The Eel Deal

The Eel Deal (ジャブジャブ ちかどう lit. Slop-slop Underpass in Japanese) is the tenth level and is the last level of the second warp room in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. It is the first sewer level in the game, introducing Crash to a series of new obstacles including spinning fan blades, rolling barrels of toxic waste, mutant rats, scrubbing bubbletrons, and electric eels that will shock Crash if he steps into the water at the wrong time.

Crash will encounter two forks in this level's path. At the first, the right fork seems to lead to a useless dead-end room, filled with nitro crates. Clever players, however, will see this field of greenness and take the hint, as they can walk straight through the back wall to a secret path that takes them to the green gem. They will still need to return to the fork and take the left path to continue in the level. At the second fork in the road, the right path leads to the end of the level, but players will have to take a brief detour to the left to find one of the few almost slightly hidden crystals in the game.

Types of crates

 * Aku Aku Crate
 * Arrow Crate - iron (bonus round only)
 * Basic Crate
 * Bounce Crate
 * Checkpoint Crate
 * Crash Crate (bonus round only)
 * ! Crate (bonus round only)
 * Iron Crate
 * Locked Crate
 * Nitro Crate
 * Nitro Switch Crate
 * Outline Crate (bonus round only)
 * ? Crate
 * Time Crate (1/2/3 seconds)
 * TNT Crate

Hazard Count

 * Scrubbing Bubbletrons: 12
 * Fans: 3
 * Electric Eels: 7
 * Rats: 13
 * Toxic Waste Barrels: 5
 * Steam-Powered Hover-Spike-O-Trons: 7

Translation of Aku Aku Hints in the Japanese Version

 * You can't enter the water if it's glowing. It's the Electric Eels' ripping.
 * In Rainy Jungle, try to reach the end without breaking the boxes. You'll get the Blue Gem.
 * If I should say, in Surprising Surfing, have you landed on the footing in the river that is hard to step on?
 * The Green ! box will break all the nitro boxes for you.
 * The Spike Rats in the underpass can be defeated by stomping.

Trivia

 * The level's title is possibly a pun on "the real deal", a popular saying referring to something that is genuine or authentic.
 * The beta version of Crash 2 contained an extra crate in the bonus round which was off-screen and only reachable by jumping on top of the stack of iron crates.
 * Outside of the bonus round, there are no pits in this level, other than a small pit that leads to another section of the level, so this is the first non-boss level in the series where all types of death can be protected by Aku Aku.
 * In a beta version of Crash 2, the exit passage is the same as Warp Room 1's levels, so it might've been possible that it was meant to be a level for Warp Room 1, but was changed in the final project.
 * This is the first ever sewer-themed level in the game and in the series.