(Script + Audio) Titans of Legend Part 3 (Patreon)

(Along with the classics, the Legend of Spyro was something I used to play a lot as a kid. The best thing about this trilogy is that the stylized artstyle is very appealing, which is something I’m a big fan of)

As are many others. The Legend series certainly knew how to jumpstart the imaginations of players with its deep lore and intriguing characters.

Which brings me back to that certain character I alluded to earlier, the main reason for my interest in these games? Well as you probably already guessed, that was Cynder.

Oh, the impact this character had on the fandom, for better or for worse, but I think it’s safe to say my reaction was a pretty positive one. I remember every time the trailer for A New Beginning would come on TV I would fangirl over how hot she was. Granted I thought she was male at the time but needless to say my feelings didn’t change once I found out she was female. But hey I was a 14-year-old girl obsessed with the goth and punk aesthetic and a cool black dragon with red accents and a sickle on her tail shows up, how did you expect me to react? Long story short, Cynder was the main villain of A New Beginning. A dragon corrupted by darkness who sought to bring back her master, Malefor. After being defeated, she reverts to her true form and joins Spyro, eventually becoming his love interest and even a playable character in Dawn of the Dragon.

And oh boy, if anything contributed to the negativity surrounding this character, it was the fact that she was now romantically involved with the protagonist. Now I’m not about to say that everyone hated this decision, far from it in fact, as this pairing did and still does dominate a large portion of the fandom. The reason this was such a big deal at the time is because, up until that point, Spyro had never really had a fully-fledged love interest before. The closest we had were Elora and Ember, who were both portrayed as having unrequited crushes on him, the latter even moreso. So when Cynder was introduced, and she was revealed to be the same age as Spyro, it was only natural that people would start shipping them.

But as we know with any ship there will always be those looking to sink it. And in this case, I can see where those people are coming from. See, while I do support this couple myself, it actually wasn’t the intent of the developers for them to get together. Rather it was the result of fan demand or suggestion if that’s too harsh. Ignoring the fact that the GBA version of The Eternal Night incorrectly referred to them as siblings, Legend’s lead concept artist Jared Pullen revealed in this 2016 interview that they hadn’t considered the possibility of a romantic relationship between the two until involving themselves in fan discussion, though he does say that’s how he eventually would have gone with it as well.

That was a lot to get through I know, but I felt it was necessary to mention Cynder as she would be the catalyst for the overwhelming influx of fanworks Spyro was about to receive during this era. Just a massive amount of beautiful and emotional (and sometimes risque) artwork, animations, and stories. Not to mention those oh-so-popular 480p AMVs set to a song by Cascada or Linkin Park.

And this is where the biggest differences between the reboots begin to show. Unlike Legend, Titans didn’t add any new characters to the main cast, make any major changes to the plot, or anything like that. It was at its core still Crash Bandicoot. And while that should’ve made it easier for fans to just incorporate the new designs into their works, that just happened to be the crux of the problem in this case, so most of them were just sticking to what they knew and pretending these games didn’t exist. Oh, but that didn’t stop people from creating their own stories that drastically differed from Crash’s typical feel.

One such story was Outcast Bandicoot by Teira Nova, known then as Lurking-Leanne. Originally written in 2003, this fanfiction explored the origins of Crunch Bandicoot before the events of Wrath of Cortex and spanned over 100 chapters. Most parts were eventually adapted into animated form from 2004 to 2009, which were spliced together into a full-length movie in 2014. But while the film garnered attention and praise from some viewers, it also faced criticism for its unusually mature tone and subpar quality voice-acting. Despite that, it still remains an impressive and noteworthy contribution to the community, and a relic of its time.