Cortex Vortex (ビリビリトラップ すりぬけろ, lit. Slip Through the Electric Traps in Japanese) is the twenty-fifth level and the last level of the fifth warp room in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. It takes place in Cortex's space station and it's full of Lab Assistants throwing beakers, firing laser guns, and trying to knock Crash off the platform with a barricade, nitro crates and electrical traps set to kill Crash. This is one of only two platforming levels in this game without a Bonus Round, the other being Knight Time. Near the end there is a stack of three Aku Aku crates before a section filled with Nitro crates and Lab Assistants - a direct parallel to Bug Lite from Crash Bandicoot: Warped where a similar scene happened, which coincidentally was also the last main level of that game.
Walkthrough
Trivia
- The level's name is a reference to the Cortex Vortex.
- As with the last level in every warp room, it represents the boss that will be faced in factory form, in this case Cortex himself.
- This is the only main platform level in the game to not have a bonus round.
- In this level, the player has to go backwards to avoid electric fences, which is a callback to the chase levels Crash Dash, Crash Crush, and Un-Bearable from Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. However, unlike the aforementioned levels, the player is not being chased.
- In the original PS2 NTSC and PAL versions, the row of crates leading to the second checkpoint had an Iron Switch Crate before it, something that was later removed in all later versions, thus reducing the crate count to 155.
