(Blog)About Spyro
Or should I say Skylanders? Whatever the case may be, it's not about Spyro anymore. It's nothing more than cheap, cash grab toy marketing scheme disguised as a game. Or a cheap, cash grab game marketing scheme disguised as a toy franchise. Take your pick.
Since I first picked up my copy of the very first game my mother got for me when I was but a child losing his baby teeth, I've fell in love with the concept of Spyro. Both the games and character itself. Then I've had a big thing for dragons and still do today really. It was the era where 3D Platforming games dominated the gaming market, with Spyro competing against Banjo Kazooie and Super Mario 64. It was unique as it offered a completely different character with a unique different experience of platforming and mission based tasks with collect-a-thon elements in this beautiful and seemingly magical world where you are in control of an adventurous young purple dragon out to save the world of course. And it's been that way for a good long while until the 4th and 5th game came out and everything went a bit whacked.
The 4th had the problem of being rather unfinished in lack of a better term. With bugs, glitches, some unresponsive camera and controls and even a rehash plot of Year of the Dragon. Most of the characteristics and story telling aspects were bland at best. There wasn't anything innovative to add to the game for that matter and it just fell short on being predictable.
The 5th game was slightly better than the 4th but suffered from repetitiveness, poor story telling, ridiculous dialogue and some forgettable moments that aren't even addressed properly, or at all in the game. While I can certainly say it was fun, it wasn't as fun as I had hoped it would be, nor as interesting. It was also to this point the series became a Flanderization of itself, with Spyro being a little bit TOO meta to the point he became obnoxious and annoying. Sparx is forgettable and annoying too so there's not much to say there.
I can honestly say that Shadow Legacy could had saved the franchise if it had tried a little bit harder. It was different, unique and new change to the Spyro experience as it would be with Super Mario RPGs or Paper Mario. But it did not have any of the qualities to make it as successful or radiant as most RPG titles of a franchise. The lack of any diverse or decent quests is what mostly turned me off, and the boss fights were forgettable at worse. Not even the main antagonist was in any way interesting. The only thing that would be this game's saving grace was the spell casting system which really mixed things up in a good way in terms of gameplay innovation and variety.
But alas, the series of bad strokes has ended the old franchise. Yet Spyro was not dead just yet. To try and breathe new life into the franchise, publishers Sierra and Universal decided to make a whole new story and plot for the purple dragon and this came to a dark, heroic fantasy tale about of course, the hero's journey to save the world from approaching doom.
It took me a while to adjust to this as I was so used to the old Spyro. Though after thoroughly being disappointing in the last several games before, I at least attempted to give this one a try. The first (and second game for this matter) was made by Krome Studios who also worked on previous platforming titles such as Ty the Tasmanian Tiger! (I actually found it amazing this studio kept up even after going dark in 2010. But that's for another time.) It was gripping, it was fun, immersive almost. Mostly because of how gorgeous the world of the new Spyro looked. Despite how dark it was and how tense the atmosphere can get, it had that feeling of wonder, adventure and mystery about it.You felt so small in this large world and that's what drew me in with this game the most.
I loved it's story, I loved it's characters. Sparx could had been a bit of a fixer upper but I still enjoyed the lot of it. Especially how cute the new Spyro was. The gameplay certainly was a step up in a different direction, taking mostly platforming and action elements to heart. Of course by the 2nd game, it shifted to a more combat focused experienced. The main negative points I can say for certain was the repetitiveness in the 2nd game, especially with the waves of enemies deal. Given how there was a distinct lack of new mechanics and innovative directions in this second one, the only thing that got me interested at all was of course, story and characters. But like the first game, it still had that atmosphere, that smallness in a big world kind of feeling and tense gripping adventure.
Then the third and final conclusion of the series came to a close. While certainly the strongest of the three games, it also had a few negative points to it. First being the change in art style and direction of the design in both characters and world. It lost the tone it used to have in the last two games but at least in gameplay value, it makes up for it. With Cynder as the playable character, offering new opportunities to fight, and also offering new puzzle solving techniques. (Also one of the only good co-op optional games that came out during the generation of online multiplayer.) While it certainly could had used work itself, it certainly felt refreshing. The plot was simple and straightforward, which would make sense for a finale but I digress, it could had done some slowing down in the pacing department.
But why am I talking about the old games? You think 'I thought this was about Skylanders.' Well yeah I did say 'or should I say about Skylanders' since it was the only thing people would probably realize, but the title of the blog said 'about Spyro.' So you had to expect I was going to talk about Spyro in general. Well here's the THIRD reboot of the series... Skylanders.
The difference between these iterations of Spyro and this new, poor excuse of a hybrid of games and toys is that it's not even about Spyro anymore. After Spyro's adventures, the title changed up a bit to the point where it omit's the mention of Spyro completely. It's null and fucking void in this regard and it has nothing to do with him. The world is uninteresting itself as well and having an uninteresting title to fit it. Spyro is completely ugly; it's like they took Toothless from HHTYD and mushed him up into an incomprehensible mess that hardly constitute as 'appealing.'
I couldn't give more than a simple damn about the plot that's supposed to be an ARG or something. I don't know. But it uses toy models for it. Something about portal masters, something about Eon who I am just assuming is this all powerful deity growing weak with something called The Darkness taking over and Kaos, this ridiculous Saturday Morning Cartoon Bad Guy who wants to rule the Skylands. I am mainly basing this off of videos I've seen about it as well as the plot symphonis. You couldn't get me to buy another Activision product even if you tortured me.
The whole floating islands aspect of the game is... tedious. It's not magical or vast and diverse. Everything looked small and compact the more I explore this seemingly 'large magical realm' floating rocks and dirt that can hardly support an entire city. My care for this world diminishes with each passing second as I feel more and more of my love and humanity slipping away as Spyro no longer exists by this point. He's hardly on the front cover these days. His name isn't even plastered on the title anymore.
Even if you were to remove Spyro entirely from the continuity of this series starting from the very first game, you will not make me give anymore of a damn for it. It's not just a bad Spyro game, it's just a bad game in general. It's a marketing ploy to get you to buy toys for these games that will funnel a massive amount of dollars into Activision's sodding growing rectal hole. It's a big soul sucking machine that is siphoning what little remains of Spyro's soul from his decomposing corpse.
To add insult and injury, Crash Bandicoot is not a part of the game now. In the upcoming Imaginators. And he looks as bad as E3's demo shows him to be. The train keeps on chugging folks. With not one, but two dead beloved video game characters, I can only hope that some merciful god would crash this harder than the stock exchange in the Depression Era.
This is so far from what Spyro was supposed to be that it's hard to identify it, or Spyro for that matter, anymore. This character's only hope of actually surviving and having it's own separate brand is for him and any actual characters affiliated with him (such as Sparx who is an item. What.) Cynder and any other character that can be found related to the old series one way or another.
Since I first picked up my copy of the very first game my mother got for me when I was but a child losing his baby teeth, I've fell in love with the concept of Spyro. Both the games and character itself. Then I've had a big thing for dragons and still do today really. It was the era where 3D Platforming games dominated the gaming market, with Spyro competing against Banjo Kazooie and Super Mario 64. It was unique as it offered a completely different character with a unique different experience of platforming and mission based tasks with collect-a-thon elements in this beautiful and seemingly magical world where you are in control of an adventurous young purple dragon out to save the world of course. And it's been that way for a good long while until the 4th and 5th game came out and everything went a bit whacked.
The 4th had the problem of being rather unfinished in lack of a better term. With bugs, glitches, some unresponsive camera and controls and even a rehash plot of Year of the Dragon. Most of the characteristics and story telling aspects were bland at best. There wasn't anything innovative to add to the game for that matter and it just fell short on being predictable.
The 5th game was slightly better than the 4th but suffered from repetitiveness, poor story telling, ridiculous dialogue and some forgettable moments that aren't even addressed properly, or at all in the game. While I can certainly say it was fun, it wasn't as fun as I had hoped it would be, nor as interesting. It was also to this point the series became a Flanderization of itself, with Spyro being a little bit TOO meta to the point he became obnoxious and annoying. Sparx is forgettable and annoying too so there's not much to say there.
I can honestly say that Shadow Legacy could had saved the franchise if it had tried a little bit harder. It was different, unique and new change to the Spyro experience as it would be with Super Mario RPGs or Paper Mario. But it did not have any of the qualities to make it as successful or radiant as most RPG titles of a franchise. The lack of any diverse or decent quests is what mostly turned me off, and the boss fights were forgettable at worse. Not even the main antagonist was in any way interesting. The only thing that would be this game's saving grace was the spell casting system which really mixed things up in a good way in terms of gameplay innovation and variety.
But alas, the series of bad strokes has ended the old franchise. Yet Spyro was not dead just yet. To try and breathe new life into the franchise, publishers Sierra and Universal decided to make a whole new story and plot for the purple dragon and this came to a dark, heroic fantasy tale about of course, the hero's journey to save the world from approaching doom.
It took me a while to adjust to this as I was so used to the old Spyro. Though after thoroughly being disappointing in the last several games before, I at least attempted to give this one a try. The first (and second game for this matter) was made by Krome Studios who also worked on previous platforming titles such as Ty the Tasmanian Tiger! (I actually found it amazing this studio kept up even after going dark in 2010. But that's for another time.) It was gripping, it was fun, immersive almost. Mostly because of how gorgeous the world of the new Spyro looked. Despite how dark it was and how tense the atmosphere can get, it had that feeling of wonder, adventure and mystery about it.You felt so small in this large world and that's what drew me in with this game the most.
I loved it's story, I loved it's characters. Sparx could had been a bit of a fixer upper but I still enjoyed the lot of it. Especially how cute the new Spyro was. The gameplay certainly was a step up in a different direction, taking mostly platforming and action elements to heart. Of course by the 2nd game, it shifted to a more combat focused experienced. The main negative points I can say for certain was the repetitiveness in the 2nd game, especially with the waves of enemies deal. Given how there was a distinct lack of new mechanics and innovative directions in this second one, the only thing that got me interested at all was of course, story and characters. But like the first game, it still had that atmosphere, that smallness in a big world kind of feeling and tense gripping adventure.
Then the third and final conclusion of the series came to a close. While certainly the strongest of the three games, it also had a few negative points to it. First being the change in art style and direction of the design in both characters and world. It lost the tone it used to have in the last two games but at least in gameplay value, it makes up for it. With Cynder as the playable character, offering new opportunities to fight, and also offering new puzzle solving techniques. (Also one of the only good co-op optional games that came out during the generation of online multiplayer.) While it certainly could had used work itself, it certainly felt refreshing. The plot was simple and straightforward, which would make sense for a finale but I digress, it could had done some slowing down in the pacing department.
But why am I talking about the old games? You think 'I thought this was about Skylanders.' Well yeah I did say 'or should I say about Skylanders' since it was the only thing people would probably realize, but the title of the blog said 'about Spyro.' So you had to expect I was going to talk about Spyro in general. Well here's the THIRD reboot of the series... Skylanders.
The difference between these iterations of Spyro and this new, poor excuse of a hybrid of games and toys is that it's not even about Spyro anymore. After Spyro's adventures, the title changed up a bit to the point where it omit's the mention of Spyro completely. It's null and fucking void in this regard and it has nothing to do with him. The world is uninteresting itself as well and having an uninteresting title to fit it. Spyro is completely ugly; it's like they took Toothless from HHTYD and mushed him up into an incomprehensible mess that hardly constitute as 'appealing.'
I couldn't give more than a simple damn about the plot that's supposed to be an ARG or something. I don't know. But it uses toy models for it. Something about portal masters, something about Eon who I am just assuming is this all powerful deity growing weak with something called The Darkness taking over and Kaos, this ridiculous Saturday Morning Cartoon Bad Guy who wants to rule the Skylands. I am mainly basing this off of videos I've seen about it as well as the plot symphonis. You couldn't get me to buy another Activision product even if you tortured me.
The whole floating islands aspect of the game is... tedious. It's not magical or vast and diverse. Everything looked small and compact the more I explore this seemingly 'large magical realm' floating rocks and dirt that can hardly support an entire city. My care for this world diminishes with each passing second as I feel more and more of my love and humanity slipping away as Spyro no longer exists by this point. He's hardly on the front cover these days. His name isn't even plastered on the title anymore.
Even if you were to remove Spyro entirely from the continuity of this series starting from the very first game, you will not make me give anymore of a damn for it. It's not just a bad Spyro game, it's just a bad game in general. It's a marketing ploy to get you to buy toys for these games that will funnel a massive amount of dollars into Activision's sodding growing rectal hole. It's a big soul sucking machine that is siphoning what little remains of Spyro's soul from his decomposing corpse.
To add insult and injury, Crash Bandicoot is not a part of the game now. In the upcoming Imaginators. And he looks as bad as E3's demo shows him to be. The train keeps on chugging folks. With not one, but two dead beloved video game characters, I can only hope that some merciful god would crash this harder than the stock exchange in the Depression Era.
This is so far from what Spyro was supposed to be that it's hard to identify it, or Spyro for that matter, anymore. This character's only hope of actually surviving and having it's own separate brand is for him and any actual characters affiliated with him (such as Sparx who is an item. What.) Cynder and any other character that can be found related to the old series one way or another.
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