Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back - Stage 1: Turtle Woods (100% Completed)

Completing this playthrough will be a bit tougher than usual. Since I'm still using PSXjin to record this game externally as I play through it. I go through a slowdown doing this, but it may improve my reaction time whenever I play it at full speed.

Since the levels are longer and the improved secrets make this game less linear than Crash 1, that'll just add to my adventure of getting through this game AND recording it to upload on YouTube.
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The true first level of Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, is Turtle Woods.

It's a rainforest full of mud, possum, and half-mechanical turtles. It also marks the debut of the TNT Crates' more powerful counterpart: Nitro Crates.

Any type of touch Crash lays upon these green boxes will cause them to explode. Just ignore them. Luckily, Green "!" Crates are also new, and they just make all the Nitros explode. Remember that as Nitro Crates count towards your crate total, too.

This level already has a colored Gem very early in the game: The Blue Gem. To get it, you have to reach the end without breaking a single crate. The most you would have to do is bounce on a Bounce Crate once. It won't break until it's jumped on 10 times, so you'll bypass it, anyway.

Getting the Clear Gem is slightly improved upon compared to the first game. The Inventory HUD now displays how many crates you've smashed and crashed open. At the end, if you didn't get them all, a big hologram crate will tell the number you reached out of the total number of crates in the level.

There's also the more important, brand new treasure: Crystals. If you are to at least clear a level, you have to find it and reach the end. Said crystals are usually near the end of the level, anyway, and there's always only one per level.
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For this specific level, watch as I first go through it to get the Blue Gem, as well as the Crystal along the way. Once I get the Blue Gem at the end, I die and it takes me right back to the beginning, where I can then focus on getting the Clear Gem.

Bonus levels are much more streamlined here. Almost every level has a Bonus within them, and they are there to get more crates, as well as any 1-UPs and Wumpa Fruit you might want.
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If Crash leaves back into the Warp Room with a Gem, he'll do a victory dance based on what Japan gave him. They sure did love Crash, after all.

During the dance, I pause the screen. This new and improved pause screen displays your completion percentage based on how much treasure you got.

By beating this stage, another hologram cutscene occurs: Cortex compliments Crash on a job well done getting his first crystal. He then tells him of a space hazard that may destroy the world. The only way Cortex can defeat it is if Crash gets more Crystals for him.

He then gets cut off and Coco appears instead, probably hacking into Cortex's hologram. She's trying to contact Crash, but she's having difficulty with it at the moment. She'll get better at it later.
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See this run in the N-Sane Trilogy, here!:
   • Crash Bandicoot 2 (N-Sane Trilogy) - ...