Diggin' It

Diggin' It (ばくふん ちゅういほう lit. Warning: Explosive Pollen in Japanese) is the seventeenth level and the second level in the fourth warp room in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. Crash finds himself in a snowy environment similar to the snowball chase levels, but it's not snowballs that are in the level - it's snow-dwelling bees. Bees will go down to a simple spin attack, so they're not a huge factor here. Crash should be far more careful of the unbeatable sentient statues, mallet-wielding lumberjack lab assistants, and red spitter plants, which spit grenade-like seeds and will only fall to a belly flop or a spin from underground.

Crash can dig into the patches of magenta soil throughout the latter half of the level. There's also a secret warp area here which transports Crash to the sixth warp room and reveals the alternative route in Road to Ruin, which is accessible by jumping on the platform that's in the middle of a pit, which is occupied by a spitter plant, shortly after the death route rejoins the regular route. Crash can also access the second clear gem without completing the death route. This can be done by going down the left split path when the two rejoin, and jumping along the green grass to the left edge of the colossal pit. Crash can then backtrack to the gem, and leave via the exit platform, or backtrack the entire route and smash all the crates, if necessary.

Types of crates

 * Aku Aku Crate
 * Arrow Crate - iron
 * Basic Crate
 * Bounce Crate
 * Checkpoint Crate
 * Crash Crate (death route only)
 * Iron Crate
 * Locked Crate (bonus round only)
 * Nitro Crate
 * Nitro Switch Crate
 * ? Crate
 * TNT Crate (bonus round only)

Translation of Aku Aku Hints in the Japanese Version

 * Do you want the yellow diamond? Clear Man-eating Flower Zone quickly.
 * The yellow diamond is useful for the colored platform in Scorching Worker.

Trivia

 * Despite the level's title, Crash doesn't really do much digging in this level. Another relative level, Bee-Having, is where he does most of the digging in order to avoid being stung by the bees.
 * There are hidden lives in the bonus round. To access them, Crash must jump off of an iron arrow crate, onto the top crate in a stack of five crates, then onto the top crate in a stack of seven crates, and onto some iron crates that are out of view.
 * This is the first level in the series that features bees.
 * In a beta version of the game, the soil was grey instead of magenta. This is shown in the load/save icon.
 * This is one of five levels in this game where, after completing the bonus round, it is possible to die before the game is finished adding the bonus round crates to the crate total.  This causes a glitch where it is possible to get credited with breaking more crates than there are in the level. The other levels in this game where this is possible are Snow Biz, Cold Hard Crash, Bee-Having, and Night Fight. In Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, this is possible in Sphynxinator and Flaming Passion.