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> Results: The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning
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The ESRB says:
Cartoon violence: GamerDad spent all his time slapping the bad guys with his tail, setting them aflame, turning them into icicles, zapping them, or literally blowing them away with each of his elemental forces. But this is very much a kids' game and the combat is as cartoony as the ESRB says it is. Spyro the little purple dragon has been a family favorite in videogames for several years now, and as the title suggests, The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning aims to "reboot" the series and tell the story of Spyro's origins. It turns out that this involves a Baby Moses-like drift down the river as an egg to escape the forces of the Dark Master, to be discovered by a tribe of dragonflies and adopted as one of their own. As he grows up, his sneaking suspicions that he wasn't quite like his brother Sparx are confirmed when he accidentally lets loose some fire breath and his adoptive parents let him know that he's actually a dragon. Eyes opened, he sets off to find himself, with Sparx tagging along for good measure. They soon meet up with a much larger dragon guardian named Ignitus, who fills Spyro in on the missing details in his life, little things like the fact that he is the chosen one, the purple dragon who will defeat Dark Master and his new ally, the evil dragon Cynder, who have returned to take over the world. After a spot of fire-breathing training from Ignitus, Spyro and Sparx are off to save everyone. The gameplay is not exactly innovative ﾖ you take control of Spyro, and run around each level. You'll come across an obstruction, enemies appear (mostly in the form of deranged baboons, oddly enough), so you bash them with your tail and head or let loose with your fire breath. Once enough enemies have been defeated, the obstruction is removed. Periodically you'll face off against a much larger boss monster, usually triggering an animated cut-scene when they are defeated to propel the story. As you find more dragon guardians you gain different breath attacks, adding electricity, earth, and ice abilities to your original fire powers. By collecting gems that defeated enemies drop, you can upgrade the strength of each component of your elemental offense. There are a couple of chances to fly, but they're so badly executed and brief that they can be discounted as an afterthought ﾖ if you want to fly a dragon while shooting things, go find a copy of the Teen-rated Panzer Dragoon Orta for the Xbox. It is certainly repetitive, and the levels are run of the mill ﾖ woods, snow, lava, castle, etc. The last level is an exception, but not a particularly good diversion. What saves The Legend of Spyro from being a poor game is the wonderful presentation. One of the first things you notice is that this has some big names attached ﾖ Elijah Woods voices Spyro, David Spade does his usual as Sparx, and Gary Oldman (!) takes on Ignitus. A dramatic orchestral score completes the audio side. Visually, it's very, very pretty, with rich, glowing hues and a nice style that brings the old Spyro games up to date. It does sometimes slow down a bit for the most intense effects, but it's not a major problem. The CG-animated cut-scenes are well done, but are a little boring ﾖ it's like the developers are really trying to go for an epic feel but fall short. This won't hold an adult's attention for very long. It's a short game at around 8 hours, and there's not much reason to come back to it ﾖ you get to play again with your powered-up attacks right from the start, but that's about it. For younger children though it should provide an enjoyable romp, with the difficulty tuned just right for them. It doesn't stand up to some other platform games (I personally love the Sly Cooper series), but give this a try and you might be as pleasantly surprised as I was.  Other Platforms The PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox titles are all basically the same game and my review applies to all of them. The vastly inferior GBA version is a much shorter side-scrolling platform game that follows the same plot and has the same enemies, but the simpler presentation is a little cheerier and more cartoony. The DS conversion falls somewhere in-between, with full 3D boss battles like the console releases, and featuring the same video cut-scenes and Hollywood voicing, easily making the DS version the preferred portable Spyro this time around. Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Browse Amazon.com's selection of "spyro dragon" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning |
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