 "a surprising disappointment" | 2009-09-09 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2582KMXLK2P06 |
Many people believe the third time is officially the charm. When a game finally gets everything right as far as gameplay, graphics and music go and delivers the ultimate experience. Other times game developers disregard the things that were most enjoyable the first couple times to put more emphasis on other areas of the game (in this case, the fantastic bonus stages).
Why so many people believe Year of the Dragon is the ultimate Spyro game is a total mystery to me. I believe something went wrong with the level design because several of the stages are flat out boring. Maybe Insomniac was under the impression during the creation of this game "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" or maybe people are confusing the fact you have a bunch of playable characters besides Spyro as something of an additional bonus to enhance the gameplay, but I have to disagree strongly. These extra playable characters definitely aren't enough to put this game over the top I'm afraid. Nice additions perhaps, but nothing spectacular.
No, it's not an example of me getting tired of Spyro either. I've played the first two Spyro games quite a lot. I must have completed the first one at least 20 times, and Ripto's Rage 10 times. I'd play through them again right now if I could.
There were some minor flaws with the first two games, but they honestly didn't mean anything to me. Certainly nothing to distract from the incredible gameplay and graphics that were so revolutionary in the development of 3D gaming at the time. I now feel a bit guilty for complaining that the very end of Zephyr seems boring to me because comparing that little area near the end of Zephyr to many of the areas in THIS game... let's just say, I had *nothing* to complain about.
To me, the most exciting kind of 3D platformers are the ones that are positively LOADED with tons of little things to collect such as what the first two Spyro games delievered. You know, things like colorful gems scattered around the stages, a nice variety of enemies to take out, little things such as trees and grass included into most areas of every stage with special care and consideration for detail. Adding these minor details actually make the graphics and gameplay better because they leave a lasting impression.
Year of the Dragon feels flat in comparison. To say I'm a little disappointed would be an understatement. I'm *very* disappointed.
After all the hype that Spyro's third installment is supposed to be the *ultimate* Spyro adventure by the majority of the gaming community, I was expecting to be blown away completely by this one. I was expecting this game to blow away the previous two by leaps and bounds. Instead, many of the stages are quite ordinary and bland in Spyro 3, and to be totally honest, many of them feel exactly the same, or have that "been there, done that" feeling. Year of the Dragon is quite similar to Ripto's Rage as far as atmosphere goes, but feels inferior most of the time for reasons that could have been avoided had Insomniac worked harder on making the levels better. Insomniac instead gave us a game that does nothing truly noteworthy to separate itself from Ripto's Rage.
It's disappointing. Rushing through large areas of empty land *just* to finally come across a few scattered gems here and there, or enemies spaced out in such a way that it takes a while to arrive to them... these are the kind of things I dislike about most 3D games.
Spyro the Dragon and Ripto's Rage avoided most of these boring problems since both of those games did just about everything right. In these two games, traveling your way through the many stages was always exciting because there was a ton of things to collect or destroy along the way (with detailed areas around every corner). Not to mention when you entered a level covered with water or ice in the previous two Spyro adventures, it actually FELT like a water or ice stage.
If it takes me several seconds just to ARRIVE to something while playing Year of the Dragon, that tells me the gameplay is a bit on the boring side. Year of the Dragon falls victim to this I'm afraid, on more occasions than I was hoping for. Many times you will run up and down hills, platforms, and other areas and come across *nothing* the entire time. This is a problem to me because this kind of thing didn't happen very often in the first two games. There was always something to do in the first two games no matter WHERE you turned.
When the levels felt boring in the beginning of Year of the Dragon, I just thought the game was leading me gradually to more impressive levels. But once arriving to world 3 and STILL feeling bored and disappointed, I realized the level design was just below typical Spyro standards this time around. Not to mention all the home worlds are so ordinary they become boring almost instantly.
Do I still like this game more than most video games I've played? Absolutely. It's STILL Spyro, you're STILL going around collecting gems and dragons, you're STILL having fun controlling Spyro's movements and taking advantage of his fun abilities, but I don't know... I get the feeling Insomniac didn't put as much care into this one that they did with the first two games (which are both classics in my opinion). The game DOES have a few interesting stages on the same level as the ones in the previous two Spyro games but there's a bunch of average ones along the way.
Besides Insomniac not bothering to make the levels impressive or particularly fun, there's a couple other problems.
The object is to go around rescuing baby dragons (many of which require the player to attempt something harder than usual in order to achieve). However you get the feeling you're just repeating what's already been done in the very first Spyro game when, if you recall, the dragons would actually talk to you after you've freed them and say funny things. The dragons in this game are babies and they don't talk, and it's not nearly as much fun freeing dragons this time around.
This isn't a BIG complaint, but a mild disappointment and a nagging feeling that all I'm doing is the same thing I've done before, but much better the first time.
The baby dragons ARE cute, and they sometimes do funny things after they've been freed such as spin around, scratch behind their ears, and basically do things puppies and kittens do. If you're an animal lover like me, you'll fall in love with the way the baby dragons act. It's adorable and a nice touch.
I don't know if most people noticed, but most of the bonus games consist of constant shooting. Shooting, shooting, and well, MORE shooting. One bonus level even morphs the gameplay into a first person shooter similar to Quake as you go around eliminating enemies. Of course this particular one gets quite repetitive after you've blown through a few rooms, and it's not very exciting because it's overlong, but some of the shooting action you come across in the game is quite good (such as blasting away that machine shark in that one game- I love this one). Plentiful shooting throughout Year of the Dragon such as shooting fireballs, cannons, and other things that first appeared in Ripto's Rage, but usually they are pretty memorable so I won't complain about this.
Some of the bonus stages are quite difficult too, such as the boxing one. Just like real boxing- when you throw a punch, your opponent either immediately throws a punch of his own or blocks to defend himself. This makes these boxing games incredibly hard, and perhaps the hardest thing you will discover in the first three Spyro games from the Playstation's first console... but at least it's *fun*.
The skateboarding bonus games are AWESOME. They appear more than once throughout the game, and they deliver a lot of excitement. I'm surprised how much detail went into the skateboarding games as far as the approach you take with the skateboard itself. Not *quite* at the level of detail that Tony Hawk provides or anything, but enough tricks to make skateboarding fun and something you wouldn't mind mastering with time and patience. The biggest highlight of the game easily.
Another highlight are the special characters you play as-
One of them is a kangaroo, probably the best one since he jumps high and has a kick move that's devastating. You have another playable character that's a beastly creature and he has a big club going around pounding things. It's fun, but he moves slow and he's not particularly interesting. There's some kind of monkey that shoots with his little outer space-looking gun. This is somewhat fun, but like I said above, the game REALLY goes too far with the constant shooting you'll be doing throughout the game. The Sparx games are fun because the gameplay turns into old school Gradius gameplay for each of his levels. It's an interesting change of direction (and not NEARLY as frustrating as trying to master Gradius, thankfully).
I HATE playing as the bird though. He flies awkwardly, he's very very boring to play as, and his stages and challenges are just uninteresting to me.
To be completely honest though, I'd rather play as Spyro the entire time if given the choice, but these characters are decent enough overall.
The boss fight at the very end of the game is fun, but the boss is WAY too similar to Ripto with the whole arena showdown battle, and compared to that epic battle this one is over much sooner, and not nearly as memorable. Boss fights overall are a notch up as far as difficulty goes however.
Most of the music in the game is good but nothing compares to the original Spyro (including Ripto's Rage).
Some of the voice acting is questionable. For whatever reason Moneybags doesn't sound nearly as conniving as he does in Ripto's Rage. His voice definitely sounds different. Whoever thought it was a good idea for Sparx to talk needs a spanking, enough said.
Overall this game is NOT a classic which is unfortunate because Insomniac nailed the first two games right on the head and made two classic (and original) platformers. Year of the Dragon misses the mark and unfortunately can't be put on the same brilliant scale. Why so many people claim Year of the Dragon is the best in the series is a mystery to me because even though the levels are longer, they clearly aren't better or more fun. But Year of the Dragon does succeed in the bonus games above everything else. |
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 "Possibly the greatest game of all time" | 2009-01-18 |
| - Reviewed By User: AZEMX1NYEC37R |
| You'd have to look very hard to find someone who doesn't like Spyro games. this one is just as good as the first two, except it is bigger, better, and longer. I recommend you buy the collector's edition- it compiles all three games in one package. |
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| "Spyro 3 For The PlayStation" | 2009-01-05 |
| - Reviewed By User: AGWLFXSGKU50L |
| You can't ask for a better closing to a classic trilogy. The last in the Spyro series (for the PlayStation) that's right up there with its predecessors. You can even take a break from using Spyro (though I'm sure some of us would'nt mind using Spyro all the way through again) and controll 5 other characters. You can even play as Sparx, you trusty dragonfly friend. It gets better but I don't wanna spoil it anymore for anyone who has'nt played it yet (don't feel bad, this is the first time I'm playing it myself). I got 3 more PS classics to go.... |
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 "Great gameplay variety and tons of collectibles make up for some pretty dull levels later on" | 2008-12-21 |
| - Reviewed By User: A24JQTKGA5RAKX |
Positive:
+ gameplay is still solid
+ controls are still excellent
+ tons of eggs to collect
+ speedway levels are great fun
+ extra characters are a smart addition
Negative:
- wait... haven't I seen some of those positives before?
- some graphical issues are less forgivable the second time around
- the levels get a little boring after the first area
Spyro the Dragon was one of the defining characters of his genre back in the day. He had three great games: a great start, an even stronger sequel, and now the third one: Year of the Dragon. Does it live up to the expectations generated by its predecessors or does it fail to live up to the other two?
When an evil Sorceress from another world sends in a bunch of goons to kidnap the eggs in the world of the dragons, you know who to send back to retrieve them. Hunter the cheetah! ...Oh, and Spyro of course! Basically you go on a journey to get back the eggs through four big worlds each with a lot of levels, and each of which has a lot of stuff to do for completionists.
The core gameplay of YOTD is pretty much exactly the same as it was back in Ripto's Rage: you charge, you glide, you breath fire, and you get power ups through gates every once in a while. Thankfully all the abilities you learned in the previous game are available to you right off the bat. The downside to this is that you don't learn any new abilities as the game goes on, which makes the Spyro gameplay hardly vary at all.
Fortunately, there are four other characters that come into play every once in a while to change things up a bit. Sheila the Kangaroo can jump really high and kick enemies to kingdom come, Sgt. Byrd can fly and shoot the crud out of baddies with his shoulder cannons, Bentley the Yeti can smash guys with his giant club (my personal favorite), and Agent 9's levels are kind of like third-person shooters. These guys each have their own level and also have a few areas throughout the game within other levels in which you can get eggs. All the characters are really fun to play as and offer some great diversity.
The game has four huge home worlds, each of which has many levels. The first world is home to a handful of great, fun levels, and then you go to the second world and find that you're suddenly not having as much fun. Could it be that the levels are just... not so great? I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about the later levels that I just don't like. Maybe it's the slight lack of creativity, I don't know.
Although many of the regular levels aren't much fun, there are four speedway levels in the game as well, and these are surprisingly entertaining. They each have a time attack mode where you have to fly through rings, torch cows, and the like within a time limit, but there is also a race on each of these levels as well as a Hunter challenge, usually involving you playing as the cheetah flying around in a plane shooting down sheep in flying saucers. Good times...
Collecting eggs is the main goal of the game, but there are many ways that you get them. Of course there are some lying around on the ground every once in a while but there are also times when you have to do certain tasks to get them or play a minigame kind of thing. There are also a ton of gems, but these are more annoying to collect as they are all over the place and if you want them all you'll have to do a lot of backtracking. Still, the combination of eggs and gems makes for a great game to try to complete.
The visuals of YOTD are exactly the same as they were in Ripto's Rage. Nothing has changed. Yes, Spyro's eyebrows still detach from his head every once in a while. Yes, everything still looks a little polygonal. They weren't so bad the first time, but when there is zero improvement in a game that came out a year later, polygonal and occasionally glitched graphics are a bit less forgivable. Not to say they look horrible for the time, but I definitely would have liked to see some kind of improvement in this area.
The sound effects are no different than they were back in Ripto's Rage, but there wasn't really anything that needed changing. There are still nice, sometimes silly effects that fit well with the game. The music is great as usual and is, like the sound effects, fitting to the environments. Some of the tracks are reused a few times but it's really not a big deal.
Overall, Spyro: Year of the Dragon is still a great game. It may be exactly the same as its predecessor except for a few fun variations in the gameplay, but that's not to say it's a bad game by any means. The Spyro formula had already proven itself twice, so why change it for the last game of the generation? Still, a few new abilities and graphical improvements would have been welcome and the levels could have been much more enjoyable. Despite these few flaws, though, YOTD is great for anyone who liked the other two games or someone looking for a game simply made to be completed, and I would also recommend it to just about anyone who likes 3-D platformers.
Gameplay: 9
Grahpics: 7
Sound: 8
Value: 9
FINAL SCORE: 8.4/10 |
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| "Honestly, the best Spryro EVER." | 2008-12-09 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3K3A4O3Z5ZMB5 |
| I've played all of the Spyros, and this one is still my favorite! I love how many worlds there are and how different they are. I also love the baby dragons! This game is seriously addicting in more ways than one. |
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Expedited Available
