Cold Hard Crash

Cold Hard Crash is the eighteenth level in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. It is another snowy and icy Arctic stage. This much the player would expect, but they might be surprised to discover that it is perhaps the hardest level in the game to fully complete, not to mention the coldest and Crashiest. Not only does it contain a massive crate count, it requires the player to explore every single square inch of its overly convoluted layout if they want to break them all.

thumb|300px|right|longest level in the game!!!The skull platform is what makes this level so long. First of all, the path has boxes. Second, it doesn't have a "return platform" in the end, but a gap that leads to a place much later in the main route. You can't backtrack to the boxes you missed from here. Finally, the gem is located after the point of no return.

So, in order to get everything, you first have to go back and forth for all the boxes and then use the nearest checkpoint to quicksave. Thankfully, there's one right next to the platform. It's impossible to backtrack the part of the main route that leads to where you return from the skull route, so you have to go get the gem first.

Once you have the gem, you can kill yourself and finish the main route.

Trivia

 * This level's name is an allusion to "Cold Hard Cash".
 * This level contains 155 crates, the highest crate total of any Crash series level until Wrath of Cortex introduced Gold Rush (breaking the two-century mark with 209).