Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is a platform game in which the player controls Crash Bandicoot, who must gather 25 crystals for his nemesis Doctor Neo Cortex. The game takes place in a series of "Warp Rooms", which act as the hub areas of the game. Each Warp Room contains five doors, each of which lead to a level. The goal of each level is to obtain the crystal placed somewhere along the path. A level is cleared by collecting the crystal and reaching the end of the path, which returns Crash to the Warp Room.
The protagonist of the story and the player character is Crash Bandicoot, a mutated bandicoot searching for the crystals in an attempt to save the world. The main antagonist of the previous game, Doctor Neo Cortex, is a mad scientist who claims to have changed his ways and is out to save the world. Cortex's henchman, Doctor N. Gin, is a former defense industry physicist who reconstructed a faulty missile project that lodged itself into his head into a life support system. Coco Bandicoot is the spirited and highly intelligent younger sister of Crash Bandicoot who discovers Cortex's true intentions and tries to warn Crash of her findings. The boss characters of the game include Ripper Roo (a boss character from the previous game), the Komodo Brothers Joe and Moe and the musclebound tiger Tiny. The person behind the boss character attacks, Doctor Nitrus Brio, is a former henchman of Cortex who now aims to foil Cortex's plans, even if it means getting rid of Crash.