Spyro: Reignited Trilogy (PC/PS4/XbOne/Switch, 2018) Review
I decided to take a break from reviewing consoles and Sonic games and review something new for a change.
Considering that I’m a fan of the PS1 and PlayStation platformers in general (especially nowadays), it may surprise you to say that I actually didn’t really play the Spyro games growing up. I was definitely more of a Crash kid and while I’ve always held interest in the Spyro series, it kind of pains me to say that I never really got the chance to play it. I do remember my brother having the first game on the PS1 growing up but I don’t remember playing it myself and unfortunately that game along with the PS1 and most of his collection ended up getting sold when I was about 8 or 9. And when I bought my own PS1 a few years later with some Christmas money, the Spyro games were going for around $20-$30 each. Not exactly an expensive game, but as a teenager with no job mostly working with an income of money for birthdays and Christmas I still didn’t really get the opportunity to play it.
I eventually bought the first game though in early 2018, which was how I first played it, and frankly I did really enjoy the game. Spyro himself was very fun to control and it was very easy for me to get sucked into the exploration of the levels and whatnot. I just found it to be a really fun game in general and after playing the first, I did want to try it’s sequels.
Then… the Spyro Reignited Trilogy got announced. This didn’t exactly come as a surprise to me, with the release of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy I greatly expected the Spyro trilogy to get the same treatment. Unfortunately, it was only announced for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One - meaning that I, as someone who really only had a PC as far as modern gaming goes, wouldn’t be able to play it until it was released on PC (and Switch for that matter) a year later. I still don’t really understand that to be honest - while timed exclusivity pisses me off regardless I could at least understand with the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy those games did at least begin on the PlayStation line of consoles but with Spyro Reignited Trilogy, I’m not sure why they released it on both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and didn’t just go ahead and bring it to PC as well. But… whatever.
When the game was announced to be coming to PC I decided to go ahead and pre-order the PC port of the game. I don’t really pre-order games, in fact the PC port was the first game I’ve ever pre-ordered, but I pretty much figured that the Spyro Reignited Trilogy had turned out to be good on the PS4 and Xbox One and since I was already planning to buy it I decided to just go ahead and do so. September 3 came and the game finally released on PC. I played through the first Spyro game and really liked it, and this year I went ahead and played the other two games. And, well, I really enjoyed them.
Typically with remasters and remakes, the best way to review them is to compare them to their original counterparts and judge them based on how well they brought the old games into a new light. But since this is my first time playing Spyro 2 and 3 (and my first time reviewing the first game) I kind of figured I would at least touch upon how I felt about every game in the trilogy.
Although, the first thing I want to talk about regarding the remakes is the presentation of the games. With this game you’d probably expect them to at the very least beef up the graphics of the original. And, well, not only did the developers beef up those graphics, they practically overhauled them entirely, recreating the assets and animations entirely and giving the game a more modern and nicer looking art style while still taking queues from what the original games were going for. And I gotta say, this game looks absolutely gorgeous. With the original games being for the original PlayStation obviously their visuals aren’t great by today’s standards. I mean I still think the original games look pretty good for the time and system they were on plus hold up better than most games of that era but it’s still safe to say that they were held back by the limitations of the time.
With this game, it really feels like the art style of the games is more fully “realized.” The character models and environments definitely look better than they did on the PS1 versions and in a lot of cases the game’s characters are given more personality with their animations - some of the dragons you save in Spyro 1 for example are given hats and whatnot that gives them more personality that couldn’t necessarily be done on the original hardware. There’s also Elora who I feel in the PS1 versions doesn’t really look very good (almost a bit too human-like) but is honestly cute as hell in the Reignited Trilogy (dare I say waifu material). The biggest upgrade though was definitely is Sheila, one of the playable characters in Year of the Dragon - in the original PS1 game she pretty much just looks like a generic kangaroo but in the Reignited Trilogy she’s given a full on design overhaul - a hairstyle and a safari shirt that adds a lot more to her character and personality.
I don’t really have much to say about the soundtrack. You can choose between the original soundtrack as well as a remastered version of the soundtrack. I generally kept the remastered soundtrack on and I don’t have too much to say, it is nice to listen to while I’m playing the games.
The first Spyro game is really the only one I can compare to it’s remade version in terms of gameplay but the gameplay does translate well to the Reignited Trilogies. I feel like I can most describe the Spyro games as 3D collectathon platformers. In all games, you’re basically exploring a bunch of different worlds for collectibles such as gems, dragons, artifacts and dragon eggs. Spyro pretty much controls and plays the same in all games, although Spyro 2 and 3 add moves that the first one didn't, including the ability to swim and climb on ladders. In Spyro 2 you have to play through the game to gain these abilities but in Spyro 3 you pretty much have all the abilities from the start. Spyro 1 also has a move where you can side-roll using the Left and Right shoulder buttons that wasn’t present in the other games but truth be told I didn’t even know that was a thing until I read about it for this review.
The first Spyro game is probably the most “consistent” out of the games - pretty much the entirety of the game is spent exploring each world for gems and dragons with the occasional “flight” levels where you go through obstacles and flame enemies within a certain time frame. As I said I first played through this game in 2018 but playing it again in the Reignited Trilogy with the new graphics and soundtrack was still a lot of fun.
Something I probably should get out of the way is that when it comes to 3D platformers, I generally don’t find myself enjoying collectathons as much as linear titles. I still like the collectathons and can enjoy exploring their worlds, but I can never really get myself to play one straight through. I’m not sure how to explain it, but with a game like Crash and the 3D Sonic games, once I start it doesn’t take me too long to finish the game. But with games like Banjo-Kazooie, Yooka-Laylee and even the 3D Mario games, as much as I enjoy them, I usually find myself playing them in spurts over a few days then taking a break from them before actually beating them.
But with Spyro the Dragon, and pretty much all the games in this trilogy, I generally found myself playing straight from beginning to end without taking breaks from the game entirely. I didn’t necessarily play all the games in the trilogy back to back, but once I started each game I generally found myself consistently going to the end. I’m not really sure what it particularly was, but I think a big factor in this game compared to others was more of the structure of the game. There were a lot of collectibles in the level and in general picking them up felt pretty quick and it was easy to find where they were. A lot of the collectibles were pretty much just down to exploration and it didn’t necessarily feel like I was doing a list of tasks in order to collect stuff which I kind of feel is the case with the other collectathons I mentioned.
With that structure in mind I also felt Spyro’s movement and control was really good. There’s definitely a degree of fluidity in the controls that I kind of feel was lacking in other 3D platformers of the time and moving around in the 3D space of Spyro felt really good and matched the overall structure of the game pretty well. And compared to most 3D platformers and games in general of the time I really feel Spyro has aged pretty damn well due to its control and structure. And the Reignited Trilogy definitely re-captures those feelings.
But as I said this was my first time playing Spyro 2 and 3 and it was nice to see how the series evolved from the first game. I can’t really judge how the original versions hold up when compared to their respective remakes but I do think Spyro 2 and 3 add a lot of new things that really kept the games feeling fresh while also not straying far away from their original formula - basically what a sequel should do.
Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage expands Spyro’s moveset quite a bit - throughout the game you unlock new abilities you can use to get collectibles. I really liked that aspect of the game and it was definitely still a good time, however I will admit that it was my least favorite of the original trilogy. Not that it was bad or anything, but there were certain elements of the game that put just a smidge below the original for me. In general I’m not a big fan of games that require the player to unlock moves that are needed for getting into certain sections of previous levels (it often just kind of feels like forced replay value to me) and this game does have that problem. It kind of felt unsatisfying in my play through of the game when I came across a certain section of level to find that it was pretty much inaccessible to me because I didn’t have the ability unlocked at the time. When completing the game it requires a bit of extra backtracking, and on top of that the game also introduces some mission-based collectibles that sort of goes against what I liked from the first game compared to most other collectathons. But at the end of the day, I still felt Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage was a solid game even if there were some nitpicks about it that put it a bit below the first game for me.
Year of the Dragon however was definitely my favorite of the trilogy. It definitely did it’s job of furthering the evolution of the core Spyro gameplay while also introducing a lot of new elements. One of the biggest elements is having a few new playable characters that you unlock throughout the game that add to the gameplay. In some cases they do help to look for collectibles throughout each level. The game in general also builds off Spyro 2 with Spyro’s expanded moveset and some of the mission-based structure. However, unlike Spyro 2 you do have all of Spyro’s abilities unlocked from the start so this game doesn’t have as much of a backtracking issue and I think the added variety with the playable characters still felt like it added to the core gameplay without slowing the pace down. There were some occasions where I needed a playable character I hadn’t unlocked but these moments weren’t as much of an issue as in Spyro 2 to me.
But overall, I really enjoyed playing through all these games and I’m even tempted to go back and complete them at some point in the future.
And as for the Reignited Trilogy itself, well, it’s pretty much the best way to play all these games on modern hardware. The overhauled graphics and soundtrack really enhance the overall presentation and the core gameplay of all the games is still a lot of fun to play. As I said, this was pretty much my first experience with the second and third Spyro games and I’m really glad I got to enjoy them in this way. Overall, I would recommend the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, whether you’ve played the games in the past or experiencing them for the first time. For $40, it’s three really fun and classic 3D platformers that are even more enhanced by the overall presentation that is added by the potential of more modern hardware. And honestly playing the games in the trilogy has me slightly tempted to check out some of the rest of the series.
Considering that I’m a fan of the PS1 and PlayStation platformers in general (especially nowadays), it may surprise you to say that I actually didn’t really play the Spyro games growing up. I was definitely more of a Crash kid and while I’ve always held interest in the Spyro series, it kind of pains me to say that I never really got the chance to play it. I do remember my brother having the first game on the PS1 growing up but I don’t remember playing it myself and unfortunately that game along with the PS1 and most of his collection ended up getting sold when I was about 8 or 9. And when I bought my own PS1 a few years later with some Christmas money, the Spyro games were going for around $20-$30 each. Not exactly an expensive game, but as a teenager with no job mostly working with an income of money for birthdays and Christmas I still didn’t really get the opportunity to play it.
I eventually bought the first game though in early 2018, which was how I first played it, and frankly I did really enjoy the game. Spyro himself was very fun to control and it was very easy for me to get sucked into the exploration of the levels and whatnot. I just found it to be a really fun game in general and after playing the first, I did want to try it’s sequels.
Then… the Spyro Reignited Trilogy got announced. This didn’t exactly come as a surprise to me, with the release of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy I greatly expected the Spyro trilogy to get the same treatment. Unfortunately, it was only announced for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One - meaning that I, as someone who really only had a PC as far as modern gaming goes, wouldn’t be able to play it until it was released on PC (and Switch for that matter) a year later. I still don’t really understand that to be honest - while timed exclusivity pisses me off regardless I could at least understand with the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy those games did at least begin on the PlayStation line of consoles but with Spyro Reignited Trilogy, I’m not sure why they released it on both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and didn’t just go ahead and bring it to PC as well. But… whatever.
When the game was announced to be coming to PC I decided to go ahead and pre-order the PC port of the game. I don’t really pre-order games, in fact the PC port was the first game I’ve ever pre-ordered, but I pretty much figured that the Spyro Reignited Trilogy had turned out to be good on the PS4 and Xbox One and since I was already planning to buy it I decided to just go ahead and do so. September 3 came and the game finally released on PC. I played through the first Spyro game and really liked it, and this year I went ahead and played the other two games. And, well, I really enjoyed them.
Typically with remasters and remakes, the best way to review them is to compare them to their original counterparts and judge them based on how well they brought the old games into a new light. But since this is my first time playing Spyro 2 and 3 (and my first time reviewing the first game) I kind of figured I would at least touch upon how I felt about every game in the trilogy.
Although, the first thing I want to talk about regarding the remakes is the presentation of the games. With this game you’d probably expect them to at the very least beef up the graphics of the original. And, well, not only did the developers beef up those graphics, they practically overhauled them entirely, recreating the assets and animations entirely and giving the game a more modern and nicer looking art style while still taking queues from what the original games were going for. And I gotta say, this game looks absolutely gorgeous. With the original games being for the original PlayStation obviously their visuals aren’t great by today’s standards. I mean I still think the original games look pretty good for the time and system they were on plus hold up better than most games of that era but it’s still safe to say that they were held back by the limitations of the time.
With this game, it really feels like the art style of the games is more fully “realized.” The character models and environments definitely look better than they did on the PS1 versions and in a lot of cases the game’s characters are given more personality with their animations - some of the dragons you save in Spyro 1 for example are given hats and whatnot that gives them more personality that couldn’t necessarily be done on the original hardware. There’s also Elora who I feel in the PS1 versions doesn’t really look very good (almost a bit too human-like) but is honestly cute as hell in the Reignited Trilogy (dare I say waifu material). The biggest upgrade though was definitely is Sheila, one of the playable characters in Year of the Dragon - in the original PS1 game she pretty much just looks like a generic kangaroo but in the Reignited Trilogy she’s given a full on design overhaul - a hairstyle and a safari shirt that adds a lot more to her character and personality.
I don’t really have much to say about the soundtrack. You can choose between the original soundtrack as well as a remastered version of the soundtrack. I generally kept the remastered soundtrack on and I don’t have too much to say, it is nice to listen to while I’m playing the games.
The first Spyro game is really the only one I can compare to it’s remade version in terms of gameplay but the gameplay does translate well to the Reignited Trilogies. I feel like I can most describe the Spyro games as 3D collectathon platformers. In all games, you’re basically exploring a bunch of different worlds for collectibles such as gems, dragons, artifacts and dragon eggs. Spyro pretty much controls and plays the same in all games, although Spyro 2 and 3 add moves that the first one didn't, including the ability to swim and climb on ladders. In Spyro 2 you have to play through the game to gain these abilities but in Spyro 3 you pretty much have all the abilities from the start. Spyro 1 also has a move where you can side-roll using the Left and Right shoulder buttons that wasn’t present in the other games but truth be told I didn’t even know that was a thing until I read about it for this review.
The first Spyro game is probably the most “consistent” out of the games - pretty much the entirety of the game is spent exploring each world for gems and dragons with the occasional “flight” levels where you go through obstacles and flame enemies within a certain time frame. As I said I first played through this game in 2018 but playing it again in the Reignited Trilogy with the new graphics and soundtrack was still a lot of fun.
Something I probably should get out of the way is that when it comes to 3D platformers, I generally don’t find myself enjoying collectathons as much as linear titles. I still like the collectathons and can enjoy exploring their worlds, but I can never really get myself to play one straight through. I’m not sure how to explain it, but with a game like Crash and the 3D Sonic games, once I start it doesn’t take me too long to finish the game. But with games like Banjo-Kazooie, Yooka-Laylee and even the 3D Mario games, as much as I enjoy them, I usually find myself playing them in spurts over a few days then taking a break from them before actually beating them.
But with Spyro the Dragon, and pretty much all the games in this trilogy, I generally found myself playing straight from beginning to end without taking breaks from the game entirely. I didn’t necessarily play all the games in the trilogy back to back, but once I started each game I generally found myself consistently going to the end. I’m not really sure what it particularly was, but I think a big factor in this game compared to others was more of the structure of the game. There were a lot of collectibles in the level and in general picking them up felt pretty quick and it was easy to find where they were. A lot of the collectibles were pretty much just down to exploration and it didn’t necessarily feel like I was doing a list of tasks in order to collect stuff which I kind of feel is the case with the other collectathons I mentioned.
With that structure in mind I also felt Spyro’s movement and control was really good. There’s definitely a degree of fluidity in the controls that I kind of feel was lacking in other 3D platformers of the time and moving around in the 3D space of Spyro felt really good and matched the overall structure of the game pretty well. And compared to most 3D platformers and games in general of the time I really feel Spyro has aged pretty damn well due to its control and structure. And the Reignited Trilogy definitely re-captures those feelings.
But as I said this was my first time playing Spyro 2 and 3 and it was nice to see how the series evolved from the first game. I can’t really judge how the original versions hold up when compared to their respective remakes but I do think Spyro 2 and 3 add a lot of new things that really kept the games feeling fresh while also not straying far away from their original formula - basically what a sequel should do.
Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage expands Spyro’s moveset quite a bit - throughout the game you unlock new abilities you can use to get collectibles. I really liked that aspect of the game and it was definitely still a good time, however I will admit that it was my least favorite of the original trilogy. Not that it was bad or anything, but there were certain elements of the game that put just a smidge below the original for me. In general I’m not a big fan of games that require the player to unlock moves that are needed for getting into certain sections of previous levels (it often just kind of feels like forced replay value to me) and this game does have that problem. It kind of felt unsatisfying in my play through of the game when I came across a certain section of level to find that it was pretty much inaccessible to me because I didn’t have the ability unlocked at the time. When completing the game it requires a bit of extra backtracking, and on top of that the game also introduces some mission-based collectibles that sort of goes against what I liked from the first game compared to most other collectathons. But at the end of the day, I still felt Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage was a solid game even if there were some nitpicks about it that put it a bit below the first game for me.
Year of the Dragon however was definitely my favorite of the trilogy. It definitely did it’s job of furthering the evolution of the core Spyro gameplay while also introducing a lot of new elements. One of the biggest elements is having a few new playable characters that you unlock throughout the game that add to the gameplay. In some cases they do help to look for collectibles throughout each level. The game in general also builds off Spyro 2 with Spyro’s expanded moveset and some of the mission-based structure. However, unlike Spyro 2 you do have all of Spyro’s abilities unlocked from the start so this game doesn’t have as much of a backtracking issue and I think the added variety with the playable characters still felt like it added to the core gameplay without slowing the pace down. There were some occasions where I needed a playable character I hadn’t unlocked but these moments weren’t as much of an issue as in Spyro 2 to me.
But overall, I really enjoyed playing through all these games and I’m even tempted to go back and complete them at some point in the future.
And as for the Reignited Trilogy itself, well, it’s pretty much the best way to play all these games on modern hardware. The overhauled graphics and soundtrack really enhance the overall presentation and the core gameplay of all the games is still a lot of fun to play. As I said, this was pretty much my first experience with the second and third Spyro games and I’m really glad I got to enjoy them in this way. Overall, I would recommend the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, whether you’ve played the games in the past or experiencing them for the first time. For $40, it’s three really fun and classic 3D platformers that are even more enhanced by the overall presentation that is added by the potential of more modern hardware. And honestly playing the games in the trilogy has me slightly tempted to check out some of the rest of the series.
Comments
Post a Comment