Hidden Atlashphere fruit mechanics for boosting/braking

Some may not be aware that in the Atlasphere (hamster ball) stages, you can both brake, and boost. Braking is done by holding A, and boosting is done by holding B. The game does inform the player of this in the hint box in Globe Trottin', though some versions actually removed this hint! The game's manual mentions this as well.

But what *most* people won't know is that **wumpa fruit** actually affects these mechanics. This strange mechanic is not mentioned anywhere in the game, the game's manual, nor Prima's Official Strategy Guide.

The most notable thing that wumpa fruit affects is the boosting. Holding/tapping B while moving will consume one fruit almost once a second. Having fruit does not increase your top speed, but you can reach top speed much sooner with fruit. So, in a sense, fruit improves acceleration.

Braking does not consume fruit, and you can still come to a near-stop pretty quickly without fruit. However, the Atlasphere's traction is far worse. This makes doing precise movement around obstacles much more difficult. Another prime example is switching to moving in the opposite direction will be much more sluggish without fruit.

So what about time trial? Crash games usually remove all the fruit once time trial begins, but what about this mechanic? Well, it's still present, and you still collect fruit from normal crates! The bad news is lots of crates turn to time crates, and you can't bring up the HUD in time trial mode - meaning you need to keep track of how much fruit you have collected if braking/boosting well is important to you.

I have found that it is often worth it to break boxes along your way to get some fruit in order to improve your boosting speed and traction. There are plenty of spots in all three Atlasphere stages where you can break ? crates (5 fruit) without losing much time, and it will be worth it anyway if you make good use of the improved braking and acceleration.

Here is some mostly useless documentation about what happens to your previous/gained fruit in Atlasphere stages:

- Entering an Atlasphere stage resets your fruit counter to zero. 

- Fruit is reset upon exiting an Atlasphere stage to what it was prior to entering (this applies to masks and lives, too).

- Upon finishing an Atlasphere level, you keep the fruit you had at the end of the stage but do not get back what  you had upon entering. This also applies to time trial.

- Upon touching the clock to begin time trial, you do not lose fruit collected in the stage prior to touching the clock.

Mike's any% guide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzWUipsa7gI

Platinum relic requirements for 101%

In order to achieve 101%, all relics you collect must be platinum except for one which can be at least gold. These are the required times for 101%.
I have included the gold relic time for Spaced Out because that level is a common choice for the gold relic for newbies.

# W1

Island Intro: 0:12.80

Lagoony Tunes: 1:05.70

Pharaoh's Funhouse: 0:18.80

Prints of Persia: 0:28.90

Globe Trottin': 0:31.50

Runaway Rug: 0:47.60

# W2

Tiki Torture: 0:19.60

Barrel Roll: 1:07.00

Hoppin' Coffins: 0:49.70

Flockful of Seagulls: 1:12.50

Magma Mania: 0:47.60

# W3

Run From The Sun: 1:31.10

Mister Lava Lava: 0:50.90

Slip-N-Slidin' Sphinx: 0:43.50

Now it's Instanbul: 0:58.30

Water Logged: 0:46.10

# W4

Rocks Can Roll: 0:55.70

Eruption Disruption: 0:50.30

Rock The Casaba 0:58.90

Spaced Out: 2:30.90/2:49.30

King Too Uncommon: 0:50.70

# W5

101 Arabian Kites: 1:06.70

Fire Walker: 1:20.50

Wild Nile Ride: 0:45.90

Version/regional differences

If you're just looking for what the fastest version is, it's US 1.0, which is a regular cartridge.

What's changed in the later versions? This doesn't include obvious regional changes like language.

# US 1.1  (Any US multi-game pack that N-Tranced was a part of)

- Monkey bar/hang rail glitch is fixed. This is a skip that allows for floating indefinitely off the end of hang rails.

- Magma Mania: There is now a metal bouncy crate under the copter pack crate. This metal bouncy crate can actually be broken once in the helicopter, however it does not increment the box counter. The copter crate has also been raised.

- Now It's Istanbul: The box formation after the first checkpoint has changed. The top reinforced crate has changed into a normal crate, and the ? crate has been moved to the bottom of the stack. Roughly the same any% strat can be done here. For time trial attempts (non-RTA), this level is faster here because the 2 crate is closer to where Crash will be sliding.

# EU 1.0 (Regular Cartridge)

-  Same as US 1.0.

# EU 1.1 (Any EU multi-game pack that N-Tranced was a part of)

- Same changes as US 1.1.

# JP 

- Same changes US 1.1 and EU 1.1 have.

- Globe Trottin': The hint box at the beginning is absent.

- 18 gems are required to access world 5. Additionally, to access N. Tropy, 21 gems (not including the coloured gems) and 21 gold relics are required. Avoid running Beat N. Tropy on this version :^)

Nome	Autor
Hidden Atlashphere fruit mechanics for boosting/braking	Tebt_W 8 months ago
Mike's any% guide	CDRomatron 6 years ago
Platinum relic requirements for 101%	Tebt_W 4 years ago
Version/regional differences	Tebt_W 8 months ago