Turtle Woods

Turtle Woods (あめの ジャングル lit. Rainy Jungle in Japanese) is the first level of the first warp room in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. It is set in the rainy woods on N. Sanity Island. While on the surface it appears to be nothing more than a basic introductory level, clever players will find several intriguing secrets along the way. The first bonus round of Crash Bandicoot 2 appears here, under a breakaway floor. Earlier in the level, a stone face appears on the ground. Belly flopping this face will reveal another secret area that introduces Crash to the brand new nitro crates and nitro switch crate, and requires several tricky jumps from over sized ostriches to fully complete. The blue gem is also found in this stage, counter-intuitively requiring the player to clear the stage with zero crates broken to obtain.

Types of crates

 * Aku Aku Crate
 * Arrow Crate - wooden (secret area only)
 * Basic Crate
 * Bounce Crate
 * Checkpoint Crate
 * Nitro Crate (secret area only)
 * Nitro Switch Crate (secret area only)
 * ? Crate

Stage parameters

 * Aku Aku Crates: 2
 * TNT Crates: None.
 * Nitro Crates: 6
 * Other Crates: 54 (5 crates in bonus)

Written Walkthrough
When Crash steps out the warp room door, he will notice that it is not raining yet. As he moves further into the level, right at the start, it will rain. Crash will encounter a ? crate once he walks out of the warp room. He will then walk uphill and encounter an armadillo. Crash then sees a fallen pillar behind the armadillo that he has to jump over. He will encounter a set of bouncy crates after the pillar. Crash then has to either swim through or jump on the boundaries of a puddle of quicksand. Once he makes it through, he will walk uphill and see four wumpa fruit. As Crash continues forward, he will encounter a pit on his left. When he walks past the pit, he will see a ? crate, then an armadillo walking forwards and backwards. Crash then walks uphill again and encounters another pit that he has to jump over this time. He has to walk uphill again and he encounter a stack of crates, the top being a bouncy crate and the middle and bottom crates being basic crates. Behind the crates, there is another pit with an armadillo on the other side. Right past the armadillo is another ? crate and the secret route entrance past the ? crate.

Crash can belly flop the stone face on the floor and enter the secret route. When he drops down, he will land on a grass platform with two bouncy crates and a stack of two basic crates. Crash then has to jump to another small platform, then another longer one with a spiked turtle on it. He then has to jump down to a smaller platform with another spiked turtle on it. Crash will then jump onto a lower platform with a stack of two basic crates and a checkpoint crate. As he moves forward, he will have to jump to a longer platform with a vulture waiting to swoop down at him. Crash then jumps to a higher, smaller platform with a bouncy crate on it, then to another higher platform with a wooden arrow crate and a bouncy crate. He will then see a larger platform below with six nitro crates on it and a smaller platform with two ? crates that he can get to by slide jumping. Crash then jumps to a small platform seen after the one with nitro crates that has a wooden arrow crate on it that can be used to jump to the platform after it. When he gets to that platform, with or without the arrow crate, he will then see a large ostrich that will stick its head down when he gets close. Crash can jump on it then slide jump to a higher platform before the ostrich lowers itself. The platform has three basic crates on it, and below the platform is a stack of two crates and another crate by it. He then sees a second large ostrich then he can jump on and slide jump to a second high platform that has one ? crate on it. Crash can then jump to longer, lower platform that has another vulture waiting to swoop down at him. Once he passes it, he will jump to a final platform with a basic crate, the nitro switch crate, and a platform that will take him back up to the main part of the level.

Once he goes back up, he will see an Aku Aku crate. Crash will then walk into an open temple with a checkpoint crate inside. When he walks out to the other side, he will walk downhill and encounter a spiked turtle. Behind the turtle is pit on the left side of the path. Crash then walks uphill again and see a pit on the right of the path. He also see two spiked turtles walking back and forth. As he walks past them, he will see the stone entrance to the bonus round.

When he jumps down, he will land on a small, empty, grass platform. Crash then has to jump to another longer platform with several wumpa fruit and a set of three crates. He will then see a wumpa fruit trail up through two platforms, stopping at a ? crate. There are several wumpa fruit that lead down to a final platform with a ? crate and the platform that will take him back up to the main part of the level.

Once he is back up, he will see a ? crate, then a puddle of quicksand with two ? crates in it. After he passes it, he will see a pit that he has to jump over. There is an armadillo walking back and forth on the other side of the pit. Crash then walks uphill and encounters a fallen pillar. When he jumps over it, he will see two spiked turtles walking back and forth. As he walks past it, he will eventually walk downhill and walk through an open temple. In the temple is a checkpoint crate and a set of ten crates, one of them is a bouncy crate that Crash can jump on once if he is trying to get the blue gem. Behind the crates is the exit to the temple and an Aku Aku crate. Crash then walks downhill and encounters a pit of rats that he has to defeat. Once they are gone, a mushroom will appear that Crash can bounce on to get back up. He will then walk uphill and see a few wumpa fruit. Crash then sees a spiked turtle that he has to jump on to reach a ? crate. He then walks uphill again and encounters three ? crates. Past the crates is another pit of rats. When he defeats them and jumps back up, he will see another quicksand puddle with one ? crate in it. Crash will then see the crystal if he hasn't gotten it already, and it is surrounded by four tiny birds. Behind the crystal is a third pit of rats that Crash has to defeat. When he jumps out, he will walk uphill and see a few wumpa fruit. Past the wumpa fruit is one last pit and behind the pit is the warp room door. When he walks inside, he will the clear gem if he got all the crates or the blue gem if he didn't get any crates. Either gem will appear in the middle of the corridor and at the end of the corridor is the platform that will teleport Crash back to the warp room.

Translation of Aku Aku Hints in the Japanese Version

 * Spiked Turtles have spikes on their sides, jump to stomp on them.
 * If you feel my voice disturbing, block your ears with the green triangle button.
 * Press crouch, then jump, to high jump.
 * Spin the armadillos to defeat them more and more.
 * Note that you don't get the Aku Aku hint if the mask gives you invincibility.
 * Also note that the location of Aku Aku hints, that either aren't level specific (in this stage the 2nd and 3rd hints) or inform about a secret of a previous level, can vary, mostly depending on the order you play the levels and the number of times you die.

Trivia

 * Originally, this level contained the red gem, but that was switched with Snow Go.
 * It's possible to fall back into the bonus round after completing it thus trapping the player inside it by jumping on the edges of the hole. The only way to fix it is by making Crash fall into one of the pits so he transported back to the main path. This glitch requires high precision.
 * If a player has the box gem but not the blue gem, the box counter will say that zero boxes have to be broken, giving a hint on the blue gem.