Sewer or Later

Sewer or Later (ボワボワ さぎょういん lit. Scorching Worker in Japanese) is the twelfth level and is the second level of the the third warp room in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. In this level, taking place later than The Eel Deal, Crash Bandicoot explores a sewer again. This stage introduces triple-bladed fans that spin entirely too fast for Crash to slip through unharmed; the player is supposed to take out the blades first, by spinning the scrubbing bubbletrons into them.

If the player has obtained the yellow gem from the previous level, Plant Food, they can access this stage's secret yellow gem path, a sinister series of challenging jumps simplified only by the fact that the only necessary item on said route, a clear gem, is located early on so there is literally no reason to traverse the whole path and the player can just kill themselves after getting it. A split path later on in the main body of the level awkwardly requires the player to take the right path just long enough to reach the ! crate, then backtrack to the left path to break the crates it created (and collect the crystal), then backtrack again to take the right path again to finish off the level.

Types of crates

 * Aku Aku Crate
 * Arrow Crate - iron (only in the yellow gem path and the bonus round)
 * Basic Crate
 * Bounce Crate
 * Checkpoint Crate
 * Crash Crate
 * ! Crate
 * Iron Crate
 * Locked Crate
 * Nitro Crate
 * Nitro Switch Crate
 * Outline Crate
 * ? Crate
 * TNT Crate

Translation of Aku Aku Hints in the Japanese Version

 * Have you already got the blue diamond? Return to the Teke-teke Climbing the River and see.
 * Spin the bubble robots to open up the pathway.

Trivia

 * "Sewer or Later" is most likely derived from the phrase "sooner or later".
 * This level also introduces the flamethrower lab assistant, which is from here on in the sewer levels.
 * This is the only level out of the sewer levels where there are no wire meshes.
 * This was the first non-boss non-warp-room level during the development of this game. It is also the one with the most redesigns.