A type of Box which contains a ring of 5 Crystals. The debug name appears to be “Smash Box”
Version differences
On PS1 the radius of the Crystal ring is relatively large, and you must grab them one by one. On PC the Crystals are close together and can all be grabbed simultaneously.
limbus presents a theory for this change:
I think I understand now why the psx version had the crystals all spaced apart like that, if you collect them at the same time it plays the crystal sound at 5x volume similar to when you collect the crystal rings in hang glider valley. the PC version fixed this seemingly by having it only play a single crystal sound
Double stack
There are only two levels that have a double stack:
- Sailor Jigsaw
- Train
- (those are the only two, right?)
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It’s possible to break these stacks with a single jump and stomp (video), instead of first jumping on top of the stack then jumping again to stomp. If done correctly, it’s slightly faster. It’s easier to do if Croc’s facing direction is adjusted to be perpendicular to his movement direction, so there’s no risk of a ledge grab. Also, if you only hold the stomp through the first box, you can readjust and grab the ones from the higher box in midair if you were off-center (video)
To stomp or not to stomp
There are generally two ways to break the box
- don’t stomp through to the ground (video - Thermospore)
- stomp through to the ground (video - limbus)
Thermospore found stomping to be ~0.1 seconds slower when you have to turn after breaking the box. Timing was done like so at the Masher boss room entrance (honestly not ideal, because of the sharp turn into the boss room).
- not stomping - 3.70 sec (best of 10 tries)
- yes stomping - 3.82 sec (best of 15 tries; to offset the fact that I usually don’t stomp)
When going straight after breaking the box, the two ways were within a frame of each other (timed using the same method as above, but at the entrance to Soveena boss room)
One downside to stomping is that there is a small but very real chance you stomp through the map
One upside to stomping is that subjectively it is quite fun and satisfying
TLDR: don’t stomp