With how different it is from the original Insomniac games, I count AHT and SL as being in their own universe.

So basicly, a few years after Spyro: season of flame, Red and Gnasty AND RIPTO start forming a plan to use dark gems to warp the dragon realms and its inhabbitants. Then when they are the most vulnerable, Ripto would devise a plan to destroy the dragons and if that didn't work, Gnasty and Red would do something. Gnasty gnorc creats false gems which do the same job as normal gems and uses them to create gnorcs. He then goes into the Dark gem mine, along with Ripto and observes his gnorc slaves mining dark gems. Gnasty Gnorc, Ripto and his slaves were the first people affected by the dark gems, it effected his personality, look and memory. though it only effected Ripto's look. A few years after the mining, Red and gnasty start dropping dark gems around the dragon kingdom, and the inhabbitants personalities and looks start or morth, unaware what the dark gems are doing to them. Moneybags, who has been hanging around the dragon realms ever since Spyro 3, had been one of the worst effected and one of the quickest effected. His voice, personality, memories, look changed. Hunter got somewhat smarter and since spyro 3 had taken up an a boy and arrow hobby. We already knew he could use one seeing we saw him use it in Spyro 2 in fracture hills. (except after AHT while he was recovering he got somewhat dumber as seen in ETD). The professor's voiced changed and look. Spyro's personality changed and look and voice. Spyro also forgot how to glide as well as some of his other abilities. Sgt.byrd's voice changed and personality. Bentley's voice and personality changed. Then the events of Spyro orange took place. After Spyro orange, blink got effected and lost his memory of the events of spyro orange. Spyro forgot about blink too. Then AHT took place. During this time, Elora was away. AHT took place at the year of the dragon after YOTD (12 years after YOTD) Spyro, because he's a dragon, doesn't age like humans, thats why, even though he's in his 20s, he's still young. After AHT, everyone's persoonalities and stuff returned back to normal, except some people quicker than others. And some assmed other personalities.

A few other things:
-Gnasty obviously survided seeing Spyro talks about how he wants Gnasty to improve and stuff in the 120% cutscene, not to mention in the same cutscene you saw that the dragons were once again frozen in crystal. Also, you see him in the YOTD epilogue. Why he complerely disappeared? well i think he simply teleported and lost his stick in the process.
-Either the dragon elders were simply effected by the dark gems or they were completely different dragons. Maybe those dragon names were popular, i'm sure some are.
-The extra species in AHT simply could've moved from another land (such as Avalar, Forgotton realms) between games or were originally there anyway. I'm sure we didn't see ALL the places/realms in Spyro 1, 2, 3, SOI, SOF!
-Sparx talking could be explained by the dark gems. but i wouldn't be surprised by the fact that at a certain age, dragonflies can learn to talk, just like human babies.
-Just so i can explain this here, The 12 dragon eggs in Spyro 1 could've been left over from the last year of the dragon, or early for the next one, or simply they coul've been there just so the dragons have back up just incase something goes wring with the batch born in the year of the dragon. Or... maybe dragons are just free to breed whenever they want and so there is always a few at a time but then dragons are mostly expected to breed around the year of the dragon. maybe it's "lucky" or something.

So yeah, that's my theory. enjoy!

I pretty much agree. It was intended to fit, but it really... didn't .

As for the dragon eggs... ironically, the original trilogy had a similar plothole. XD You had to save dragon eggs in Spyro 1. But they only come once every twelve years. Zuh? XP

Huh, you know, I never thought of that.

They never really said how much time had passed between Spyro 1 and Spyro 3, though. Could have been 12 years. =P

a reason for sparx talking is probaly because he is a playable charcter now, so the people who made it just made him be able tol talk for no reason

he was also a playable charecter in spyro 3 at the end simaler to AHT

As for the dragon eggs... ironically, the original trilogy had a similar plothole. XD You had to save dragon eggs in Spyro 1. But they only come once every twelve years. Zuh? XP

The problem with AHT is that it suddenly introduces places that were never there before (Dragon Kingdoms? What?) and retcons an established concept (the dragon eggs had already hatched in YotD; what's up with them suddenly being unhatched?). It also introduces things that didn't exist story-wise: there were no elders in the Insomniac titles (it was never established that those first dragons you rescue are elders, just that they're the first dragons you rescue). Let us not forget the entire look and layout of the world itself has changed as well as the established social structure (when did dragons get nannies? When did all these random animals move into the dragon homeworlds? Where were Ember and Flame before this? When did dragons start living in huts? When did Moneybags become a bad Russian stereotype who pretends to care about Spyro? and on and on).

I'm sure AHT was intended to fit in with the old games, but it does so many things to ensure that it can't. It doesn't even fit anywhere in a timeline for the old series (is this before YotD, after...? Who knows!). This is probably less of a botched reboot and more of a botched retcon of the series. Regardless, there's no way it logically fits in with the games that preceded it, though I'm sure it was supposed to.

Gnasty Gnorc... didn't die >.>. He appeared in the epilogue of YotD, and what's more... well, he did poof into dust at the end of the boss fight, but don't forget that at the end of Spyro 1, he re-cast his crystallization spell and Spyro said "Here we go again..." (talk about plotholes). Hunter was cocky in the originals as well, only he had a likeable goofiness too. Sgt. Byrd was never really clearly developed to begin with, so his sudden pomposity in AHT can be overlooked >.>. One major plot hole would be Sparx's talking(okay, TLoS Sparx talking is very acceptable, since it's a reboot and he's actually funny in the process, but old Sparx talking.........................). Spyro was just plain unbearable in AHT... but still, his change can be overlooked as well. He was always cocky. The Professor was a bit odd in that game, though... not to mention the sudden butchering of the elders(god, they were just plain awful). Those I can't explain.

AHT was just a game that really screwed up the old series plotline. That's why I said that it's "unfortunately" part of the old series canon(the old series was never big on plot at all, but AHT was just plain disrespectful towards what it did have).