I have an immense amount of nostalgia for 3D platformers. Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong 64 and Banjo-Kazooie filled my childhood with so much joy and really locked me in as a lifelong fan of the genre. I remember having my mind blown by Jak and Daxter in 2001; I couldn't believe a 3D platformer could look that good. The genre faded in popularity for many years, but over the last decade or so has experienced a resurgence. We've seen remasters and remakes of classic 3D platformers like SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated or the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. We've also received wonderful new games in the genre like Donkey Kong Bananza, Demon Tides and Pumpkin Jack.
I've been trying to go back and revisit some classic 3D platformers that I missed, like the Crash Bandicoot franchise, Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, Glover or the Tak and the Power of Juju series. While scrolling through the digital PS3 storefront and checking out the PS1 classics, I realized that I haven't played the vast majority of the Spyro franchise, so I decided to go back and start at the beginning of that series with 1998's Spyro the Dragon, developed by Insomniac Games.
Immediately upon firing up Spyro, I was blown away by how effortlessly fun it was. Spyro's moveset just feels so intuitive and delightful to toy around with. I loved seeing my son smile and laugh at Spyro's "bull charge" ability, in which he lowers his horns and charges at enemies or critters in his path, or climbing up as high as he could and then gliding as far as Spyro's small wings would take him. The lighthearted, goofy tone was instantly charming. Spyro and his dragon friends are funny and all have adorable names and designs. His current health is indicated rather cleverly through the color of his cute dragonfly friend who zips around with him. The enemies all have this innately hilarious quality to them because of the blocky, obtuse, primitive polygonal aesthetic. Every stage has this vibrant, almost dreamlike energy to them. Stewart Copeland's energetic, eccentric soundtrack provides the perfect score, and I found myself constantly nodding my head to his famously unique rhythms and syncopation.
Like with any good 3D platformer of its era, Spyro the Dragon is a "Collectathon." As far as I know, this is a subgenre name that fans came up with to designate 3D platformers where you're tasked with gathering different types of objects and currencies. In Spyro, you're collecting gems, dragon eggs and looking for Spyro's dragon friends, who have been transformed into statues and scattered across every level and world. Similarly to how the 3D Mario games function, you'll frequently hit progress gates where you need to have so many gems or eggs accrued or dragons freed in order to enter the next region. I always thought this was an annoying mechanic in Collectathons, and it is here too, but if you go into the game knowing to explore each stage thoroughly and collect all the gems, you shouldn't really face any unexpected hindrances.
The gameplay mostly felt tight and responsive, but there were some needlessly difficult or tedious moments. The dragon egg collectibles are held by these incredibly annoying enemies who race around at high speeds, and you'll frequently have to make a dozen or so attempts to catch them before you finally manage to capture the egg. The final boss fight too was unbelievably annoying and drawn out. The sequence is comprised of four back-to-back high speed chases, two of them being centered around chasing those same lightning fast dragon egg enemies. The third and fourth chases involve pursuing the boss himself through a massive, winding arena. If you fall off any of the narrow, precarious pathways in this battle, you're thrown all the way back to the beginning of the fight. This will almost certainly happen to you, and it happened to me probably a dozen times.
This is a brief review. Spyro the Dragon just isn't that complex of a game, which is absolutely not a complaint. It was such a pleasant experience to sit down with my wife and my oldest son, each of us with wildly varying gaming skills, and pass the controller around between us, taking turns. There's something to be said there regarding Spyro's straightforward, enjoyable mechanics and enchanting game design that makes it equally fun for each of us, regardless of our ability. I can easily recommend Spyro the Dragon and if you're a 3D platformer fan, this is a must-play title.
Post a Comment