Night Fight

Night Fight (まっくら クラッシュ lit. Pitch-dark Crash in Japanese) is the twenty-third level and is the third level of the fifth warp room in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. Unlike previous jungle levels, it is set during the night and Crash can't see much without the assistance of fireflies scattered throughout the level. Each firefly's light only lasts for a limited time, so players must make haste in traversing the level, so they won't be left to navigate pure pitch blackness. Enemies include possums, lizards, and Cortex's patented hologram probes.

The level design itself is a mostly straightforward affair, complicated slightly by a split path after the first checkpoint. The right path continues the main level path, but on the left, is a death route. Later, very near at the end of the path, there are a pair of crates, necessary to getting the other clear gem, obviously, but finishing off the death route will have skipped a bunch of crates on the right route. Instead, the easiest way to get the crate gem is to take the right path, and then at the end where the two paths rejoin, backtrack a bit on the left path until the player reaches the crates and, conveniently, a firefly will be waiting. The bonus round also has fireflies in it.

Types of crates

 * Aku Aku Crate
 * Basic Crate
 * Bounce Crate (bonus round only)
 * Checkpoint Crate
 * Crash Crate (bonus round only)
 * Nitro Crate
 * Nitro Switch Crate
 * ? Crate

Translation of Aku Aku Hints in the Japanese Version

 * If you have got the green diamond, why don't you go to the Ruins of Mechanism? I should have said that.

Trivia

 * This is one of only four levels in the Crash platforming series from Crash 2 onwards that has more crates on the bonus path than the main path, the others being Ruination and Spaced Out, also from Crash 2, and Drip, Drip, Drip from Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure.
 * The name of the level is a word swap on the video game series "Fight Night".
 * It may also refer to the word "night light".
 * This is also the first level to feature a firefly. However, this is dependant on whether they take the secret warp to Totally Fly in Hangin' Out, which in this case it isn't.
 * The extra boxes glitch can be done in this level, but it requires the player to sacrifice 2 masks in the bonus round to get 29 boxes from it, then the player must neutral slide spin onto the hole behind the bonus and hope the shoes animation does not occur.
 * This level is played inside the Cortex Vortex, as seen in this image.
 * It is the only level played in the Cortex Vortex not to fit the theme of space.