#Preliminaries

• To fully complete the game, you will need all 25 crystals and 25 gems. All of the 25 main levels feature a crystal, some feature a gem. The remaining gems are to be obtained in the Bonus minigames (platforms with a yellow ? on them). Thus whenever this guide speaks about doing a level it is always implied to obtain the crystal as well as the gem, assuming the level in question features a gem.

• Because the shops in Crash Fusion are way more packed than in the Spyro game, it's advisable to use the spreadsheet (click here) to keep track of what cards you already got. Note that you can ignore all Spyro cards in this sheet because your co-op partner will get those. Depending on what RNG your partner gets there might be one exception to this, but this is written up in more detail below.

• At the start the game gives you 8 cards, 4 of them being the first 4 red crash cards. The other 4 are random from the blue and green crash cards; they can't be fully random but that doesn't really matter. It's advisable to check what those cards are at the start of the run and enter them in the spreadsheet.

• For the world routes, unless specified further one gets from point A to B on the direct path (e.g., by just going right). The term "menu warp" simply refers to quitting the game to the main menu and going back in--this will spawn you in at your last overworld checkpoint.

• This run--or rather this game--contains something called the "stack property" which applies to all Spinning Wheel shops and all overworld cards. This is best explained by an example: in the Arctic Spinning Wheel shop there are 4 green Crash cards to obtain, numbered internally by 1, 2, 3 and 4. If you win a green Crash card then the game will give you the card with the lowest number which you are still missing (e.g., if you have green cards 1 and 3 and you win another one, the game will award you card 2). The precise mechanic is not as important as the key message which is: if you get a card from a stack, you will never get a duplicate unless that stack is already completed. Note that some stacks are non-obvious, e.g., a set of 5 yellow cards might be subdivided into two stacks, one of 4 and one of 1 card.

#The Run I - Crash Fusion

After selecting "New Game", hold L+R in the main menu to enter cheats:

• CR4SH (100 Wumpa)
• G3CK0 (200 Wumpa)
• C0FF33 (500 Wumpa)

The following two cards can be (and, because they are not that rare, usually are) obtained in a normal run so it's not necessary to enter those cheats.

• WH1STL3 ("Mayan Jungle" card)

• PH0N3T4G ("Sewers" card)

• Then select Trading > View Cards. Enter the 4 blue or green Crash cards into the spreadsheet.

• Finally, you may start the story mode.

##World 1 (first half)

• Up the first arrow crate and to the left you find Bonus: Freefallin'

• Level: Grin and bear it

• Top right to get to Bonus: Crate Smash

##World 1 (second half)

• Up the elevator, to the top left there is Level: Sheep Stampede

• After completing the level, hold right to get the Wumpa Jungle world card

• Go top right to do the first Crunch weightlift

• At the next arrow crate, go top left to get to Level: Tanks for the Memories

• Level: Chopper Stopper

• To the right of Chopper Stopper, fall into the hidden cave as seen here: This gives you one of the green Crash cards obtainable in the Arctic Cliffs Spinning Wheel. Right after the textbox for the card vanishes, menu warp back up.

• Take the upper path to get to the shop and buy all cards. At most there are 10 of them, but you might have gotten 1 or 2 already from the start (cf. point 2 in the preliminaries)

• On the top floor you will find Level: Crashin' down the river

• Boss Fight: Spyro

##World 2 (first half)

• Go top left to get to Level: Crash and Burn

• Shop: Arctic - Spinning Wheel. Get all the Crash cards here. The relevant stacks here are: the 4 green crash cards, 4 yellow Crash cards (Running Crash, Polar Bear Crash, Wumpa Cannon Crash, Inner Tube Crash) and 1 yellow Crash card (Scuba Crash).

• Bonus: Crate Step

• Go to the right, unlock Polar Express but don't enter it! (this skips the 1 second delay between unlocking a level and being able to enter it, because you have to pass this point twice either way). Falling down after the three metal boxes lands you at

• Bonus: Crate Smash

• Going back, directly before the swinging axe you find the arctic world card. Go back up after the seal and enter

• Level: Polar Express. Then enter the second half of the arctic world.

##World 2 (second half)

• Fall down to the left as seen here and collect the secret card: You will get an orange Crash card from the Fire Mountains Spinning Wheel. Menu warp back up and take the upper path to get to

• Level: Sheep Patrol. To the right is

• Shop: Arctic - Crate Shuffle. Get all five crash cards as well as the spyro card "Firefly". This enables the spyro player to (possibly) cut short the expensive vase shuffle shop in tech park and thus reduce the possible RNG there. It also brings the card trade ratio to 105:95 and thus optimizes the final trading time.

• After completing the shop, fall down to the left (just hold left) and get to

• Level: Blizzard Ball. Afterwards, go right until you get to the arctic riptoc. Jump on him and get back to the upper layer of this overworld. Progressing forwards you find

• Level: Frigid Waters. This concludes all the regular levels in World 2. However, we aren't quite done here yet. Following the upper path you get to

• Crunch - Arctic Weightlift. Note: If "Sapphire Relic" was one of your starting cards (which can happen) you can skip this level. Similarly, this is to keep in mind for the weightlifts in World 3 & 4.

• Fall all the way down and enter the hidden gap on the left as seen here: At the back of the cave you will get a blue Crash card (Stack of coloured gems) from the Tech Park Spinning Wheel. Menu warp back up. To the very right on the top level is

• Shop: Arctic - Mystery Crate. Here you just mash 'A' until you have the two green and three yellow crash cards. As a side note, there are also three blue crash cards to get here which otherwise are obtainable in the crate shuffle shop in world 4. It is advisable to get them here because (i) on average you stack up on wumpas in this shop and (ii) said shop in world 4 is really RNG heavy and can take a long time to complete (there you have to get six different blue crash cards without any stack property).

• Boss: Tiny

##World 3 (first half)

• Go top left and follow the path all the way to

• Level: Tankin' over the World

• Level: In Hot Water

• Bonus: Crate Step. Going bottom right you will get to

• Shop: Fire - Spinning Wheel. Get all the Crash cards here. The relevant stacks are the 3 blue Crash cards, the 4 orange Crash cards, one yellow card (Remote Copter Crash) and the other yellow card (Bat Attack Crash).

##World 3 (second half) Fall down left at the first pit to end up at

• Shop: Fire Mountains. Buy only the four green crash cards. Then follow the bottom right path until

• Level: Chop 'til you drop

• Level: Rocket Power

• Take the arrow crate to the left to get to the upper layer of the level. Following the path to the left you will get a green Crash card from the Tech Park Spinning Wheel followed by the Fire Mountains world card. Menu warp back and go from the level to the right until the jump crate. Up left is

• Level: Bat Attack

• Top right you find Crunch - Fire Mountains Weightlift. Drop down and jump into the vortex to fight:

• Boss: Nina

##World 4 (first half)

• Arriving in Dragon Castles, go left and take the upper path (after the goat) to get to

• Level: Sheep Shuttle

• Fall down and hold left to collect the Dragon Castles world card. Then go to the right again.

• Bonus: Freefallin'

• In front of the portal to Fire Mountains, there is an elevator which takes you up to Crunch - Dragon Castles Weightlift. Following the upper path lets you arrive at

• Level: Up, Up and Away

• Before the wooden bridge which leads you to the second half of this world, there are arrow crates getting you up to the shop. Buy all cards (at most 5, but maybe less depending on what your initial cards were--cf. Preliminaries). Fall down and go to the right.

##World 4 (second half)

• At the second stone-throwing riptoc go up and all the way to the left

• Bonus: Crate Smash. Fall back down and follow the path to get to

• Level: Castle Chaos

• Fall into the pit directly to the left and follow the path to get a red Crash card (Fake Crash). Menu warp back and follow the bottom right path to

• Shop: Dragon - Crate Shuffle Shop. Get all Crash cards. Keep in mind that--depending on your route--you might have 3 of the 6 blue Crash cards already from the Arctic Mystery shop.

• Leave the stone hallway and climb all the way up at the goat. To the right is

• Level: Bats in the Belfry

• Staying in the top lane, all the way to the right you will find

• Shop: Dragon - Mystery Shop. As always get all Crash cards. This shop is special because it suffices to get only two out of the three green crash cards. The missing one can be obtained after finishing the game as an overworld card in the Wumpa Jungle (cf. Section "Backtrack"). This is of great use because the Mystery Shop does not have the stack property whereas the overworld card does, thus--from my experience-- considerably reducing the amount of RNG one can encounter here.

• Fall down to the left and at the end of the stone corridor enter

• Level: Tanks 'R Us

• Boss: Ripto

##World 5

• Take the elevator and go to the left (lower path)

• Level: Crash at the Controls. Further left is

• Bonus: Freefallin'

• Even further left is a yellow Crash card from the Tech Park Spinning Wheel shop. Take the arrow crate up and enter

• Level: Bear with Me.

• Take the arrow crate up and go to the top left

• Bonus: Crate Step

• Stay on the top and go all the way to the right. On your way unlock (but don't enter yet) "Tech Deflect" and "Tank You Come Again". Right before the 25 crystal-gate fall down

• Level: Bat to the Future

• Go left and up at the elevator

• Shop: Tech Park - Spinning Wheel. Get all Crash cards. The stacks are: 6 blue Crash cards (Freeze Crate, Crash Crate, Steel Crate, ! Box, Slot Box, Outline Box), 5 blue Crash cards (Gem Red, Gem Purple, Gem Green, Gem Blue, Gem Yellow), the 4 green cards and then the 4 yellow cards.

• Follow the path to the left and play Crunch - Tech Park Weightlift. Go to the upper lane and play the levels you unlocked previously.

• Level: Tech Deflect

• Level: Tank You Come Again. At the top right you can now unlock

• Boss: Space Chase. As soon as the credits start soft reset the console (press Start + Select + A + B at the same time) and enter the story mode on your save.

• Fall down to the right of the boss fight and collect the red Crash card (Tech Park World card).

##Backtrack If there are any shops you couldn't complete due to lack of wumpas do them on your way back. Either way as mentioned before there is one more overworld stack card to take if necessary: Stack: Puffer Fish / Frog / Rat (Dragon Castles Mystery, Crash green)

This concludes the crash part of the run. Next up you have to get the first 3 world cards of Spyro Fusion. The route is based on this video.

#The Run II - (Part of) Spyro Fusion

Note that there is a new tech coming into play:

• "main menu warp": quit out to the save slot menu and going back in--this will spawn you at the beginning of the respective overworld.

In the following, all levels mentioned only have to be completed once. Also you can skip all shops.

##World 1 (first half)

• Level: Castle Cruisin'

• Level: Fall in, roll out

##World 1 (second half)

• Level: Rumble on the Ramparts. Drop down to the right and go to

• Level: Altitude Adjustment. Drop down to collect the purple gem. Top right of the map then is

• Level: Castle Chaos. Use the elevator and go the top left path to collect the 3 green gems. Then main menu warp and go to

• Boss Fight: Crash

##World 2 (first half)

• Go top left to get the blue gem. Here is a setup video on how to do the jump to get there

• Go back to the elevator and follow the lower path. There are two green gems below breakable ice panels--you get them by headbutting the panel, falling onto the gem and hold jump early enough to get out again (see here how to do this)

• At the stairs to the right you find a third green gem and two yellow gems. This gives you the world card

• Main menu warp to get back to World 1 (second half)

##Backtrack

• Go to the right until the Altitude Adjustment portal. Double-jump up the pillar and go to the left while collecting 3 green gems. To the top left is a blue gem and below it is another blue gem.

• Main menu warp and go top right. Collect the purple gem and go top left to get 3 green gems.

• Then follow the top right path. Collecting the final blue gem gives you the world card.

• Main menu warp to get back to World 1 (first half)

• Go left and up the pillar (above the shop). One yellow gem is there, another yellow gem is on the pillar to the left.

• Then go the top right path and collect the three yellow gems there.

• Main menu warp to get back to the start of the overworld

• Get the two green gems above the first stone-throwing riptoc

• Next to Bianca do a double flame extended jump to get to the purple gem platform (setup video)

• Get the lower gems to the right (green & purple)

• Go up the elevator, to the left and to the right is a blue gem, repsectively. These should give you the third and last world card you have to collect. Be careful up there because getting hit by either of the upper Riptocs will kick you back and make you fall down.

#The Run III - Linking and Trading

A general tip for trading: hold Start when you confirm your selection of cards to complete the trade faster (because the game allows the input to be buffered). Also you can trade up to 5 (but at least one) card per trade session.

• First link your main Crash to an empty Crash cart and your Spyro (the one you used until a minute ago) to an empty Spyro cart.

• Then you link your main Crash to your main Spyro cartrige. On the Crash side you select any of the blue Spyro cards (except Firefly so, e.g., Red Gem) and on the Spyro side you trade for it: Castle Talisman (Green #1) Arctic Talisman (Green #2) ! Sheep (Orange #6) Spit (Orange #12)

• Now on your main Crash save you should have all 100 Crash cards and from the Spyro cards at least: Firefly (Blue #21), Castle Talisman, Arctic Talisman (both green), ! Sheep, Spit (both orange)

• The final step is to trade these 105 cards (=21 trades) onto the cartridge of the Spyro player.