Dr. Neo Cortex

Neo Cortex is generally depicted as a short, typically yellow-skinned and large-headed man with a giant "N" symbol located on his forehead, bigger lip with a spiky goatee, bald head with hair on the sides of it and a thick black strand on top, and with large red/dark circles under his eyes. He usually wears a lab coat with black arms and legs, accompanied with yellow gloves.

However, like every other character in the series, his design, outfit, and personality is varied and altered.

Cortex's first design change occurred in Crash Nitro Kart, where he now wears a full lab coat, accompanied with red gloves and boots, his "N" symbol became metal-plated and his circles are black.

Cortex's second design change occurred in Crash Twinsanity, where he keeps his outfit from Nitro Kart but he becomes taller.

In Crash Tag Team Racing, his design is not similar to that of Twinsanity, but this time he has a zipper to close his lab coat, his shoulder pads and his black suit over the coat returned. Apparently he has shrunk and is too small compared to Crash, his gloves are still red but they have something like a buckle to adjust them. Cortex now has gray eyes. In Crash Boom Bang, he returned to his original design. In Crash of The Titans and Crash Mind Over Mutant, like the other characters, he was altered: his head is no longer triangular but somewhat rounded, looking more like a human, his robe changes design once again, without shoulder pads and having a gray belt on him, gloves and pale red boots, his hair is now blue and is shorter, but straighter. Its large ears are also notable, In addition to its lips, they are smaller and somewhat human.

In Skylanders Academy, its design is very similar to Charles Zembillas' sketches, but with a high collar and visible buttons. In the N.Sane Trilogy, his original design returns, but with more details such as textures in his hair and clothing, and for Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled it shares this same design. In Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time and Crash Team Rumble, he is redesigned again, returning to have a somewhat rounded head like in Crash of the Titans, bluish hair, visible black boots, gloves with a small opening in them ( just like Crash and Tawna in this games). He has smaller eyes than usual and his nose and lips are a pinkish tone. A more noticeable detail is that his "N" has a small slit in it. For Crash on The Run!, he appears to have visible gray in his hair and his eyes are very similar to what he had in Crash Nitro Kart.

The top of its head is usually depicted as unusually flattened or almost flattened towards the top, and in some cases somewhat rounded. Cortex is a short person in most of his games, rarely being taller than Crash in any of them (with the exceptions of Crash of the Titans, Crash: Mind Over Mutant and, to a lesser extent, Crash Bash and Crash Twinsanity).

As a child at the Academy of Evil, Cortex's appearance was largely the same, the biggest difference being a full head of hair, trimmed eyebrows and lacking a beard. The N on his forehead is also depicted as lowercase rather than uppercase.

Neo Cortex embodies many of the classic traits of psychopathy, being short-tempered, reckless, having no apparent conscience (as cited by N. Tropy in Crash Twinsanity), and frequently manipulating others to get what he wants.

Like many stereotypical villainous mad scientists, Cortex holds a grudge against other scientists for ridiculing his outlandish (yet workable) ideas, and was originally driven towards world domination by the desire to prove his colleagues wrong. This no longer seems to be the case, as it is revealed in Crash Bandicoot: Warped that Cortex is working under the orders of Uka Uka (Aku Aku's evil twin), one of the only two individuals that Cortex fears (the other being Madame Amberley). Although Cortex talks big and acts confident in most of his appearances, he can be shown to become nervous (sometimes downright spineless) when put in the face of extreme and immediate danger (i.e. confronting Uka Uka, running out of ammo while fighting enemies, etc.).

Another notable personality trait is his stubbornness and inability to plan ahead or learn from his mistakes; he often relies on his minion Tiny Tiger to eliminate Crash by himself, despite the fact that Tiny is too incompetent to do so alone. This impulsive behavior is first witnessed in the opening cinematic of Crash Bandicoot, in which Cortex refuses to heed the warnings of his then-henchman Dr. Nitrus Brio and tries to make Crash the general of his army, despite numerous past failures. He is shown however in It's About Time to have regretted his stubbornness in unwittingly creating Crash as his future self is shown to get more and more frustrated in how his past self will not listen to him and even outright laments it by saying "Do have any idea how stubborn I used to be?" something that Crash, Coco and Aku Aku are shown to for once agree with him, which also implies he is at least relatively less stubborn then he used to be. He also is shown to smart enough in realizing that although he wants to stop his past self from creating Crash he cannot kill him as that would result in his own death. (as well as a potential time paradox) Cortex can become quite irritated or agitated when things don't go his way, especially in Crash Tag Team Racing; while most other characters express mild annoyance when Crash fails to perform an errand for them, Cortex scolds and lashes out at him the minute he comes back empty-handed, calling him a "blithering imbecile", "cantankerous twerp" and saying "You're the worst mutation I've ever created!". Mutually supportive relationships with other characters is also evident in the crossover game Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage, in which Doctor Cortex temporarily teams up with Spyro the Dragon villain Ripto to destroy both Crash and Spyro, only to start bickering with Ripto at one point.

Cortex is not above lying and deceiving others to fulfill his evil desires, most of which include gathering Crystals to power up his doomsday weapons. He frequently uses the gullible Crash Bandicoot to complete these deeds, most evident in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and Crash Tag Team Racing, claiming in both games to use the weapons for "mass-helping people" as he puts it. His egotistical tendencies also cause him to alter facts about his life, claiming himself to be the most popular student in his school, even though in reality he was an object of hatred among many students, one going as far as to toss a dagger in his direction. Cortex's vain side becomes most obvious in Crash Tag Team Racing, in which he often calls himself beautiful and pretty.

During It's About Time, Cortex is notably more tired and pessimistic due to the stress of fighting and losing to the Bandicoots, to the point of constantly rambling for a full decade according to N. Tropy. While genuinely tired from the constant fighting with Crash, Cortex's obsession with finally triumphing over Crash as well as potentially stopping his greatest blunder proved to be his great undoing as he couldn't control himself from an opportunity to permanently end Crash once again, leading to another defeat.

For the most part, Cortex doesn't care for the lives and feelings of others, caring only for himself and what he wants. While this seems to be the case in most games, the one moment in which Cortex actually shows concern for someone else is in Crash Twinsanity, in which at one point his niece, Nina Cortex, is kidnapped by an evil version of Crash. It is at this point clear that Nina is the only living thing that Cortex cares about as well as being one of his only redeeming qualities, with the latter going as far as thoughtlessly putting himself in danger of being mauled by the ferocious Evil Crash during the level "Bandicoot Pursuit". Besides this instance, Cortex is largely apathetic, seeing others only as tools for his quest in world domination (although presumably he likes N. Gin, Tiny and Dingodile really, as he puts up with them despite their past failings). It is unknown whether Cortex feels any regret for replacing Nina's hands with metallic death-traps, though this is unlikely, given Cortex's psychopathic tendencies.