Review: Spyro’s Reignited Return
The year of gaming icons being remade continues as Spyro Reignited Trilogy dropped late November.
Following a similar treatment of Crash Bandicoot last year, Spyro the Dragon gets his trilogy of games remade from the ground up and debut from the PS1 up onto the PS4.
Before I get into details about the game, let me clarify that I have never played the original trilogy of games, so this review will be made from a blind mind.
From what I have played, there was definitely reason for these games to be revived.
Spyro is a classic platformer collectathon where you run through huge sprawling levels hunting down gems and lost dragons in an attempt to defeat the armies of the current antagonist, which varies depending on the game. The gameplay does not diverge much between the games, but the worlds and challenges do.
With such a simple premise, it is rather difficult to mess up a platformer, a premade one at that since this is a remake. The only thing easy to mess up are the controls, and personally, they play like a dream.
Spyro feels like a car with no reverse, but much less weight. He gets a ton of space to practice moving and dashing, and the level design compliments his control scheme. The only thing that feels odd are the swimming controls, you mash the jump button to swim normally, while dashing to swim as fast as your running speed. On land, this is not as much of an issue since you only have gravity to deal with, limiting complication of how to get from point A to point B. While swimming, you really do not have a good way of establishing direction and are forced to completely halt the gameplay to find out where you were going in the first place.
Control aside, Spyro’s level design is kept large and free as established, but as for threats? Enemies in these games die in one hit most of the time, usually by a quick fire breath or a dash into them depending on the conditions. The bosses too are a bit underwhelming either, but this issue is fixed somewhat in the sequels. Gameplay sounds easy, but the combo of enemies and their placements prove to be real threats, easily able to take a few lives if you are not paying attention to them.
Overall, Spyro Reignited Trilogy is like a time capsule from gaming, nice classic platforming. If you have 30 dollars saved up for a new, yet nostalgic game, I highly recommend Spyro for PS4.