Return To Home Page		January 15, 2007

Graphics are pretty impressive.

Spyro is certainly a franchise that has had its fair share of ups and downs, with the latest games receiving quite bad, or at least mixed, review scores. However, being that I have always had a soft spot for the little guy (I can remember playing the first Spyro in Myers for hours on end and then only stopping when I realised my parents had taken off!), I was still pretty eager to get my hands on this new one. And my wait has been rewarded. The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning is a great addition to the series and one that will hopefully see Spyro rise from the ashes to his former glory. That’s the review in brief, read on for the full story!

Set before the first PS One Spyro game, this episode in the life of the purple dragon tells of Spyro’s origins, starting out with how he was raised by dragonflies alongside his would-be brother Sparx. However, one day whilst playing in the forest, Spyro accidentally discovers he can breathe fire when Sparx is abducted. Confused and a bit scared, the two returns home and their parents tell Spyro the truth. From here, he sets out to discover his roots.

It isn’t long before Spyro comes across Ignitus, another dragon much bigger than Spyro is. Ignitus tells of a time when dragon’s roamed the land freely and of how he and 3 others were guardians of eggs – eggs that were later all destroyed. Well almost all of them! Spyro was born from one such egg and is in fact the prophesised purple dragon set to stop the Dark Master from returning to the world and ‘casting a shadow upon the realms’. And so the quest begins!

What the hell is that!

While you may never really get much insight into the Dark Master and his actual plan, it isn’t necessary in this game. The fight revolves around stopping Cynder, a female black dragon (women ey?) from resurrecting the master. More importantly, the plot is well-written and delivered very nicely (more on that to come).

While there are a lot of cut-scenes, the game doesn’t keep you waiting to get into the gameplay. After the few initial scenes, players will take control of Spyro and start about their adventure. The first thing players will notice is that the series is no longer a platform-puzzle based one, and is instead, the central focus of gameplay is some very nice combo-attacks that bear a more than fleeting resemblance to God of War or even Mortal Kombat’s Konquest mode. That’s right; I just compared the latest instalment of the game franchise that, almost 10 years ago, brought Playstation to kids all over the globe to two of the most gory, bloody games to date. Obviously this release isn’t full of blood and gore – in fact there is none of it – but the combat style was very obviously created under heavy influences of the aforementioned titles. Still don’t believe me? Well let me describe the basic mechanics of TLoS: ANB.

Your basic attacks are simple – you just press circle over and over, stringing together 1-3 attacks at a time. On the third attack, if successful, your enemy will be launched into the air, when you can jump up and complete another triple-attack in the air, finishing with an additional horn-dive pushing the enemy back towards the ground and flying away from you. If, on the way, that enemy hits another, they will be dealt some damage. There are a few other basic melee attacks, but this is more than likely how you will be dealing with the bulk of enemies in the game. It’s simple and there’s not a lot of variation to be done, but it is fun and it works.

Enjoy the Buzz...

On top of this, there are several abilities based around different “breathes” (fire, ice, electricity and earth). Each of these has 2 different methods of being used. Bound to the square button is a breath attack, where players can breath fire, ice, electricity, or short bursts of sonic energy (somehow tied to earth??) at an enemy, while triangle launches a bomb (based on the breath type) at enemies. The different breaths are selected via the d-pad, not unlike the abilities in God of War. Finally, each breath type has a massive attack that charges up a little with each defeated enemy (Rage of the Gods anyone?). When the circle around the breath type icon is full, holding down R2 will unleash a massive, devastating and, if we may say so, very cool-looking attack that will do damage to all enemies nearby. These attacks are easily the most enjoyable part of the game simply because they look so damn awesome!

Each of these abilities can be upgraded by collecting crystal shards, which can be found after defeating enemies and in various objects in the game. These are very much like the orbs in; you guessed it, God of War, and even home in on Spyro when he gets near enough. Some of these shards will add to the experience points for upgrading abilities, some will give back some health, and some will give back some of your energy (which is used for each ability-based attack).

Combat aside, the game is fairly basic and simple, but that’s not to say it’s boring. Levels are more or less linear and the basic God of War advancement (defeat all enemies in the area before continuing to the next) applies. Occasionally some sections change this formula, such as the mine-cart race and flying sections, but they are few and far between. At the end of each of the 5-themed worlds, there is a boss to battle. Unfortunately boss battles are fairly straight forward and pattern-based, providing little challenge.

The best looking Spyro!

Aside from the lack of different attacks, the new Spyro game has a few issues which hurt its score. Firstly, the game is incredibly short, with our save game being no longer than about 6-7 hours. Granted, the release is aimed at a younger audience but even so, it isn’t a long game, and there is really no incentive to replay it. Also, it is far too easy. Again, the target audience factor is probably to blame here, but it would have been nice to have more than one difficulty setting for the older and more experienced gamers.

On thing that is more of a personal annoyance than a problem, is the fact that when you die, Spyro seems entirely aware of it upon being resurrected, saying things like “It’s alright, we can try again”. It isn’t going to hurt the score really, but it gets to me a bit that the main character is aware of the fact that he has died. Also, bosses do not get back their health when you die – meaning that there is little sense of self-preservation at these points.

Graphically, this is the best Spyro has ever looked. Levels still aren’t particularly detailed, but that is more than likely due to trying to keep to a similar feel to the older games. It can’t be easy to make a new game based on old source material without changing it – still levels could look a little less bland by occupying them with more foliage or something of the like. That aside, the game does look quite nice; with bright, vibrant colours, as per usual, and fairly decent character animation (some of Spyro’s facial expressions are priceless!), it keeps the cartoony-platformer feel, but doesn’t look too dated. CGI cut-scenes are very nice and in-game cut-scenes are decent enough. However, two aspects of the game’s visuals deserve a bit more discussion.

Battle around the lava.

Firstly, the combat effects (the trails behind Spyro when attacking, the different breath attacks, and in particular the massive attacks) look spectacular. The first time we unleashed a rain of fire upon a group of would-be dragon slayers (all with their own unique humorous name), we were in awe at what Spyro could do. Unlike the Rage of the Gods attack in God of War, we found ourselves using Spyro’s charge attacks the moment we could instead of saving them for boss battles, simply to see it again. A nice touch is the ability to change the colour of the trail behind Spyro mid-combat by simply selecting a different breath-type, giving four options.

The other part of the way this release looks that deserves some extra attention is the remarkable way that the story and feel of the game is delivered by a very cinematic approach to cut-scenes and camera control. From the opening moments, hell from even the menu, it is clear that a lot of time, effort and money have been put into making Spyro’s story feel like a real story instead of a cheesy game plot. Cut-scenes always appear at just the right moments and are beautifully scripted, mimicking some very nice filming techniques. In addition to this, the first time players play through a flying sequence it’s hard to ignore the beauty of Spyro flying through clouds and over some very colourful islands. It may not be next-gen material, but its hard to complain about the on-screen display of this release.

Spyro takes to the air!

Importantly, the sound also does a good job of helping to add to the light-hearted and cinematic nature of the game. Effects are solid and ambient noise fitting, but the really special part here is the voice-acting and music. With some big-names like Elija Wood (Spyro), David Spade (Sparx) and Gary Oldman (Ignitus), voices sound very nice indeed. My only complaint is that David Spade sometimes sounds a bit bored and unenthusiastic. To add to this expensive cast, the music was performed by a full orchestra and this adds a very nice touch to the audio here. Some of the more up-beat tracks sound a little bit like something from the Ratchet and Clank series (minus the techno-sounding effects).

Being another Spyro game, the response towards The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning was always going to be a bit mixed – but here at Futuregamez.net, we give it thumbs up. There are certainly areas that could do with a bit of work, and it is obvious that the game is still aimed at a younger audience, but those fans who have gritted their teeth over the last few years will be happy to know that Spyro is on a comeback. Given that the game leaves opening for a sequel, we can only cross our fingers and hope that the next instalment fixes the few problems here. But for now, Spyro has gained a bit more respect in our eyes.

Review By: Michael Hutchesson

Order your copy now from Gameswarehouse (PAL version) or Amazon (NTSC Version).

GRAPHICS	Levels are a little bland, but fitting from older instalments. Overall deliverance of the story via visuals and cut-scenes is beautiful and combat effects are nice.	79%
SOUND	An all-star cast and nice soundtrack make this a very nice thing to expose your ears to.	81%
GAMEPLAY	Fighting with Spyro is fun. A bit repetitive but the game isn’t long enough for it to be an issue.	75%
VALUE	Not long enough (can be completed in less than 7 hours) and little reason to replay. It’s fun while it lasts though.	58%
OVERALL	This is a welcome comeback for the series. There’s still a way to go but it’s a great new beginning! It’s a God of War for the faint-hearted and young.	74%