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Tuesday 15 January, 2008
FIRST IMPRESSION:
SUMMARY
In Spyro the Dragon the player plays as Spyro, a young dragon trying to free his elders, who are all trapped on different levels of the game by Gnasty Gnorc. You reach all levels or worlds by a central world that is Spyros home. Different levels are unlocked by the accumulation of jewels that are part of the dragons' stolen treasure, and it is implied that Spyro's mission is to first free all his fellow dragons and then meet Gnasty Gnorc for a final battle.
GAMEPLAY
Spyro was a blast. My friend and I played for over an hour without loss of interest. Spyro himself was pretty amusing and suprisingly sarcastic, which I didn't remember from playing when it came out when I was in elementary school. The other characters were also entertaining to meet and each of the other dragons had a very specific and clear personality even though you only meet them for a few minutes. Each new enemy was also goofy and unique.
The only thing that bothered me about gameplay was the consistency of the worlds. At least these first few were visually the same as his home world, only with a few new characters. The only thing that saved the game from monotony was learning new skills like the ability to glide and having enemys you could only kill with either flame (burns the enemy) OR charge (galloping into the enemy with Spyro's horns) instead of both attacks.
SECOND IMPRESSION:
GAMEPLAY
Gameplay became significantly more frustrating during my second play. The jewels that were fun to collect became annoying because to unlock the next level you had to find every last one of them and many were in obscure places, and if you missed one you had to comb the entire level for it. The levels are often large as the game progresses, and its frustrating to go looking for a single jewel you missed.
It became more and more apparent that the monotony of the game was not in its level design, but the objectives of each level. The game was still fun, but I doubt I would go back to play it again because the only things you do are find jewels and free dragons. The different tricks you had to figure out to clear levels were not engaging or interesting, just slightly irritating. At least the level design eventually switched away from its grassy green monotony.
DESIGN
The design of Spyro was entertaining to watch and the extremely cartoony qualities of the characters were entertaining. It brought a goofy feeling to the game that was backed up by the cartoony personalities of the characters. Spyro looks like the young, headstrong and "cool" dragon he's portrayed as being through dialog.
The gameworld is a little boring, and even though it changes from grassy green, to icy, to lava ridden landscapes, navagating each level feels exactly the same as the last, they just made it different colors.
I disliked the importance of the jewels in the game and wish they could be a little more like coins in Sonic or something. It felt like the main activity in the game was exploring uninteresting worlds for jewels, and either the worlds need to change or the objective needs to.
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