Spyro the Dragon was a huge hit on the Playstation when it first came out in the late 90’s.
I didn’t have a Playstation back then, but I’d go over to my friend’s house all the
time to play Spyro.
The game’s universe was charming, yet humorous, and the controls were excellent.
Now, after a number of games that weren’t received quite as well, developer Krome of
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger fame was tasked with giving the dragon a fresh start, and that’s
exactly what they did.
This is The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning for
the GameCube.
A New Beginning is basically an origin story for Spyro.
The purple dragon is living with his dragonfly family and his friend Sparx when he gets into
a battle and breathes fire, thus learning that he isn’t actually a dragonfly.
After discovering another dragon who saved Spyro when he was still in an egg, Spyro sets
off on an adventure with Sparx.
While
the story actually seems to rip off the story of Moses a little bit, the game also has a
nice sense of humor.
Elijah Wood plays the straight guy, while David Spade has goofier lines and more of
a slapstick style.
Gary Oldman is also in it, and that makes everything better.
The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning still plays like the older games in the series.
Spyro has access to a wide variety of attacks and abilities, he glides instead of flying
from place to place, and combat is a mix of melee and special moves.
It’s actually a good thing that it hasn’t been changed that much, because the original
controls in the earlier games didn’t really have any issues.
Combat can feel a little bit repetitive, and it can come down to button mashing at times,
but when there’s more than one enemy at a time, things start to get interesting.
When enemies get killed, they explode and drop a variety of crystals that can be used
to fill Spyro’s health and special ability meters, so he can keep breathing fire and
using other moves.
In addition, there’s also some puzzles that add a Zelda-like element to the game.
My biggest issue with A New Beginning is the camera, which is one of the worst I’ve experienced
on the GameCube.
The camera seems hell-bent on not being anywhere but right behind Spyro, and this is an issue,
as enemies can come from all directions.
Getting hit by an enemy you didn’t even know was next to you is a common occurrence,
and using the right stick to adjust the camera doesn’t really help.
You can strafe to circle around enemies, but this only really works if the enemies are
all really close together, and that’s pretty rare.
As this is a late GameCube game, I expected the graphics to be pretty good, and I was
not disappointed.
Environments and characters all look really nice, and although there are some recycled
areas, they’re usually presented far enough apart that you won’t really notice.
The fire effects are also impressive; lighting those guys ablaze is a lot of fun.
The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning was actually a lot better than I expected it to be.
It’s funny, the gameplay all works well, except for the camera, and the story gives
a nice twist on the series.
There’s a wide variety of Spyro games to choose from, including the recent Skylanders
game, but this is worth at least a rent.