I have already spoken small praises here and there to the Playstation's Classic series. I have decided out of boredom to review Spyro 3.
Spyro: Year of the Dragon was released in 2000(which is the year of the dragon on the zodiac calandar) and is the last game in the series to have been handled by Insomniac. the game may not have been on the N64 but it shares more then a few tropes with games on that console.
Storywise the Dragons have a collection of 150 dragon eggs. however an evil sorceress creatively named... the Sorceress, has sent her minions to steal them all and bring them to the Forgotten Realms... although it does have some neat between the lines type of lore and is relatively well told it still serves as a new excuse to get the little dragon from Point A to point B.
Presentation wise this game hits everything with flying colors, it does certainly feel like a relic of it's time but it presents itself very well from within the limitations of the first Playstation. the characters are well animated and full of life and the game also features full (and extremely campy) voice acting and a top notch soundtrack.
And this brings us to where the game truely stands tall, the characters, from 007 parody Sgt Byrd(Byrd, James Byrd) series mainstays like Moneybags, the game has created a wonderful cast of characters that bring everything together.
The game itself plays alot like platformers of it's day, the 150 eggs play the same role as the stars in Mario 64. the levels themselves function more like the ones found in Banjo Kazooie however they do feature a main objective of some form.
Spyro 3 introduced various new playable characters that vary in playstyle(for better or worse) and also adds various intresting little side mission objectives. (including guiding a fireball into a lava pool to restart the sun and playing hockey with cats.)
However Spyro's core gameplay has not changed, being a dragon he naturally carries the ability to breathe fire and glide in addition to the standard run and jump platforming abilities... his arsenal is utilized in various different ways and enhanced by certain power ups, Sparx, a staple of the series, serves as a color coded health indicator, yellow for full, blue for 3/4th's green for half, if he disappears you are one hit from death.
The game isn't without its problems, the added characters for the most part don't feel as polished as Spyro himself (or as the tacked on skateboarding thing for that matter). the game is also not very different from the previous entrys in the series. it features more content then ripto's rage(gateway to gliminer) but no major new mechanics. the game is a bit easy if you aren't planning to collect everything and honestly, despite having been optimized for the Dualshock it doesn't always control the best in some of the minigame segments but anybody who enjoys N64 era platforming should see what could be found on the other side of the console wars. the game can be found on PSN i believe and i imagine is a relatively easy find physically.
Topic: A Forgotten Gem [Spyro:Year of the Dragon] (Read 4962 times)
