Polar

Polar is a polar bear cub from the Crash Bandicoot series. Being Crash Bandicoot's pet, he helped Crash get through various dangerous icy passageways. Debuting in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, he's appeared in 3 kart racing titles and has made assorted cameos in other mainstream Crash Bandicoot titles.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
In Cortex Strikes Back, Polar makes his first appearance in the snow-themed warp room. If the player jumps on Polar for the first time since entering the warp room, the player will eventually get an extra 10 lives. Polar also appears as Crash's transportation in the levels Bear It (level 8), Bear Down (level 13), and secret level, Totally Bear (level 26). He also appears in the last quarter of Un-Bearable (level 15), where Crash must ride him to get away from a much bigger polar bear. After the adventure, Crash took Polar in as a pet off-screen.

Crash Bandicoot: Dansu! De Jump! Na Daibouken
Polar appears in chapter 7, Panic at the Snow Mountain!!. When Crash and Cortex are searching for a Power Stone on a snowy mountain, Polar gets scared by Cortex rampaging around and hides behind Crash. Crash stops Cortex from hitting Polar, so Polar introduces himself and promises to show Crash where a power stone is. Polar runs too fast and ends up leaving Crash behind. Cortex disguises himself as Crash to try to get Polar to show him where the stone is instead, but Polar sees right through the disguise and bites him on the arm. Cortex throws Polar to the ground, which draws the attention of Polar's father, who furiously chases after Cortex, mistaking him for Crash due to his disguise. After Polar's father mistakenly attacks the real Crash and learns the truth, Polar's father reunites with his son and apologises to Crash for hurting him. Polar tells his father to give Crash the power stones, but it turns out that the "power stones" Polar was talking about was just rock candy.

Polar has cameo appearances in three other chapters. Crash is cuddling with a teddy bear that looks a lot like Polar in the first chapter, I'm the Hero!. A polar bear cub that closely resembles Polar can be seen printed on a cardboard box in chapter 5, Furious Ripper!. Polar also inexplicably appears for a single panel in the final chapter, ''GO! To Outer Space on a JetPack!'', when Crash is preparing to go to space and tries to ride on Polar's back, despite Polar not being present before or after.

Crash Bandicoot: Warped
In Warped, Polar only appears in the opening cutscene where he gets woken up from sleep hearing Uka Uka's evil laugh. He then appears in the lounge of the Bandicoot House listening to Aku Aku's story about his history with Uka Uka. Polar for some reason is seen running out when Aku Aku, Crash and Coco are heading to the Time Twister, but he gets left behind and he looks slightly frustrated at this. His final appearance is in the true ending where he is seen in the lounge next to Crash again with everyone, including new fellow pets Pura and Baby T.

Crash Team Racing
Polar is a playable character in CTR. His home track is Polar Pass. Along with Pura and Ripper Roo, his best stat is handling, and as such, he is classified as a character for beginners. He is one of the eight starter characters, and can be chosen as the player's character in the Adventure mode where Aku Aku is his tutor. Polar's personal garage is a small ice cave, where he keeps his kart, a couple crates, and a few books. In the opening cut-scene he can be seen in his kart, reading a book called "How to Drive" upside down. In the epilogue, it is revealed that he becomes a taste tester for an unnamed leading ice cream company. Being a bear, he only approves fish-related ice cream flavors.

Crash Bash
In Crash Bash, polar bears that appear identical to Polar are ridden in the Polar Push mini-games. There are several of these bears, however, it is unconfirmed if any of these bears are actually Polar. It is believed that he is the polar bear that appeared in one of the promotional artworks of Crash Bash where he is being ridden on by Coco.

Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure
In The Huge Adventure, Crash rides Polar in the middle sections of Frostbite Cavern, Snow Crash and Snow Job, while being chased by a yeti.

Crash Nitro Kart
In CNK, Polar was brainwashed by N. Trance, along with Dingodile and Pura, into racing for Team Trance. These events were never shown in cutscenes, and are revealed in the Crash Nitro Kart Instruction Booklet and the Official Crash Nitro Kart Website (which is no longer active). However, in the Team Bandicoot ending, he is shown relaxing on the beach with Crash, Coco and Crunch, revealing that he eventually escaped his brainwashing, as he does not have the hat on anymore and looks happy to be with the bandicoots. Similar to Crash Team Racing, Polar excels in handling. He can be unlocked by winning the Blue Gem Cup, and has good turning like Coco, N. Gin, Zam and Pura.

Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage
Polar makes an appearance in Ripto's Rampage, with Crash riding on him in several of the levels. Polar also helps Crash escape from Nina during her boss fight. There is also a Polar Trading Card.

Crash Twinsanity
In Twinsanity, he is seen at Cortex's gathering of villains at the beginning of the game, holding a baseball bat with an angry look on his face.

Crash Boom Bang!
In Crash Boom Bang!, Polar makes a cameo as part of the Silhouette Quiz minigame. He is shown as an anthropomorphic and wearing jean shorts, similar to Pura's new look.

Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
Polar appears as a playable racer in CBNK3D. He drives the Der Pickle kart from Crash Tag Team Racing. He was unlocked by updating the game via the App Store; as the game is no longer listed, let alone updated, he is now unobtainable for new players.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
Polar appears in the remake of the second game for the N. Sane Trilogy where he reprises his role from the original versions of the second and third games.

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
Polar retains his same role and stats in the remake. In his epilogue, he still becomes a head flavor scientist for a leading ice cream company, but his most notable flavor to date, aside from the previous three flavors, is the Tuna Spumoni.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
Polar is seen in the level Bears Repeating and its alternate timeline level Building Bridges, in his normal role of acting as a mount for Crash (or Coco).

Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!
While Polar himself doesn't physically appear in On the Run!, a Polar-themed skin for Crash was added in Season 5: 25th Anniversary!.

Personality
Being a regular, non-mutated polar bear cub, Polar usually isn't portrayed as being sapient, and usually has a similar level of intelligence as a domestic dog. He is usually portrayed as cute and innocent, though he can be more aggressive at times, shown during his cameo in Twinsanity, his frustration at being left behind in Warped, and with his Rustland skin in Nitro-Fueled.

Physical Appearance
Polar is a small off-white polar bear cub with large, sparkling black eyes. He has a black nose and black paw pads. While on his kart in CTR, his paw pads are pink instead. In CNK, his eyes are changed to a gray-green color, his nose is made gray, he has grayish markings around his face and he wears one of N. Trance's helmets. In Twinsanity he returns to his original design, aside from the insides of his ears being pink. In the N. Sane Trilogy and Nitro-Fueled, the insides of his ears are light gray and he now has blue eyes. The gray markings have also returned to his face.

In Boom Bang! his design is noticeably different, in that he's now anthropomorphic. He wears blue denim shorts, and the insides of his ears are pink once again. He's also a much brighter shade of white than usual.

Crash Team Racing
"Polar's kart handles better than other karts just like Pura's. He can really navigate around tricky corridors and cruise through big hair-pin turns."
 * Manual

Appearances

 * Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
 * Crash Bandicoot: Dansu! De Jump! Na Daibouken
 * Crash Bandicoot: Warped
 * Crash Anywhere (cameo)
 * Crash Bandicoot: Kattobi! Spin World
 * Crash Team Racing
 * Crash Bash (cameo, presumed)
 * Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure
 * Crash Bandicoot Blast!
 * Crash Nitro Kart
 * Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage
 * Crash Twinsanity (cameo)
 * Crash Boom Bang! (cameo)
 * Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
 * Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
 * Crashmoji
 * Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
 * Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled Digital Comic (cameo)
 * Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
 * Crash Bandicoot: On the Run! (cameo)

Crash Bandicoot
Crash initially used Polar as transportation during his second adventure twice. The third time around, Polar willingly helped him escape a larger polar bear and Crash was grateful for it. He then took Polar in as a pet and he's been loyal to his master ever since.

In Crash Nitro Kart, despite being brainwashed into racing for N. Trance, Polar does not show any signs of malice towards any of the Bandicoots, suggesting that he became a neutral character, rather than an evil one for this game.

Coco Bandicoot, Aku Aku, Pura, Crunch Bandicoot, Baby T
Even though Polar has not had any proper cutscenes with any of the other heroes (Aku Aku, Coco, Pura, Crunch and Baby T), it is definite that he has a good relationship with them all. In the N. Sane Trilogy remake of Warped, Polar cowers in Coco's arms for comfort when Uka Uka is released. In all racing games, he uses Aku Aku as his guardian mask (except for in CNK, when he was hypnotized into racing on Team Trance and therefore uses the Velo Mask).

N. Trance
In CNK, N. Trance kidnapped and hypnotized Polar into racing for him along with Dingodile and Pura, due to a racing team being required for the galactic circuit. Polar is seen happily standing beside N. Trance on the podium on Velo's coliseum during the game's intro, though due to the fact he was brainwashed at the time his true opinion of N. Trance is unknown. N. Trance seems to like or at least respect Polar, seeing as he selected him for his team.

Gallery
See: Polar/Gallery

Trivia

 * In the beta version of Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Polar used to say "nyeh" instead of barking like a dog.
 * In an interview with Naughty Dog's vice president, Evan Wells, he revealed that Polar and Pura were originally planned to share a kart in Crash Team Racing. They were eventually made separate due to the limitations of the PlayStation.