With the recent success of both the N. Sane
Trilogy and Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, the Crash Bandicoot series has seen its biggest
popularity spike since its heyday on the PS1. Whether it be 3D platformers, kart-racers, or even
party games, Crash always seems to find himself wrapped up in a new adventure thanks to Dr. Neo
Cortex’s evil schemes. But in this crazy world of mad scientists and time-traveling animals, we
ask: who are the protectors of the Wumpa Islands, who are the evil geniuses, and who’s a
few boxes short of a clear gem? Today, we’ll be ranking the major characters from
the mainline titles, plus some racing games. I’m Brad with 1upBinge and this
is Crash Bandicoot: Good to Evil. As usual, we’ll be starting with the most pure. Beginning with the character who is
the Most Good and working our way down! The Gold Medal of Good goes to Aku-Aku,
the spirit of an ancient witch doctor encased in a floating mask. The guardian of the
Islands and the ultimate force against evil, Aku-Aku spends all of the games acting as a father
figure to Crash and Coco and aiding their fight against Cortex. He’s always the quickest to react
when villains plan to wreak havoc on the earth, especially his evil twin brother, Uka-Uka. He’s
also gone through the trouble of scattering tons of boxes that hold a part of his spirit across the
planet to grant Crash invulnerability once broken; now that’s dedication. Kind, generous, and
protective of all things good, it’s hard to find any flaws with Aku-Aku, except that maybe he
goes too easy on evildoers such as his brother. Coming in at second is Crash’s little sister,
Coco. Clearly the more intelligent of the siblings, she often has to guide Crash
in his adventures to make sure he stays focused. In the third game, Crash Bandicoot:
Warped, she joins in the fight directly, tackling a few vehicle stages and even taking
down N. Gin on the moon. She’s an excellent hacker and has a gadget for every problem
she and her brother face. She may be seen as a bit of a bossy character since the first
thing we see her do is order Crash around, but she genuinely cares about him and
will always help him out of trouble. Spinning into third place is the series’
protagonist, Crash. Dr. Cortex had originally planned for Crash to be the general of
his genetically-engineered animal army, but he ended up creating his own worst enemy
after he tried to use the Cortex-Vortex before it was ready. Ever since, Crash has
been hopping from island to island bouncing off the heads of evildoers and
foiling the Doctor’s plans of world domination. That’s enough to land him high up in the good
category; however, he’s not without his flaws. For one thing, he can’t even tell the
difference between his own sister and Cortex impersonating her in Twinsanity, proving
that he’s not quite as smart as the average hero. Also, in the second game, Cortex Strikes
Back, he’s pretty quick to work with Cortex to collect the crystals after the Doctor claims
to need them to save the world from a force that threatens to destroy Earth. Cortex is lying,
of course, but Crash isn’t very intelligent, and he could easily have trusted Cortex if
not for warnings from Coco and Dr. N. Brio. All that being said, he always ends up saving the
day from mad scientists, evil floating masks, and even kart-racing alien kings, so he safely lands
a spot in the top three of the good characters. Just below Crash and Coco are their Pets
- Polar, Pura, and Baby T. These cute baby animals assist the bandicoots in a few
levels of the second and third games, usually providing a speedy ride through a level
with lots of large pits to hurdle or maybe a giant monster to run away from. Polar and Pura do end up
competing against our heroes in Crash: Nitro-Kart, but since they were under hypnotic mind control,
we won’t count that against them. Overall, these little creatures have been a great help to
the heroes since the beginning of the franchise, though one does have to wonder if
they’ll be the same way once they mature. Up next is the brawniest bandicoot, Crunch. Crunch
is yet another one of Cortex’s creations whose sole purpose was to wipe out Crash Bandicoot,
and he tried no less than five times to defeat the orange tornado. Not off to a great start, but
in fairness, his mind was under the control of Cortex for almost his entire first appearance.
By the end of Wrath of Cortex, Crunch is free to choose his own path, and thankfully he chooses
the righteous one. Though he doesn’t play a major role in most of the games past his debut, he is
playable in Crash: Nitro-Kart, which involves racing to save Planet Earth, so he can add at
least one world-saving adventure to his tally. Next, we have a character you probably had a crush
on if you grew up playing Crash: Tag Team Racing, Pasadena O’Possum. She’s a world-renowned racing
champion and the personal racer of Ebenezer Von Clutch, the developer of all of the racetracks
in CTTR. She immediately shuts down Cortex’s ambitions of turning Von Clutch’s park into a new
evil base and works diligently with the others to find out who’s stolen the power crystals.
She genuinely cares for Von Clutch as she is distraught when seeing him die without his
black power crystal to keep him going. However, some of her dialogue hints at her being a
pretty sore loser whenever she loses a race. Rounding off the good side is Crash’s girlfriend
from the first game, Tawna. Tawna is most notable for being captured over and over like a
typical damsel in distress. In the first game, she isn’t much more than a goal for Crash to
reach, but she does sucker punch one of the lab assistants in the opening cutscene of the N.
Sane Trilogy. Strangely, we don’t see her again past the very first game, so maybe she decided
to leave Crash for someone who can actually talk. Now that we’ve counted off the good, we’re moving on to the more questionable
characters. This is the Grey Area, Kicking off the gray area, we have Fake Crash.
Based off of a hilariously inaccurate Japanese plush of Crash Bandicoot, Fake Crash occasionally
appears as an easter egg in several games. He can be seen dancing in various locations once the
player has one-hundred percented a save file in the original Warped or the N. Sane Trilogy. Fake
Crash also became a playable character in later titles like Crash Team Racing and Crash Bash.
Oddly enough, his mask guide switches from Uka-Uka in CTR to Aku-Aku in CNK, hinting that he’s been
on both the good and evil sides. He’s about as articulate as the real Crash, so we probably
won’t hear anything about his loyalties from him. Not far from Pasadena is her good friend
Ebenezer Von Clutch. This German cyborg’s life work is MotorWorld, an amusement park home
to the most dangerous racing tracks in the world. After Team Bandicoot and Team Cortex
end up crashing inside his park’s gate, he recruits the heroes to help him find
the stolen power crystals in his park. He has a love for both speed and violence,
and he allows people to shoot each other with live cannons while racing on his track. He’s
also implied to be greedy as the park workers often mention how much of a cheapskate he is.
Still, it’s not like he forces anyone to race, unlike some of the other characters from the
racing titles that we’ll see down the list. Up next is the gluttonous chief, Papu Papu. He
is the tribal leader of N. Sanity Island and the very first boss fight in the whole series. Though
he serves as an antagonist to Crash in almost all of his appearances, you can’t really blame him
for having some animosity towards the bandicoot. After all, how would you feel if a giant orange
marsupial fell from the sky onto your island, started breaking all of your
boxes, stole your fruit, and then woke you up from your nap? You
probably wouldn’t be too happy either. Right after the first boss
is the second in the series, Ripper Roo. Another one of Cortex’s mutated
animals, Ripper Roo is quite possibly the most insane character in the entire franchise. Each
time we see him, he appears in a straight jacket, and his primary methods of attack are
explosives. After his first defeat, he apparently seeks higher education offscreen and
makes great progress with his mental instability; that is, until he runs into Crash a second
time and reverts back to his original crazy self. It’s safe to assume that, even though
he works for the bad guys, he probably isn’t in control of his actions most of the time,
so he earns a spot in the gray area for now. Just escaping the bad territory is Dr. Nitrus
Brio, Cortex’s original lab assistant. He is shown to be the more sensible of the two scientists, if
not the more sane one, and warns Cortex about the possible dangers of using the Cortex Vortex
before it’s ready. Brio is the one who built the Evolvo-Ray, meaning that he’s responsible for
all of the mutated creatures in the Wumpa Islands, including all of the animal bosses. But since
that means he’s also indirectly responsible for Crash and Coco, we can’t count his invention as
a total black mark on his record. What mainly lands him out of the evil group is his choice to
directly oppose Cortex in Cortex Strikes Back, telling Crash to collect gems instead of crystals.
Brio also tries to stop Crash from collecting crystals entirely by sending several bosses to
attack Crash as long as he works with Cortex. By the end, though, if the player has
collected all of the gems in the game, Brio helps Crash destroy Cortex’s space station
with a giant laser. Granted, that does end up releasing Uka-Uka in the next game, but it’s
unlikely Brio knew that would happen. Ultimately, he’s done more harm than good, but he’s also done
more good than any other villain in the series, so he teeters on the edge of neutral and bad. With that, we move out of the gray
area and on to the bad and the evil. Our first baddie is Koala Kong, a bodybuilding
mutated Koala that clearly skips leg day. His first appearance is in Crash Bandicoot as
a boss fight. During said fight, he lobs giant boulders at Crash, but leaves himself open
to attack so that he can flex his muscles. He’s certainly not humble, but other than
attacking Crash and having a vanity problem, he doesn’t do anything too
egregious in any of his appearances. Up next is the animal minion with the most
appearances in the series, Tiny Tiger. The ironically named Tiny is a genetically mutated
Tasmanian Tiger who was originally a servant of N. Brio sent to stop Crash from gathering
crystals, but he apparently switched to Cortex’s side between the second and third games. The
lore surrounding his creation is inconsistent, but he serves Cortex in every installment after
Cortex Strikes Back. He’s a relentless enemy who often leads to his own defeat because he’s
one of Cortex’s dumbest minions. Perhaps “Tiny” refers to the size of his brain. Interestingly,
Cortex laments Tiny’s defeat in Warped by saying, “Tiny was a good fellow. He hated everyone
and everything, but a good heart nonetheless.” Pinstripe Potoroo is next on our list. Donning
a formal suit, Pinstripe is a parody of the 1920’s mafia gangster stereotype. He speaks
with a thick Brooklyn accent and carries a Tommy Gun everywhere he goes. He’s Cortex’s
personal bodyguard and the CEO of Cortex Power. Pinstripe is probably the most reckless of all
the villains as after his defeat, he ends up accidentally shooting the generator, shutting down
power to almost every area of Cortex Castle. His gangster appearance and tendencies could mean that
he’s not very trustworthy, even for a villain. Surprisingly low on the list is an oft-forgotten
antagonist, Willie Wumpa Cheeks. He only appears in Crash Tag Team Racing, but he commits some
pretty awful acts in his only appearance. For starters, he’s pretty damn creepy, even
for an amusement park mascot. That wouldn’t necessarily be bad, but then he decides to steal
all of the Power Gems from around MotorWorld, forcing Crash and company to retrieve them. His
worst act of the entire game is stealing the Black Power Gem from Ebenezer Von Clutch, dooming the
engineer to die if he doesn’t get it back. His motivation for doing all of this? Well, we
never find out. He admits to the crime after all of the characters briefly believe Crash is
the culprit, but after that he never says why he stole the gems or what he plans to do with
them. Maybe Willie just really hated his job, but that’s no reason to kill the man
that he’s been working with for years. Next up is probably the most
intimidating of Cortex’s minions, Dingodile. Instead of the standard mutated animal,
he’s actually a fusion of a dingo and a crocodile, which makes him unique among the villains.
He’s first seen in Warped about to roast a penguin with his flamethrower, but is thankfully
stopped by Crash in the nick of time. Afterwards, he appears regularly to make trouble for
Crash and the gang. He’s one of the only animal minions that can actually string a sentence
together, meaning he’s one of the more intelligent villains. He shows disloyalty in Twinsanity,
attacking Cortex and Crash and planning to take all of the Evil Twins’ treasure for himself.
We also have to give props to Dingodile for striking fear into the hearts of young players
with the line he says after Crash defeats him: “Ya thrashed me, mate. No worries, but
you'll soon be up against much worse.” Our next entry is Dr. Cortex’s daughter --
er, I mean niece -- Nina Cortex. From what we know of her, Nina grew up a normal, sweet
girl, who had a particular love for animals. Her uncle saw this as a problem, so he gave her
bionic fists that would not allow her to touch animals without accidentally killing them and
sent her to Madame Amberly’s Academy of Evil to learn how to misbehave. Since then, she fights
by her uncle’s side (when she’s not trying to betray him) and has developed a particular hatred
for Coco in her appearances after Twinsanity. She shows no remorse for any of her actions,
but because her disposition is pretty much a product of her uncle’s meddling, she
misses out on the top ten most evil. At the tenth place spot is N. Trance, the
self-proclaimed “Master of Hypnotism.” This evil egg from the fifth dimension has a nasty habit of
kidnapping people and hypnotizing them to do his bidding. He’s put a spell on everyone from Crash’s
pets to Fake Crash to Dingodile, and it’s always for nefarious purposes. Taking away people’s free
will is a terrible thing, but since he never works of his own accord and is always a secondary
antagonist, he’s the lowest of the top ten. Next is Cortex’s most recurring colleague,
Dr. N. Gin. He lost his sanity in an incident involving missile development, which left
the missile permanently implanted in his head. Cortex recruited him to replace N.
Brio after the events of the first game, and he’s a constant nuisance to Crash throughout
the series. He’s loyal to Cortex to a fault, with the exception of the time he worked with
Brio and Tropy to steal the Twins’ treasure in Twinsanity. It’s safe to say that he spells out
trouble for the heroes every time he’s around. Racing into eighth place is the series’ first
alien character, Nitros Oxide. He’s the main antagonist of Crash Team Racing from the planet
Gasmoxia. Oxide travels the galaxy to challenge the best racers on each planet to a competition.
If the planet’s champion can beat him, he’ll pack up and leave, but if he wins, he’ll take over
the planet and enslave the population. Once he’s beaten, he vows to give up racing forever, but he
doesn’t stick to his word and is racing once again in Crash Nitro Kart. Short-tempered and a sore
loser, he bases his superiority on his prowess as a racer, but he also cheats in the final battle of
CTR. Maybe he’s not such a great racer after all. Next up are Twinsanity’s Evil Twins: Victor and
Moritz. These bird brothers are the products of Cortex’s very first failed experiment. Their
backstory is revealed in a cutscene that shows an eight-year-old Cortex testing a prototype
Evolvo-Ray on his two pet parrots. Instead of creating two avian minions, he accidentally
sends his pets to the Tenth Dimension. During their time there, the twins mutated
into super geniuses with a special hatred for the one who trapped them in their cage. Armed
with the power to turn inanimate objects into evil monsters, they return to Earth with a plan to
destroy Cortex and the planet. Aku-Aku perceives the Twins as such a threat that he recruits
the help of Uka-Uka to stand against them, but shockingly, the masks are easily defeated,
leaving Crash and Cortex to defend the planet. Though a threatening presence, they meet
a definitive ending: being eaten by an evil version of Crash. As malevolent as they
were, we likely won’t be seeing them again. The Elementals from Wrath of Cortex are next.
These four floating masks -- Rok-Ko (Rocko), Wa-Wa, Py-Ro, and Lo-Lo -- control the four
elements and use them to bring chaos to the land. Uka-Uka summons them to act as power sources
for Crunch in his attempt to destroy Crash once and for all. He mentions that they have
been responsible for many natural disasters as well as the Ice Age thousands of years ago.
They caused so much damage to the world that they had to be sealed away to prevent further
destruction. Their origins are unknown, but their only purpose is to wreak havoc. If nothing else,
they should definitely stay sealed away forever. Starting the top five is Dr. Nefarious
Tropy. His claim to fame is building the Time Twister Machine, earning him
the title “Master of Time” and making him arguably the most successful inventor
of all the N. Scientists. On the surface, he may appear to be just another standard
evil genius, but what sets him apart from the others are the dangerous possibilities of his
time-warping technology. The manual of The Wrath of Cortex mentions that he likes to purposely
disrupt the flow of time and create paradoxes for his own amusement. It is quite possibly the
most destructive form of random chaos when you think about the implications of the technology.
He also seems to be much more capable than Cortex, and he could possibly succeed where Cortex has
failed if Uka-Uka promoted Tropy to top commander. At number four is the main antagonist of Crash
Nitro Kart and the most sinister of the alien characters, Emperor Velo XXVII (the 27th). Much
like Nitros Oxide, he forces the best racers in the galaxy to compete for his amusement. Unlike
Oxide, he actually abducts people from their home planets to compete in his coliseum. Not only
does he force Team Bandicoot and Team Cortex to win a series of races to even earn the right
to return home, but he also threatens to destroy Earth if they refuse to race. The worst part? He
mentions that he’s done this to millions of people across the galaxy right before he challenges the
racers himself. Once he’s beaten the first time, he allows the champions to leave, but says that
he still must destroy Earth since they refuse to keep racing for the empire’s entertainment. By
collecting all of the time relics, the racers can challenge Velo a second time for the fate
of Planet Earth. After he’s been beaten again, he literally explodes in a fit of rage, revealing
the actual Velo to be just a little goblin too small to even lift his sceptre. Given
the amount of people he’s kidnapped for the sole purpose of making them race, he earns a
place at the very end of the evil spectrum. On to the top three most evil, we have the series’
main antagonist Dr. Neo Cortex. This mad doctor has been evil since he left the cradle. He was
born into a family of circus clowns of all things, and he seeks to take over the world as an act
of vengeance for being ignored and ridiculed by his peers for his entire life. He’s got one
of the most inflated egos in the whole series, and he often takes credit for other people’s work.
He’s kidnapped countless innocent animals from their homes to create his evil army and will stop
at nothing to destroy Crash, even after spending a whole game working by his side. One may think
that Twinsanity would take his evil score down by just a bit, but he only works with Crash in
that game because the villains are trying to kill Cortex personally and still tries to kill
Crash by the end. Despite his unending failures, Cortex always returns with a new scheme to take
over the world, enslaving and experimenting on tons of creatures along the way. For his sheer
relentlessness, he earns the bronze medal of evil. In second place is a character who only makes one
appearance, but could be considered the most evil human character in the entire series: Madame
Amberly. This oversized headmistress runs her very own Academy of Evil where children are
sent to learn how to become villains. Cortex encounters her while trespassing in her school,
and he’s visibly terrified by her presence even as an adult. She taught her malevolent ways to
recurring villains Cortex, Brio, N. Gin, and Nina, all of whom cause enough trouble for the world,
but after factoring in that she’s responsible for generations of villains by abusing them as
children, we have to give her an A+ in Wickedness. And finally, the gold medal of villainy goes
to the “Great and Mighty” Uka-Uka. He was first introduced in Crash Bandicoot: Warped as the true
mastermind behind Cortex’s operations in the Wumpa Islands. His sole act of generosity in the series
is not incinerating Cortex because his blunders accidentally released Uka from his temple prison.
Uka is enraged at the fact that his servant has failed him twice with the only excuse being one of
Cortex’s failed experiments coming back to shoot him out of the sky both times. Nearly every evil
plot can be traced back to him considering most of the villains in the series are subservient
to him. It's also shown that he has the power to possess people, as he overtakes Cortex several
times in Warped. This means he could potentially be enslaving all of his underlings rather than
simply recruiting them. His main aspiration is either the enslavement of all living things
or the destruction of the world, and the only time he teams up with the good guys is to prevent
someone else from doing what he calls “his job.” A perfect reflection of his brother, Uka-Uka
has absolutely no redeeming qualities when it comes to his morality, making him our pick
for most evil character in the Crash series. But how would you rank the Crash characters?
Comment down below to let us know. Subscribe and hit the notification bell
for more video game Good to Evil episodes, but most importantly: stay wicked!
An excellent list! I agree with the majority of placements here for the most part, although I do have to mention you forgot to add the Komodo Bros.
N. Tropy starting from Top 5, woohoo. But really though, Crash series needs to make him the main villain again because anyone who can pretty much do time bending can do some serious damage.
If I want to use Last Airbender parallels, if Cortex is like a mix of Zuko and Sokka; the one who gets chosen by Uka Uka (Ozai) initially to go hunt down Crash (Avatar) and destroy him so they can take over the world or whatever, then Tropy kinda starts giving off Azula feels. I mean he's more successful than Cortex, time manipulation or building a time machine definitely demands for brains and a certain level of skill and determination. However, like Azula, Tropy tends to be complacent and thus, reaches a breaking point much faster when things don't go his way. And still like Azula, if he was made first in command instead of Cortex was, Crash would have far far more trouble given the implications of time manipulation (Imagine being permanently stuck in a time of the Black Plague or a time of the Ice Age).
Also, y'all can't tell me Tropy wouldn't have a badass line like "There are only a select few with the divine right to rule" or "Does anyone else command the Time Twister Machine? If nobody else does, maybe you shouldn't fear those insignificant nobodies who may not strand you in the middle of plague-ridden Middle Ages and fear me more who could actually do so."