Now Playing: Spyro - A Hero's Tail

A good tail. I mean, tale.

 Hunter finally makes his official playable debut!

 I've heard a lot of things about this game. A lot of bad things. But I played about 30 minutes of it, got to the swamp before I started running late for work, and boy oh boy, it was good.

 Sparx's wonky grab rate from Enter the DragonFly? Fixed. Awkward camera? Fixed. Janky movement? Fixed. The game oozes quality, the platforming feels very tight. I don't understand why swap the headbutt and fire breathing buttons, though, why mess with muscle memory?!

 The dialogue is dumb, and is reeking with infantile humor that will make most adults grimace, but as far as gameplay is concerned? So far, color me impressed.

Review #559: Spyro - Year of the Dragon

 Which is whichever year you happen to play this game.

The cover is a bloated as the game itself.

 Spyro 2 was pretty much the pinacle of what you could with the Spyro formula, there wasn't much that could've been done to expand upon it, save elemental breaths(But I'm getting ahead of myself there...) so Insomniac did the only thing left to do: Add more characters. It also brought back a few mechanics from Spyro 1, for whichever reason, thus making Spyro 3 feel like a bit of a retread.

 The excuse, erm, story this time around concerns the Dragon eggs, it's the year of the Dragon and they are about to hatch. But that would be to easy, so a sorceress and her apprentice steal all the eggs before they hatch. Now it's up to Spyro and his cohorts to get them back. The game is about as long as the previous one, but since Spyro's potential was pretty much tapped out, it introduced 4 different pals that you get to play as on bonus levels in a few stages. Sheila the Kangaroo can jump high and kick her enemies, Sgt. Byrd flies around, shoots rockets and can drop bombs, the Yeti is slow but packs a heavy wallop... and can also reflect projectiles, and lastly, Agent 9, a monkey that shoots lasers.

\Some things never change... including the forest landscapes.

 To be honest, these side characters are pretty dull to play as, they are a lot slower than Spyro and their gameplay is nothing to write home about. Sheila gets some annoying secrets hidden over tall heights and Sgt. Byrd gets a few neat puzzles involving dropping stuff over other stuff, but that's about the extent of things worth mentioning about them. For all intents and purposes, their small sub-stages are little more than mini-games. Finishing the game unlocks 4 over-the-top shooting mini-games with Sparx, they are pretty decent but the rewards come too little too late if you've been collecting everything. Improved gem-grabbing reach? Nice, but there are no more gems left to collect. The ability to point towards nearby treasure? Which treasure? I had every gem collected by then. The ability to teleport to whatever stage from the menu? Thanks, but there's nothing left to collect now!

 The new additions are a bit dull, but treading old ground felt a bit lame as well. Keys and chests were gone, why bring them back now? Wizards that alter the stage and buff other enemies? I fought them already in Spyro 1, it was cute then, it's old new now. And the egg thieves that you must chase return, once again, why? They weren't in 2, so it's too late to turn them into staples. It also brings back a few ideas from Spyro 2, like a stage based on planting plants, albeit done better here, and it double down on mini-games, hope you like skateboarding, cause there're a couple of those! It feels a bit like Crash 3 in how they went a bit overboard with all the side-activities, putting it on par with the platforming, something I wasn't too fond of.

The skateboard stages are all kinds of lame, but they can be beaten... even the bonus one.

 Something I appreciated about Spyro 2 was giving worth to the treasure you collected, besides being a gate to stop your progress. Purchasing new moves felt rewarding, even if there were only three different moves. In Spyro 3 money is just a gate. Want to unlock the new character? Pay the price. Want to open up the bridge? Pay the price. It's a minor nitpick, but oh well! What did bother me, however, is that some levels aren't up to par with what I've come to expect from Spyro. Some stages just aren't well designed, hiding treasure behind walls that you must jump and kick with Sheila felt particularly nasty, and there're two slides that are a pain in the butt to try not to fall off from. It's just a few levels that felt like this, but something I didn't come across since Spyro 1's dreaded running jumps on the treetops!

 All in all, Spyro - Year of the Dragon is still a great platform-adventure game, and among the best and best aged on the Playstation 1. It's simply not as tight as the first couple of games. They definitely went for quantity over quality, so the quality suffered a bit, but you got more characters, more vehicles and more silly gimmicks.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #558: Spyro 2 - Ripto's Rage!

 His anger is your enjoyment.

Barney's back!

 Spyro the Dragon was a hit, deservedly so, which meant that a sequel was pretty much a given. Spyro 2 is every bit as good as the first one and then some, the improvements might not be game changers, but the first game was so good that there was little left to improve on.

 So, there's this nutty professor and his entourage fiddling around with a portal, accidentally bringing the pint-sized tyrant Ripto into their realm. Claiming ownership of the realm, but not before making it clear that he is afraid of Dragons, Ripto leaves on his merry way, so now the professor uses the portal to bait a Dragon into their realm in order to save them. As luck would have it, Spyro is the one sucked into the portal, and is quickly coerced into aiding their cause. The game is divided into 6 different worlds with about 6-8 stages and a boss each, and is about as long as the first game.

Headbutting enemies feels so good! And they deserve it too!

 The format of the game has changed a bit, now each stage has three different goals: Collect all the treasure, collect the talisman and collect the orbs. Treasure is peppered throughout every stage, and now has a use besides 100% completion, you can use it to buy access to stages, areas or new moves, such as climbing, head-smashing and diving underwater. Orbs are gated behind side objectives, usually minigames, such as completing a mine-cart course, finishing a turret section, finishing a hokey match, defeating every enemy of a certain type, etc. Orbs are used to unlock bonus flying stages. Lastly, Talismans, which are used to advance through the first two worlds, which are earned by finishing the stage's main objective, because this time around, stages are not just a collection of platforms and puzzles, but rather each stage has an objective, such as saving every villager from tree-monsters, ending the curse of petrified innocents or getting baby turtles to a safe haven. Needless to say, while I liked Spyro 1's simplicity, I like this approach much more, and making every collectible rewarding in some way goes a long way into motivating you to collect everything.

 As for Spyro's moveset, it's pretty much the same as it was in the first game, with the addition of swimming, climbing ladders and head-smashing. You still have charging headbutts and flame breath as your attacks, and will have to do with jumping and gliding to do all the platforming. Each stage also has a temporary upgrade, such as an accelerated dash, fireball-breath or flying, that's locked behind a defeated enemy counter and is usually required to obtain an orb. It's a good moveset, and level design is varied and well done, so you never feel like the game is cheating you. As a matter of fact, Spyro's slippery movement didn't cause me to die once in this game, so level design has been
tweaked a bit around that.

Enemies are different but offer no new challenges for Spyro.

 While every tweak is an improvement, and every addition is very welcome, I still feel as if Spyro 1's simplicity has its merits. Regardless, Spyro 2 is a better game, if only slightly, so I'm guessing that whichever game you play first is the one you'll like the most. Regardless, Spyro 2 is easily among PS1's greatest.
 9.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Spyro 2 - Ripto's Rage!

Still.... SO good.

He's got Ratchet's initial smugness.

 So, I had played a few hours of Persona 5, but was about to go to sleep. Why not play a bit o' Spyro 2? Suddenly I'm one hour past my bed time, wide awake and with the biggest grin on my face.

 Spyro 1 had a limited moveset? Now you can earn the ability to swim or to climb. Collectibles weren't rewarding? Orbs unlock bonus levels, treasure unlocks moves and stages and talismans unlock boss battles. Couple that with the same ol' brilliant gameplay and you've got a recipe for success.

 I'm sad to say... but I think I may like Spyro more than Crash. I mean, it helps that Crash 1 has aged like milk, but even so, Spyro 1 and Spyro 2 are just so GOOD, I wonder what's in store for me once I pick up Spyro 3?

Review #557: Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam(Nintendo DS)

 The Hawk train don't stop rollin'

Tony's never looked this angry before.

 Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam on the PS2 was... something. I think the premise was sound, but the execution left something to be desired, and the framerate was just pathetic. Regardless, I liked the concept a whole lot, and I thought it would lend itself well to a handheld game, so lo and behold, I went ahead and gave the DS version a try.

 The main mode is called World Tour, in which you go throughout the game's six locations and complete tasks, or missions. Each location has 9 tasks, and every time you beat three you can then tackle one of the three 'challenges', you only need to complete two challenges per location in order to proceed, but you get stat-ups every time you win a challenge, so you might want to backtrack. Most missions are relatively easy, win a race, win a elimination race(Every few seconds the player that's behind gets eliminated until there's only one), land a huge combo, grind a certain distance, etc. There's about 8 tasks in all, but they didn't feel too repetitive. Missions have rubberband AI, so, sometimes, your stats don't feel as if they mattered, since the CPUs will catch up, and you will catch up to them.

Stages resemble the ones from the Console version, but they are fairly different.

 After you're done, you can tackle Jam Session, in which you have 4 minutes to complete a list of objectives, like classic Tony Hawk, albeit on downward courses made for racing rather than exploring. It's an interesting idea, but it doesn't work too well. Then there's Quick Race and Free skate. All in all, it's a pretty decent package, for a handheld game. Stages are large, but there're only six of them, and the only real skater here is Tony Hawk, the rest are cartoony, original characters. The soundtrack is pretty good, even featuring a song from Escape the Fate, every song here fits the theme, and it's nice having banging music to race with.

 Controls are an adequate adaptation from the Playstation games, B to ollie, A to flip, Y to grab and X to grind. Touch controls can be used to easily execute special moves. It works well, and most moves from the series are here, but, but sometimes, after ollie-ing from a ramp, the controls might fail to read your inputs, or when jumping from a manual, your character might get stuck in the manual animation for a while, so it won't register your inputs until later. These are a few odd quirks that don't really get in the way, since they aren't too frequent, but do make for a bit of an annoyance when they happen.

It's funny how races are but a few of the objectives on the game's main mode.

 It's a poor substitute for main Tony Hawk games, but it's a relatively fun, but flawed, racing game. There's nothing here worth writing home about, but it does make for a fun little diversion when you've got a few minutes to kill.
 5.5 out of 10

Review #556: Spyro the Dragon

 Finished on the same day I started it. It's good. It's really good.

Lean, mean and purple.

 After years and years of neglecting the Dragon, I finally decided to take the plunge, and boy, had I been missing out!

 So, there're 5 dragon kingdoms, and as luck would have it, the Artisan Dragons are being interviewed, and they've little good to say about Gnasty the Gnorc. They've also little to defend themselves when a scorned Gnasty turns them into statues, save for Spyro the teenage Dragon. Now it's up to Spyro to save his elders and stop the Gnorcs. A simple, but serviceable setup that works quite well for the game. There're 6 different worlds, with about 6 stages and a disappointingly easy boss each, 80 dragons to rescue, 12000 worth in gems and 12 dragon eggs. It all lasts about 6 hours and boy, is it a fun romp.

Rescue those dragons in order to obtain tips.

 Spyro's moveset is small but comprehensive. X is used to jump and glide, Square lets you headbutt enemies or dash and circle is your fire breath. L2 and R2 can be use to roll sideways... which have absolutely no use whatsoever. With those tools you'll have to traverse the entire game, and for good or bad, you won't get any new moves. That said, you'll have to learn which enemies can only be damage with the flame breath and which can only be hurt with the headbutt, learn which distances Spyro can glide by himself or which require you to use dash pads in order to boost your jump.

 If there's something to complain about in the control department is how slippery Spyro is. I think I only died once due to him slipping all over the place, but Spyro's moveset and levels take it into account, so either they make it so that jumps don't need to be so precise, or turn a narrow bridge into an obstacle to contend with Sypro's movement.    Spyro can take up to four hits, and you can tell how many hits are left by the color of the firefly trailing behind you: Gold means you're at perfect health, then comes blue, then green and then... he's gone, until you find a fodder enemy, such as sheep, and defeat it for a health pick-up.

The draw distance is incredibly large, for a PS1 game.

 Levels are varied, and enjoyable to explore, although, truth be told, some of their secrets are rather tough to figure out without outside help. Not that it matters since you don't need 100% to finish the game, unless you want the bonus level. If there's something to complain about, it's how little rewarding collectibles are, your only motivation is triggering the balloon guys, which let you travel to another hub-world, and each one has a different requirement, either a certain amount of eggs, treasure or rescued dragons. It would've been a good idea to have some upgrades or something to obtain as you collect the various McGuffins.

 Spyro the Dragon was a fun little collectathon that was shockingly good for a first iteration, Insomniac's second game ever to boot! They knocked it out of the park with Spyro, and I'm looking forwards the next game.
 9.0 out of 10

Review #555: Tomb Raider II

 I wanted Persona 5 to be review 555...

Those breasts don't quite look right.

 Tomb Raider II is... quite something. It's an undisputed step forward from Tomb Raider 1, but, but it's still aged a bit badly.

 The story... is barely even there. There's an intro movie revealing the past of an ancient dagger, then there's Lara exploring the great wall o' China, then you come across a baddie who talks of another baddie who wants the dagger and now Lara is out to get the dagger before the bad guy does. The story is but a frail, delicate thread that's barely even there, so if you like narrativesi n your games, this game ain't it.

The game looks quite a bit better than the first game.

 The game plays pretty much exactly like the first one, Lara shoots, jumps, grabs, clings, dives and swims all over the place. Kudos to the developers, as nothing reminded me of Tomb Raider 1, every stage, jump and obstacle felt quite fresh. The arsenal of weapons has expanded to include an assault rifle and a grenade launcher, as well as a harpoon gun to deal with underwater enemies. Tomb Raider 1 was filled with psychotic animals looking to kill you, and there're plenty of animals wanting your meat here too, but most enemies are humans this time around, which is much more exciting thematically, but it was pulled off rather poorly. Simply put, it's incredibly hard to come out of a fire fight unscathed. The best tactic seemed to be to dash towards an enemy, guns ablazing, but run toward his side, then roll and continue shooting while the enemy shoots at thin air. It's not perfect, but it works... albeit it ends up being incredibly lame and repetitive. Sometimes you'll have to swim towards a platform while an enemy shoots at you, and then climb on top of it while still getting shot, which is why taking damage seem unavoidable. You also have to perform a few drops that will hurt you, so level design feels a bit cheap at times.

 It sounds hard, and it is hard, kinda. Enemies are the least of your worries, as ammo and health pick ups are very plentiful... not that you'll know that on your first playthrough, as you foolishly try to stock up on everything you can, since everything and anything is out to get you. I'm not kidding, it seems like there's a trap laying at every single corner, thank god you can save at any time now. Sadly, this meant that I was saving my game every few minutes or so, either because I knew the game was gonna throw something unexpected at me or because I just got done with a tedious endeavor, like pushing crates which takes like forever, so I'd rather save before the game forces me to do it again thanks to an unforeseen death. Tomb Raider was made for the 'save-anywhere' feature, so thanks god it finally made the leap to the console version, Tomb Raider II would have been nigh unplayable without it, due to how frustrating it could've been.

New weapons, new costumes, new environments but the same ol' Lara.

 Tomb Raider II introduced Flares into the game, I found it quite annoying having to use flares to light my way, and having to drop them at a moment's notice in order to take out my guns, but I can understand why they are here: The game has impressive lightning effects, and they had to show them off. Another new addition are vehicles, such as snowbikes and motorboats, which, while they don't add too much to the gameplay, are a neat new element into the game. Finally, secrets work quite differently than before, now you need to collect 3 dragon statues in every level, and only upon gathering the third one do you get goodies. This means that rewards are great, but if you finish a stage missing a single dragon statue... ends up feeling disappointing.

 Overall, Tomb Raider II is decent, but it takes the right kind of person to appreciate it nowadays, since the game can get quite frustrating when there're so many ways to die. The new stages are larger and more complex than the ones in TR1, but the new emphasis on gunplay leaves a lot to be desired, simply put, combat is cheap and always favors your enemies, but I guess they did what they could with the tools they had at the time. Tomb Raider II is quite long and hard, so it's best enjoyed in bursts.
 7.0 out of 10