Arctic Antics

Arctic Antics is the 1st level in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. It takes place in a icy medieval village, filled with penguins and skiers. This level also has the first death route in the game around the midway point, it contains, as the first level in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Srikes Back, the blue gem. The main path is really easy and simple for being the first level, but the Death Route is a different story. The Death Route is tougher than the main path, for having such hard jumps and so much Nitro Crates, and plus, if the Double Jump is not obtained yet, this Death Route is very tricky, including the fact of the end, where the player must navigate over normal crates atop Nitro Crates over the ground. And the Death Route does have more enemies, but more trickier to defeat, such as the Narwhales coming out of two holes with a thin ice bridge in between, and a Skier quickly coming out of two tunnels. As for the level's Bonus, it is really short, like Crash 2 Bonus Rounds. The Bonus Round is simple and doesn't feature any Nitro Crates, but does feature some TNTs. But even for a short Bonus some crates can be missed upon some being hidden behind ice columns. But however, the end of the level has an Easter Egg in the lake, the Mammoths, if the player shoots one with the Bazooka or hops on their head the player will obtain a life. But as for the one at the end of the level standing up on a cliff, it can only be shot with the Bazooka. You can get the Sapphire relic for 1:15.00 (Every version), The Gold relic for 0:45.00 (Xbox and GameCube), 0:50.00 (Playstation 2) and The Platinum relic for 0:37.00 (Every version). After this level it's Tornado Alley.

Trivia

 * Once you have the fruit bazooka power you can revisit this level, shoot the mamoths at the sides and you will get extra lives.
 * This level, along with Turtle Woods, is the first level of a game to have a colored gem. In this case, the blue gem.