Title: Spyro Reignited Trilogy
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Developer: Toys For Bob (remake and the Switch port)/Sanzaru Games (assisted with Spyro 3)
Publisher: Activision
Release Date: September 3rd, 2018 (NA)
File Size: 15GB
Review copy provided by Activision
Yes! Just like Crash before him, the recently Sony-bought developer Insomniac Games’ creation has also made the jump to Switch with his original trilogy on PS1, with the trilogy also making their Nintendo debut! Spyro of course is no stranger to Nintendo systems. He debuted on the GameCube with Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly (a sadly pretty bad game by Check Six Studios and Equinox) and on the GBA with Spyro: Season of Ice by the western emulation wizards at Digital Eclipse.
I already reviewed not just Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, but I also just recently reviewed Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, both on Switch of course, click their names for their reviews! Spyro Reignited Trilogy certainly will be a nice welcome addition to this little review series won’t he? 😛 So how did this turn out and specifically on Switch? Does the trilogy fly or will it leave you feeling burned? Read on and find out of course. 🙂
The opening area. (Spyro 1)
Spyro Reignited Trilogy as said is a 3-pack featuring the original three games created by Insomniac Games on the original PlayStation (remember, 3 games, three, the whole trilogy). They’re specifically called in order; Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage, and Spyro: Year of the Dragon (I’ll simplify their names from here on out). Spyro unlike Crash was a full open 3D platformer versus Crash’s more corridor and linear-based gameplay. Crash was basically “go from point A to point B”, where as Spyro here is your good old-fashioned collectathon (basically a scavenger hunt).
Lets start with Spyro 1. The game starts when during a video interview with the dragon elders, one starts calling the main villain Gnasty Gnorc simple and ugly. What they didn’t know was that he just so happened to have been watching and, big shock, was quite offended. So he shoots lightning out of his hammer into the sky and transforms all the elder dragons into statues, and it’s Spyro’s job to change them back. That’s where the game begins.
The first boss; Toasty! (Spyro 1)
In standard 3D platformer fashion, you move in a relatively open world (but of a small scale), collect gems, collecting dragon eggs from super fast thieves, and of course freeing the dragon elders. Also your yellow dragonfly buddy Sparx acts as your health (giving you three hits before you die), and can recover hits when letting him eat butterflies by killing sheep and other small animals in levels. In each level there’s a literal checklist of all the aforementioned stuff you have to collect, and finding them all (especially every last gem) can be long and tiresome since they can be so well hidden. There are also bonus skill point challenges you can do by accomplishing a task, like reach this platform or burn this tulip. A large amount of levels have a skill point to be earned. I think these are… “achievements” if you will? I don’t know what greater purpose they serve honestly. By the way, all games allow you to turn on a mini-map to help you find your way better. It certainly will help tracking down collectibles.
In general the story in Spyro 1 is a bit bland. Spyro’s sort of a more stereotypical “I’M TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL” kind of guy who’s clearly trying to be spunky but not a whole lot else. Hell he’s almost like satire of what folks think Sonic is like. Its odd. Spoiler alert; he’s much more “fleshed out” in the sequels, so don’t judge him based on this game. The elder dragons are the ones where all the effort in personality and dialogue went to. Each one has their own designs, voices, and quirks to them. And you can even rewatch their cutscene anytime you’re at their locations! All-in-all, not a bad start, but finding all the stuff can test your patience, that’s for sure.
Hunter and Elora are introduced. (Spyro 2)
Spyro 2 is where the series finally… grew its wings (HA). Spyro and Sparx and eager to get some vacation time at the beach after beating Gnasty Gnorc (spoilers!), but instead of transporting to Dragon Shores, they’re brought to Avalar by Elora the Fawn, Hunter the Cheetah, and the Professor, a Mole. This new land is ruled by the evil Ripto who hates dragons (… is he not one?). After the cutscene, you set off to do more of the same, but quickly see that things are much bigger this time.
Indeed. Even the opening area is FAR bigger than seemingly any in the original, and they’re much nicer in design as well. Along the way you’ll come across the quite fancy-looking Moneybags, a bear who’s got a huge eye for cash and not with the most honest heart. See, he’ll charge you gems to get to places or teach you new abilities, but you can see he’s the type who may or may not be responsible for such shenanigans in the first place if you catch my drift. 😛 Still, he’s quite entertaining and a fitting method of actually doing something with all those gems and progressing through the game.
The gate you see allows for temporary flight, among other abilities. (Spyro 2)
The characters do feel much more fleshed out, from Spyro to even NPCs now, all have more character to them. Here you can chat with the NPCs of a world to find out what’s up with their home (it’s, surprise, under attack by enemies), and you help them out throughout the level. You’ll even earn talismans and green orbs for your troubles from them. These are the new primary collectibles in the game. It’s just nice that overall the world feels more alive and just entertaining in general. Definitely better.
Spyro 3 is more comparable to Spyro 2. However, there’s a large new twist; more playable characters! To begin briefly, the new threat is a rabbit named Bianca who’s stolen dragon eggs for her master; the Sorceress. Bianca is you’re main foe throughout, coming in to taunt you and the like and causes other issues during the game. Back to the new playable cast. Indeed, you have new friends to play in their own levels, and special sections in the main ones. One early example is Sheila the Kangaroo (who’s locked up by Moneybags who made a deal with the Sorceress and will release her for a fee… like I said before. :P). So you free her, and you can hop into her home world to play her own level, and a section in the first main level.
Here’s good ol’ Moneybags,with Sheila being held captive. (Spyro 3)
Sheila is definitely slower than Spyro, but she has her own abilities, like a kick attack, different jumping abilities (like when you land after a jump, jump right when touching the ground to jump extremely high), and also a stomp attack to break special containers to grab more gems. Other new things to do is a skate park (it was the 90’s OKAY? :P) and you can earn dragon eggs from Hunter by defeating these little gremlins, and then after getting a high enough score by doing what else; Tony Hawk-style tricks (huh, this IS an Activision game now…). Your views of this will depend if you’re into a large variety of stuff to do, or if you’re the kind that hates the idea of “Spyro and his lame friends” like a certain other franchise I know and love. 😉 Me, I love the variety since playing as one character for a whole game can get monotonous and boring after a while. I like it when a game changes things up. It’s one of the many reasons why I love the Sonic Adventure games more than the modern Sonic games. That about does it for the three games, let’s talk about the common stuff and technical aspects covering all the games.
Presentation-wise. It’s VERY good, but not without issues. The framerate while a mostly 30fps, has noticeable judder, and even these odd split-second pauses, though that might just be a loading thing since the levels are fairly large. It may also have something to do with the game running on Unreal Engine 4? I dunno, I’m just guessing. Resolution is most likely 720p docked like both Crash games were prior. It is amazing just how much Toys For Bob got crammed into the Switch’s hardware visually. It’s eons closer to the PS4 and XBO versions than I ever imagined it’d be. The other issue is the blatantly low-res textures you see throughout the game as well. That might’ve been a byproduct of the file size reduction (it’s only 15GB when the game was like 60-70GB on other systems at launch). Another big issue is the load times. Even booting the game up can be a bit of a wait, and any loading really takes a bit of waiting as well. I hope a patch enabling boost mode to improve load times like with Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled on Switch is doable. Also, you can even turn off the motion blur in all three games if you don’t find it to your liking.
Yes, you’re not seeing things. You can indeed ride a skateboard! (Spyro 3)
Audio-wise it’s quite a package. The voice-acting is very well done. Tom Kenny makes his triumphant return as Spyro for the first time since Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly. You can not only listen to the new redone soundtrack, but the entire original soundtracks of all three games are also intact and only an easy toggle in the options menu away! Hell they even got Stewart Copeland back to create the brand-new song used in the game selection menu. Personally I prefer his work in Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly myself if I’m honest.
Overall this is a fantastic package. it’s a shame Activision didn’t bother using a 16GB cart to fit the whole game in, since even Capcom did with Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen on Switch and that game is $10 cheaper! Literally the game can’t even be booted up without downloading the rest of the game (I think it’s like 6.5GB on the cart?). Obviously this is a non-issue with digital copies like mine, but still, folks will obviously have an issue with this. Maybe in the future as cart costs come down, this will get a 16GB cart reprint. I definitely give this a very high recommendation, just as I did with Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. I can’t wait to see what brand-new adventures Activison have planned for both franchises and I hope that this time both will be on Switch day 1 like Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled was. 😛
You’ll Love:
+ Very impressive visually overall. Particularly the detail, lighting, shadowing, and effects. You can even turn off the motion blur if it bothers you.
+ Still a terrific value having all three full games at only $40 USD/$50 CDN.
+ Voice-acting is great as expected.
+ Having both the redone music AND the original PS1 soundtracks as an option is a superb addition.
+ The variety in Spyro 3 is a high note for me personally.
+ Has screenshot and video capture support.
You’ll Hate:
– Performance is a bit iffy. There’s some judder and even brief pauses. Plus loading screens are both very long, and when Spyro is flying to the new area, it chugs, but that’s not a big issue. Textures are also low-res on environments often, and even on things in plain sight in cutscenes, like the gem on Moneybags’… well, moneybag. 😛
– Not having the full game on the cart when all it took was using a 16GB cart is VERY silly and unfortunate.
Score: 8/10
