The Spyro Series

Yo guys!  Spooge here again, and today I'm going to talk about the Spyro series.  Most of you have probably heard of it, or grew up playing it.

Spyro the Dragon

Spyro the Dragon was the first game in the series, created by Insomniac, the same developer behind the Ratchet and Clank series.  This game was pretty simple.  You went to different levels, rescued dragons, collected gems, and took back dragon eggs from blue thieves.  The combat was pretty basic too.  The square button was used to preform a charge attack and the circle button made you shoot flames.  Jumping was pretty unique though.  Since you were a dragon you could glide through the air to reach different areas.  This game wasn't that challenging, and the final boss was rather disappointing, but it was still very fun to play.  At the time, these graphics were really good compared to other Playstation games.  The soundtrack to this game was actually really good, probably one of my favorites in a video game.  It was composed by Stewart Copeland, who used to be the drummer for The Police.  Here is one of the songs from the game:

Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage

Ripto's Rage, or Gateway to Glimmer as it was known in Europe, was the second game in the series.  It took place in a whole new world called Avalar.  This game added many new gameplay mechanics such as swimming, climbing, hovering, and head bashing.  This time you had to collect talismans by completing levels, orbs by doing certain tasks for characters, and gems by picking them up just like the first game.  Gems serve a new purpose with the addition of Moneybags.  Moneybags is a bear that will charge you gems to do certain things, like learning new abilities, or unlocking a new level.  The combat is basically the same in this game.  I guess you could say this game is a little bit harder then the first one, but still not incredibly difficult.  The boss fights are more challenging this time around, and actually feel like boss fights.  Stewart Copeland did another fantastic job composing the music for this game.  One of the things that really changed the game was the double jump glitch.  This allowed the player to jump higher by preforming a charge in the middle of a jump.  The glitch resulted in players sometimes being able to get outside of the map, or skipping certain parts in the game.  Here is a video that shows the double jump glitch in action:

        

Spyro: Year of the Dragon

Year of the Dragon was the third game in the series, and the last one developed by Insomniac.  Most people also label this as the the last good Spyro game, and they are right.  Year of the Dragon was very similar to Spyro 2 in many ways.  One thing that changed though, was that they removed the double jump glitch.  Instead of collecting orbs, you collected stolen dragon eggs.  Moneybags is back, and this time he can sell you new playable characters.  These characters add a whole new style of gameplay.  Each one of them has a unique ability, and their own unique levels.  For example, Sheila is a Kangaroo and can jump really high.  Sgt. Byrd can fly and shoot missiles.  Bentley wields a giant ice club and can deflect projectiles, and smash things.  Agent 9 has a gun and can take out enemies from long range with his sniper mode.  Stewart Copeland returns once again to compose the music, and while it isn't terrible, it doesn't live up to the first 2 games.  One complaint I have about this game is the level design.  The levels just aren't as fun to play as the older ones, and the settings aren't all that cool either.  Overall, this was a good game, just not as good as the first two in my opinion.  If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be the second game.  Insomniac knew the series was getting old and went to work on a new project, which would become Ratchet and Clank on the Playstation 2.  

The Death of Spyro

 

When Spyro went to the PS2, it all went downhill from there.  People were expecting Spyro to be really good on the PS2, but what they got was a laggy, glitchy, boring, piece of shit game with bad level design.  This was the last game Stewart Copeland composed the music for, and may be the only redeeming feature about this game, although the soundtrack still has nothing on Spyro 1 and 2.  Then they started releasing a ton of shitty Spyro games afterwards, which was strange because nobody seemed to like them.  They made The Legend of Spyro in an attempt to make the storyline seem serious.  They also messed with the combat system which wasn't a good idea.  The least shitty game out of all these new Spyro games was probably A Hero's Tail, but it's nothing spectacular, and some of the things in that game just piss me off.  Spyro was starting to get old when the third game came out, they should have just left the series alone.  I also heard they were making a Legend of Spyro movie, but I don't know if that is actually going to happen.

Anyway guys, I hope you enjoyed reading this!  Let me know what you think in the comments section, and if you enjoyed it, you can follow me.  Have a nice day guys! :)

                                   -Spooge