Well, at least it's not as bad as Enter the Dragonfly. Although, that's not saying much.
My last encounter with Spyro was a disaster. Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, as you may remember, was the mess of a GameCube game whose highlights were two polygon characters, wonky collision, a soundtrack hand-crafted by the Prince of Darkness, and a lack of a QA Department. So, right from the start, any new Spyro game would be an improvement - right?
In this new game, created by Vicarious Visions (makers of those awesome Crash Bandicoot GBA games) Dr. Neo Cortex and Ripto, the villains from the Crash and Spyro games, have teamed up to take over the world together. The idea is that there are two separate games: one where you play as Crash (Crash Purple) and one where you play as Spyro (Spyro Orange), both being different games that link up together. This could make for one incredibly entertaining massive platform game where the two games intertwine, and clever use of the Game Link Cable to transfer data between games - for example, a key in Crash's game that could be used to unlock a door in Spyro's game.
Sadly, nothing as creative as that has been done. Instead, Vicarious Visions has decided to take their strongest talent (that is, creating brilliant 2D platforming games) and thrown it out in favour of making tepid mini-games instead. Don't get me wrong - there IS platforming action in the game - these platforming sections act as a kind of "hub", with portals to the mini-games. However, you can't just search for the mini-games and play them. Oh no. You have to pay for the privilege to access them. Memories of collecting hundreds of Rupees to pay Tingle to "decipher" maps to "find" Triforce Pieces instantly came flooding back. This is just a cheap way to pad out the game so that it seems like it's longer than it actually is. And seeing that I was able to finish the game in two hours flat, that's pretty damn short.
My question: What the hell happened?
Vicarious Visions has been famous for creating excellent games on the Game Boy Advance. Crash 1, Crash 2 and Crash Nitro Kart were all fine examples of how to make a great game on a portable. Even The Powerpuff Girls: Him and Seek was a fun game. (At one point, Mojo Jojo took over your GBA and forced you to help him escape from jail.) How did Spyro: Orange, which had the potential to be such an awesome game with cross-linking potential, turn out to be so bland? Collecting cards is weak. There isn't even any data to go with them - it's just a picture of an in-game character or object.
The mini-games, which are the heart of the game, are some of the most bland, boring games I've ever played. And seeing that they are the core of the game, this poses a bit of a problem. At least half of them seem to be poor ripoffs of arcade games like Arkanoid. You'll have seen them before, and all done much better elsewhere. The rest of them are repeats of earlier games, with different graphics. The problem with the mini-games is that they seem to lack enough creativity or uniqueness to keep you interested. Some mini-games are "Bonus Games", and you have to pay each time you want to play them. Exciting! Once you beat all of these mini-games and reach the final boss, you're told that you can't visit the last world until you beat all the mini-games in all the worlds three times. Thanks, but no thanks. It was dull enough doing it the first time. I tried to be fair - I played through quite a few of the games three times, and their difficulty does increase for the additional times you play them... but they're so insipid that you'll agree that once is plenty. You can also play any unlocked mini-games in multiplayer with your friends - but doing so is recommended only if you hate your friends.
To sum up Spyro Orange in one sentence: I'd rather slam my fingers in my desk drawer than play those mini-games again.
