To some extent, I had one of the greatest video-game filled childhoods in my entire family. I was near enough born with a SNES controller in my hands. Whilst I’m a huge fan of 16-colour and 32-colour games, the games just weren’t as enthralling as the games played on my first personal games console, the original PlayStation (PSX).
On the console I began playing some of the greatest games of all time such as: Crash Bandicoot, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, Tekken and much more, but one game stood out at being the mascot of the childhood that I had lived, and this character was Spyro the Dragon.
Even nowadays, I’d say the Spyro games shared in-game mechanics that stood out along with Crash bandicoot allowing these games to never lose their appeal over time. Think about it; Crash Bandicoot and Spyro both offer fun, appealing games with simplistic storylines that are unique and can be readapted into an infinite amount of game entries – something very little games offer nowadays.
However as great as Crash was, I always preferred playing as a Dragon because as a 7-year-old child at the time, it just seemed way cooler to control a kid-friendly mythical beast that spits fire. I preferred the Spyro’s platforming elements because the game featured four worlds with levels included. The game had this feeling of letting the player feel like they were in control as to what levels should be completed first, but also offered great secrets, humour and some of the most diverse environments in a 3D platformer to date.
This original platforming experience was revamped with each release on the PS1 and by the time the PlayStation 2 rolled out, Insomniac games had sold the rights of the game to Universal. Knowing that Spyro was a crowd pleaser, its development teams began developing Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly which was awfully similar to what we’d seen on the PlayStation 2’s predecessor. The graphical enhancements were done well, but at the sacrifice of really plain environments. You see the problem with Enter the Dragonfly was the fact that environments were simple on the PS1 because they simply had to be, however, given the power of the PS2 (at the time), much more was expected of the Spyro games.
A few years on and Spyro saw a new series in its franchise called the Legend of Spyro series which debuted on the previous generation of consoles to our current generation. These games had all the elements of a solid platformer, from beautiful graphics to a story that stretched way beyond just one game, but it was simply released at a time where new innovative platformers such as Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter and Sly Cooper were really overshadowing it to the point that the Spyro franchise was made irrelevant and somewhat redundant.
Spyro games continued being released by more and more developers which eventually squeezed the life and fun out of the franchise. Spyro is near-enough non-existent and whilst Skylanders features Spyro, it is a complete spin in another direction for Spyro’s adventures. I wished the original platforming elements returned because that’s where Spyro truly shined. I truly believe that the game industry needs more platformers and I think our generation of children need kid-friendly characters in their lives to truly embrace a good childhood with video games.
Since the death of Spyro, Ratchet & Clank has now become my platformer of choice but even that franchise is beginning to lose its charm. The last shred of hope I have is if Sony announce a new Jak & daxter game and should Sony make my wishes come true, it’ll just prove that I was never meant to grow up.
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Just a note, Insomniac never sold the rights to Universal. To get the Spyro project started Insomniac needed a publisher/producer for the game. This lead to them signing a contract with Universal before the development of Spyro, in term giving Universal all the rights to the Spyro franchise. This is the same thing with Crash Bandicoot and Naughty Dog.
Great article, very well put… unlike ANYTHING written by Sharizan Abdullah… fucking whiner.
100% agree. Sypro was one of the best games of my childhood.
Sums up my feeling perfectly!!! Would love another Spyro game which was reminiscent of the first 3. Jak and Daxter would also be much appreciated; whilst good graphics are a must, there is too much focus now on sprawling worlds and serious/overworked plots.
I loved playing the first spyro with my dad it was the first game i ever played and it been like 12 yrs and my dad still didnt beat it FAIL :p
This article is offensive to gingers. You don’t need to be mean to us just because were obviously superior.
You are totally correct and we do have souls don’t we.
Ginger fascist and Coppercab are the same guy lol.
You aren’t superior. Everyone is equal. Since when does EVERYONE say gingers don’t have souls? I don’t. When my best friend and her twin sister were little, they were ginger. This article doesn’t even have anything to do with gingers.
Brown and black hair FTW
Fucking gingers rule now suck my stiff cock or I’ll eat boyhitstree and suck his dick after I killed him hur hur hur
Little brother stfu about equality gingers and Hispanics are superior to everyone. Now I’m going to fuck your boyfreind until he passes out ok.
You need to take some trolling classes cause you’re pretty bad at it.
Can you suck my cucumber the fruit not my dick pervert
Technically a cucumber is classified by most to be a vegetable
Actually, a cucumber would be a gourd.
Lets have sex now ok. @____@
^14 yr old trolling at its worst
I agree with BoyHitsTroll, this is pathetic. Especially on an article featuring kid-friendly gaming characters. Fail troll is fail. /feedingthetroll
I love fucking spyro but I wish he was ginger also why is this article so offensive to gingers there pretty nice guys unlike them facebookers.