darkSpyro

I saw some people arguing about whether T4B would include a TLoS or Skylanders reference in the remake since N. Sane Trilogy didn't in another thread. That was buried under more posts and the thread is dead now, so I'm putting it here: there is a possibility! N. Sane Trilogy did reference a post-Naughty Dog game! It was confirmed by one of the animators in a stream that the kangaroo in a cage in the intro to Crash 1 is a nod to Rilla Roo, a character that only appeared in Crash Bash.

So there could be one in the game, but it would probably be unnoticeable and wouldn't affect gameplay. Don't get me wrong, it would be cool to have Cynder playable. I'm sure T4B would like to revisit her, but unlike Coco she'll need to have voice clips replaced for other characters instead of only recording new ones for her.

Crash Bash is still a "main" crash game though, not Titans which is their LOS/Skylanders equivalent. Spyro, though, doesn't have much on the way new major characters until Shadow Legacy other than Red and the two recolors. Maybe Grendor and Minibags, but they're nowhere close to well known.

That said, if I had to choose an AHT/SL character to put in, go with Cho Lei as a trapped dragon in the first game. The rest don't quite fit as well, and every other elder in those games is indeed from the first Spyro, just with huge design and character changes.

The dragon statues look like Ignitus. Does that count as a TLoS reference?

I don't see why none of the elders should look like the guardians from LOS or the elders from SL/AHT, or why some of the hatchlings couldn't have thier names.

They don't need to look like the AHT elders, I mean they're literally the same characters, even Sensei(actually Ragnar). Cho Lei is the only truly new one.

I don't think they should look anything like those designs though. They're very generic compared to what Nestor is looking like, not to mention almost none of them use their original colors.