Crash Bandicoot is a heroic marsupial, a defender of good, and a bit of a nut. Originally a simple Eastern Barred Bandicoot, Crash was captured by Dr. Neo Cortex and turned into the subject of his mad experiments, along with several other marsupials. With the help of a machine called the Evolvo-Ray, the maniacal Cortex genetically modified Crash into a smart and anthropomorphic creature (a mutant, basically). In other words, Crash now walks and acts like people, though the latter aspect is somewhat debatable. Cortex took notice of Crash's potential, so in an attempt to rule the World, he decided to make Crash the general in his army of super animals. Things didn't go as he planned, however, since his mind-control device, the Cortex Vortex, failed to brainwash Crash. The poor old bandicoot was promptly banished by Cortex, unaware he had just created an arch-nemesis for life. Thus, Crash has since been foiling Cortex's plans for world domination.
Always the laid-back fellow, Crash enjoys basking in the warm sun, sleeping and dancing. And then there's spinning. Crash loves spinning. Whether it's a foe or just the average wooden crate here and there, the fuzzy marsupial takes great pleasure in twirling the lights out of it. After all, they don't call him Crash for nothing. He is almost always in a good mood and is generally light-hearted and silly. Crash is usually silent, but he occasionally speaks in what sounds like complete gibberish. Despite this, everyone else can understand him. He feeds mostly on Wumpa fruits and is a fan of anything that contains them.
Crash is well-meaning and unresentful. Despite his somewhat reckless behaviour, Crash doesn't go looking for trouble - it usually ends up finding him instead. In fact, he is known for getting along just fine with his enemies, provided they aren't messing with him or his family (on the other hand, it's hard to say whether his acts of humilliating them are intentional or otherwise). Crash's one big love interest to date was Tawna, a female bandicoot who received the same mutation treatment as him. Rescuing Tawna was Crash's only incentive for his very first adventure. Despite rescuing Tawna from the clutches of Dr. Cortex, he didn't hold up a relationship with her*.
The orange bandicoot now lives in Wumpa Island with his strange but well-meaning family. He has a biological sister named Coco and an adoptive big brother called Crunch (both are mutant bandicoots just like him, though Crunch seems to be of a different species). Also living with Crash is his trustworthy sidekick - the spirit of an ancient benevolent witch doctor known as Aku Aku, whose physical representation is a flying wooden mask. Aku Aku doubles as a fatherly figure to both Crash and his siblings.
He may not look very intimidating, but Crash is quite a cunning hand-to-hand fighter, relying mostly on his quick wit and agility to defeat his foes. As mentioned, spinning is Crash's favourite attack. He can turn into a furious orange tornado that devastates everything in his path. Other signature moves include his slide-tackle and the fearsome belly flop, which is strong enough to break through iron. Despite being a melee fighter, Crash won't skip on the heavy ordnance when it's time to (literally) bring out the big gun - a good old-fashioned Wumpa fruit bazooka. Additionally, Crash can borrow Aku Aku's mystical powers for protecting himself or even controlling stunned enemies - an ability called Jacking. Crash's main weaknesses are his gullibility and his inability to swim (at least without scuba equipment), but he has the advantage of being strangely immune to mind control.
Crash's change from an ordinary marsupial to a heroic - if somewhat questionable - defender has put in more places than he could ever have dreamed of. His eternal fight against evil has led him to travel almost everywhere in the World, as well as journeying through time, galaxies and even dimensions. It's all in a day's work for Crash Bandicoot!
*The story about Crash and Tawna's relationship was elaborated in Japan. The manuals there, as well as some of the in-game text, explain that Tawna left Crash for Pinstripe Potoroo. This change was created specifically for Japan and is not considered canonical elsewhere.
Trivia:
Out of comparison
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CTR
(In-Kart) All in-kart models from CTR are much more polygonal versions than usual, since 8 of the usual character models on screen at the same time would be more than the PS1 could handle. |
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Crash
Bash Voiced by: Uncredited/Kappei Yamaguchi (Japan) The Crash Bash model is a low detail resemblance of the second Naughty Dog model. Crash doesn't change expressions, except when he is zapped by something in Polar Push games (showing a shocked expression). There is a more detailed model used in the intro, which is basically the same with moving eyes, mouth and a tongue. |
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Crash
Bandicoot XS/N-Tranced Though Vicarious Visions used the Naughty Dog model to rip the frames they needed, they still created a low detail model of their own, to add frames they couldn't find in previous games. |
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Crash
Nitro Kart/Fusion cutscenes and mini-games Voiced by: Steven Jay Blum (CNK) This is a more detailed version of the previous model with a few differences. He has bigger, fuzzier eyebrows, smaller eyes, green irises, lighter fur, different jeans and his belly button is less visible. The FMVs from this game give Crash some textures that make him look very furry. |
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Crash
Tag Team Racing (Japan) Though the body proportions are a lot different, he has the same height as the model from the original version of CrashTTR. |
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Crash:
Boom, Bang! (Japan) Voiced by: Makoto Ishii CBB was the first Crash game to be developed by a Japanese team. This gave the characters the looks they've always had in Japanese artwork and promotions. Some of the main differences between Japanese and standard Crash are a much larger head, Pac-Man eyes and different shoes. |
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Crash:
Boom, Bang! Like all CBB models, it is cel-shaded, giving it cartoony visuals (not visible here). |
| Crash of the Titans (Prototype/GBA) Though the image on the left may be a sprite, it was created from an existing 3D model which looked the same. This was Crash's prototype look in Crash of the Titans. The final model is quite a bit different (see here), and in comparison to that one, this model has some notable differences: for starters, his eyebrows are just rectangles with one almost always higher than the other one. His eyes aren't the same and his face in general is different. Curiously, Crash was rarely seen showing his teeth with this model, something that happens a lot in Crash of the Titans. The pants are light-blue and the shoes are black and red. More noticeably, Crash had no tattoos at this point yet. The prototype look was at one point used in all three versions of Crash of the Titans. A few screenshots of the main version showing this model were released. The same goes for the DS version, which is a more curious case - though they did eventually change Crash to resemble his final look, they did so from the model they had already created. This is quite evident when you look at the eyebrows, which were unchanged. The Game Boy Advance version, on the other hand, was finished so early that it actually uses sprites based on the prototype model in the retail game (which is where the picture on the left comes from). |
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Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D Crash has his Crash of the Titans look, but his model is a lot less detailed and he lacks the tattoos. The car he drives is the same one from the cover of Crash Tag Team Racing. |
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Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2 This model is heavily based on the Twinsanity one, though a bit more polygonal due to hardware limitations. |
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