Rilla Roo

Rilla Roo is a character that appears in Crash Bash and Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. He is a hybrid of a gorilla and a kangaroo that is aligned with Uka Uka and implied to be one of Neo Cortex's animal henchmen. His most common characterization is that of a brutish ape, seen in the American and European versions of Crash Bash and in Nitro-Fueled, with other sources presenting different takes on the character.

Nitro-Fueled features a variant of Rilla Roo named Fixed Rilla Roo as a separate playable character in the game. This variant of Rilla Roo reverts some design changes made to the regular version in Nitro-Fueled, with the game's developers stating its inclusion to be "due to popular demand."

Crash Bash
Rilla Roo was introduced in Crash Bash as a playable character in the game, summoned to play for Uka Uka's team in a contest between good and evil. He is implied to be one of Neo Cortex's henchmen. Like Dingodile, he is able to fire double shots in Tank Wars minigames, but has weak throwing range in Crate Crush minigames. If the player beats the game as Rilla Roo, the Evil ending is earned, wherein Uka Uka steals the crystals and dooms the Earth. The Japanese release of Crash Bash implies that Rilla Roo was created by N. Brio using Ripper Roo's genes.

The Japanese release of the game features epilogues for each character detailing what happened to them after the contest. In his epilogue, Rilla Roo expects to receive a raise from Uka Uka, and has trouble deciding what to spend it on — he thinks about opening a yakiniku (grilled meat cuisine) shop with Dingodile, but also considers becoming Koala Kong's manager in Hollywood. In the end, he decides to try to open up the yakiniku shop in Hollywood.

Nitro-Fueled
In Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, Rilla Roo was first referenced on a banner in the Koala Carnival racetrack, which was added to the game following the start of the Neon Circus Grand Prix in-game event, depicting an advertisement for a boxing match between him and Koala Kong. He was introduced as a playable character in the Winter Festival Grand Prix event, which launched on December 12, 2019. His default Driving Style is Turn.

The post-Grand Prix update for the game added Fixed Rilla Roo, a playable character separate from the previously-available Rilla Roo, on March 26, 2020, with Beenox stating his inclusion to be "due to popular demand". His models and animations are nearly identical to Rilla Roo's except that his mouth was remodeled; this addresses a discrepancy in Rilla Roo's original design for Nitro-Fueled compared to his design in Crash Bash, as Rilla Roo's mouth was made wider and moved further up on his face in Nitro-Fueled (see § Physical description). Fixed Rilla Roo's default Driving Style is Speed.

Both Rilla Roo and Fixed Rilla Roo are available separately in the Pit Stop for 1500 Wumpa Coins each. However, Fixed Rilla Roo was awarded for free to anyone who had already purchased Rilla Roo when the post-Grand Prix update was launched.

Physical description
Rilla Roo's upper half is that of a brown-furred gorilla, while his legs and tail are those of a beige kangaroo. He also has a quiff on top of his head, a small nose, thick black eyebrows, and fair skin showing around his mouth and chest. He wears high-waisted, red and white vertical-striped pants held up by a black belt with a golden buckle. In Crash Bash, his mouth is consistently in an O shape.

In Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, Rilla Roo's mouth was moved further up on his face and made wider. He was also given a goatee. Due to "popular demand", a second character named Fixed Rilla Roo was released with his mouth remodeled and his goatee shortened.

Personality
Little is revealed about Rilla Roo in the American and European versions of Crash Bash. Rilla Roo is shown hunched over with his arms reaching his knees most of the time. When victorious, he hoots and hollers, beating his hands on his chest. These traits are common in cartoon depictions of primates.

In the manual for the game's American release, he is said to have "the disposition of a train wreck" and a no-nonsense personality. He also considers himself to be a "first stringer" (a skilled and therefore regular member of a sports team, as opposed to a substitute) and a "closer" (a player brought in at the end of a baseball game to preserve a slim lead), suggesting he thinks of the contest like a team sport. Rilla Roo is the only character in the manual to have a silhouette instead of a full-color render, apparently because he doesn't like to have his picture taken. The European manual refers to him simply as a "freak", akin to the other playable anthropomorphic animals in the game.

In the Japanese release of Crash Bash, Rilla Roo speaks in the Kansai dialect. As such, he often uses phrases derived from mercantile culture, and is overall business-minded. He treats Uka Uka like his boss, and in the game's epilogue, goes on to try and start his own business in Hollywood.

In Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, Rilla Roo uses little if any clear spoken language, mostly hooting and hollering like an ape as in the American and European versions of Crash Bash. He is shown to be excitable in the game, running around wildly with his arms in the air both on CTR TV and on the podium upon winning a race. Fixed Rilla Roo has all the same mannerisms as Rilla Roo, with an added animation of him patting his face and sighing in relief on the podium.

Creation and early development
Eurocom, the developers of Crash Bash, specifically set out to design a new character for the game. Many different concepts were considered, including "Red-Back Jaq", "Splash Platypus", "Hypno-potamus", and "Kombatt", before eventually narrowing the design down to a character named Kanga-Soo out of preference for a kangaroo character. As Rilla Roo reuses Dingodile's animations in the final game, it's likely this was the reason a kangaroo character was chosen. Though two different models were produced for her, Mark Cerny of Universal Interactive Studios anticipated concerns about beating up a female character, and she was cut before any further development could occur.

With the rejection of Kanga-Soo, the eighth playable character slot remained open. The designers felt the game needed "another Dingodile hybrid", so concept work began on the character that would eventually become Rilla Roo. During development, he was called "Kangorilla", but the name was changed due to concerns from Sony about being able to trademark it. Rilla Roo's kangaroo parts are similar in appearance to Kanga-Soo's.

Names in other languages

 * Rilla Roo


 * Fixed Rilla Roo

Gallery
Main article: Rilla Roo/Gallery