Caelin Bragg
Advertising & Distribution Manager
Spyro Reignited Trilogy brings the original Spyro games into the 21st century without losing what made them special in the first place…sometimes.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a return to form for the purple dragon, who’s had it rough since his debut in the late 90s on the PS1. As the name suggests, the game is a remake of the original trilogy of Spyro games, which stood out as some of the crowning gems of the 3-D platformer genre alongside Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot and Sonic Adventure.
The aim of the game is the same: Players control everyone’s favorite sassy purple dragon, Spyro, as he, in Spyro the Dragon, frees dragons encased in stone by the hands of Gnasty Gnorc, in Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage, travels through Avalar, obtaining orbs to send him back to his home while stopping the big-bad of the game, Ripto and in Spyro: Year of the Dragon, rescues the dragon eggs stolen by the Sorceress.
As with any remake, the biggest concern is the feel of the game, which I feel they nailed. Spyro still controls like a dream, allowing perfect precision while walking, charging or gliding without sacrificing speed; swimming wasn’t so lucky in the remake though. Spyro always feels way too loose and out of control. I did get used to it eventually, but it’s a pretty bad ding against the remake when the original did it so well.
Another aspect of the gameplay that suffered was the flutter, fluttering being a little boost at the end of a glide to gain height. I can’t recall the amount of frustrations I had while hitting triangle to flutter and having the game plummet me to the ground instead. It seems like Spyro can now only flutter after gliding for a couple of seconds. I don’t know why they changed it and it only made certain jumps way harder than they needed to be.
One of the most unique things about the Spyro series was its worlds and the look of each of them, most notably their skyboxes. The remake does a good job most of the time recapturing the atmosphere of the stages, but they don’t hold a candle to the dream-like, almost uncanny valley-nature of the original games. Instead, the worlds feel like generic fantasy lands a lot of the time.
Another standout to the originals was the music composed by Stewart Copeland. While he only composed a new main theme for the game, the new composer, Stephan Vankov, did a tremendous job remastering the original OSTs to bring it out of the 90s while still keeping the original charm to it. They also included the original OSTs as an option, making any problems with the remastered tracks forgivable.
I know Spyro Reignited Trilogy is not only made for me, but also for newer generations to experience the literal magic of the originals. But as with remakes as a whole, the threat of them overwriting the original is ever-present, but I feel comfortable with this remake serving as what people will remember as the original Spyro trilogy in the future (except the new flossing skeleton). Though I don’t see why they couldn’t have included the entire original games as well.
