How to Play Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back on iPhone

Naughty Dog’s 1997 sequel brings Crash back to face Dr. Neo Cortex. This time Cortex asks for help: he says he needs the power crystals to save the world, and Crash collects them across snowfields, sewers, ruins and a space station. It’s also the first game with Crash’s sister Coco. If you own the game, Nagori lets you play it on iPhone and iPad.

What you need

• An iPhone or iPad with iOS 17.6 or later.
• Nagori from the App Store. Your first game is free.
• A disc image of your copy of Crash Bandicoot 2: .chd, .cue + .bin, .pbp, .iso or .img, or a .zip or .rar containing it. The game fits on a single disc.

No BIOS file is needed.

How to play Crash Bandicoot 2 on iPhone

1. Install Nagori from the App Store.
2. Copy your Crash Bandicoot 2 disc image to the Files app, in iCloud Drive or On My iPhone.
3. Open Nagori, tap + and select the file. For a .cue image, select the .cue together with all of its .bin files, or add the archive they came in.
4. Find Crash Bandicoot 2 on the PS1 shelf with its box art and press Play.

Controls

Crash 2 keeps the jump and the spin from the first game and adds new moves: Crash can crouch, crawl under low obstacles, slide while running and belly flop onto crates from the air. A slide followed straight away by a jump sends him higher and farther than a normal jump, which is how you reach some far-off platforms.

The Standard touch layout has the D-pad and the four face buttons, enough for every move. Because the slide jump needs two buttons in quick succession, open Edit Layout in the pause menu and drag the slide button right next to jump, so your thumb can roll from one to the other.

With a controller, every button sits where it did on the PlayStation pad, and the left stick works as the D-pad too. Press the left stick to open the pause menu.

The Warp Room, crystals and gems

The first game moved you along an island map. Crash 2 replaces it with Warp Rooms of five level portals each, played in any order. Every level holds a power crystal, and a room’s five crystals open its boss and then the next room.

Gems are what bring you back to a level:

• Clear gems come from breaking every crate in a level. Losing a life no longer costs you the gem, as it did in the first game.
• Colored gems are hidden in a few levels and open new paths in others.

Save states turn a missed crate into a short detour: save at each checkpoint crate, and if you run past a crate, Load and go back for it instead of replaying the level.

Saves

On the PlayStation, Crash 2 saves to the memory card from the Warp Room, between levels, so a long level has to be finished in one go. Nagori keeps that save on the game’s own memory card and adds:

• Quit any time. Leave the app mid-level and Continue puts you back exactly where you were.
• Save states. Pause and choose Save before a stretch that keeps beating you, like the polar bear chase in Un-Bearable or a jetpack level near the end. If it goes wrong, Load instead of losing a life. Nagori keeps your last four saves per game.

Best settings

• Quality: High, the default, renders the game’s 3D at twice the original resolution.
• Precise Geometry, in Advanced Settings, steadies the slight wobble of PS1 polygons, most visible on the long snow and ice paths.
• Screen Effects → CRT Screen adds scanlines if you want the game to look like it did on a 1990s TV.