Yes, better late than never. Although before this I already had the pleasure of playing enough of the third part, it was so long ago and on such a horribly pirated disc that it’s better not to remember at all yet. More importantly, the root of the famous series turned out to be completely above all my expectations and captivated me for a dozen or two hours of leisurely and thoughtful passage. Since I hope the purple dragon with the cool Mohawk mane needs no introduction, I’ll get right to it.
In some kingdom, some state. So, sir, the local TV channel decided to interview the dragons live on the topic of what they think about the five states surrounding them. But when it comes to a certain sorcerer living in the most remote lands, one of the dragons speaks of him in a far from flattering manner, for which he dooms himself and his species to the petrifying magic of mass destruction. Everyone got it except the main character Spyro, who was not included in the distribution due to his small size. Now he and his friend, the dragonfly Sparks, need to run across the entire dragon kingdom, save his brothers and kick the sorcerer for such a bad act, also committed live. Now it’s time to be a hero!
Well, it’s a 3D platformer. And quite, I must say, honest. There is nothing typical here for the so-called 2.5D control in one plane, no long runs deep into the screen. Instead, you are given a vast location to explore and relatively complete freedom to move around it. Moreover, this applies equally to both the levels themselves and the hubs, which provide passages to them. Spyro, despite his origin, still cannot fly for any length of time, so he will often have to go around to remote parts of levels and various kinds of hills, relying on his paws, as well as on the ability to carefully glide with the help of his wings.
What will the henchmen of that comrade, whom the dragons so unsuccessfully insulted on live television, interfere with?. In doing so, they will use methods of, so to speak, direct influence, and remote ones, for fear of being caught by the hero. For self-defense, Spyro is armed with the fire breath given to him by rank, as well as with horns, with which he can easily gore those who, before going to war against dragons, still thought of putting on fireproof armor.
Moreover, butting is not only https://luckyvegas-casino.co.uk/mobile-app/ a way to get rid of most of the enemies, but also a way to move quickly through the levels, since Spyro accelerates quite well at such moments. This is also a way to quickly and efficiently lose earned lives, since at high speed it becomes much easier for a character to fly out of the level, which becomes especially noticeable closer to the second half of the game. Well, or just run into the enemy. The same Sparks, who went with the hero to administer justice, acts as an indicator of health. The baby dragonfly takes upon itself every blow that passes through the dragon, changing color. After three hits, it disintegrates into subatomic particles, leaving Spyro vulnerable to one single hit, which would cost him his life.
The classic mechanics of many platform games – collecting sparkles – are simply taken to the absolute level here. As stated directly in the opening video, there are exactly 12,000 pieces of all kinds of jewelry scattered throughout the game world, and all of them can really be collected. And it’s even necessary if you want to complete the game completely from cover to cover. It’s not just treasures you can collect; liberating brothers from crystalline captivity also refers to gathering, since not all dragon statues are located in plain sight.
In addition, in the list of treasures there are also dragon eggs, which are knocked out of such special children that they can run very quickly. And all this is not purely optional; in order to get to the new world, you need to fulfill one of the conditions, all associated with finding a certain amount of something that can be collected. To prevent the player from getting completely confused with missing jewels – and some of them are sometimes hidden from view very carefully – the game provides a summary table, accessible from the pause menu, in which each level is described in detail: how many stones were found on it, how many of them should be there in total, how many dragons were missed, how many dragon eggs remained. Moreover, the same Sparks helps a lot with collecting jewelry, picking up those that are in close proximity to the hero, so you shouldn’t lose it prematurely. In general, the seemingly routine inspection of every nook and cranny of every stage in every world is made surprisingly exciting.
But what surprised me most about the positive aspect was the camera. From the first parts of the series, released on one of the first home consoles that supported full 3D, you usually expect a crookedly implemented camera, diligently taking the most inconvenient angles possible. In Spyro the Dragon, things are going surprisingly well with her, and the virtual operator most of the time pleases with quite adequate behavior. And in those cases when he does go crazy, the function of forcing the camera to be installed on the back of the main character’s head comes to the rescue. Another and no less useful purpose of this function is the ability to turn Spyro’s head in different directions in order, for example, to look around a corner or look down from the edge of a platform to assess the safety of a future jump. Sometimes this will be unrealistic, given that in 3D games it is often quite problematic to understand how close you are to this or that object located not on the right or left, but in the “depth” of the screen.
Well, the amazing handling and convenience of everything by the standards of the release date also deserves a portion of praises. No getting stuck in polygons, minimal clinging to corners. The game also supports analog sticks, so owners of gamepads with them will enjoy the controls even more.
But the game still has a tiny drawback – it is the first in the series. Which is natural, she just hasn’t had time to accelerate to full speed yet. Because of this, the gameplay may seem somewhat monotonous and even routine, despite all the efforts of the developers to at least somehow diversify the gameplay with all sorts of details like a shrinking gun, accelerating tracks, as well as levels built purely on one flight mode. However, the minus is so insignificant and strained that it cannot even be called a minus.
The soundtrack is worthy of special mention, because Stuart Copeland himself, a world-famous musician, best known as the drummer of the band The Police, worked on it. The tracks are energetic and perfectly complement the gameplay, but apart from the game itself they sound somewhat peculiar. Spyro the Dragon’s soundtrack is more like a very long jam session, from which it is quite difficult to pick out individual tracks, but which is perfectly listenable from cover to cover as one big composition. Because of this, it’s a shame that it was never officially released, leaving players to enjoy only the game rip. As it turned out, similar things are happening with many games in the series, which also did not receive a physical media with music. Of course, Copeland periodically returned to his old purple favorite, adding one track from the game or another to the albums, but this is just a drop in the ocean.
I also recommend watching the interview with the composer in the video below. It is short and, unfortunately, without subtitles, but it fully reflects the atmosphere of the production of a small masterpiece that reigned in the studio.
Eh, all mascots should start their careers like this! Spyro the Dragon bypasses almost all the standard rakes of 3D adventure games with an emphasis on collecting sparkles and right out of the gate demonstrates a scope that its competitors have only ever dreamed of in nightmares. If the same first part of Crash Bandicoot felt like overclocking both in terms of game mechanics and in terms of banal performance, then the purple dragon with a mohawk turns out to be almost perfect on the first try. Damn, which didn’t turn out lumpy!