Ratcicle



"This mutant will freeze you solid and then shatter you into a million pieces with its special attack."

The Ratcicle is a Titan that appears in Crash of the Titans and Crash: Mind Over Mutant. It resembles a tall, muscular  bipedal rat that has the ability to freeze its enemies. According to its name, Doctor Neo Cortex must have created the Ratcicles by mutating rats. All Ratcicles have blueish fur and sharp claws and teeth. In Mind Over Mutant they can be found on Wumpa Island and in the Ice Prison. They formerly served Dr. Neo Cortex but then served Nina Cortex in Crash of the Titans.

Biology
Ratcicle is a blueish bipedal titan who works for Doctor N. Gin. Unlike another titan, it is very cold and calm, it never angered even when ridiculed by its master. Ratcicle mainly attacks with its sharp icicle claw, but sometimes they need to freeze its prey to attack. Ratcicle has muscular body with black markings on its back and arms. It has protruding fangs which is never used because of its fragility. Some Ratcicle has blue-green skin. When jacked, the markings become white. Ratcicle has three toes on each foot. Ratcicle adapts to the environment by freezing anything around it.

Abilities
Ratcicles are strong and fast attackers, very muscular and capable of taking on multiple opponents at once. Their basic special ability is to freeze enemies. In Crash of the Titans, Ratcicle's special attack (Freeze Punks) consists of slamming the ground with its right arm, thus creating a frost-wave that can divide in up to two sections, freezing any enemy it encounters in a large block of ice. Enemies frozen in this way can't move until the ice thaws (which takes a few seconds), and should the player use Ratcicle's over-slam attack (the block-breaker) on such enemies, they would be killed instantly. This attack also works on other Ratcicles.

In Crash: Mind Over Mutant, the Ratcicle has an additional ability called Freeze Sneeze, which is basically a powerful sneeze that can freeze anything it touches. This is a weaker version of Freeze Punks,and enemies frozen in this way are only stunned for a moment, but it requires no special bar to execute it. This ability is vital in the game's progress as the Ratcicle can use any of the above abilities to freeze bodies of water to create temporal bridges and move across. It can also jump in this game.

In the same game, the Ratcicle is the only titan that can surf in shallow water, creating a block of ice under its feet in a form of a surf-board. This is not necessary to proceed in the main plot, but it is useful to reach secret areas

Attacks
Swipe: Ratcicle swipe enemies with his hand and cause minimal damage toward bosses, moderate damage on hero titans and regular titans, and instant kill on minions. For the bosses, use this attack repeatedly till the health bars are emptied. For the titans and hero titans, it is the same as a boss except that while the boss requires 5 to 9 swipes, these require 4 swipes based on how many upgrades Ratcicle has. For the minions, do it once during a 2-3 minion fight and use this with a cool combo or secret combo to kill many minions. A cool combo is done by pressing swipe button three times in a row, thus causing great damage that is useful, especially when fighting a boss, fighting a lot of minions of any type at once, and fighting titans. While cool combos do great damage, secret combos are more powerful since these combos are a bit longer and cause a large amount of damage. Secret combos are done by pressing the square button twice and then waiting for 2 seconds and then pressing it five times. If done correctly, the final attack will be a heavy but uncharged slam.

Heavy Attack: This attack is the most powerful against bosses as it causes a large amount of damage. With no upgrade, this attack will cause 2 damage, 1 upgrade cause 3 damage, 2 upgrade cause 4 damage, 3 upgrade cause 5 damage, 4 and 5 upgrades cause 6 damage. The charged attacks do more damage that are multiplied by 2-3 stars. This attack also breaks a titan's guard.

Jump Attack: This is the easiest attack as the player must simply jump and while in mid-air, press the swipe button and Ratcicle will slam the ground with his own arm. This attack also instantly stuns any enemies that are frozen. Not available in COTT.

Block Attack: To use this attack, press R1 and then the swipe button to make Ratcicle sneeze and cause enemies to get frozen for a moment. This attack can also destroy objects such as plants and crates. Not available in COTT

Freeze Punk: Ratcicle's ultimate attack. This attack is done by pressing the special attack button when the purple bars are full to make Ratcicle raise his right arm and then slam that arm toward the ground. This creates ice blocks that will freeze enemies that get in his path and they will be frozen for 5 seconds before they break free but can not move for 1 second after the ice thaws. In COTT using this makes the user immune to this attack once the right arm hits the ground, until the arm is removed from the ground.

Appearances
Crash and Aku Aku first encounter the Ratcicles on their way to Doctor N. Gin in Crash of the Titans, when they enter his own version of the Statue of Liberty. The Ratcicles are also encountered while showering in their personal locker room, and they also appear in the battle against N. Gin. They later appear in various other episodes of the game. In Crash: Mind Over Mutant, the Ratcicle is the first titan introduced in the game. It appears next to a river, where it demonstrates its Freeze Sneeze ability to freeze it and cross over. Crash and Aku Aku then fight him and jack him after he is defeated. Crash later used the Ratcicle to defeat Coco, who has gone crazy because of the NV on her head. After Crash lured Coco down from her ball-launching machine, Ratcicle freezes her in a nearby pond thus inflicting damage. By doing this over and over, Coco regains her senses.

It is later revealed that since the events in Crash of the Titans, after the Ratcicles escaped Cortex's control, they founded their own home land, the Ratcicle Kingdom, at the east of Wumpa Island. The Ratcicles encountered there are much smaller and show more relation to Crash and Coco. Among the notable characters that appear there (all Ratcicles) are the "Great Architect", his translator, a passionate dancer, an old cleaner, and a kid that sits in the shadow of the Ratcicle statue. It is later revealed that this is the son of the Hero Ratcicle. All of these show very little relations to classic Ratcicles, including their abilities to freeze stuff. Some Ratcicles are seen working for Brat Girls at one point in the game.

There is also a slightly upgraded Ratcicle: the Ratcicle Hero. It is a palette swap of a regular Ratcicle, with more white fur than blue fur. It also has a fancy haircut. In order to obtain him, the player must return to Ratcicle Kingdom after some of the plot events of the game, and talk either to the kid or the old Ratcicle, both of which will lead Crash to a mission to save the Ratcicle Hero. It is found in the same room where the first TK was obtained, guarded by evil Ratcicles and some Scorporillas, frozen in a block of ice. The player must use the Scorporilla to break him free, after which he can be jacked. Once this is done, he will respawn next to the kid in Ratcicle Kingdom. The same as all Heroes, he has his own bar that fills up after collecting mojo, and it is upgraded in the way that is separate from the rest of his kind.

Trivia

 * Interestingly, the playable Ratcicle Hero is practically naked in the PS2 version of Mind Over Mutant, but while he is trapped in the pillar of ice he's wearing body armor. The same kind of outfit can be seen in the in-game artwork, under "Ice Pack".
 * One of the additional missions in Crash: Mind Over Mutant involves both players in co-op mode to jack a Ratcicle at the same time, which is not repeated with other titans.
 * They appear to be the most civil titan species, the kingdom and its culture is proof.
 * Some N.V. slave Ratcicles are seen being ordered by Brat Girls at the outskirts of the Icelands, though it is unusual because they were programed to listen to Cortex and Brio, and the Brat Girls were not associated with the two scientists.
 * The civilian posing in the kingdom's courtyard appears to not be able to speak properly, though his assistant understands him perfectly.
 * The assistant mentioned above mentions past Crash games when she says: "Remember Power Crystals? I miss those." (Power Crystals were the primary collectable fundamental to completing the games from Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back to Crash Twinsanity)
 * Oddly, they are the first titans to been introduced in M.O.M, but in C.O.T.T they are one of the last.
 * They are also used as example in the tutorial in M.O.M.

Etymology
The name Ratcicle probably derives from the phrases 'rat' (presuming all Ratcicles were rats before being mutated by Dr. Cortex) and 'icicle' (referring to their ability to freeze).