Not as gloomy as it looks, I promise.
Enter the Dragonfly was a lame attempt at a traditional Spyro game, but four games in, Spyro had to change in order to remain fresh,and thus, Vivendi Universal took the reigns and produced a very different Spyro game... but a great one.
While it's set in the same continuity as previous games, the last home-console Spyro game to do so, the entire voice-cast has changed, and characters have been redesigned. Story plays a bigger role in this one than in any other Spyro game, but it's still just an excuse to collect things. That said, the game looks brilliant, with fantastic, colorful and cartoony characters... and the dialogue to match. The script tries so hard to be funny, but it isn't, and it will probably only appeal to children. Sadly, you can't skip the dialogue, so be prepared to cringe a bit.
Dragon Shores are a staple by now!
So how has the game changed? For starters, it's no longer based around different levels, but rather interconnected areas. There're three different collectibles: 100 Light Gems, 40 Dark gems and 80 eggs. Treasure is still around, but now it's an unlimited resource that can be spent in shops for power ups or keys for chests. You only need about 40 light gems, which allows you to activate everything that requires light gems, but you must destroy all 40 dark gems in order to finish the game, eggs being relegated for bonus unlocks, like skins for Spyro. There's a lot of stuff to do in A Hero's Tail, that's for sure.
Spyro himself plays pretty much just like he did before, but they swapped the Headbutt-charge and Breath buttons around, just to annoy you. And they finally did justice to the brilliant breaths idea from Enter the Dragonfly, as each breath has environmental and combat uses. Fire breath is the default breath, not much to talk about really. Electric breath can be used to activate a few mechanisms, and has more range than any other breath as well as a seeking property... at the cost of being the weakest breath. Water breath doesn't do any damage, instead slowing down enemies, but can be used to activate water wheels or defeat flaming enemies. Lastly, Ice Breath can be used to freeze water, as well as pretty much any enemy, making it the most powerful breath in the game... and the last one you unlock. Movement is tight, and everything feels great... but the gliding. There's no hover, so dropping out of a glide can be a bit imprecise, at least until you learn when to let go of the X button. It can take a while, though.
Surfer bros? yeah, this game is appealing to a younger crowd.
Taking a page out of Spyro 3, alternate playable characters are back. Sparx gets on-rails shooting levels, Sgt. Byrd gets the flying challenges(Destroy a certain amount of objects under a certain time limit) and newcomer Blink gets platforming challenges in which you must destroy 5/10 crystals. I've seen some criticism levied against Blink and how slow he feels, but I felt his levels weren't THAT bad, but certainly the most boring out of the entire cast. Each character gets a stage on every world, so that means four stages for each, not too shabby, and much fairer than Spyro 3. However, there's a small caveat... If you want to collect everything, each stage must be played twice, first for a Dragon Egg and then on a harder difficulty for a light gem. To be honest, you don't need to play any of these stages, since you can get every single Dark Gem you need just by playing Spyro, so if you hate any of their gameplays... avoid them. There's a final playable character, Hunter, who gets the most complex and in-depth stages, stages that don't need to be played twice, at the cost of only getting two stages in the entire game, one that is mandatory. Luckily, he is fun to play as, so no biggie, heck, I'd say it's disappointing how he gets less stages than the others!
I'd say A Hero's Tail is pretty much great. There're a few small design flaws, like having to play every character-mission twice, or no easy way to drop out of a glide, but overall, it's pretty darn great. Bosses are a bit boring, but the stages are fun to explore, and collecting every little thing you can quickly becomes addictive. It's easy to recommend to both fans and newcomers alike.
8.0 out of 10
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