There's an IMO excessive amount of plot details in this article. Given that the Crashed games are not really plot-driven, it seems really odd we're spending 250 words on the character's personality and then a further ~600 words on his fictional backstory before we even get to his video game appearances.
I'm not sure what's left counts at the "bare essentials". The article implies the backstory basically only exists in the story bible and some tapes, which in turn means it's not really that essential to understanding the plot. It also suffers from an overly familiar tone that is confusing for someone who hasn't played the games—
Crash Bandicoot (the character) doesn't even get introduced and explained in the body of the article, nor does the Cortex Vortex. Keeping it simple and brief makes for a much more comprehensible story.
Der Wohltemperierte Fuchstalk17:12, 8 February 2021 (UTC)reply
The character conducted the events of the tapes, namely training and naming the main player characters, and the tapes also establish his role in the previously-unexplained presence of other recurring characters in the series; until this point, the player character
Coco and the regular boss characters
N. Gin and
Dingodile had effectively appeared out of nowhere and had no context given to their original introductions, and the fact that Cortex is personally responsible for them being a part of the series' universe at all is at least worthy of mention.
Cat's Tuxedo (
talk)
17:52, 11 February 2021 (UTC)reply
The reception section feels like a grab-bag of statements strung together, rather than being logically organized (by general reception, stuff like voice acting, or via game.)
The final paragraph still is a series of "X from Y said 'Z'" quotes, one after another. Finding a way to summarizing critics and using quotes sparingly makes it much easier to read and makes the thrust of the prose clearer.
Der Wohltemperierte Fuchstalk21:22, 14 February 2021 (UTC)reply
The idea for Cortex was conceived by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin while eating near Universal Interactive Studios with Naughty Dog employee Dave Baggett and Universal Interactive president Mark Cerny. This is a mouthful and is hard to parse.
There's a lot of use of quotes, which gets extremely tiring when it's used repeatedly and especially without clear attribution (who is calling his proportions "debonair"? Who described Davin's voice as "silly"?)
The figure will be released in both a standard and exclusive edition; the exclusive version features a light-up hoverboard, mine and smoke trail.[69][70]—will be released? When?
In general I'm not a big fan of the primary citations to the game itself in the appearances section. They don't often clearly or totally cover the full set of statements they end after. Secondary sources would be better if they're out there.
I can kind of see your point about the concept sketch, though I would think it'd seem off to discuss a character that was created during the PS1 era and not display how he looked during that time period. Course, if that's still not good enough, I wouldn't object to getting rid of them both.
Cat's Tuxedo (
talk)
22:00, 5 February 2021 (UTC)reply
The point is that every piece of non-free media has to be justified as to how it being missing would be actively detrimental to the article, as well as just being nice to have. There's not a ton of critical commentary about the character design in the reception or similar that would justify that non-free content right now, and a lot of the features in the development section equally apply to the current version of the character (giant head and tiny body) and thus don't need additional visual elaboration.
Der Wohltemperierte Fuchstalk17:12, 8 February 2021 (UTC)reply