Spyro the Dragon (PS1)
The Story
The game begins with a cutscene; a news crew is setting up cameras to perform interviews with a number of dragons who are spread across their five home worlds (Artisans, Peace Keepers, Dream Weavers, Beast Makers, and Magic Crafters) in the Dragon Kingdom. During the interview, one of the dragons is asked a question about Gnasty Gnorc, a dragon who lives in his own, sixth world. The dragon answers by insulting Gnasty, who is watching the interview live. In response, he sends a spell out to all the worlds, trapping all of the dragons in crystal, and sending his minions out to take control of each of the worlds.Spyro, controlled by you, manages to escape the spell because of his small stature, and becomes tasked with visiting all of the worlds to free and rescue all of the dragons, bringing peace back to the Dragon Kingdom
The Controls
Spyro's controls are fairly straightforward. You run around with the d-pad, holding □ for a faster run/charge. You jump with X, and in mid-air you can press it again to start gliding. O button lets you spit a small burst of fire from your mouth. △ doesn't do anything unless you're already gliding in the air, pressing this will stop you were you are and you'll drop to the ground. Or if you're standing still, it goes into a first-person view letting you just look around.L2 and R2 swing the camera around Spyro, gving you control when trying to peer around a corner or ledge.
While in the flying realms, □ will dive you straight down, X flaps your wings for a tiny and barely noticeable speed boost, O still shoots the flames, and △ still stops you where you are. L2 and R2 adust the camera, but now L1 and R1 allow you to bank your wings for tighter turns if you hold them, or if you press them you will do a corkscrew loop and change directon. The d-pad still functions as your movement with typical inverted flight controls.
Spyro can also charge down hills marked with flashing arrows to perform a "super-charge" where he runs faster allowing him to jump higher off of uphills, and reach previously unreachable areas in a level. Certain levels contain a special fairy who will kiss Spyro on the nose and turn him red, powering him up and allowing his flame to be strong enough to take down metal enemies/objects.
The Gameplay
Spyro presents itself as a platforming video game. You find yourself traveling to all of the worlds finding ways to climb up structures to reach higher places, and then jump right back off and glide to another, all the while destroying enemies and objects within the worlds.You begin your quest on the Artisan home world, freeing your first handful of dragons and starting your jewel collection. Each home world comes with a number of realms within it. These consist of three normal realms (I'll call them normal because there's nothing special to them other than that they are a level in the game), a flying level, and a boss level. Each world you visit has a hot air balloon that you can take to travel to the next world, provided you meet a set requirement, i.e., a specific number of dragons, dragon eggs, or jewels saved/collected. (The jewels are different colors for different values. Red is 1, Green 2, Blue 5, Yellow 10, and Purple for 25)
The home worlds themselves count as levels as well. Each one you come to, you must discover the portals to the realms within the world, save the dragons, and collect dragon eggs and jewels. These home worlds are usually slightly easier in comparison with the realms the world contains. Generally, the realms will have a higher number of dragons and jewels in each one.
The realms in the worlds are, as I said above, normal. You locate the portals in the home world and all you have to do is walk through, there are no requirements to meet before you dive into each realm. Once inside, you will fight and platform your way through to the end where you will find a small "Return to Home" base that you can jump into and it will bring you right back to the home world.
Flying realms are a bit more of a challenge, especially if you are going for 100%. Inside the flying realms, there are five challenges. Four of them are different objects in the world (always in groups of eight) that you have to find and destroy within a short time limit. But, each item you destroy adds a small bit back to the time for you. The fifth challenge is where the difficulty comes, of completing all of the four challenges in one shot. This means finding the perfect route to string together one challenge into the next, into the next, into the last, with (hopefully) near perfect aim, as there is little room for error. The timer usually starts off at 25 or 30 seconds, so if you find yourself doubling back for things, you might have a bad time of it. The fun part is, in these realms, you're always flying, where in the rest of the game you can only jump and glide (maybe these realms have mystical powers...?) So long as you don't nose dive into any water, you can always save yourself in a fall or jump while on land and start flying again.
Finally, the boss realms. Just another spin on the normal, except, as you might guess, there's a boss at the end of each of these which consists of you either chasing them through the level as they go through different phases, or dodging their special attacks.
Gnasty Gnorcs world is the final world in which the formula from the rest of the game is tweaked a little bit. The home hub is very tiny, with four giant head statues in front of you as soon as you enter the world, and a dragon trapped in crystal. While in the other worlds you could mix and match however you wanted to play the realms, in Gnorc's, you must complete them in order. The first head is already open for you, and once you hop in, just find your way to the end and you'll be brought back to the hub with the second statue opened and waiting. Complete this one the same way and you're brought back a second time and the third and "final" statue is opened. I say "final" because this third statue is Gnasty Gnorc's boss level and the end of the game. (But wait, you said there's four statues?!) Yes, there are. After beating the final boss, your final return to the Gnorc's hub brings you the final dragon to save from the crystal prison. Spyro strikes up a small conversation with the dragon, inquiring about the final statue, and you are told that it is Gnasty Gnorc's treasure cove, to which you can only gain access by completing 100% of the game. That means saving ALL the dragons, ALL the dragon eggs, and finding EVERY jewel in the game.
Overall, Spyro is a pretty fun game, and it is very easy to get addicted while playing it. You'll find yourself getting annoyed that you can't quite reach one platform where you know there's some more jewels hiding, but that annoyance quickly turns into the determination that you won't do a damn other thing in the game until you get to that platform...even if there was only a single red jewel up there.
But now let's break the game down.
The Challenge (or lack thereof?)
^ Sidenote : That's how this section will be listed in every blog review, not just this one.The combat isn't much of a challenge in Spyro. Since you really only have two attacks (charging and spitting fire) everything dies in one hit as long as you determine which of the attacks to use. Deciphering which one to use isn't all that hard. If the enemy has a silver metallic surface anywhere on them, charge them, as the metallic surface means heat-resistant. If they don't, time to get a little toasty!
Saving the dragons isn't a challenge at all in this game. They are all encapsulated in crystal pedestals which just require Spyro to walk up and touch them. That's it. Out of all the dragons in the game, I'd say I could count on one hand the number of them that weren't in your normal path through the level anyways. Although the few that are a little off the beaten path, are tricky enough to find, but only in comparison. You get into a sort of rhythm of having them all handed to you that when you have to put in the most minor of efforts, it starts to seem like the game is just trying to piss you off.
Dragon eggs are a bit harder. There are tiny little creatures trying to steal dragon eggs in the kingdom. and the moment you get close to them, they start to run. The majority run in a "lap" pattern, where all you have to do is figure out what corners to cut a bit tighter until you can tackle them. A few of these are a decent challenge though. One runs in only a straight line and if you don't catch him before the end, he goes allllllll the way back to the beginning where you first found him, and yet another dashes in tight circles around a pool, and the outside of the loop is a ledge.
Jewels are the biggest challenge of the game, not in difficulty but in the sheer number of them, as well as the number of locations they can come from. You'll find them :
- Scattered on the ground of the stages
- Enemies drop them once you kill them
- Chests in the stages (regular red chests which you can burn or tackle, metal chests which can only be tackled, hard chests which either have to be super-charged, hit with flame once you get powered up by a fairy's kiss, or cause an explosion to/near the chest)
- Random fan-looking objects in the stage which you can hit with fire three times quickly and they explode.
The plus to all this is once you leave the stage, the jewels become saved so you don't have to recapture them whenever you re-enter. And any source that would have dropped them, now drops these little orbs that, collecting enough nets you more lives in the game.
The bosses aren't too high of a challenge either. With your limited move set, they neglected to put in a health system for the enemies so, again, you hit them once and they move on to a second or third phase before dying. The most challenging of these though is Gnasty Gnorc himself. His stage consists of a heavy use of Spyro's dash move. If you haven't mastered it, practice before attempting. You chase Gnorc through the stage over some narrow platforms and blind turns that if you miss, you'll be running right off the edge into the water and dying, having to restart his stage completely as there are no checkpoints.
In the end, there isn't a great deal of challenge in the game unless you're trying for the 100%, then, finding the jewels becomes time consuming. But, with the enemies going down in one hit, there isn't much to stop you or overwhelm you.
PROS
- An original spin on the platforming genre with the flying/gliding element. Very enjoyable throughout the game.- Some of the dragons you save give you a little tip or clue about the level/upcoming boss which tends to be helpful when trying to figure out where to go to find more dragons and jewels.
- Though the graphics are now severely outdated, all of the worlds are a lot of fun to look at, from icy mountains, to lava filled desert-like areas.
- The freedom to choose which levels to play in each world is a nice touch. Instead of being committed to having to complete them in a certain order (with the exception of Gnasty Gnorc's world), it allows you to decide your preferred order. I personally had the most difficulties with the flyying stages, so I saved those for last in each world.
CONS
- While the moves are easy to get used to, it's mostly because there aren't many to choose from. The dodge itself I felt was slightly above useless. When using it, Spyro doesn't just quick dodge to a side, he does this tiny little hop in the air before barrel rolling one way or the other, giving just enough time for whatever you're trying to dodge to hit you.- I felt the actual saving of the dragons was too easy, just walking up and touching the crystal. Granted there was usually an enemy or two in the vicinity, but with everything going down in one hit, it wasn't like you had to take them down. I would've have preferred an almost mini-boss that took a couple of hits to take down before you could reach the dragon.
- For those who desire to go for 100%, the game isn't very forgiving for getting to hidden areas. One level in particular comes to mind while writing this, where there are super-charge ramps that, if you want to get to one particular area you're supposed to run down one and take a blind leap of faith at the end of the ramp aimed just in the right direction to catch the next platform.
