The Lab

''Be careful! It's the last, and one of the hardest, levels! Doctor Neo Cortex himself lies in wait! Keep going right and save Tawna!'' - Level description

The Lab is the twenty-ninth and final full level and is the twelfth level of the third island in the original Crash Bandicoot game. Fully clearing this stage by breaking all boxes without dying once rewards the player with the yellow gem. This is the only level in the game to use the mechanic of ! crates as switches to temporarily unlock doors; this, combined with the supercharged lab assistants and TNT crates hidden in clusters of normal crates, provides for a challenging platform challenge. There are also no Aku Aku crates in this level, but Crash can have an Aku Aku mask if it is brought into the level, as shown in the screenshot on the right.

Walkthrough
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Password
This corresponds to a save file at this level (87%, 0 keys, 21 gems).

Trivia

 * This level's name is a pun on the fact that this is Dr. Cortex's professional science laboratory.
 * In the prototype version of the game, this level only contained two (breakable) crates, both checkpoints.  Prior to the creation of gems, the only purpose of crates were to collect items such as wumpa fruit, lives, and Aku Aku masks.  It may have been that the lack of crates was because the developers didn't want the player to be able to collect such items in the last level, making it harder.  This might be the reason why even in the final version, it is one of the few levels not to contain an Aku Aku crate.  If this level had stayed that way, it would have by far the fewest crates of any level in the series, with the exception of Eggipus Rex in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, which has no crates.