Tiny Tiger
Tiny Tiger is an antagonist that appears throughout the Crash Bandicoot series. He is an ironically-named thylacine initially created by N. Brio, though he is most often seen working for Neo Cortex and is arguably his most loyal animal minion. Tiny is essentially the more rampaging, bestial counterpart to Koala Kong's self-infatuated muscleman disposition.
Profile
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Manual:
“A fearsome opponent if ever there was one, Tiny has a few tricks up his enormous sleeves. Try to stay one step ahead or you might get crushed.”
Dimension Publishing strategy guide:
"While many have accused Tiny of bulking up his frame with something more than pumped iron, he denies the accusation -- while crediting Dr. Cortex with making him the beast that he is. "I work hard to maintain my physique and still retain the ability to leap and bounce around on floating platforms." When not helping to enslave the world's creatures, Tiny enjoys a rousing game of checkers."
Games
Tiny made his debut in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back as the third boss of the game. Under the orders of Doctor Nitrus Brio, Tiny attempts to stop Crash from gathering crystals by crushing him under his feet inside a space station. There is no floor in the room they fight in, but rather an endless chasm, with nine mechanical platforms set up in a three-by-three fashion to save both of them from falling to their doom. However, all of these platforms are faulty, eventually malfunctioning and deactivating. Crash uses this to his advantage, and tricks the gullible Tiny into jumping into the resulting gap that is created by these faulty platforms. Crash must repeat this strategy two more times to defeat Tiny. Every time Tiny falls with a platform, it returns up with him, until finally he is too exhausted to keep fighting.
In Crash Bandicoot: Warped, it is revealed that Tiny survived his previous fall. Here, he serves under Uka Uka and Doctor Neo Cortex, attempting to take whatever crystals Crash and Coco have gathered and bringing them to Cortex in the Colosseum of Rome under his orders. Crash encounters Tiny wearing Gladiator Armor in the Colosseum chained to two columns (ala Samson), which he snaps free from with ease. Tiny then proceeds to try and crush Crash under his feet, just as he did in their last encounter. When Tiny tries to impale Crash with his trident, the trident becomes stuck in the ground, leaving Tiny open for attack. Tiny then summons numerous lions to try and eat Crash. After this cycle is repeated two more times, Tiny is knocked out. Afterwards, Cortex laments Tiny's failure and asks Crash to be more "reasonable" with his minions.
Minor appearances
In N-Tranced. Tiny makes a cameo as a playable character in the multiplayer atlasphere mode.
Tiny has a cameo in Crash Twinsanity during Crash's "birthday party" (a gathering of past Crash villains). His full model can be seen in the Concept Art.
Tiny makes a cameo appearance in Crash Boom Bang!, appearing in the "Silhouette Quiz" minigame.
Although Tiny doesn't appear physically in Crash: Mind Over Mutant, his voice can be heard during the credits, in which he attempts to correct Crunch when he mixes up his metaphors.
In It's About Time. Tiny makes a cameo in a portrait in Cortex Castle, wearing his gladiator attire from Warped.
Trivia
Tiny's character was initially conceived for the original Crash Bandicoot as one of Cortex and Brio's many mutant soldiers. During development, his name was originally "Tazmanian Tiger" or simply "Taz Tiger". In the production bible, his bloodthirsty nature is attributed to brutal footage shown to him in the Cortex Vortex and a lengthy treatment period. He and the Komodo Brothers were omitted and later reimagined for the second game.
In the original North American NTSC-U release of Cortex Strikes Back, the pause menu during Tiny's boss fight erroneously calls him "Taz Tiger".
In other lyric sheets for the cartoon cutscenes, Tiny is mentioned as "Tazmanian Tiger".
In Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure, Tiny's boss fight plays Dingodile's theme instead.
Tiny, along with Dingodile, Polar, Pura, Fake Crash, and Dr. N. Tropy, are the only returning characters of Crash Team Racing and Crash Nitro Kart that didn't return in Crash Tag Team Racing; Tiny points out in Crash of the Titans that he is still mad about not being "invited" to the game.
Tiny is the only boss character from Warped to not make a physical appearance in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time.
He has a cameo in Skylanders: Imaginators as a statue during a musical minigame, along with Dingodile.
By the time of the events of the Crash Bandicoot series, thylacines were long since extinct in real life, as the last one (named Benjamin) died in captivity in 1936.
In the German localization of Crash Team Racing, Tiny's name has undergone a literal translation into "Kleiner Tiger" (lit. "small tiger") despite having retained his original English name in all other games prior to and following CTR.
The same translation error can be seen in Tiny's signature track from CTR, Tiny Arena, which received the name "Kleine Arena" (lit. "small arena") in the German version despite the track being among the longest ones in the game. It retained the same name in the German version of Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled.
Created Apr 13
Updated Jun 15
Published Jun 15