Game Name: Spyro The Dragon
Platform: PlayStation (PS1)
Developer: Insomniac Games
Year: 1998
Genre: 3D action-platformer
Rated: Everyone
Mode: Single-player
Multi-Player Support: None
Media: CD-ROM

Dragon Contents:

This rating only indicates the dragon contents and importance they play in the movie/game/episodes reviewed.

R a t i n g :

This rating indicates how good or how bad was the movie/game/episodes reviewed. A rating of 5 stars on 10 is considered as the average which mean it is not good but not bad either.

Spyro the Dragon is a 3D action platformer game and the first of the Spyro series released on the original PlayStation. The concept of the game does not break new ground as it resembles Super Mario 64 released two years earlier; with puzzle jumping, levels accessed by portals (instead of jumping through paintings) and a third person camera view that can be controlled via the game controller.

Spyro can jump, glide, charge enemies, roll sideway and of course breath fire. He cannot really fly and doesn't flaps his wings, nor does he know how to swim. However, he can sometimes glide/fly indefinitely in specific obstacle course sub-levels such as Sunny Flight and Night Flight. To assist him, he is followed by a dragonfly called Sparx, who acts as a life points indicator and assistant to retrieve nearby gems from chests and defeated enemies. Sparx doesn't talk and doesn't have any dialog. He will appear as gold when at full hit point, then turns blue when Spyro receives a hit, then green before disappearing completely. Only at that point can Spyro die. Spyro can also die by drowning and by falling off the edge of a level. To regain health, Spyro needs to attack sheep and other critters present in the level. Doing so will release a butterfly that Sparx will eat when close enough resulting in Spyro regaining one hit point.

There are various chests containing gems throughout the game, some can be destroyed by flame, some others like metal ones by charging them but heavily reinforced chests can only be destroy by a cannonball, by a stick rocket, by super-charging them or by unlocking them with a key hidden in the level (if that chest has a lock on it).

Some interesting observations:
• Spyro is pretty much the only quadruped dragon in the game while adults are biped.
• In this game, all the dragons encountered are males which led to some questionable game theories being thrown around instead of seeing this as a simple matter of the developers not hiring a female voice actor considering the very limited dialog presents in the game.
• In the intro, the old dragon isn't sure if they have 12000 or 14000 treasures, these numbers are a hint about how much Spyro needs to recover; 12000 being the number needed to unlock Gnasty's Loot level and 14000 being the maximum amount achievable.


Storyline:
The game begins with some dragons giving an interview and telling the audience that Gnasty Gnorc is ugly and is no threat to the Dragon Kingdom. Unfortunately for the dragons, he was watching the interview and decides to prove them wrong by imprisoning them into crystallized statues with a magic spell. You play as Spyro, the last remaining dragon in the Dragon Lands that wasn't imprisoned in such statues.

It's not one of the best scenario or the most elaborate way to begin a game like this one as this has absolutely nothing to do with the game itself, nor does is it explained who was the interviewer or if dragons even watch TV to begin with. It is assumed here that since Spyro is a very young dragon that he was small enough to be overlooked during the initial attack.
In general, the goals of the game are simple: free the imprisoned dragons, retrieve their treasure and recover the eggs some enemies have managed to steal. Often when Spyro will free a dragon, he will provide a useful hint on how to complete the level, or tells Spyro how to perform certain maneuvers or even access some out of reach locations. Spyro can use his flame to roast most enemies (except those clad in metal armor), uses his horns to charge enemies (except large ones) and glides from high place to reach places that would otherwise be inaccessible.

Each stage is composed of a main-level with gates allowing access to five sub-levels (except for Gnasty's World that has only four sub-levels) with one of them being a flight-level where Spyro can glide indefinitely and has to destroy enemies/chests and passes through rings/arches within a specific time limit. Once you have freed enough dragons and/or gathered enough gems, Spyro will be able to take a hot air balloon to the next stage. It doesn't matter much if you free all dragons or recover all eggs and gems as this will not grant Spyro any special power, abilities or even recognition unless he recovers everything (i.e. 100% rating: 80 dragons, 12000 gems and 12 dragon eggs). Only then, he will be able to access a locked level (Gnasty's Loot) in Gnasty's World that is mostly filled with high value gems such as yellow and purple for an additional value of 2000. In that level, Spyro will be able to fly indefinitely but no higher than the height he originally started from. In other words, the level is more or less a matter of reaching ever higher platforms to fly from.

The game allows you to keep track of your progress by looking in your inventory and generally speaking, it's not that difficult to get every gems, eggs and freeing all the dragons. Though, there are some gems you can easily miss simply because they are hidden, such as in cauldrons in Cliff Town. Note that this game never requires to blindly jump into bottomless pit or toward certain death in order to find hidden gems and dragon statues. Spyro is able to look around by holding the triangle button so if he can't see anything, then there nothing hidden there. Boss are larger enemies but they aren't overpowered, we could even say that they are in fact quite weak and not much harder than regular enemies.


Graphics:
Back when Spyro the Dragon was released, it was using pretty much all the computing power the Playstation has to offer. This is one of the reasons that objects, buildings and platforms in a level become much less detailed and have much simpler texture the farther away Spyro is. This was done to lighten the load on the PS1 computing units and to focus the processing power of the console on objects and enemies that are close by and on what matter the most. But these days, you can get better results (less pixelation) using an emulator such as ePSXe simply because even the most basic graphic card (even those integrated to the CPU) can greatly outperform this old console. You can see the difference between the game played on the original PS1 and when playing it using the ePSXe emulator. While Spyro is well-detailed, the same cannot be said for the enemies who have rather simple shapes with low polygons count and elementary textures.

One thing to keep in midn tis that ePSXe is an emulator and not an actual Playstation nor something endorsed/supported by Sony Entertainment and unfortunately, this program isn't without issues. The game is fully playable and as stated above, the graphics are significantly better. However the Inventory and Pause menu will display a plain green background instead of a monochromatic green image of the paused game itself. DuckStation, another PS1 emulator, doesn't have this problem. This may appear as a bit surprising that decades after the console was released that such a popular emulator still isn't completely up to part. But aside this small problem, there is no significant differences in the game itself when played with either ePSXe and DuckStation. Though, since DuckStation is more up-to-date and still actively developed, I recommend to using this emulator instead. Note that the images in the Screenshots section were taken using ePSXe due to slightly less jagged edges.

If you have never played the game and unless you are into retro-gaming, then you probably should try the remake of this series by playing the Spyro Reignited Trilogy (2018). That remake has much better graphics while still being extremely faithful to the original game.


Sound & Music:
The music is appropriate for a game that is light-hearted. There isn't a track that is particularly amazing but everything seems to fit well. However, the music can feel repetitive per moment, especially when you are still in the same level looking around for the last few gems. As for the voice, there isn't a lot of it but Spyro is acted well, as a very young dragon limited by his age and who still has a lot to learn. His dialog is usually quite straightforward and to the point... with a ounce of cockiness that makes this character who he is.