Crash Bandicoot 1996

In an effort to create a bunch of anthropomorphic, hyper-intelligent animals to serve as an army to lead them to world domination, Dr. Neo Cortex and Dr. Nitrus Brio create the Evolv-O-Ray, a device that can mutate any animal into a super-strong, hyper-intelligent warrior, and the Cortex Vortex, a brain manipulation device that can make anyone and anything a blind follower of Cortex's orders. One of their first experiments with the Evolv-O-Ray is Crash, a bandicoot snatched from the local island wilderness and chosen to serve as the leader of Cortex's army. However, the Cortex Vortex fails on Crash, and he is discarded as a failed specimen while Cortex and Brio prepare to experiment on Crash's love interest, Tawna. The next day, Crash washes up on the shores of N. Sanity Beach and vows to defeat Cortex and rescue Tawna from his fortress, with the help of a native mask spirit named Aku Aku who wants Crash to take down Cortex so he'll stop polluting the islands.

This game contains examples of:

 * One Up: *cha-ching!*
 * Back Tracking: Some levels require backtracking if the player wants to break all boxes, and some levels can't be cleared of boxes at all without earning gems from later levels first.
 * Blackout Basement: "Lights Out" and "Fumbling in the Dark".
 * Bonus Stage: There are three kinds of bonus stages; The Tawna stages that are mostly easy, Brio stages that are much harder and Cortex that are even harder. Tawna stages also let you save your game after completion.
 * Boss Arena Idiocy: Sure thing Ripper, just jump in that exact same pattern so we can blow up the TNT right next to you.
 * Bottomless Pits
 * Check Point
 * Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Tawna pretty much disappeared from the series after this game.
 * Crate Expectations
 * Dummied Out: "Stormy Ascent", the harder version of Slippery Climb, was taken out at the last minute for being too difficult. It still exists in a mostly complete form (everything but the bonus level) and can be played with a Gameshark code.
 * Dynamic Difficulty: After few deaths you'll get a free Aku Aku mask to help you.
 * Eternal Engine: "Heavy Machinery" and "Castle Machinery".
 * Evil Laugh: The gangster enemies in "Cortex Power" and "Toxic Waste" let out one when they attack you.
 * Follow the Money
 * Four Eyes, Zero Soul: The lab assistants.
 * Full Boar Action: Boars appears as unkillable enemies in the bridge levels. You also get to ride one in "Hog Wild" and "Whole Hog".
 * Giant Enemy Crab: Very first enemy that you come across in (and only in) "N. Sanity Beach".
 * Green Hill Zone / Palmtree Panic: "N. Sanity Beach".
 * Guns Akimbo: The gangster enemies in "Cortex Power" are armed with two machineguns.
 * Idle Animation: Leave the controller alone and Crash starts throwing wumpa fruits in the air...which then land on his head.
 * Jiggle Physics: The only reason Naughty Dog's character designers thought it was a good idea to include Papu Papu as a boss was because the animators loved to animate jiggling fat.
 * Jungle Japes: "Jungle Rollers" and "Rolling Stones".
 * Laughing Mad: Ripper Roo.
 * Mad Scientist Laboratory: "The Lab".
 * Man-Eating Plant: Encountered in the early jungle stages.
 * No Death Run: Frustratingly, the only way to earn a gem is to break all the crates and not lose a single life.
 * You can get the gem after dying in a level - as long as you don't respawn from a checkpoint. Still really irritating though.
 * Non Lethal Bottomless Pits: There are some seemingly bottomless pits that actually contain hidden crates, available after the proper colored gem is acquired. Frustratingly, you die if you fall into the pit without physically touching the gem platform, even after you have the gem.
 * Non-Mammal Mammaries: Tawna, obviously.
 * No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: the Crash Bandicoot series plays pretty much like a polygonal Super Mario Bros. game, and the linearity of the levels is the obvious result, regardless of the game having 3D graphics.
 * One-Winged Angel: After taking enough damage, N. Brio will drink his own concoctions and turns into giant green monstrosity.
 * Password Save
 * Powerup Mount: The boar levels.
 * Puzzle Boss: Ripper Roo.
 * Rodents of Unusual Size: Encountered in the Blackout Basement levels.
 * Save Game Limits: You can only save your game by completing bonus stages and collecting gems.
 * Shout-Out: several.
 * Generator Room: Cortex's dead-eyed face is shown through screen, to remind everyone that "Big Brother Is Watching". No points for guessing the reference.
 * Pinstripe Potoroo (Boss Stage): a Boss Battle in a wrecked office, with Pinstripe laughing like crazy while shooting everywhere with his machine gun.
 * Rolling Stones: the level's title, duh.
 * Boulders: while Indy Escape is used in later games too, this is the only time where the reference to Indiana Jones is this clear.
 * Boulder Dash: aside from the aforementioned Indy Escape thing, the level's name isn't just a pun on "balderdash" by itself; the fact you're running away from a boulder makes it a reference to the actual Boulder Dash game, too.
 * Nitrus Brio (Boss Stage): Brio isn't just a case of Jekyll and Hyde; the "monster" persona is also green, reckless and with his crotch being the only clothed body part.
 * Soft Water: Crash survives the fall from Cortex's castle into the water in the opening cinematic.
 * Spin Attack
 * Stock Scream: The Howie scream of the Lab assistant enemies.
 * Super Drowning Skills: Crash vanishes as soon as he falls into water in "Upstream" and "Up The Creek".
 * Surveillance Drone: Enemies in the third island.
 * Tactical Suicide Boss: Cortex. Why does he keep firing those Plasma Blasts at Crash when he knows that he will just spin them back at him?
 * Take It to the Bridge: "Road to Nowhere" and "The High Road". Watch out for the Spikes of Doom below.
 * Temple of Doom: "Temple Ruins" and "Jaws of Darkness".
 * Tennis Boss: The fights against Koala Kong and Dr. Cortex.
 * Turtle Power: Turtles are regular enemies. Their shells also make excellent springboards.
 * Video Game Lives
 * What Could Have Been: The prototype version of the game contains several (very buggy) removed levels, but also some other changes. Most notably, Ripper Roo was originally located at the end of the first island, along with Up The Creek. (This would explain his rather awkward placing in the final game, just 2 levels into the second island.) The fight is also somewhat harder, and his laugh is slightly lower-pitched. There were also "POW!" crates, which don't kill you (oddly enough), but make a pretty explosion when broken. A precursor to Nitro Crates, perhaps?
 * Where Are They Now? Epilogue: Available after 100% completion.
 * World Map: The only Crash game to feature one. Subsequent games use Hub Levels instead.