[FORMER WR] Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex 106% Speedrun in

Where did this come from...?


FAQ:

Q: Why are you skipping checkpoints?
A: In TWoC specifically, checkpoints are designed so that hitting a checkpoint farther ahead in a level results in all the previous ones breaking at the exact same time. Also, breaking any boxes that appear before a checkpoint that you already activated will stay broken upon respawning from a death, thus allowing for easy death-abuse strats with otherwise out-of-the-way boxes (see The Gauntlet, Eskimo Roll and Crash and Burn).

Q: Why do you keep angling Crash into a wall?
A: Much like Crash 2, TWoC has a movement tech called wall-boosting, which is done by angling your character (Crash, Coco and the Mech) about 45 degrees into any flat wall. However, unlike in Crash 2, where its use is mainly in a handful of levels, TWoC's wall-boosting can be done in any place where there's a flat wall. Doing a perfect wall-boost makes your character go nearly twice as fast as they would normally, matching slide speed. Wall-boosting typically helps with maximizing distance while in the air and generally keeping the speed up while airborne.

Q: How are these loading times so fast?
A: I'm playing the game via a homebrew program called Open PS2 Loader, which is a program that loads ISO files straight through the PS2. Essentially, it's an emulator that runs off the actual hardware.

Q: Why are you playing on the Japanese PlayStation 2 version?
A: TWoC was originally made to be a PS2 game, and as such was optimized to fit the PS2's hardware perfectly, which in turn made it the best performing port of the game, period. The Japanese PS2 port is the most optimal port of the game as it reduces lag in certain levels (Sea Shell Shenanigans and Coral Canyon), it makes skipping cutscenes easier by mapping the cancel button to △ (remapped from the Start button which tends to drop inputs), and it retains the Red Gem Path variant from black label PS2, Xbox and GameCube (Greatest Hits PS2 and Japanese Xbox have a harder variant which makes the path nearly impossible without damage-abusing). The second most optimal port outside of PS2 would be the Xbox version, although Atmospheric Pressure was purposefully slowed down to make the fight longer, which hinders it a little bit.