N. Tropy

"Well, haven't we gotten far for a pair of fuzzy marsupials. I am Doctor Nefarious Tropy, master of time and creator of the very Time Twister Machine you see before you. Uka Uka and Doctor Cortex have sent me to end this little charade, so you won't be leaving my area with the Crystals. I swear it!"

- Doctor Nefarious Tropy's intro speech

Nefarious Tropy (or N. Tropy for short) is the self-proclaimed master of time and quantum warp technology. He is an old friend of Uka Uka, called upon by the latter to help take over the world in Crash Bandicoot: Warped. It is stated in the Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex manual that he can be seen disturbing the temporal flow by causing time paradoxes for laughs. He is shown to be a good friend of N. Trance.

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
"Now you're on my time, you little skunk! Give me the crystals!"

- N. Tropy Doctor Nefarious Tropy is introduced by Uka Uka in Crash Bandicoot: Warped as the creator of the Time Twister Machine, a device that will aid Dr. Cortex in his quest to gather the crystals in their original places in time. He later acts as the third boss of the game, battling Crash with his gigantic tuning fork. After defeating him, he flees to the space/time vortex, and Crash earns the Death Tornado Spin. After defeating Cortex while in possession of all the crystals and gems, the ending will occur where is possible to see the two, who have transformed into infants, fighting over Uka Uka.

His boss battle style includes a wave of what appears to be electricity moving horizontally and vertically. Then, he switches up the platforms, which form a path to him. N. Tropy kneels down to rest and he is now exposed. When he is hit he uses his time warp/teleportation ability to warp other side of the room. If Crash is next to N. Tropy while he is still attacking or not kneeling down, N. Tropy will smash Crash with his tuning fork, vaporizing Crash across time and space. (He doesn't do this in the N. Sane Trilogy.)

Crash Team Racing
N. Tropy makes a return in Crash Team Racing, appearing as an unlockable character. To unlock him, the player must beat all eighteen of his records in Time Trial mode or use a cheat code. Tropy drives a sky-blue kart that. Like Tiny, Dingodile and Papu Papu, N. Tropy has high speed and average acceleration, but bad turning.

Stats

 * Speed: 6/6
 * Acceleration: 1/4
 * Turning: 1/4
 * Difficulty: Advanced

The epilogue of CTR states that he began tinkering with his time machine again and he was last seen entering a time portal.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
"There must be something we can come up with...say, Doctor, haven't you been 'tinkering' with some sort of new, secret weapon in your laboratory?"

N. Tropy has a minor appearance in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, in which he is an attendee of Uka Uka's convention and an occasional enemy in the game, attempting to hinder Crash's progress in Atlasphere levels by shooting at him with his tuning fork, and later racing against him in a car. He also appears in the flying levels to battle Crash's glider and Coco's spaceship. He only has one line in the whole game.

Crash Twinsanity
"The rats are leaving the sinking ship. Tell us where the treasure is and we'll..... let you go."

- N. Tropy In Crash Twinsanity, N. Tropy appears yet again. He is first seen after the Rusty Walrus chase in High Seas Hi-Jinks, with Cortex's old colleague, Doctor Nitrus Brio, who were seeking the whereabouts of the Evil Twins' treasure. After not getting any information from Crash they decide to "wring it out of him". Right after that, N. Tropy orders N. Brio to transform. After a boss battle, the now frog-like Brio springs into the air and hits the iceberg's edge, sending Crash flying to Cortex's Lab. N. Tropy reappears in the level, Ant Agony, along with Nitrus Brio and N. Gin, to steal the Evil Twins' treasure but was burned by Spyro the Dragon.

Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced
N. Tropy is the main antagonist of Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced, in which he teams up with his inter-dimensional crony, N. Trance, kidnaps Crunch, Coco and Fake Crash, and hypnotizes them into working for him. He is later defeated by Crash and is forced to take a group picture with the Bandicoots, much to his anger.

Crash Nitro Kart
N. Tropy is an unlockable character in Crash Nitro Kart, where he races under Team Cortex with Cortex, N. Gin, and Tiny Tiger. His face is shaped like an hourglass here. To unlock him, the player must defeat all of his ghosts in Time Trial mode.

Stats (Console)
Speed: 6/7

Acceleration: 6/7

Turning: 4/7

Difficulty: Advanced

Stats (GBA)
Speed: 8/10

Acceleration: 5/10

Turning: 10/10

Difficulty: Beginner

Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage
N. Tropy appears as a trading card in Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage.

Crash Boom Bang!
N. Tropy makes a cameo appearance in the Silhouette Quiz mini-game.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
N. Tropy reappeared in N. Sane Trilogy serving the same roles as he did in Warped.

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
N. Tropy reappears in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, once again as a unlockable character and is unlocked the same way as in Crash Team Racing, only this time, the player must beat all thirty-one of his records in Time Trial as opposed to eighteen in Crash Team Racing due to the inclusion of the Crash Nitro Kart tracks. Unlike in Crash Team Racing, N. Tropy cannot be unlocked via cheat code.

Stats
Speed: 7/7

Acceleration: 3/7

Turning: 2/7

Difficulty: Advanced

Appearances

 * Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
 * Crash Team Racing
 * Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
 * Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced
 * Crash Nitro Kart
 * Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage
 * Crash Twinsanity
 * Crash Boom Bang! (cameo)
 * Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
 * Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

Personality
Nefarious Tropy is, needless to say, a nefarious and smug character, as opposed to the childish outspoken temperament of Doctor Cortex, with a smooth British accent to match. He proves highly intelligent, his technological breakthroughs arguably the most advanced of all of Uka's scientists (having built a time travel device), tied with Doctor Nitrus Brio (having built an evolution accelerator device) and Cortex himself (having achieved dimensional travel). However, he tends to get frustrated when he repeatedly misses his target, and as a result, tires easily. This usually works to Crash's advantage and results in Tropy's many defeats at the hands of the bandicoot. Like Cortex, he is also highly pompous and foul tempered, venting his frustrations at his associates or blaming them for his errors, something N. Trance was perfectly willing to call him out on.

Unlike most allies of Uka Uka, N. Tropy does not seem to be subordinate to Cortex, more of an equal and occasionally a rival for role as Uka Uka's right hand man. This can lead to conflicts between the two prideful doctors; it is Tropy that exposes Cortex's secret weapon in The Wrath Of Cortex in suspicion he is holding out on ideas, while in Twinsanity, the two openly oppose each other for the Evil Twins' treasure, with Cortex ultimately mocking Tropy's comeuppance. Even as infants, they both fight for usage of Uka Uka with equal footing in Warped. He seems to have an affinity for time related puns, rarely letting a sentence go by without one. He also shows glaring traits of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder).

Appearance
His outward appearance reflects an unhealthy obsession with time. Frequent travel through the cold and hostile vacuum of space and time has caused his skin to become light-blue and extremely cold. He has long eyebrows and two equally long and skinny beards, giving him an Asian-esque appearance. His legs are long and skinny. His clothing has changed over the years, now seen as gold armor covering most of his body, except his waist. He also wears a golden-brown, smog-producing, piston-driven time machine, which appears to obscure his lab coat. He wears a tall headgear with a small silver fork. His left arm now has a huge metal glove with a clock on it.

Origin
The creators of Crash Bandicoot: Warped have stated that because the plot of Warped involved time travel, a time traveling boss was called for. This led to Nefarious Tropy's initial creation. Tropy's shortened name is a pun on the term "Entropy", a measurement of chaos, randomness, and disorder.

Errors and Glitches
When defeated, N. Tropy makes one last quote just like other bosses. However, in the PAL version, if the player stands too close to Tropy after having finished him off, the player will be instantly warped to the Warp Room.

Instead, if the player uses a slide, then a powered-up Double Jump, and finally a Death Tornado in order to glide towards the other main platform, the player will hear N. Tropy saying "My time is up. But yours soon will be too!". This is always heard in the NTSC version, as intended, without the player needing to jump back to the other platform.

Also, if the player brings an Aku Aku to his boss fight, Aku Aku can be seen reflected in his clock.

Portrayals
N. Tropy is voiced by Michael Ensign in all his speaking appearances, excluding Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, in which he is voiced by Corey Burton (who also voiced Doctor N. Gin in the same game). Corey Burton has reprised his role in the N. Sane Trilogy.

Gallery
See: Doctor Nefarious Tropy/Gallery

Trivia

 * When N. Tropy makes his first appearance in Twinsanity, he and N. Brio try to force Crash to tell them where the Evil Twins' treasure is. However, the scene that explains this was cut.
 * N. Tropy hearing about the riches in the scene was supposed to be a joke where N. Tropy was watching the events of the game from the outside, but decided to join in when the treasure was mentioned. Ultimately his scene was cut since it would have been too expensive to create a high quality N. Tropy for that one shot (as it was in an actual FMV). The scene was fully voice acted and was uploaded on Youtube in its storyboard form by a developer of the game on June 30th, 2018.
 * The doctor's torso armor resembles a clock, referencing his title as a "master of time". This is most notable in his Twinsanity model.
 * Although N. Tropy does not appear in Crash Bash, some music elements of his and Dr. N. Gin's boss theme from Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped are remixed for some minigames, most notably in Pogo-a-Gogo.
 * In Crash Team Racing, N. Tropy is one of the three characters who is never playable in adventure mode (and plays no part in the story line). The others are Fake Crash and Penta Penguin, who is unlockable via a cheat code. N. Tropy is also the only one of those three to appear in the credits.
 * In his Crash Bandicoot: Warped boss fight, if one looks closely at the clock that he turned on his hat, chest, and wrist, they all point at the same time of 10:10.
 * N. Tropy's torso was supposed to be digital clock and uncovered instead of an analog clock with brown covers.
 * After beating his ghost in CTR, N. Tropy will say something different depending on the track. If the player beats all of his ghosts, he will congratulate the player and say that he's been unlocked as a racer.
 * When Crash fights Tropy in Twinsanity, the player can hear a clock ticking.
 * Even though N. Tropy doesn't appear in Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D, one of the cups is named after him.
 * N. Tropy was against N. Trance in Crash Nitro Kart, even though N. Trance served him in N-Tranced.
 * In Crash Twinsanity, the pistons on his armor do not pump and are still. It is possible the animators simply forgot to make them do so.
 * Curiously in Crash Twinsanity N. Tropy and N. Brio are shown as working together despite never sharing a scene in prior games, on top of that in each of their respective games it is never both of them that are present.
 * Even though N. Tropy has an Asian themed hub in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, there are no Asian-themed levels in his hub.
 * In CTR and CNK, his time trial ghosts never took shortcuts; in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, his ghosts now take shortcuts.
 * His name is commonly mispronounced as "Trophy" in most games.
 * A villain who debuted in Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal is named Dr. Nefarious, who in turn has an item named after him [Nefarious], the Dr. Nefarious Trophy, possibly hinting Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games' close relationship.
 * According to Uka Uka, in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, Tropy is his old friend. This probably means that Tropy is at least a few thousand years old, he is obsessed with time so therefore, this could be possible. It is also possible that N. Tropy met Uka Uka in the past when he was experimenting with time.
 * Since N. Tropy and Uka Uka were old friends for millennia, many fans question why he didn't free him from his tomb sooner. It is more-than-likely that no one knew where he was.
 * N. Tropy's voice in the N. Sane Trilogy sounds slightly similar to that of British actor David Warner. His voice actor in the game, Corey Burton, has in fact imitated that voice more closely when voicing characters like Sark from the movie Tron, or Shockwave from the Transformers franchise.
 * Although he doesn't appear in-game, N. Tropy's tuning fork is used as one of Cortex's abilities in Skylanders: Imaginators. When placed, enemies around it will be slowed down; it can be upgraded to shoot sparks when Cortex fires his ray gun.
 * In Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, N. Tropy's headgear can actually come off while jumping through the air. Underneath it, he is bald.
 * In Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, N. Tropy's last unlockable skin which can only be obtained by beating all of Nitros Oxide's time trial ghosts features a digital clock set at 12:30.