Now Playing: The Legend of Spyro - A New Beginning

 Darkier and edgier. I love it.

That ain't a bat, it's Spyro!

 Now this one is might promising. I've heard nothing but bad things about the Legend of Spyro... but I think it's gonna just like Crash Bandicoot all over again. People, clouded by nostalgia, just can't stand the idea of either character changing, so they are gonna bash it regardless. Which kinda sucks, since edgy Spyro has a lot of potential.

 The new melee combat threw me off initially, since I wasn't expecting that in my Spyro, but I quickly got used to it. Sadly, the combat is starting to feel very dull already, and I barely made it into the Ice Realm.

 But while the gameplay is meh, the story is really interesting, I'm quite invested already and I hope to get to see Spyro grow.

Review #561: Spyro - A Hero's Tail

 A puny tale.

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

Review #560: Spyro - Enter the Dragonfly

 Ain't no Bruce Lee in here, but this game deserves a one-inch punch.

 I would be frowning too if I had to star in a game like this.

 Even though Insomniac left their purple child behind, the powers that be wouldn't give the poor Dragon a rest, so Universal Interactive got a new team and tasked them with bringing Spyro into the next generation of Videogames. Then they rushed them to meet a deadline, and thus the story wrote itself.

 Everything is fine and dandy in the Dragon Realm, and the baby dragons are about to get their companion dragonflies, but not before Ripto returns and scatters them around 8 different stages, so Spyro is back to collect everything he can. While a measly 8 stages sounds small, and there's a single hub world, each stage is fairly large, with 10 fireflies to collect and about 800 worth of treasure to find. The story is even less prevalent than in Spyro 1, and characters are pretty much forgotten. Bianca appears twice, in the opening and in the ending, and Moneybags appears once and charges you gems that single time, which makes treasure pretty much useless, besides 100%, since access to levels is gated behind your firefly collection.

Bianca is back!... for a grand total of two cutscenes.

 Everything looks the same, albeit in higher poly-count thanks to fancy PS2 graphics, but feels off. This is the most slippery Spyro has ever moved, the hover move doesn't work very well, so expect a lot of your glides to end outside the platform you wanted to get to. That's when it works, since sometimes Spyro has trouble standing over certain surfaces, like bridges. Getting on top of frozen NPCs, required on the first stage, is almost a nightmare. For the first time since I played a Spyro game, the camera felt stiff and uncooperative. I used to play with Active camera, but this time it didn't cut it, and even though now we have the right analog stick moving the camera... it's so slow and stiff! And Sparx seems to miss gems on occasion, so expect to backtrack for missing treasure. Finally, Spyro's trademark headbutt charge feels weak and lacks oomph.

 And don't even let me get started on the horrid framerate! The game struggles so hard to keep it steady, but it fails to. If you get to play that is, the game is ridden with extensive loading times and loading screens FOR loading screens. Incredibly enough, load times are inconsistent, you might get lucky and the game might load a bit quicker than usual, some times. The loading times REALLY kill the flow of the game.... not that the bugs and glitches don't already do that just fine. Let's see... the game froze once during a loading screen, one time it failed to load part of a level and had me running over an empty void and I had to exit the stage to fix it, another time I went through a barn's gate before firing up the fireworks, which meant I had to do another round through the level, plus, numerous audio and graphical bugs. Oh, and the last boss may enter his vulnerable stage two times in a row, or it might take upwards of five minutes before he does. It's so wonky!

It looks the same, but combat lacks oomph. It feels like your hitting air instead of solid objects.

 I felt that Spyro's moveset pretty much tapped out at Spyro 2, something Insomniac probably realized which is why they added more characters in 3. Well, the one thing that they could've done, which they toyed with in Spyro 3 with the Frozen breath, was adding elemental breaths. And they did. And they suck. Fire breath is your default breath and behaves just as it used to. Two challenges require it in order to burn scarecrows under a time limit, and that's all the 'unique' use it'll get. Bubble Breath is useless and can only be used to catch Fireflies, since it does no damage. Good luck catching them, though, as it only seems to hit under a tiny, minuscule radius. Frozen Breath is used to put out fires in two challenges and is the only way to defeat robot dinosaurs on the Jurassic stage, it doesn't make any sense, but that's its single use. Finally, Thunder Breath is used to activate a few lightning rods. It's the breath that you'll use the most for its unique ability. And that's it, elemental breaths could've been a great new addition, but they barely get any use. In combat they are basically the same and there are barely any puzzles that require creative use of them. Another new move is the Wing Deflect, which is only required in a single stage to deflect energy bolts. That's it.

 At least the core of the game is decent. It shows that the game could've been good with more time in the oven. If they had ironed out the bugs and the loading times, the end result could've been a decent, albeit far from great, Spyro game. Because the platforming is still decent, when it works, and collecting stuff is still fun. They even managed to get sliding right, as a matter of fact, slides are the only thing that work better here than in the first Spyro games! There're some very interesting levels, like the one drenched in Honey, or even the one infested with Robot dinosaurs, it's a shame they couldn't polish the gameplay and tweak the physics so that Spyro didn't have trouble standing or hovering onto things.

Monkey Monks. Why not?

 I think the devs were on the right track, and their hearts were on the right place, it's just that they didn't have the time or the experience to get it working right by the time the deadline hit. Unless you're a hardcore Spyro fan, this one's better off skipped.
4.0 out of 10

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

Now Playing: Spyro the Dragon

 Did you know that Spyro is a Dragon?

Ugly green label is ugly. But what can ya do?

 What if I told you that I had never played Spyro games before? Despite loving the hell out of Crash Bandicoot, despite reading about it at the time, despite my best friend loving this game, despite my love for all things Dragon... I never, ever felt like giving Spyro a chance. That changes now.

 I've played about 3 stages from the main world, and I'm having quite a bit of fun. There's a lot to collect, but I don't know what the use is for the eggs or the treasure... but who cares? It's a collectathon, anything goes! ....but really, I'd like to know if they have any purpose besides 100% completion.

 All in all? It's more fun than I had imagined, although I'm not much of a fan of Spyro's movement, he's a slippery little bug.

Review #554: Pirates - Legend of the Black Buccaneer

 He can take me sailing any time.

Voodoo Pirates never went out of style.

 2006 marked the year in which Bully, Black, Final Fantasy XII, Godhand and... Pirates - Legend of the Black Buccaneer were released. Critically panned, the very few reviews you can find on it are less than kind. But I think they are wrong. As a lover of all things Metroidvania, this game made me think of Knytt in 3D. I know the game is sloppy, but boy if it isn't fun.

 The game's story is pathetic, featuring a pirate who's out for a famous treasure, there's no voice acting but the narrator, and cutscenes are made up of hand-drawn art with the narrator's voice. The story is bland, and there's very little of it. What you need to know is that 'our Hero', as the game calls Francis, comes upon a voodoo talisman that lets him turn into the Hulk AKA the Black Buccaneer, and now must fix a ship, get some booty and get the hell out of the island he's trapped in.

The talisman lets Francis go Mr.Hyde on his enemies.

 Upon starting the game you'll probably feel very lost. There're many different paths, some you can traverse, some you cannot(at the time), and the map will tell you of all the different collectibles you can find in any of the game's 18 interconnected, different areas. At first you'll feel that the map is useless, but you'll get the hang of it eventually. The game's primary strength, and what makes it so good as a Metroidvania, is how many ways there are to tackle it. There's a lot of freedom in how you go through the game. Will you collect anything that you can as you explore the Island? Will you instead focus on completing objectives, one at a time? Will you focus on activating the shrines first, so as to upgrade your stats, or will you go after the Gilded Gates, challenge rooms that reward you with new powers? It's up to you.

 A Metroidvania at heart, there're two main components to the gameplay: Fighting and exploring. Fighting is alright at first, you can mix weak and strong attacks to produce different combos, you can unlock more by finding scrolls, or use a gun(or a bomb, once unlocked) that run on a cooldown. If the going gets tough, and it will, you can also turn into the Black Buccaneer, on the purple gauge is full, to deal massive damage and sap health from your enemies. There're also Voodoo spells, like summoning a Zombie or possessing an enemy, but... they sap your health while activated, so I found them quite useless.... although maxing their levels make the cost negligible. Your stats can be upgraded by spending 'Offerings', dropped by defeated enemies, on different shrines throughout the Island. Combat was decent at first, but I will admit that it grew boring on the latter half of the game.

There're very few enemy types, get ready to face a lot of Gorillas. And Zombie Pirates. And Voodoo Natives.

 There's a LOT of platforming in the game, and it kinda sucks. The X button is used to roll or to jump, depending on the context, but sometimes the game won't get the right context, plummeting to your death. Some jumps can inexplicably fall short on their mark too. All in all, it's pretty wonky, and I guarantee that you'll die a lot of times due to this. Thankfully, you can spend an increasing amount of Offerings in order to revive. The platforming is easily the game's worst part, but it's not horrible. I could stand it thanks to how fun it was to explore the island. There're so many things for you to collect in every area that earning a new ability, such as burning rotten trees or grenades, to destroy weakened walls, feels rewarding and you'll want to backtrack in order to get what you missed. The map does a great job of tracking what you're missing too. Puzzles in the game consist mostly of pushing boxes around, and they are fairly simple to solve.

 I was midway past the three hour mark when I defeated the second-to-last boss, and hit five hours when I finally got every single collectible and upgraded every stat. I had a lot of fun with the game. I think it's short length, but decently sized areas, make for a fun game to replay. It's not a very polished game, that's for sure. But the punishment is lenient enough so that even if the wonky platforming killed you, you can jump right back in in a few seconds flat. This is not a game for people wanting a competent hack-and-slash, because it's not, nor for people looking for a Pirate game, because the Pirate theme is little more than decor, but a game for people that love Metroidvanias. It's a game that rewards exploration with tools for even more exploration, and pretty open ended in that regard, which is were it really shines.
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Pirates - Legend of the Black Buccaneer

 Low budget goodness.

 The premise is silly, but the game is dope, yo!

 So, like, the disc had a few scratches and I didn't feel like leaving my room to make progress on Persona 5 and... I popped in the disc. Reviews scores were low, reviews were few and the back-cover had a sentence warning people not to confuse this game with Pirates of the Caribbean. I knew the game was gonna be trash.

 ....but it wasn't. It's a large metroidvania game with a lot of freedom in how you tackle things. In my case, I was three hours deep into the game, still wondering if I could actually level up my skills, since the menu showed me numbers next to my combat abilities, and enemies were becoming damage sponges. Turns out you can, those shrines I've been neglecting? That's where. I was playing and doing stuff as I came across it and had the means to collect them, not going out of my way to do missions. And it's not like the game told me that Shrines could be use to upgrade my skills!

 Regardless, the fact is that, as someone that loves Metroidvanias, I am loving the game. I love how much freedom you're given and the gameplay is acceptable. Platforming is a bit wonky. It's very wonky. But it's passable. I think the only fault I could have with the game, albeit one I don't care too much about, is that it doesn't make much use of the Pirate motif. You have to fix a ship, find a treasure, fight with cutlasses and old-school pistols... but that's were it ends. Enemies consists of monkeys, zombie pirates and voodoo savages. Needless to say, the game does little to make you feel like a pirate.

Month Overview: April 2018

 Tally:
Tomb Raider Anniversary 8.0
Prince of Persia - The Fallen King 3.0
Tomb Raider Legend 7.5
InFamous - Second Son 8.0
Enter the Matrix 3.5
Disney Infinity 2.0 4.5
Dissidia Final Fantasy NT 9.0

 My output decreased a little, but I managed to play a few longish games. Dissidia was a pleasant surprise, turning into a reskinned Gundam Versus... something I loved. I also discovered that Crystal Dynamics' first take on Tomb Raider was pretty much glorious.


Runner-up:

 As much as I liked Second Son, and I liked it, it left me with a bitter aftertaste of disappointment. I had fun with the game, liked it a whole bunch, but, but I just couldn't shake off the feeling that I was playing InFamous 2.5. So, y'know, the game is pretty darn great, but at least I was expecting a bit more out of it.

Winner:

 I know that people hated this Dissidia, but... I adored it. It's Gundam Extreme VS but 3-on-3 and with pretty boys. Duking it out with iconic characters is great, all the unlockables are great and the battling is delightful, even if I could've done without summons. They also changed everything I disliked about Dissidia on PSP, the tedium of having to customize equipment and movesets is gone, now you have a set moveset, but can pick between spells and HP-Attacks, which streamlines the game a lot making for a much more blissful arcade pick up-and-play experience.