over a Crystal and Crash gains the upper hand, turning his creator into a lethal weapon, Crash can use Cortex to slam enemies with his mallet like head, spin with him, increasing striking range and throw Cortex over to an area where he can shoot enemies with his ray gun, activate levers or collect Gems, much to the doctors reluctance.

Cortex himself will sometimes go solo, armed with his ray gun and a limited amount of ammunition, if the blaster runs out of ammo, Cortex can't do anything aside from screaming and trip which works like Crash's slide kick. His gameplay is more of a shooter with the gun's crosshairs showing automaticly at something that can be shot (such as a bell to take care of Robotic Janitor's) Cortex, unfourtunatly can only do a small jump which can be tricky on platforming sections. He is accompanied by Uka Uka as his mask.

Along Crash and Cortex's adventure the doctor's niece, Nina Cortex becomes a playable character. Nina can use her bionic arms to grab grappling hooks and fists to punch enemies, she can also spin like Crash which lasts a moment longer and pull a much better jump than her uncle but can not double jump. She has Uka Uka aswell.

In the final battle against the Evil Twins, Crash jumps in controlling Mecha-Bandicoot. The robot can shoot plasma and fire missiles.

Production
The game's original soundtrack was created and performed by the Spiralmouth band. A few contents of it were removed, like the level Gone a Bit Coco, that would be after High Seas Hi-Jinks, and other enemies, like Evil Coco, but all that content can be seen in a concept gallery. Before the game got its title, many others were said for it. The first being 'Crash Bandicoot: Evolution' then 'Crash Bandicoot: Fully Fluxed' then 'Crash Bandicoot: Tandemonium, then 'Crash Bandicoot: Unlimited. After that, 'Crash Bandicoot: Twinsane' came up, which eventually evolved into Twinsanity. During the "Birthday's Party" scene, a Polar can be seen, even though he's not a villain. Still one of the creators revealed the reason for this: Polar wanted his revenge for Crash riding on his back in Crash 2. We were told that Fake Crash was supposed to appear at a cameo in Crash Twinsanity, but was removed from the game. In the game, many hidden items can be found through either using a cheating device, or a glitch. These hidden items can range from a Life Crate to items never seen through normal gameplay.

Spiralmouth composed the music for this game, who would later compose the music for Crash Tag Team Racing along with Marc Baril.

Several characters were removed from the game, including a giant Ant that would have led the Ant Drones, Capu Capu, who owned a boat and would have taken Crash to the Iceberg Lab or N. Sanity Island if Crash would give him eighteen fish, Evil Coco, an alternate version of Coco that lives in the Tenth Dimension, and Evil Capu Capu, who would have served the same role as his counterpart.

During development, loads of different levels were removed from the game, most of them never got into development and some were deleted, but can still be seen in photos or videos today.

Coco would have had a much bigger role, and would have even been a playable character and would have joined Crash and Cortex on their quest to stop the Twins.