Review #831: The Legend of Spyro - Dawn of the Dragon

 The Legend of Spyro: The Two Towers.

 I never did finish this one, huh? I started The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon as soon as I finished the previous one, but for one reason or another I never got out of the first stage. Well... it's another beat'em up with unsatisfying combat, but, hey, at least it's better than the second entry!

 The game picks up 3 years after Spyro and Cinder got trapped in the crystals, and the game begins with both heroes getting freed from their cages. Malefor, the big bad that first forced Cinder to do his bidding is wrecking havoc, so Spyro, Cinder and Sparx set out to gather old allies and new friends to fight Malefor's impending threat. The series has been unjustly compared to The Lord of the Rings, but boy, this has a section in which you must defend a citadel wall from enemies and their siege towers, not unlike the Two Towers, it even gets a 'Gondor Calls for Aid' moment. The story overall is alright, and we get a conclusion to the story, which is neat. I really liked Cinder before, and her promotion to playable was a welcome addition, what's more, you can play the entire game in two players, thanks to it's drop in-drop out co-op mode. If you are playing by yourself, you can swap dragons with L2, and the AI will play as the other character, they are pretty much useless but they won't take any damage.

 Alright, so here's the thing... since the first game the developers, although this one was developed by a different team, have made it clear that these games are beat'em ups and combat IS the focus. However, also since the very first game, the series has struggled with how repetitive combat is. That hasn't changed. Square are your weak attacks, triangle are strong attacks, circle is a grab. You can produce different combos, even aerial combos, with square and triangle. Each dragon has access to four elemental breaths(Fire, Earth, Ice and Thunder for Spyro, Venom, Shadow, Cyclone and... um, 'Siren's scream' for Cinder) that can be leveled up with blue gems dropped from enemies, each breath has two attacks, one with R1 and one with R2, however, using your breath consumes energy so you can't use it willy nily. Lastly, there's a new Fury gauge, once full you press weak and strong attack to turn super powerful for a few seconds. The problem is still the fact that you don't get many different moves, and the ones that you do get are just as weak, for you see, enemies can soak up tonnes of damage, even fully powered up breaths will struggle to defeat the tougher enemies. So not only is the combat repetitive, it also takes a long while to finish off enemies. Pro-tip, Cinder's Shadow element R2 attack is unblockable and deals ungodly amounts of damage, level up that one and stick with it.

 This game introduces equipment into the mix, and whatever you equip is reflected on the character models, which is pretty cool to be honest. Each character has 9 pieces of equipment to find: Helmet, Body armor and bracelets, each one having a different attribute or buff. Enhancing your Health and Breath energy pools is done by finding big Red and Green gems. It felt like this game added more puzzle elements into the mix, which aren't hard to figure out but are somewhat welcome. The game is still quite linear, but there are larger areas to explore, which is also why flying is a thing now. I never quite understood how it works, sometimes you dragons will fly upwards because I don't know, and other times they wouldn't. I didn't get how it works, so it was kinda iffy, but for what it's worth, you'll be able to get where you want to get by flying, it's like the know when to fly up. On the other hand, there are a few new climbing techniques, such as wall running that aren't well explained. I struggled a lot at first until I understood how the game wanted me to interact with vines and walls, turns out you don't press circle to wall run, but rather, first you must jump against the wall and then press circle.

 The camera is horrible. How much you can turn it depends on where you are, because sometimes the game decides that you should stick with a somewhat fixed angle. And there's no targeting system, because that would make too much sense in a beat'em up that wishes it was Devil May Cry. Oh, and bosses can only be defeated with QTEs, because those are ALWAYS so much fun. The final nail in the game's coffin is its poor framerate, flying around could've been so much fun if only it didn't start stuttering like crazy.

 Here's the thing about Dawn of the Dragon, for as many flaws as it has... After the somewhat boring Two Towers rip-off scene I finally got used to the game and its shortcomings, so I started having a bit more fun with it. For as annoying as the framerate can get, the second level, which is set on an open field in which you must solve various puzzles was rather interesting, and the level set in the underground ruins, in which you must solve even more puzzles to collect four red rods in order to proceed was also rather fun. But here's the thing, the combat in the game falls short in every way possible, but when spaced out between moments in which you have to figure out what to do, a few times even needing to use your elemental breaths to proceed... it kinda works. And it has ambition, I'll give it that. There's this level in which you fly around a giant Titan, and you must go around its body blasting 12 Dark Crystals in order to beat it. You can't fly around it, no, only where the game decided not to place hidden walls. In some places you can fly lower than in other because reasons, and at times it can get quite frustrating because you've no idea where you should go or fly next. But as poorly executed as it was.... it's still a stage in which you fly around a giant monster in order to defeat it. For as cumbersome and dull as the wall siege scene is... it's still a freaking siege scene, y'know? The game had decent, interesting ideas, but it fell short in most regards.

 The Legend of Spyro trilogy was disappointing. I know gamers hate change, but I'm usually willing to come into reboots and remakes with an open mind, and I did when it came to this one. I don't hate these games, I really don't, but the first game failed to impress even though I was left optimistic. But the next couple of games refused to address issues that plagued its basic gameplay, making small tweaks and changes that didn't amount to anything. And this is it. It's over, and it ends with a whimper, but at least it was better than the second game.
 5.5 out of 10