Crash rescues Tawna in the first Crash Bandicoot.
Tawna is a female bandicoot held captive by Doctor Neo Cortex, the game’s villain. Crash’s adventure is driven by his attempt to stop Cortex and reach Tawna, who is imprisoned in Cortex’s castle at the end of the story.
Like Crash, Tawna was genetically altered by Cortex. She is presented as Crash’s girlfriend in the original game, giving the journey a personal rescue objective in addition to Crash’s effort to prevent Cortex’s plans for world domination. The ending changes depending on the player’s progress, but rescuing Tawna is the central story goal.
Coco is Crash’s younger sister, but she does not appear as the character rescued in the original game; she became a playable and recurring character in later entries. Pasadena and Nina belong to later parts of the franchise and are not the captive character from the 1996 debut. Tawna’s limited role in the first game also helped make her absence from much of the later classic series seem confusing to players.