Un-Bearable

Un-Bearable (にげろや パパぐま lit. Escape from Papa Bear in Japanese) is the fifteenth level and is the final level of the third warp room in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. This level follows the premise of Crash Dash. This time though, Crash will be chased by a giant polar bear while running through a snow covered jungle. The level also contains a secret warp to the sixth warp room, unlocking Totally Bear.

Level design
Un-Bearable takes place in a mountainous region that is covered with snow. In this level, Crash will be constantly pursued by a giant polar bear. The vicious polar bear will chase Crash throughout the level, in which he must avoid the ferocious beast at all costs. While running away from the bear, Crash must watch out for various pits and obstacles. Most of these obstacles will leave the giant bear unscathed, so they will only remain as a threat for Crash.

In certain parts in this level, Crash will come across large tunnels that will protect him from the giant polar bear. The tunnels will render the polar bear immobile, but Crash will usually come across a different polar bear waiting at the end of the tunnel. In one point of the level, Crash can find a secret route by jumping into a pit that the giant polar bear falls into. By doing this, he will come across a new section of the level that includes additional crates and new enemies. The nitro switch crate is just past the pit that leads to the secret area, and that area is much easier if the player hits the nitro switch crate and then goes back to enter the secret area.

After the last tunnel, the final chase involves riding Polar at a speed higher than usual. At its end, Polar will throw Crash over a giant pit, into which the giant bear falls. That pit can be jumped across again from the other side. By doing so, and reversing a bit of the track, Crash will find Polar sitting. If he stands in front of him, a secret warp will be activated and the first secret level in the game, Totally Bear, will be revealed.

Types of crates

 * Aku Aku Crate (secret area only)
 * Arrow Crate - iron (bonus round only)
 * Arrow Crate - wooden (secret area only)
 * Basic Crate
 * Bounce Crate
 * Checkpoint Crate
 * Crash Crate (secret area only)
 * ! Crate (secret area and bonus round only)
 * Iron Crate
 * Locked Crate (secret area only)
 * Nitro Crate
 * Nitro Switch Crate
 * Outline Crate (secret area and bonus round only)
 * ? Crate
 * TNT Crate

Enemies and obstacles

 * Salamanders - The salamanders will wander the path that Crash uses while in pursuit from the giant polar bear. He can easily avoid them by walking around them, or spinning them away once close to them. They are also capable of jumping over obstacles like fences and land mines, so Crash should also be careful when they are airborne.
 * Land Mines - These land mines appear throughout Crash's pursuit with the giant polar bear. When Crash steps one of these mines, it will project him up into the air and stun him for a few moments. This will cause him to become immobile for a short period of time, thus increasing the risk of getting stomped by the giant polar bear. However, the land mines do not hurt Crash.
 * Electric Gates - These electrical gates appear throughout the level, and Crash must avoid them by not running into the electric current. He can also avoid them by staying away from their electrical barrier. At certain points in the level, Crash must slide or crawl under them in order to get by them.
 * Armadillos - These armadillos are a special version that aren't seen in earlier levels in the game. This form of armadillo is armored, making it harder to be killed. Crash can defeat these armadillos by jumping on them to make them immobile, and spinning them away afterwards, or by simply belly flopping on them.
 * Hunter Lab Assistants - These hunter lab assistants appear in the secret section of the level, and attack Crash by firing shots with their rifle. Crash can avoid them by jumping over them, by crouching, (if the bullet is high enough), or by body-slamming before the shot reaches him, making the bullet go over him while he's laying down. This requires timing. The hunter lab assistants can be defeated by spinning them away or by jumping on them.

Trivia

 * In the secret area of this level, there are a pair of hidden 1-up boxes. Unlike every other 1-up boxes on the game that after being collected turn into ? crates if the player loses a life, these will always be 1-up boxes, so the player can farm lives with them.
 * The polar bears in this level can be touched when they are stuck in the passages and Crash won't be hurt.
 * As with the other chase levels in this game, Aku Aku is banned from this level, so even if the player has Aku Aku when entering the level, the player loses him. However, there are Aku Aku masks in the secret area, but Crash loses them shortly after returning to the next chase part of the main level.
 * If the player repeatedly dies on a particular section of the level, then the bear will slow down on that section of the level. This is a part of the Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment system that awards players an Aku Aku mask or an extra checkpoint on other levels, which wouldn't work in this level since Aku Aku is banned (outside of the secret area) and checkpoints wouldn't make sense in the middle of a chase.
 * This is the third and last chase level in Cortex Strikes Back, the first is Crash Dash and the second is Crash Crush.
 * There are notes not heard in the game but still present in the music files for the secret route's music.
 * In the Japanese version, this stage is called "Escape from Papa Bear", literally suggesting that the giant polar bear is Polar's father. Since there are multiple bears, it's implied that they are Polar's parents and other relatives.
 * This level and Bee-Having's secret paths are the only two secret paths of this game that, their theme is irrelevant to the main level, and have the same theme but different music.

Name Origin
The name "Un-Bearable" is derived from the word "unbearable", which is a word to describe someone or something that is too much to handle or hard to be around.