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It feels like eons since my last Spyro related upload, and yet I still see so many Spyro fans pass through my gallery. And I mean trilogy fans, not Skylanders. It's actually kind of amazing how robust this fandom is. Those games came out, what, nearly a decade ago? And I still see Spyro stuff every other day. It almost makes me want to play the trilogy again. Almost. I have a love hate relationship with those games. On the one hand I like the atmosphere/visuals/just being in control of a teeny weeny dragon in general, but on the other hand the first two games in particular made a lot of choices I just didn't understand (not that Dawn of The Dragon was perfect, but I was having too much of a blast with the free-fly thing to complain.)

Like why is there a level up system if the game starves you for EXP? Enemies don't respawn and you can't revisit previous levels, so unless you cheat you can't max out all four of your breath types. It's very unsatisfying. It'd be like if Cloud Strife could only reach level 30 and collect 50% of the materia. Oh, the remaining 50% still exists, you're just not allowed to collect it. Why? Because fuck you, that's why.

It sucks that fighting barely awards you any EXP, because you do it constantly. There is a battle segment every five steps, your melee attacks don't do much damage, can't be leveled up, and are extremely repetitive (I think the breath type system was supposed to balance that out, but... yeah.) to gum up the gears even more, Spyro does some Matrix scheiss during every combo and limit break. Helheim, they even gave you a time-slowing ability just in case you were concerned about not wasting enough of your finite existence. By the way, the battle theme never changes.

And if you thought enemies were time vampires, wait until you fight a boss. The only boss battle I liked was that crazy high speed train fight in Munitions Forge, everything else was "Hey gamers, wanna run in circles and melee a baboon for five hours?"

Even the unlockables are pretty unsatisfying. No stat boosts, no Cynder model or special levels or abilities, just concept art. It would've been interesting if A New Beginning and Eternal Night came out in the early to mid 90s, but even back in 2006 it wouldn't have been that difficult to find concept art online so there's not much of an incentive to root around for quills.

Combine that with a finicky camera, unforgiving platforming segments, half-hearted voice acting, perpetual dread over when you'll die and how far you'll be sent back because there are no clear save areas, a story that takes itself waaay too seriously for a game about a baby purple dragon fighting monkeys and, I scheiss you not, unskippable timed tutorials at the end of each level showing you how to use the ability you got at/have been forced to use since the beginning of said level, and I'm not so sure I want to subject myself to it a second time.

... Aw, Helheim, who am I kidding? It's worth it just to hear the tickity-tack of tiny dragon claws every time that purple pudgemuffin walks. Where did I stash that Gamecube?

Description
It feels like eons since my last Spyro related upload, and yet I still see so many Spyro fans pass through my gallery. And I mean trilogy fans, not Skylanders. It's actually kind of amazing how robust this fandom is. Those games came out, what, nearly a decade ago? And I still see Spyro stuff every other day. It almost makes me want to play the trilogy again. Almost. I have a love hate relationship with those games. On the one hand I like the atmosphere/visuals/just being in control of a teeny weeny dragon in general, but on the other hand the first two games in particular made a lot of choices I just didn't understand (not that Dawn of The Dragon was perfect, but I was having too much of a blast with the free-fly thing to complain.)

Like why is there a level up system if the game starves you for EXP? Enemies don't respawn and you can't revisit previous levels, so unless you cheat you can't max out all four of your breath types. It's very unsatisfying. It'd be like if Cloud Strife could only reach level 30 and collect 50% of the materia. Oh, the remaining 50% still exists, you're just not allowed to collect it. Why? Because fuck you, that's why.

It sucks that fighting barely awards you any EXP, because you do it constantly. There is a battle segment every five steps, your melee attacks don't do much damage, can't be leveled up, and are extremely repetitive (I think the breath type system was supposed to balance that out, but... yeah.) to gum up the gears even more, Spyro does some Matrix scheiss during every combo and limit break. Helheim, they even gave you a time-slowing ability just in case you were concerned about not wasting enough of your finite existence. By the way, the battle theme never changes.

And if you thought enemies were time vampires, wait until you fight a boss. The only boss battle I liked was that crazy high speed train fight in Munitions Forge, everything else was "Hey gamers, wanna run in circles and melee a baboon for five hours?"

Even the unlockables are pretty unsatisfying. No stat boosts, no Cynder model or special levels or abilities, just concept art. It would've been interesting if A New Beginning and Eternal Night came out in the early to mid 90s, but even back in 2006 it wouldn't have been that difficult to find concept art online so there's not much of an incentive to root around for quills.

Combine that with a finicky camera, unforgiving platforming segments, half-hearted voice acting, perpetual dread over when you'll die and how far you'll be sent back because there are no clear save areas, a story that takes itself waaay too seriously for a game about a baby purple dragon fighting monkeys and, I scheiss you not, unskippable timed tutorials at the end of each level showing you how to use the ability you got at/have been forced to use since the beginning of said level, and I'm not so sure I want to subject myself to it a second time.

... Aw, Helheim, who am I kidding? It's worth it just to hear the tickity-tack of tiny dragon claws every time that purple pudgemuffin walks. Where did I stash that Gamecube?