"Spyro the Dragon makes for some nice, simple, old school action. Between its surreal, fantastical world and solid gameplay, it is very much an enjoyable little trip."

Platform: Playstation

Genre: Platformer

Publisher: SCEA

Developer: Insomniac

ESRB: E (Everyone)

Released: Q3 1998

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Spyro the Dragon

What a truly whimsical game this is. Most games' goal is to take players to different worlds where things look, feel, and just are different. The thing about Spryo the Dragon is that the sheer level of fairy tale flavoring makes the game so delightful. The character design, the look of the levels, the sound and music, and the all around flow of the game make it a great experience. Despite having to occasionally wrestle the cameras into position and a couple of other difficulties this is one fun game worth checking out.

Looking at the different worlds of the game the fantasy feel walks on up and smacks the player in the face right from square one. With castles, mountain peaks, and enough magic laden lands to put a lot of fantasy novels to shame the environments set the stage for how the game will feel very early on. The characters’ designs helps to drive the point home by offering up big, clumsy frog warriors, thieves in droopy clothing that makes them look like Mush Mouth from Fat Albert’s long lost soul brother, and a number of other creatures, of course with dragons numbering among them. With nice, smooth animation tying things together the visual presentation of the game is beautiful.

All of the maneuvering through these worlds of wonder is easy thanks to a simple control scheme. Watch Spyro move as you work the directional pad. Watch Spyro shoot flames at the touch of a button. Watch Spyro jump or glide through the air with ease. Watch Spyro dodge to the side without missing nary a note. Watch Spyro moo as you pull the string…okay so he doesn’t moo, but it fit the tangent there. The controls are kept very simple allowing younger players to dive right in, while keeping everything hassle free for veteran gamers who want some back-to-basics gameplay. Be that as it may there is still some yanking and manhandling of the camera to be done in order to get a good field of view from time to time. The annoying part is that when trying to get through tricky jumping sequences it’s at this point that the camera gets the most uncooperative. Also, there are some minor problems with collision detection. When it looks like Spyro will just barely make it onto a ledge he still head-butts it and plummets to his doom.

Once the cameras are tamed the action is very easy to get into. Most of the game consists of collecting goodies, jumping around, trying to find hidden areas, and bonking enemies. To throw in a bit of diversity there are some levels where Spyro simply flies around and the player must collect as much treasure as possible. One of the main points of the game, besides finding and freeing as many dragons as possible, is to collect all of the gems in the game, as well as dragon eggs. Only collecting a certain amount is necessary to complete the game, but trying to find them all will have more determined gamers searching high and low for these items.

When collecting items, if Spyro finds a trapped dragon and frees him there is a brief dialogue sequence where tips are given to the player. While the big dragons handle themselves nicely, Spyro’s voice is very annoying. The naïve, adolescence gets real grating, real fast. The music and sound effects, on the other hand, really add to the feel of the game.

Spyro the Dragon makes for some nice, simple, old school action. Between its surreal, fantastical world and solid gameplay, it is very much an enjoyable little trip.

- Mr. Nash