Developer: Toys for Bob
Publisher: Activision
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch
Tested on: Switch
Spyro Reignited Trilogy (Switch) – Review
For many gamers, Spyro brings up fond memories of playing it when they were kids, being one of the most iconic games with great graphics for that time, while also trying to attract a new generation of gamers. Sure, the Spyro games weren’t that difficult, but a lot of fun was guaranteed. Toys for Bob took it on their self to remaster the original trilogy bringing this set of games to the crowd with modern graphics, and improved gameplay.
Story
The story in this trilogy is exactly the same as the originals. In the first Spyro game, all dragons except Spyro have been transformed into stone statues. It’s up to Spyro to free them all and defeat the enemy. In Ripto’s Rage, Spyro and Sparx wanted to go on a vacation to Dragon Shores but instead get summoned to a fantasy realm of Avalar by Elora, Hunter, and the professor to defeat Ripto and his evil minions. In Year of the Dragon, all the eggs are stolen while the dragons were asleep after celebrating the Year of the Dragon in the land of Dragons. Spyro appears to be the only one who can travel to the Forgotten Worlds to retrieve the 150 dragon eggs that were stolen. The first game’s progress is not really accompanied by a lot of narrative, except for the dragons who say a few words after they are freed. The next games have a lot more conversation as you progress.
Graphics
The graphics of the old games were great for that time. Now they’re certainly outdated, but in this remaster of the three first games, the graphics got a complete overhaul. Everything is very detailed and all the characters and dragons look awesome. The environments all look pretty stunning as well, but the Switch version also has its downsides. On the screen, you won’t notice this a lot because the tiny screen makes up for the lack of a better resolution. When in docked mode, the game still looks reasonably well but there are some performance issues. The game has a lot of lag when turning the camera and walking around. It just feels like the docked mode is just a little bit too much for the Switch. We recommend playing these three games mainly in handheld mode, for better performance and overall a better graphical experience.
Sound
The sound in the games of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy is just like it was in the original installments. It immediately feels familiar. You can choose to listen to the music of the original games or the reignited soundtrack. This new soundtrack includes a new track from Steward Copeland, a former member of The Police who composed music for the original Spyro the Dragon and the two sequels. This new theme is called Tiger Train. The music in this collection is sure to give you the exact same feeling of when you played these games twenty years ago. The conversations in the first game are mostly comprised of gameplay tips that keep on getting repeated by the dragons you release, instead of contributing to the story of the game. The other two games have better conversations with more contributions to the story, with newly introduced characters that keep on showing up while you progress in the game.
Gameplay
Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a collection of remasters of the first three installments in the Spyro game series. These games are action-adventure platformers that captured many young hearts when the series hit the first PlayStation in 1998. In these games, you could freely move around in a 3D-world in third-person. You play as the young dragon Spyro and in these games, this young dragon gets a lot of heavy tasks set upon him to save his fellow dragons.
Overall, the Spyro games are quite easy to play as they have some basic moves to run around and defeat your enemies. With the power of fire, Spyro can breathe a burst of fire to set his enemies ablaze. He can also use a charge move that will knock away many opponents while running at a fast pace. This charge move can also be used to travel quickly through the many levels Spyro must visit to accomplish his goals. With his wings, Spyro can hover to platforms that are farther away. Each realm has one level in which Spyro can freely fly around and some levels have arches that will give Spyro the ability to fly for a short while. Spyro’s health is indicated by the color of his dragonfly partner, Sparx. Sparx’s color changes from yellow to blue and green after getting hit. When Sparx disappears, Spyro will faint when he gets struck again. Small critters walk around in each level that will produce a butterfly when you hit them. Spyro regains health when Sparx eats these butterflies and blue butterflies will instantly recover all lost health and grant you an extra life.
In the first game, you’ll need to free the dragons that were crystallized by Gnasty Gnorc after he was insulted in an interview with a dragon. Each level contains several crystal dragons you need to release from their imprisonment. Each level also contains a number of gems that can be collected as well. Aside from these two things, you can also find blue creatures holding stolen dragon eggs. These creatures are fast-moving enemies that need to be defeated to retrieve the eggs. These enemies are constantly provoking you to catch them and are one of the most memorial things from the game for many players. When you’ve collected everything in a level, you’re done and you can move on to the next level. The areas in the Spyro games are divided into realms. Each realm contains five portals to other levels where you need to free dragons and collect treasure. In each Spyro game, the layout of the worlds is done in the same way, with more items that can be collected.
The next two titles, Ripto’s Rage and Year of the Dragon added al lot more content to the game. From Ripto’s Rage, there were more conversations with inhabitants of the worlds, also giving you some small tasks to acquire items need to progress in the story. Spyro also learns new abilities when progressing in Ripto’s Rage, giving him the ability to dive underwater, climbing certain surfaces and a head bash to destroy bigger rocks in your path. In Year of the Dragon, you start with these abilities already available. In this game, minigames were added to the game, giving you the opportunity to skateboard in levels filled with ramps or sliding down a slide. These minigames would give you eggs when you accomplish the goals in a set amount of time.
Conclusion
The Reignited Trilogy just does what it promised. The developers took a trilogy of great games that were released twenty years ago, improved the graphics, made the controls a lot smoother and they made them available to the modern consoles we now use. The cutscenes look much better now in the remaster, which makes the games even more fun to play. This version does make this game a portable experience that can be played wherever you want but it does have the performance issue when playing in docked mode. If this could be fixed with a patch, it would remove any bad things you could say about this version of the Reignited Trilogy. The three games offered with this collection are really fun games to play and are accessible to even those who aren’t that good in playing videogames because of the relatively low difficulty.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy (Switch) - Review,
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