Spyro The Dragon (

1998

) ½

During the old NES/SNES/Sega Genesis days of console gaming, there were few genres more profitable than the platformer. Super Mario Brothers [1985], Sonic the Hedgehog [1991], Contra [1987], DuckTales [1989], and Bubsy [1993] are just a few examples of the genre that dominated the market. Indeed, platformers were often seen as the default genre for games, partially because the rules for making them quickly became codified and easy to recreate. For a good 2D platformer all you really needed was a couple of interesting levels, tight controls, and a dependable jump move. Sure, there were all kinds of ways that developers could fuck it up, but by the late 80s early 90s almost all those mistakes had already been made somewhere and avoiding them was easy enough. Even more attractive though than the relative ease of creating a platformer, was the profits they tended to bring in, the mascot franchises like Mario and Sonic were especially profitable in this regard. So, it should come as no surprise that when the fifth generation of consoles was released, countless development studios prepared to crank out more platformers for the new hardware.

The only problem was, that the new hardware was capable of 3D graphics, meaning that these new platformers would have to be in 3D, less they look obsolete on launch. Making 3D platformers was Terra Incognita for most developers, and they would have to build these new mechanics from scratch. The old rules that had governed 2D platformer development were worse than useless, as 2D platformers relied heavily on pixel-perfect jumps that were insanely punishing in 3D. Few companies realized the extent of the challenges facing them during this transition, and the results were catastrophic. Bubsy 3D [1996], with its stiff tank-like controls and frustrating difficulty spikes, was only the most spectacular failure of this early crop of games. Others, like Naughty Dog, saw the difficulty of the problem and wisely backed off, creating games like Crash Bandicoot [1996], which while technically 3D were so linear in their focus that they sidestepped most of the problems associated with the new dimensional axis. Of everyone that tried in 1996 to make a 3D platformer, only Nintendo could boast of truly succeeding. Super Mario 64 [1996] recognized that if platformers were going to work in 3D they would need less precise jumping challenges and a greater focus on exploring a colorful world. Insomniac games would take these lessons to heart, and when they created their 3D platformer, Spyro the Dragon, and virtually all traditional platforming challenges in favor of a metric fuck-ton of collectibles.

Here, said collectibles come in three flavors, dragons, gems, and dragon eggs. Gems are by far the most common, being scattered about the level, either lying by themselves of locked up in a barrel (which can be destroyed by a stiff breeze), metal vase (which must be charged), or chest (which when flamed causes the gem to jump into the air, and must be quickly snagged before it falls back on the chest). Of these, only the chests are truly bothersome, because they require a completely inexplicable second step to get the treasure. It's not a challenge, just a nuisance. Dragons are far scarcer than gems, usually, there will be a couple of easy ones to rescue per level with a couple more difficult ones tucked away in more remote and hard to reach places. Last, and definitely least, are the dragon eggs which require you chase down a quick-footed egg thief to recover. Chasing these thieves is always the same sort of challenge, and gets old fast. Fortunately, the developers agree, and the last two worlds have no dragon eggs to collect whatsoever.

The story of Spyro the Dragon is practically nonexistent and is covered in its entirety in the game's 50-second intro cinematic. Basically, one of the dragon elders is bad-mouthing Gnasty Gnorc, and Gnasty Gnorc somehow hears him on the other side of the fucking realm and gets really pissed off about it. So, casts a magic spell that turns all the dragons into stone, sparing only Spyro because the little tyke is so short that the magic blast goes right over his head. So Spyro has to journey through the six worlds, save all the dragons who have been encased in stone, defeat Gnasty's army of minions and save the day. It's actually remarkable that a game with this bare a plot actually managed to have plot holes. I found myself asking, even as a kid playing this for the first time back in the 90s, why the hell don't the dragons Spyro rescues do anything to help him beyond the occasional hint. Where are these guys teleporting to after we save them, the beach!? Surely, one full-grown dragon would be able to do more to stop Gnasty's armies than the young Spyro, and as soon as one is saved from his stone prison that should logically be the end of Spyro's contribution to the fight. Obviously, this doesn't happen because the game is called Spyro the Dragon, and thus needs to follow the little guy's adventures. It just seems sloppy to leave it like this, especially when Spyro: Ripto's Rage [1999] and Spyro: Year of the Dragon [2000] were perfectly able to come up with reasons why Spyro cannot be aided by the other dragons (being stranded in an alternate dimension and having to travel through cramped tunnels respectively).

Insomniac was afraid of making the game frustratingly difficult for its target demographic of 5-10 year-olds, not wanting to unleash another Bubsy D [1996] on the world. Personally, I think they may have gone too far in the other direction, and created a game that is insultingly easy even for the elementary school set. It's perfectly fine that the enemies in the first hub-world have no way of attacking you, and actively flee from your presence, as this area is effectively a tutorial. However, when I get to the second hub-world and the enemies still have no offensive capabilities more dangerous than trying to moon me into submission I begin to suspect that the game is altogether too easy. It's not like dealing with enemies is all that difficult, even under the most demanding circumstances, as 90% of everything you run into can be safely dispatched with a single blow either from your charge attack or flame attack. The odd enemies that are resistant to both can usually be dealt with by using a conveniently placed power-up. With a generous amount of health (Spyro can take 4 hits before dying thanks to his trusty dragonfly Sparx), most players should have no trouble taking out any of the game's standard enemies, or even the bosses. Jumping and gliding over large pits posses a considerably greater challenge (and was responsible for the lion-share of my deaths), though the platforming challenges of Super Mario 64 [1996] were considerably more demanding than what we see here. The only real difficulty spike comes in the form of the game's final boss, and this is only because it involves chasing down a couple of annoying egg thieves before each attempt on the boss himself, followed by a rather obnoxious jumping challenge that will kick the player right back to the start of the fight if they slip up.

Absent any real challenge, Spyro the Dragon's main appeal quickly becomes the simple joy of tidying up. The game has no real reward beyond the mere act of collecting, and tellingly your prize for getting 100% completion is just a chance to collect more stuff, this time in a level that is simply full to bursting with high-value gems. It's a calming, almost meditative feeling to leisurely make your way through a level, piling up treasure and freeing the odd dragon, occasionally fretting about making a jump or avoiding an enemy. It's not unlike washing a great big pile of dirty dishes or folding laundry. It's a bit dull and tedious, but nonetheless strangely satisfying when it's done and more than a little bit relaxing while it's going on. Normally, I prefer games that are a bit more challenging, either cognitively or mechanically, but some times it nice to have something that is so completely unchallenging and non-threatening. The aesthetic also fosters this warm, calming feeling being made up of dull pastels with skyboxes that seem to be permanently stuck in some point of sunrise or sunset. It resembles the watercolor illustrations in a collection of old fairy tales and feels as warm and familiar as soaking in a hot tub. Obviously, this is not always desirable, but after long hours in the office for a swiftly approaching deadline, the slow charms of Spyro the Dragon were exactly what I needed.

Despite its virtues though, Spyro the Dragon suffers from more than a few problems. The levels are often small and have little individual character, tending to blur together after a while. It would have probably been better to make a smaller number of levels with more character and care placed into each, than to stretch out the content as much as they did. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that you can (and probably will) get all the collectibles on your first run through of a stage, and then have no reason even to return to it ever again. This could have easily been rectified by giving Spyro some unlock-able abilities that would open up new areas in the earlier stages, al la Super Metroid [1994]. Most annoying of all Spyro's problem though is the way new worlds are arbitrarily gated off by certain numbers of collectibles, with no effort made to explain this. All you will get is a balloonist complaining that all the stone dragons or all the captured eggs make him feel depressed and he cannot bear to take off until you've amassed an arbitrary number of the things. Obviously, there must be some gates in a collectathon to encourage players to actually bother getting all the collectibles, but I prefer when these have some diegetic reason for existing. Spyro's gates are all the same (balloonists) and switch arbitrarily between the three major collectibles for no reason.

Spyro the Dragon is a fine solution to the problem of making a 3D platformer, which makes it something of a shame that it was obsolete the moment that it launched thanks to Banjo-Kazooie [1998] coming out earlier that year. All the problems that Spyro suffers from (small, samey levels, no reason to return once you've cleared them, little to no challenge of excitement, limited moveset, and arbitrary collectible gates) have already been considered and corrected in Banjo-Kazooie [1998]. This makes Spyro's mistakes all the more galling because it shows that they were avoidable, despite the fact that the collectathon genre was still in its infancy. I didn't have an N64 as a kid, and my friend that did was afraid to go beyond the 3rd level in Banjo-Kazooie [1998] for some unspoken reason (despite the fact that he used cheat codes to get infinite golden feathers and was thus effectively invincible), so I have little nostalgia for that particular game. I did have Spyro the Dragon, and even one hundred percented it and its first sequel back in the day and consequently have every reason to feel nostalgic when replaying it. Nonetheless, after playing Banjo-Kazooie [1998] a year ago and comparing it to Spyro it's amazing how deftly the former game solved every pitfall that Spyro blundered into.