» » »Thanks:

I want to start this off by saying thanks to some people. Thank you to the Crash Bandicoot & Spyro Skype group. I probably would not have pushed myself has hard to get a good run on this without them. Also thanks to everyone who has been watching me on twitch. You all have helped motivate me to keep running this and as often as I did. Without you guys I could have easily ended up getting tired of this game like many have before me. Lastly thanks to the verifiers and everyone else in the process of getting this submission through as well as SDA for hosting all of this.

» » »History:

Finally I have gotten a run of this game that I am satisfied with. I'm going to put a "brief" history of how this all came about for those who are interested. Getting to this point has been a long time coming and took quite a bit of work to get here. I first started working on this at the beginning of the year. January 5th perhaps was the first time I actually beat cortex in my life. When I was younger I played this game all the time with my sister and father but the furthest we ever made it was to The High Road. The reasoning behind choosing this game was because it was a game I've enjoyed a lot. Also I liked the challenge this game presented.

So after beating the game for the first time I preceded to 100% the game for the first time. This effort was spread out over about 2 weeks where I would play for maybe 2 hours every couple days or so. Finally after 100's of deaths, over 100 on Fumbling in the Dark alone, I managed to get all 26 gems. Soon after I proceeded to do my first 100% run. (Oddly enough I didn't beat this game Any% in one sitting for a few months until we did a race on SRL.) My first 100% run was absolutely terrible but my second run came in at a time under 2:40, which wasn't too bad considering the previous guy on SDA forums got tired of running this game when he got under the 2:30 mark. After that I set my goal time to be 1:30 and began grinding out runs. The previous time to beat was 1:46 by Samura1man, but that was only his second, and last, 100% run of this game. The hardest thing about running this game is that if you die after a check point, it doesn't save your box count so you have to leave the level and try again. So improving my time was really just a matter of grinding out runs until I mastered all the levels.

I think it was around April that I finally got a time better than 1:46 but still there were many deaths in that run. A few weeks after that, I had gotten my time down to around 1:37. At this point in conversation with Surreal he suggested that I start using a PS2 because of Fast Disk Speed. It's a feature that cuts the loading times in half on CD based games (PS1 and early PS2 games). This alone saved around 6 minutes of time and at the same time made my original goal of 1:30 a poor estimate of what kind of time would be possible. For a while I was getting a new PB. When I finally cut the 1:25 (the next arbitrary time that I set as a goal) the PB's grinded to a halt. I watched my run and although there was some room for improvement on errors alone, I felt that in order to improve it much further, it would be worthwhile to start implementing the Great Gate Exit Portal Skip. I spent all of July and August grinding runs where almost all of them would end on The Great Gate. At that point I knew it was a matter of time before I would get the skip and then have a solid run to follow. Then on August 28th this finally happened!

» » » General Info

There are several things that should be noted about game mechanics and level starts for people who are not as familiar with running this game.

-Death Abuse-

In 7 of the levels I die intentionally after check points because this allows me to skip the scene at the end that tells me how many boxes I missed. This is because these levels require colored gems that are accessible only after beating them in order to get into gem paths to break all the boxes. This number really should be at 9 but because of taking advantage of skips in Jungle Rollers and The Great Gate I am able to eliminate the need to revisit those.

-Zig-Zagging-

This is the name for the movement technique that I use heavily in this run to go faster. If you press left and right quickly while jumping it makes Crash go quicker. I use this in tandem with Spin-Jumping to move quickly. Because Zig-Zagging can be improved your speed down to frame perfect inputs, it has the potential to make you move really fast. This is particularly notable on the boulder levels because the boulders are notorious at catching up to players while running at normal speed on the NTSC. I am able to out run the boulders even with making mistakes at times.

-Version Differences-

This game has many big version differences that change the experience depending on where you are from. The PAL and NTSC versions' primary differences are in Crash's movement speed while the Japanese version has several significant level differences (specifically a large portion of ‘The High Road' is just plain missing) and the box counting scene is considerably shorter.

-Going From 35% To 100%-

While watching this you might get confused about why my completion percentage goes up so slow or why I'm not doing all the bonus rounds. This game saves gem completion separately from level completion. As such when you get the gem at the end of the level, it does not give you any completion for beating the level. That means when I am at 35% I have 2/32 levels complete 25 gems and 2 keys. (The 2 levels complete come from the keys; unlocking those counts as completing the levels.) The thing is, when I get the 26th gem, it then inherits the fact that you've completed every level and jumps up to 100%. Typically you are supposed to complete the Tawna and Brio bonus rounds in order to save level completion, but this eliminates the need to complete any of their bonus rounds.

» » »Level Specific Comments:

N. Sanity Beach: This level went ok. I lost some time coming in at the wrong angle on the 8 boxes stacked horizontally but overall ok. After at least 800 practice runs I still seem to screw this level up.

Jungle Rollers: This level went just fine. It contains the first and easier of the two sequence breaks that I use in my run. You are supposed to acquire the green gem before getting the three life boxes off screen in the hallway but that requires back tracking, which is time consuming. I did the faster method using the mask, but once I got off screen I played it safe. This is my typical approach to this skip. Earlier on when I just did this skip I would reset a lot on this trick. This seems to be the most consistent way I've found to doing it. If I get lucky it still can go faster or slower, this was average.

The Great Gate: Got the exit portal skip. This requires you to jump on the 1 pixel wide spot on both sides of the exit portal in order to continue and get the remaining 8 boxes. This is where most of my runs have ended over the past 2-3 months. I got it 5th try on that day, which is pretty good. I have about a 10% success rate on it.

Boulders: This level went fine.

Upstream: This level went well.

Papu Papu: This fight went fine.

Rolling Stones: This level went fine. I missed sniping the first mask with the pirahna plant but that only matters if I get hurt.

Hog Wild: Squeal. Squeal. Squeal. Squeal. Squeal.

Native Fortress: This level went fine. Invisible wall didn't throw off my groove.

Up The Creek: Pretty standard Up The Creek right here. I wait after bouncing on the ! box opposed to bridging the gap because this isn't a TAS.

Ripper Roo: This fight went fine. If you are curious as to why I don't spin the first 2 TNT boxes, it is because you still have to wait on the TNT boxes to float into the proper position. This sequence makes him end on the bottom center square so it eliminates him jumping to that location after dying.

The Lost City: During one of my previous runs I accidently discovered that mask above the course. It ends up saving 5-10 seconds overall. Other than missing the jump on the vertical platforms this level went just fine.

Temple Ruins: I hesitated on the early cycle towards then end of the invincibility. Other than that this level went fine. I tend to take the circular rotating platforms cautiously.

Road To Nowhere: This level went really well. I hate waiting on that turtle but I hate resetting more.

Boulder Dash: Even though I ran into 3 fence sign things, this level went really well.

Sunset Vista: This level is too darn long. This was the first fairly time consuming mistake of the run, and it was less of a mistake than terrible RNG. The last climb's platforms were spaced more poorly than I have ever seen while playing this game. Falling ended up costing around 23 seconds. Also the awkward push platform timing probably made me have to wait an entire cycle on the next set of platforms.

Koala Kong: This fight went well.

Heavy Machinery: This level was pretty sloppy. I got hurt which means I didn't have invinvibility before arriving at the tall box stack. That only lost around 6 seconds though.

Cortex Power: This went fine. Cortex Power is always very cooperative the first time through.

Generator Room: Overall this was a little slow but the level went fine.

Toxic Waste: This level went well.

CEO Pinstripelli Potorotti: Yes that is his full title. They have it written on the self-rising doors throughout the factory. The fight went fine; I got hurt but it didn't really matter.

The High Road: So this is the death of the run, and a rather sorry one at that. Crash just ran off the ice despite me hitting X. This cost about 18 seconds so it isn't even the biggest mistake. It helped that it was before any check points or I would have had to exit the level.

Slippery Climb: This level is home of the hardest single jump in the run. There is one nook you have to jump into that to leave requires you to jump under a moving platform. Fortunately nothing bad happened this time. Despite being very difficult this is one of the most consistent levels as far as timing is concerned. The only awkward thing is the stairs after the first lab tec. I waited on the one staircase because most of the time it drops early and you never really know if it is going to stay up until it does.

Lights Out: Platforming in the dark; Yay! This level went fine.

Jaws of Darkness: Another level that is too darn long. A trait shared by both levels with the Cortex Bonus rounds. Fortunately this went a lot better than Sunset Vista. I got hurt accidently but that didn't matter. Also I went for the early rotation cycle but then didn't follow through after I had made the first jump. That would have been a few extra seconds saved.

Castle Machinery: This level went fine. I didn't hold down X after bouncing on one of the boost platforms but other than that this was really good. I even got the early double platform.

Dr. Nitrus Brio: This fight went pretty bad. The slimes all were trying to troll me.

The Lab: I don't really like this level with the touchy feely scientists and all. I got the spinning the TNT glitch off and first try which is good. This level went really well.

Lights Out (Revisited): So this is the first of the levels I have to beat again in order to 100% them now that I have the necessary colored gems. I hesitated on an orange platform cycle but when I break both boxes I usually miss it anyways. This went well.

Cortex Power (Revisited): This level. The camera angles are so absolutely terrible for some of the challenges in it. I have had too many runs end here. The box bridge at the end has given me the most trouble out of any intended platforming sequence in the game. Missing boxes on it sucks. Fortunately this time I got through without dying.

Upstream (Revisited): This went fine. I really wanted to go for the early cycle in the gem path at the end but it is so easy to screw up and this run was going really well.

Rolling Stones (Revisited): This level went well, but I screwed up another box snipe on this level. That never gives me trouble.

Native Fortress (Revisited): This level went really well.

Road To Nowhere (Revisited): Overall this level went fine. I missed spinning the TNT box 4 times and then when I got it I got hurt still. I have previously had it not count one of the boxes as broken if the TNT in the gem area broke it so I was intentional about spinning it. Over all this lost about 15 seconds.

Whole Hog: This is the first secret level that you unlock from the Cortex Bonus round keys. This level is full of retarded deaths as well glitches where two of its boxes don't break when you charge through them. Fortunately none of this happened and the level went well.

Boulder Dash (Revisited): This went a lot better this time.

Fumbling In The Dark: Finally the last level with a gem. This level is another one of the most challenging levels in the game, but it is also one of the most consistent levels in the game. This level went great.

The Great Hall: Finally this run is just a few pleasant jumps away from being over. I always wait on the gem to come back because it just looks bad to die on The Great Hall.