Gem path



A Gem Path is an alternative route in a level only accessible after obtaining the required colored gem. Gem paths are similar to death routes, but don’t require a one-life run to access. However, unlike the death routes, the correct colored gem is required, meaning they generally cannot be accessed on the first run. The gem necessary to unlock a path is designated by the color of the outline of the transport, like in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, and Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure. In the original Crash Bandicoot game, the path was determined by the color of the small gems that would expand into a path as soon as the player collected the correct colored gem.

Crash Bandicoot
In Crash Bandicoot, gem paths are used to pick up crates in specific levels, which are a necessity to acquire the level's gem. A single colored gem can unlock multiple routes. For example, after obtaining the red gem from Slippery Climb, the player has access to the gem paths found on Native Fortress and Road to Nowhere. Taking these gem paths allow the player to break the crates in areas formerly inaccessible in the level, leading to the player obtaining the clear gem in that level. Both of these levels are originally found before Slippery Climb and so the clear gem on these two levels is unavailable at first. This game also exclusively features the clear gem path in the 'castoff' level, The Great Hall. If the player obtains all of the clear gems in the game (which also requires every colored gem), the entire path is complete, allowing the player to access the 100% complete ending.

Castle Machinery has a different type of gem path. The green gem opens up a path at the beginning of that level, which allows the player to skip right to the end of the level, picking up 27 lives on the way. This path is not required for box completion, and in fact, the player will have to play through the level the normal way to collect the level's gem.

The gem platforms rapidly rotate when the appropriate gem isn't collected, but rotate much slower when solid.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
In Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, unusable gem paths are not defined by the trails of small gems, but rather by a skeleton of a large, flat, platform gem of the appropriate color. When the player obtains the appropriate gem, the platform solidifies, and the player is able to jump on the platform, which will carry them away to the gem path in another part of the level, rather than contained inside the same path like in Crash Bandicoot. But the idea of multiple gem paths unlocked by one colored gem was kept in this game. For example, the red gem will unlock the gem path in Snow Biz, and a portion of the multicolor gem path in Spaced Out, which requires all of the colored gems to complete. This game also keeps the function of the gem paths of obtaining the rest of the crates for a single level. This is the only game that does not have an individual gem path for the purple gem.

When in outline form, the platform does not rotate, but it spins at a moderate speed when available.

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped follows the exact same rules as Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. All colored gems unlock a single gem path, and a portion of the multicolor gem path similar to the one found on the previous installment's Spaced Out, now found on the Egyptian themed Bug Lite level, along with allowing the player to collect the rest of the crates in a single level.

The platform spinning works exactly as it does in the prequel. The gem path in Tomb Time, however, is not accessed via a platform, but rather a split path, where the left path has a door that opens when Crash has obtained the purple gem. It's possible to enter this path from the back side, without the purple gem, if the player has the death tornado spin, though this is easier to do with the gem, as the platforms only appear if Crash has it.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
In Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, the concept of a multicolor gem path from the two previous installment's on the levels Spaced Out and Bug Lite is scrapped, and the colored gems will only unlock one gem path per gem. The platform design changes in this game also. The platform is now similar to a death route platform, but has the emblem of the corresponding colored gem on it. Sometimes, the gem path blends into the level, like it does in Compactor Reactor, and is simply a fence with the emblem of a colored gem. Other than this the concept is the same, and gem paths in this game, like all of the others, allow for the player to pick up the rest of the boxes in a single level.

Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure
Like in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, the colored gems only unlock one path per gem. Like Crash 2 and 3, the platform is a colored outline until Crash retrieves the gem. Like the bonus and ending platforms, when Crash steps on a colored gem platform, he will be teleported to the gem path. There is no purple gem in this game, but the other original colors are kept.

Trivia

 * In the second and third games, the purple gem platform is only seen in the multicolored gem path.
 * In Crash 2, gem paths only contain a gem if they aren't required for box completion. In Crash 3 and The Huge Adventure, gem paths always contain a clear gem, even the ones that are required for box completion. In The Wrath of Cortex, gem paths contain a clear gem, and none of them are required for box completion.
 * In Crash 2 and 3, gem platforms can also need clear gems through hacking. As expected, the platforms are colored like the clear gems, but which of the gems needed is impossible to determine.
 * The second and third games also feature a glitchy, miscolored, non-rotating gem platform that does not need any gem to be accessed, accessible only through hacking.