Bye Bye Blimps

Bye Bye Blimps (コルテックスの ひこうせん lit. Cortex's Blimps in Japanese) is the seventeenth level and is the second level of the fourth warp room in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped and the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy remaster of the third game. The setting of the level is World War I. In this level, Coco must shoot down seven of Cortex's blimps in her biplane. It's the first level in the Crash series to use this concept. In the N. Sane Trilogy, this level is no longer exclusive to Coco as Crash can also participate in it should the player choose him instead of Coco.

Hazard Count

 * Blimps: 7

Crates and Balloons
Shooting crates gives wumpa fruit or lives, depending on the crate shot. After the crate is shot, the balloon floats away. To get the gem, Coco must shoot all crates.

If players shoot a balloon, the crate will quickly fall from the sky. White balloons with a red cross yield more health. The only purpose for smashing the yellow balloons is to break the attached crate. Additionally, the stopwatch used to begin the time trial is attached to a red balloon.

Trivia

 * The name of this level may be a play on the phrase "Bye Bye Birdy", a stage production composed in 1958. The "Bye Bye" part may be a reference to Coco shooting down the blimps in the level.
 * Aku Aku is banned from this level. That is, even if the player enters the level with an Aku Aku mask, the player loses the mask. This is because a single hit does not kill Coco in this level, so Aku Aku's purpose would not make sense.
 * Bye Bye Blimps, as well as the other two flying stages Mad Bombers and Rings of Power and the hidden level Eggipus Rex, are the only stages in the game that don't feature a box counter, which is because there is no exit in either of these levels (in Eggipus Rex's case, there are no crates at all, so a box counter has no purpose). Coco acquires the box gem instantly when the last box is broken.
 * This is the first plane level in the Crash series.
 * The plane Lab Assistant enemies in the plane levels only shoot at you if you are facing them.
 * Early footage show that this level used to have Crash instead of Coco as the playable character. It's very likely that she wasn't always intended to fly a plane like Crash, especially since this is the only level where she does so.
 * However, in update v1.06 of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, it is possible to enter this level as Crash.
 * Players can start a new game with every powerup available immediately from this level. On the title screen, if the player holds the triangle button as the third demo loads, the player will be able to assume control of Coco in the demo. If the player then pauses the game at this point and chooses to return to the Warp Room, they will start a new game with all of Crash's powers.
 * Curiously, in the plane levels, the rapid gunfire runs faster in the PAL version.

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