Nina Cortex

"Breaking things makes me happy."

- Nina Cortex

Nina Cortex is the secondary antagonist of the Crash Bandicoot series. She is Neo Cortex's beloved niece (or daughter). She is a gothic girl with bionic hands made for grappling and crushing soft objects. Since Crash Tag Team Racing, she has developed a fierce rivalry with Coco Bandicoot.

Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage
In Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage, Nina is recruited by Doctor Cortex to kidnap Coco Bandicoot and the Professor. When Spyro and Crash arrive to save Coco and the Professor, Nina chases down Crash as he speeds off on the back of Polar, only to soon be captured in a cage dropped by Spyro, where she is left to weep over the unfairness of the situation. Nina was very young at this point, as she called Spyro "purple puppy" and spoke like a toddler.

Prior to Crash Twinsanity
Even though she is a Cortex, Nina had an unnatural love for cute furry animals and was also generally kind-hearted. Doctor Cortex did not approve, so he replaced her hands with bionic steel fists so that she would be unable to get close to animals without crushing them by accident. He then sent her to study at his old school, Madame Amberley's Academy of Evil.

Crash Twinsanity
In Crash Twinsanity, Crash and Cortex arrive at the Academy of Evil to look for Nina as they need her to repair the Psychetron. After searching various classrooms and hallways, Cortex finds her in her dormitory. She pranks her uncle by using a fake head and jumping out at Cortex. She proceeds to scale the rooftops with her bionic hands, battle the Ant Drones and is briefly pursued by a runaway school bus which Crash tied to Cortex's airship.

Nina is only playable in two parts of the game, one being Rooftop Rampage and the other being the first phase of battling the Deathbot. She has the ability to use her robotic arm to punch and she can also spin. Like Cortex, she can only jump once, but it's much higher than Cortex's jump. Her arms can grab onto grappling hooks to scale high heights. Their impressive reach also gives her the unique ability to safely break TNT and nitro crates from a distance without the need for a countdown, Nitro Switch Crate, or Detonator Crate.

Crash, Cortex, and Nina go back to the Iceberg Lab, where she fixes the Psychetron by giving it a good smack, to Cortex's surprise. The team then head into the Tenth Dimension. Nina is then kidnapped by the wild Evil Crash, the alternate-dimension counterpart of Crash, and he takes her to his house, where Cortex soon rescues her by foolishly offering himself to Evil Crash. She later helps in defeating the Evil Twins by destroying the power sources of their Deathbot. Her voice is briefly heard in the ending.

Crash Tag Team Racing
Nina is a playable character in Crash Tag Team Racing, in which she aids Doctor Cortex and Doctor N. Gin in trying to take over Von Clutch's MotorWorld. At one point in the game, Nina gets a part-time job handling the park's edible meats in order to purchase the Angsterator car, going as far as to practically beg Crash to help her get the job. Also, in this game, Nina acts a bit bossy at times. While briefing her first mission, she asks Crash to find her keys that she lost in the Midway.

Crash of the Titans
"I really didn't wanna do this myself. I really wanted one of my idiot underlings to destroy you. I really didn't want to get hair all over my clothes! But if you want something done right... USE A GIANT SPIDER-BODY!"

- Nina Cortex

During the events of Crash of the Titans, when Cortex's attempt to dispose of Crash Bandicoot was foiled, Nina is called upon by Uka Uka to replace her uncle as the main antagonist of the story. From there, she has brainwashed Coco into finishing up the construction of the Doominator. When Crash confronts her inside the Doominator, Nina boards her giant Arachnina Titan and battles Crash, only to lose. When the Doominator is disabled, she is rescued from the falling contraption by Doctor Cortex, who reveals that he is proud that she betrayed him, but claims that he is still going to "spank her stupid" for all that has happened.

In the Nintendo DS version of the game, Nina attempts to take over Cortex's plot on her own accord when she realizes that she's merely a "henchperson" and temporarily teams up with Crash to get revenge on her uncle. Her bestiary entry states the following:
 * She likes scheming and dislikes command structure.
 * Her height is 1.50m (~ 4'11") and her weight is 50kg (~ 110lbs).

In the mobile phone version of the game, Nina was the second boss. She steals the second mask with the help of her spider bot and tries to escape, only for Crash to jack her machine and run it into rocks until it explodes.

Crash: Mind Over Mutant
In Crash: Mind Over Mutant, Nina is dropped off at the Evil Public School by Doctor Cortex since the events of the previous game. When she is eventually visited by Crash and Aku Aku, she accuses them of ruining her life and at first refuses to help them stop Cortex's ongoing plot. When Crash and Aku Aku get desperate, she forces the two to kiss each other and defend her science fair project. Crash needs to deflect projectiles from the other students' projects to progress. Afterwards, she uses her project to determine the location of Crunch and Brio.

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
In Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, Nina's portrait appears within Cortex Castle and Nitro Court alongside her uncle, Doctor Nitrus Brio, and Fake Crash. After the conclusion of the Nitro Tour Grand Prix, it was confirmed by Activision that Nina would appear in the game as a playable character in a future Grand Prix.

Nina appears as a playable racer and the main star of the Spooky Grand Prix. She can be unlocked by filling the Bronze Tier in the Nitro Gauge. Her track, Nina's Nightmare, is a representation of her own deranged psyche.

She is now purchasable in the Pit Stop for 1500 Wumpa Coins as of the Rustland Grand Prix update.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
Nina has a cameo in It's About Time. She can be seen in Coco's 100% ending illustration after losing to her in an E-sports competition.

Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!
Nina appears in Crash Bandicoot: On the Run! as a boss for Crash or Coco to defeat. She attacks by firing her fists at the player like rockets, making TNT and Nitro Crates fall onto the path, and making rows of fire across the path with lightning. Like all bosses, she is defeated by chasing her and throwing Boom Berries at her to reduce her health bar to zero, then using the Portal Weapons crafted beforehand to send her back to her own dimension.

Personality
In her first appearance in Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage, Nina has an infantile personality and speaking pattern, referring to herself in the third person and calling Spyro a "purple puppy". This partly carried over to her next appearance in Twinsanity where she was more brooding and essentially mute. In subsequent games, however, these traits were removed in favor of a more intelligent, albeit sometimes childish and bratty personality. Canonically, Nina is known to be more ambitious and egotistical than her uncle; even Aku Aku believes that Nina is "a lot smarter than Cortex ever could be", though it is unknown if she really is smarter as she needed Coco to build the robot in Crash of the Titans. Nina seems to be more "street smart" or has more (or less) common sense than her uncle. She is very spiteful and sadistic and enjoys her gothic look (though she seems to despise being referred to as such). She also has an antisocial demeanor, only working with people if she gets something out of it. The only feminine trait Nina really has is taking care of her 'nails'. She dislikes the Evil Public School as of Mind Over Mutant due to the perceived inferior value of her schoolmates (whom she describes as the "dregs of society") to those of Madame Amberley's private academy, where she saw herself as "the queen". She additionally hates Crash for being the reason for her stay at the Evil Public School, and also calls him "furball". She still however has a love for cuddly animals.

In Nitro-Fueled, her personality is taken from the Radical Entertainment era. She takes losing maturely in this incarnation, only expressing mild disappointment but also understanding that she needs to work harder to gain desired results.

Physical appearance
Nina has partially spiked black hair with side swept bangs (in the Radical Entertainment games), light-blue/gray skin, prominent buck teeth and a lowercase 'n' on her head. Nina's most distinguishing features are her spring-loaded steel bionic hands, which were given to her by her uncle Doctor Cortex. Additionally, Nina has a beta version that got altered in Crash Twinsanity, that shows her with a lab coat similar to Cortex's with an N on it and red hair. Nina stands about four feet and eleven inches (1.5 meters) and weighs 110 pounds (50 kilograms). Although this is not proper canon, Nina was originally taller than Crash and Cortex. In her early appearances, she wears a dark-blue sailor fuku, apparently the uniform of the Academy of Evil. In Mind Over Mutant and Crash of the Titans, she wears a black dress shirt with short sleeves, a red tie, a blue, pleated miniskirt (grey shorts in the GBA version) and black tanker boots. In both versions, she has two silver barrettes on the left side of her hair. In Crash Tag Team Racing, her alternate costume is a pink and white drive-thru uniform, which she earns by getting a job as one of Von Clutch's employees.

In her reappearance in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, her appearance is more in line with her Twinsanity design, albeit with a blue hue for her clothing and hair as well as having a less prominent mouth and buck teeth. Her belt buckle also now resembles the letter "E" and she now wears shorts underneath her skirt.

Crash Twinsanity
“Nina is Dr. Cortex’s beloved niece. When she began to show disturbing signs of a kind heart, Dr. Cortex made a few modifications and sent her to study at the Academy of Evil. Nina still has warm feelings for cute animals, but now they avoid her hugs for fear of being crushed by her spring-loaded, steel-trap hands. Now she’s skipping school to lend her uncle a bionic hand against the Evil Twins.”
 * Manual

Crash Bandicoot website (2006)
"Cortex's niece, modified with bionic powers."

Crash Nitro Kart 2
“Her cyborg arms allow Cortex's niece to maneuver extremely well.”
 * In-Game

Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!
“What do you get when you cross a cuddle-crazy toddler with a mad scientist… uncle? A smart, sadistic and deeply broody teenager, whose hands are replaced with extendable bionic steel trap clasps, and several years at Madame Amberly’s Academy of Evil to learn how to become a villain. Proof that some evil dreams can come true.”
 * Promo

"She is the smart, sadistic, stylish niece of Neo Cortex and if anyone says otherwise she will crush them with her bionic hands. Avoid her lightning strikes, explosive boxes and flying fists!"
 * In-game

Appearances

 * Crash Bandicoot & Spyro Adventure World (cameo on code card)
 * Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage
 * Crash Twinsanity 3D
 * Crash Twinsanity
 * Crash Tag Team Racing
 * Crash Tag Team Racing: Drive-By
 * Crash Racing
 * Crash Bandicoot Party Games
 * Crash of the Titans
 * Crash Village
 * Crash Nitro Kart 2
 * Crash: Mind Over Mutant
 * Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2
 * Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
 * Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (cameo)
 * Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!

Quotes
"Huh?"

- Nina

"Bad girls, bad girls. Whatcha gonna do?"

- Nina

"I feel so alive!"

- Nina

"Super-size me!"

- Nina

"Don't worry. That broken neck looks good on you."

- Nina

"I'll write you a postcard from the finish line."

- Nina

"Crash! Aren't you supposed to be defeating my uncle somewhere?"

- Nina

"Take out the trash, girls."

- Nina

"Sorry, uncle. But it's time for some young blood to lead us to victory. And now that we have Coco, we can make her build the robot."

- Nina

"Cower before my mighty mightiness...of might!"

- Nina

"Why did you rescue me? I betrayed you, took over your evil plan, then failed."

- Nina

"Ugh. What do you want?"

- Nina

"Damage only makes me look cooler."

- Nina

"Witness the fate of my opponents!"

- Nina

"Judged me by my size, didn't you?"

- Nina

"Breaking things makes me happy."

- Nina

Gallery
See: Nina Cortex/Gallery

Trivia

 * Her appearance was based on one of the designers working at Traveller's Tales.
 * An early design for Nina depicted her wearing a white lab coat exactly like her uncle's.
 * It is unclear whether Nina is truly Cortex's daughter or niece. Cortex almost called her his daughter in Crash Twinsanity before correcting himself.
 * There is an error in Crash Twinsanity: Nina's teeth disappear in one cutscene after covering her mouth with her hand. This happens just before they teleport to the Tenth Dimension.
 * She is apparently allergic to fleas, which Crash (supposedly) has.
 * There is a glitch in Twinsanity that allows players to play as Nina in the Iceberg Lab.
 * In a promotional short for Crash of the Titans, Nina can use her hands to teleport to different places.
 * In Twinsanity, Nina doesn't speak at all, barring a single confused "Huh?" in the final cutscene, provided by Susan Silo, who also voiced Madame Amberly in the same game. Nina was initially planned to have a larger role in Twinsanity, complete with dialogue, but a majority of this content was scrapped. In Crash Purple, and Crash Tag Team Racing onwards, Nina speaks in complete sentences.
 * Nina's portrait can be seen drawn on the banners of Cortex Castle in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. Her name is also tagged in purple on the side walls of Tiny Arena.