From crocs to geckos to bandicoots, the PlayStation's library is populated with more goofball characters than poor PaRappa has fleas. Still, we at EGM--the professional vid-game journalists that we are--triple-ought dare you to find a cuter, more immediately likable character than Spyro the Dragon.
We don't know if it's his kitten-like animation or the kid-at-summer-camp exuberance of his personality, but this purple little char-broiling mascot-in-waiting's got charisma coming out his ass. Oh, and his game's pretty cool, too. Spyro the Dragon is another 3D platformer that, like Gex: Enter the Gecko and Banjo-Kazooie , emphasizes exploration and requires you to collect stuff. Lots of stuff. In fact, the plus levels pack thousands of gem-shaped treasure pieces that you'll ultimately have to track down and nab if you plan on perfecting the game.
Then there are the 80 dragon statues scattered across the stages. As the game's story goes, the diabolical Gnasty Gnorc cast a spell on Spyro's realm, turning all its dragon inhabitants into instant sculptures. Young Spyro, playing in a cave at the time, dodged the spell's effects, and now he must find and reanimate his elder reptilian brethren.
Besides those goals, Spyro will also collect dragon eggs, keys and other items to access new other items to access new areas and bonus levels, such as special obstacle-course flying stages. In a layout that's seemingly become the norm for these types of games, Spyro is divided into several massive overworlds--six of them--which in turn lead to the individual stages.
Included in this mix are the Boss stages for each world, as well as the bonus levels. Spyro's flight abilities are dependent on the current stage in some he can glide indefinitely, in others his little wings'll only take him so far. But in every level Spyro can breathe fire, headbutt baddies and roll sideways to dodge attacks. Hidden levels? Sounds like standard 3D adventure-game stuff, right? Well, what Spyro lacks in originality, it more than makes up for in presentation and production values.
Spyro may only be the second PlayStation game from developer Insomniac the same bunch that created the acclaimed first-person shooter Disruptor , but it packs all the perks of a third-generation, state-of-the-art PlayStation title. The lush environments don't suffer from seams, pop-up or other commonplace PlayStation glitches. And there's not a bitmap to be found anywhere in the game even the skies are completely polygonal.
But crisp visuals ain't the only thing separating Spyro from the me-too 3D crowd. Insomniac has taken special care to imbue the game with personality, making the enemies more than just troublemaking window dressing. If you go to several of the levels, in the distance you can see wizards and druids knocking each other down and kicking each other.
It really adds more to the immersiveness of the game and creates a world that is much more complete than you might see in other games. The camera was also the target of much tinkering. Insomniac purposely kept the environments uncluttered. As a result, the camera encounters fewer structures and objects on which it might get snagged. Players can also switch between two camera modes--one passive and one that automatically points in the direction Spyro's facing.
What happens when you take five dragon families living in five dragon worlds and throw in a Jealous Gnorc? If you guessed that you get a bunch of dragons trapped in crystals with only one hope, a dragon name Spyro and a dragonfly named Sparx, you guessed right! It is up to you to rescue all the dragons and stop the Gnasty Gnorc. Think you have what it takes?
I don't mean to say that Sony markets the crap out of their games, but let's just say that they do a pretty good job of getting the word out to the public when they have a new game that they want the world to know about.
Enter Spyro , the head-ramming, flame-throwing overly cute purple dragon. It is up to you to solve puzzles, collect treasures and free the encased dragons across the lands. Is this another over-hyped marketing effort or does this game deserve the attention? Read on and you shall see. I feel like jumping straight into this review, so let's get right to it.
Spyro is a 3D, go-anywhere platform game, ala Mario Ever since the release of the N64, Mario has been the measuring stick for greatness so I will use it for comparisons. Spyro goes across six different worlds, collecting gems. Unlike most platform games, you will not get a bonus at gems, or at any number of gems for that matter.
You just try to collect all of the gems in the level. Fortunately you are given the number you are trying to find so you will not have to wonder if you missed any. Some of these gems are just lying around, while others are hidden in treasure chests and even others are revealed only after killing an enemy. The point is that you had better get ready to look high, low and anywhere in between to locate these things.
Your other objective during the game is to free the dragons that have been encased in crystal. Like with the gems, you are given the total number of frozen dragons on the level so you will know when you have found them all.
When you find one of these dragons, you head smash into them and they will break free. Once free, they will talk to you and either give you a hint or a tip or most likely they will just say something that is completely useless. This was one of my complaints about the game. You would think that these dragons would be a little more helpful but instead they just say something stupid or worthless and it makes you wonder why they even bothered.
The game is broken up into five different dragon worlds and one world that houses Gnasty. All of the worlds are free roaming and have multiple sub-worlds mixed within.
The first world you access is your home world and this one is where you can access all of the sub-worlds. You can always return to your home in each level regardless of which sub-world you are in. So basically the idea is that you run around in all of these different environments trying to gather gems and free the dragons. That pretty much sums it all up. This was another of my complaints with the game. It just seemed to get boring after playing for awhile. I can't really put my finger on the exact reason but most platform games give me motivation to push forward to see what would be next.
For some strange reason, I just did not have the same motivation to keep going in this game. I know that the basic idea of every platform game ever invented is to collect some sort of token item. In the case of this game it was just, well, boring walking around collecting gems. I just kept waiting for something new and exciting to happen but it never really did.
I think part of the reason that my motivation to push forward in the game was due to the fact that all of the sub-worlds were almost identical. I think that this game just lacked the variety in the levels to really pull me into the game. It seemed like once I started a new world I was stuck in the same type of environment for a few hours until I went off to the next world. It is difficult to explain the feeling but the best way to describe it is the old, very annoying saying, been there If there was ever a game that gives you this feeling, it is this.
After reading all of this you must think that I hated the game and that it was total crap. Too bad only few songs were added to the list. But this album honestly brought back many great memories that I cannot even begin to express. Spyro was my first game too, and I have very fond memories playing the game. I had always loved the themes and was looking for a way to get the soundtrack, and I'm grateful there's a way to get them here. Please fix the issue with the names however, it's unfortunate that a simple thing like that stuffed the songs up.
One of the best games as a kid. Cant believe it was ten years ago! Great mp3s. They download but wont play on media player cuz they have some weird extension format or something. If all the tracks could be fixed that'd be awesome, Artisan's homeworld and the dreamweaver homeworld were the two most memorable tracks I'd love to hear again.
Thanks for uploading! They bring back so many memories. And so does the levels. The first game always had the best songs. It brings many memories back. Winderful music.
I couldn't find it anywhere else on the web. Alas, many of the tracks don't work. And the majority of those were the homeworlds, which in my opinion had some of the best soundtracks. That was the only thing that kept my rating from being a I beseech thee, would someone please fix this? It would be greatly appreciated. Brings back many memories! Too bad some of the songs don't work.
If all the songs were working I would give you a The music from this game brings a sense of nostalgia and joy to me. The unexusable hapiness I get from listening to the music this game rivals only the old music from the final fantasy psone games I grew up with.
Good memories, and great game. I beat it to the point where every single bit of the game was reached. Really nostalgic hearing them again The graphics in the early disc revealed a lush fantasy land that looked like something out of an animated feature film. The preview CD displayed Spyro with silky-smooth character graphics and cartoon-like animation. Moreover, speaking of animation-quality graphics, Insomniac and Universal not only had the game animation running at 30 frames per second, but they're also using a new compression technique that allows them to store twice as many frames of animation than normal.
Spyro will also show off impressive proprietary graphics technology that enables the game designers to create amazingly smooth background textures for nicely detailed long-distance views.
In the prelim CD, some jewels revealed their hiding places by the merest twinkle in a far-off hillside. During gameplay, you'll also be able to pull a few camera tricks, rotating the cam around Spyro degrees and playing from any angle. By swiveling Spyro's head, you'll fire up close-ups with a degree field of view in any direction. As if all this wasn't enough, the early version played audio that actually rocked, thanks in large part to music composed by former Police-man, Stewart Copeland.
And if Spyro sounds familiar, it's because his voice-overs are done by Carlos Alazraqui, who does voices for Rocko's Modern World and for the Chihuahua in the Taco Bell commercials. Spyro the Dragon could be the sleeper hit of the season, but, then again, he may suffer the curse of Yoshi: too cute for his own good. Insomniac and Universal will attempt to temper the cute-n-cuddly factor with brain-draining platform-style gameplay.
Whether or not they succeed when Spyro is released this October will be up to you to judge. Year of the Dragon is the third installment in the Spyro series and the last Spyro game to be released for the first generation PlayStation.
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