"This hard shelled skin is strong enough to ignore fire and lava!"
Magmadon in Crash of the Titans.
The Magmadon is a Titan that appears in Crash of the Titans and Crash: Mind Over Mutant. It is a medium-sized mutant that resembles a muscular, bipedal tortoise covered in brimstone either red or a light brownish color. Magmadon is probably the most fiery titan Crash has ever controlled, and is related to the fire-element. So far it has appeared in both Crash of the Titans and Crash: Mind Over Mutant. In Crash of the Titans they served Nina Cortex but were created by Dr. Neo Cortex.
Biology
Magmadon is a bipedal turtle with skin of hardened magma. It has spiky frozen magma shell on its back. It has flat head with small eyes, sharp nose, and wide mouth. Magmadon has scales on its belly. Magmadon often found hibernating which makes its body even harder. Magmadon attacks with its fiery explosive hands and shell which smashed to the ground. Once Magmadon stomps the ground, the world shakes, causing huge trembles on Earth, Magmadon usually stomps to makes its victim flees. Magmadon also can creates small volcano on straight line. Magmadon can't hide itself on its shell, possibly because the body itself is too big.
Abilities
The Magmadon is physically the strongest among the medium-sized mutants. This is best described when Magmadon is jacked and strikes a pose, because he stomps the ground two times and causes a minor trembling in the ground. However, despite it's strength, Magmadons are very slow in attacking and (in Mind over Mutant) in motion. They also have much fewer hits during a single full combo, and their hits must be timed carefully in order to gain full potential.
Other than that, Magmadons have the passive ability to endure surprisingly high temperatures, allowing Crash to cross pools of lava or other hot fluids when he's jacking a Magmadon (Aku Aku also stated that the Magmadons kind of like this hostile environment). Magmadons also have high defense, making them capable of moving and attacking undisturbed by some enemies attacking them (they still take the damage).
Attacks
Regular Attack: Magmadon's regular attack consists of slamming the enemy with a burning fist, and then, on the second strike, punching them with the other hand. In both cases, Magmadon incinerates his fists, causing them to glow. This is physically stronger than a usual attack by the other titans of the same size, but it is very slow and has only a two-hit combo limit. After both attacks, Magmadon is grounded and it takes time for him to get up again. In COTT the second strike is strong enough to break the block of Titans of the same size. Like the Shellephant's Infinity Combo, the second strike only happens if the light attack button is next pressed as the first one hits the ground, although the time it will work in is longer.
Block-breaking Attack: Magmadon's block-breaking move differs in Crash of the Titans and Crash: Mind Over Mutant. In Crash of the Titans, Magmadon's block-breaker consists of a powerful body-slam, which is unusual for titans his size because once started, enemies won't be able to hold it off, but it takes time for the Magmadon to get up again, leaving him vulnerable for a while. It charges in mid air, which is not consistent with real physics, as the Magmadon should fall immediatly. In Crash: Mind Over Mutant, Magmadon's block-breaker is simply just a ram with its elbows, bearing all of the strengths and weaknesses of a regular block-breaker in the game.
Breakdance Raid (Block-strike): Available only in Crash: Mind Over Mutant, and executable by pressing the guard button and the attack button at the same time. This causes the Magmadon to lie on the ground and spin around like he's break dancing. During the period of this attack, Magmadon can't be harmed by regular attacks (attacks such as Ratcicle's Freeze Punks can still effect him, and his health also drops should he strike a TNT crate), but it's difficult to move him around. Magmadon can move very fast while spinning, damaging everything it hits, but the direction in which it moves can hardly be predicted and is based on him bouncing off walls and enemies. The player can press the attack button during this attack, thus causing Magmadon to stand in place while spinning and try to set his direction with the help of a spinning arrow that appears around him. The attack wears off in time or after the player releases the block button.
Hellfire Stomp (special attack): Presumably Magmadon's ultimate attack. Magmadon stomps the ground and brings forth a straight line of burning lava in front of him, damaging everything it touches. In Crash of the Titans, this is only a straight line, so it has to be positioned well in order to successfully hit its target, but is powerful enough to heavily damage (if not instantly stun) a big titan such as the Shellefant and can score huge combos if used on minions. In Mind Over Mutant, it lacks its original strength, but has an additional ability to divide in up to three lines to hit more enemies.
Appearances
Crash of the Titans
Presumably the very first appearance of a Magmadon is during the opening movie of Crash of the Titans (the one that resembles shadow puppetry). After the scene that symbolizes Crash's creation and betrayal, Dr. Cortex uses the Evolvo-ray to mutate the next thing he sees, which happened to be a turtle, planing to make the mutant work for him and obey him. However, the mutant he created was a skinny creature wearing a turtle's armor as underpants, too weak to even push a rock, let alone fight for Cortex. After making fun of his new creation, Nina snatches the Evolvo-ray, modifies it and shoots at the mutant again, turning it into a much larger and bulkier version that easily lifted a large boulder and rolled it until it blew up. This was probably Magmadon, since both creatures are large, humanoid turtles, which would make Magmadon the first Titan ever to be created. After Nina used the Evolvo-ray on other random creatures, thus creating new titans, the Magmadon demonstrated its Hellfire stomp ability, only it slammed the ground with its fist rather than with its feet. Other titans from the same movie are probably the Battler, the Spike and two unknown mutants, one created out of a bunny, and the other out of a crocodile.
The first time Crash met the Magmadons was at the start of the episode called The Blizzard of Claws. When him and Aku Aku were on their way to reach Tiny Tiger, they came across volcanic soil with lava pools around the area when a group of Magmadons emerged from the ground and the pools. After defeating them, Crash was able to jack one of them and use him to cross a sea of lava in order to reach and destroy the generators for Cortex's drills. The Magmadons were also used later in the battle against Tiny, since they could be used successfully to stun the big Shellefant in order to jack him and proceed further.
The Magmadons appeared a few more times in the later chapters, and Crash could use them to cross over lava or, in the later chapters, pools of liquid metal. Their latest appearance in the game is in Minority Rapport, where they are found in large lava cauldrons, which you use them to cross.
Crash: Mind Over Mutant
Magmadon in Crash: Mind Over Mutant.
Magmadons return in Crash: Mind Over Mutant, but in this game, they have been aged down to practically teenagers and because of this, their stats drop drastically, as they are much slower and weaker. They can jump in this game and perform the Breakdance Raid, but they're lousy jumpers and even worse climbers. They can still walk in hot liquids, but there's not much of it for them to walk in.
Crash first sees the Magmadons again in Ratcicle Kingdom, on his way to the prison. Some Ratcicles were seen carrying cubes of ice containing Magmadons as prisoners of the ice prison. They soon let go of the cubes and fight Crash, but he defeats them. After the fight, the Magmadons spring to life, break free from their icy prison and attack Crash, but he deals with them successfully and liberates them from Cortex's control and manages to jack one. They later reappear in other missions. Later, while heading to the desert, he encounters them along with Scorporilla in some ruins.
There is also a Magmadon Hero, who has the amount of the old Magmadons' original strength can be found in the secret sections of the Ratcicle Kingdom after Crash and Aku Aku free Uka Uka and venture to retrieve his voodoo bones. The hero in Ratcicle Kingdom that is holding one of those bones is a darker version of a regular Magmadon. In order to reach him, the player must use a Grimly to jump over falling ice blocks on a nearby waterfall, then walk through a cave filled with hostile Grimlys and Brat Girls, as well as more Magmadons. After he's defeated, he re-spawns on the same spot and can be jacked.
Etymology
Magmadon's name is taken from the words magma, meaning the molten material underneath the Earth's crust and referring to their fiery nature, and don, which means teeth and is sometimes used to name certain dinosaurs (such as Iguanodon or Trakadon) referring to the Magmadon's similarities to them, since they're both bulky reptiles. So, literally, their name means "Magma-tooth".
Gallery
Trivia
- Magmadons are physically the strongest among medium sized mutants.
- In Crash of the Titans, the Magmadon's block-breaking attack is surprisingly useful. Usually, titans need some time to build up their stamina in order to perform one such attack, leaving them open to injury, but Magmadon simply jumps up and is already out of range of other enemies, meaning his block-breaker is a sure shot, although it takes them a while to get up again. The only titan that came close to this is Battler.
- Strangely, although the Magmadon's are relatively tortoises, they never used their shells to cover themselves or to hide. In Mind Over Mutant, they only find their use when the Magmadon performs the Breakdance Raid.
- The evil mutants with red eyes work together but when you first see a Magmadon in Mind Over Mutant, they are frozen in ice being carried by red eyed Ratcicles, but when they break free from the ice, you can see that they have red eyes too.
- It is the only Titan that can stay (in Crash of the Titans) in lava and doesn't lose health.
- Magmadon is similar to the Pokémon Torkoal because they are both are turtle-like and both can survive in lava.
- As the name suggests, it means "magma tooth" (despite this fact of Magmadon not having any teeth).
- The Magmadon's appearance might be based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, whom share a similar design.