Spyro: Year of the Dragon

This is my personal favourite game from the Spyro franchise, sure people will tell you that the second game is the best and I guess on a technical level it is, however I feel this has the best the franchise has to offer thanks to the different gameplay styles it has to offer.

Everything Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! does right is accounted for here, that of course being the level design, tight controls and gorgeous art style. It’s what this game brings to the table that makes it the best out of the franchise, namely the new characters both playable and non-playable. Of the playable kind, there's Sheila who’s a kangaroo that has more traditional platforming stages, sgt Byrd who’s a James Bond parody that has flying stages, Bentley who’s a yeti with a more beat em up style gameplay, agent nine who’s a monkey that has more of a third person shooter gameplay, hunter who does the side objectives in the speedways and finally sparx who has top-down shooter sections. Each of these mechanics are handled well for the most part, although some of the mini games could've used some polished due to how rushed they feel. There's also the npcs who largely have the same role as the ones from the second game, the one exception being Bianca who starts off as a villain only to switch sides towards the end of the game for reasons I won't get into here. The story is very compelling largely due to her character development as we have one evil antagonist in the form of the sorceress who I’ll admit is a bit underutilised here as she doesn't even meet Spyro until her boss battle at the end of the game. The only other complaint I have here is that the game does feel rushed at points outside of the mini games, this is noticeable with the soundtrack as several levels reuse themes from previous levels that are only corrected in the American release of the game. Other than that, I have no complaints here whatsoever.

Like I said, the second game is technically better, however the stuff this game does right completely blows that game out of the water.

No terceiro jogo em três anos, seria um tanto inevitável repetir muito do que veio antes. Year of the Dragon muda muito pouco da estrutura de Ripto’s Rage, e o que traz de novo não é tão polido ou divertido quanto o núcleo da experiência.

Núcleo este que ainda é muito sólido, então não tem como não gostar de jogá-lo. Quando eu quiser revisitar a trilogia original, não será esse que eu vou jogar, mas isso não quer dizer que é um mau jogo.

Sobre a versão da Reignited Trilogy, Year of the Dragon foi o único dentre os três lançado com diversos bugs e trechos que mereciam mais cuidado. Prejudicou um pouco meu gameplay.

(Jogado na versão da Reignited Trilogy)

Insomniac returns with a third go at the Spyro franchise, and all the stops are being pulled out. The gameplay introduced in the original remains, the extra challenges from the sequel return, and now, additional playable characters are introduced to round off the most ambitious Spyro game to date. With ambition, however, comes extra baggage and problems along the way. Spyro 3 is, at this point in the series, the clunkiest and most buggy entry to date. Many of the ideas are welcome on paper, but don't entire pan out in ways you would hope for. This doesn't crush all hope of it being an enjoyable game, but it certainly feels like the focus of the first two titles gets lost in the shuffle.

The first main concern with Year of the Dragon is that many of the challenges brought into the game are incredibly challenging without being very fun. The feeling of finishing yeti boxing doesn't feel rewarding, it just feels like you've escaped from something you never wanted to do in the first place. Several minigames feel this way, whether through suffocating difficult, awkward controls, or just poor design in general. This is amplified by Spyro 3's most notable addition: New playable characters. Each character plays in a unique way, with their own movesets, control schemes, and play style. For the most part, they're relatively fun to play as in their own home levels where the entire stage is designed around them. But when they become the focus of some particularly heinous minigames, the problems arise.

Some of these minigames have you play as the spastic monkey, Agent 9, taking on a first person perspective to mimic rail shooters, or even Doom in one particular challenge. You may also play as Sheila the kangaroo, Sgt. Byrd the penguin, Bentley the yeti, Hunter in a few flight minigames, or even Sparx himself in a series of shoot-em-up levels. It's bizarre how frequently Spyro 3 pulls you out of Spyro's shoes and either puts you in control of another character or an unwieldy vehicle. This is not to say that every minigame and every playable character in the game is bad. Many of them are quite enjoyable, but for every acclaimed skateboarding area, there's a Bentley whack-a-mole section that will make you want to tear your hair out. It's unbalanced, and it can completely kill the momentum.

It's not all bad. The level design remains as inspired as in previous titles. Whether it's stages that take place in an explosive fireworks factory, "haunted" shipwrecks, or the wild west, there's the same variety you would expect from this franchise present and accounted for. The later levels in the game are also much harder than in previous titles, and not just thanks to the minigames. Some enemies have incredibly reflexes, or environmental hazards may get the best of you. The bosses in the game are mostly a cakewalk, but there are some instances of awkward controls getting in the way that make them a little more difficult. Still, the levels themselves along with some beautifully made home worlds remind us why Spyro became such a hit in the first place.

Storytelling wise, it's very similar to Spyro 2 in terms of presentation. NPC's of different sorts from level to level, new characters with full cutscenes, plenty of silly humor, and full voice acting for everyone. It's nothing that will rewrite history, but it does exactly what it has to do for a game of its style. The music continues to be a highlight of the game with some incredible compositions, and the graphics continue to hold up as being very well aged, considering the platform. Still, Spyro 3 is a fairly buggy game, with some humorous movement glitches and occasional audio errors that make it through. Spyro 3 is a game that suffers from trying to do too much and not quite nailing every promise it makes. It's not a bad game by any means, but it does have many more puzzling moments than either predecessor. It was the final Spyro game Insomniac developed, and all in all, is a perfectly acceptable send-off to the original trilogy.

Say what you will about this game, but Spyro 3 is really what I consider the ultimate Spyro experience, it felt like a good mix of the exploration and open feeling of the first game of collecting gems and platforming, along with the more mini game focus of the second game. My problem with the first 2 Spyros is they were a bit too limited and they didn't have the best design. I liked the first game but it really didn't have much variety and the controls were awkward, the 2nd game just was too focused on mini games that the levels felt like they were mainly designed around these games so the platforming and level design took a back seat to those games. 3 was also my first Spyro game, I remember I was probably around 10 years old and my brother got this game for his birthday probably not too long after it first came out. I played the hell out of this as a kid and loved every bit of it, I loved the different Worlds, the music, the characters, the mini games, everything just really stood out. This along with Crash Bandicoot 2 & 3 were probably my most played games of the early 2000s.

After I grew up and reached my teenage years I think we got rid of all our PS1 games, so I let a number of years go by without playing this, but then during my freshman year in college there was a girl who I was friends with who said she remembers playing this as a kid and really liked it so we bought it on PS1 and I remember for an entire week during the first month in college we'd go into our other friends room and a group of like 6 or 7 of us would watch us play through the entire game. There was one day one of my friends wanted to watch some boring foreign Indian movie so the girl decided with about half the friend group to come downstairs to play Spyro 3 with us. It actually is among my fondest college memories, I just really enjoyed replaying this game with my new friends and going through the Worlds and mini games that brought back so much nostalgia.

I haven't played Spyro 3 since then and that was actually quite a number of years ago, its almost scary to think that much time has gone by since my Freshman year, but it stands the test of time if I could play the game almost 5+ years from the last time I had previously played it and still enjoy it just as much. Sure Spyro 3 has flaws as well, there are some areas that did feel like they were designed awkward to fit around mini games, some of the mini games in this were a bit tedious and the extra characters you could play as were a mixed bag. Mainly the penguin and monkey, their segments just felt really awkward to control and were more tedious than fun. I also felt the final few areas of the game weren't as memorable as the early ones, but maybe that's just me. The boss fights in this were a slight improvement over the previous game as well, although I will admit the final boss in this game kind of sucks and it was frustrating.

I really enjoyed the bonus area in this for getting all the eggs and gems and it felt like a big improvement from the bonus area in the previous 2 games. Sure the bonus area in this was basically just replaying similar mini games you previously played, but I found it fun. Spyro 3 just has so much, a good variety of levels and a good mix of platforming with mini game. Sure some of the levels and games were annoying and designed poor, but I enjoyed roughly 75% of the levels and mini games in this. Sure there might be the 25% I didn't enjoy or found frustrating, but theres just so much variety that I can forgive the occasional poorly designed mini game or level. Plus this game just has the most to offer with more levels and mini games along with a greater variety. Its a really fun platformer and has so much to offer, and its easily my favorite of the Spyro trilogy on PS1.

Sometimes it's difficult to slap a number rating onto a game. I can think of no game where this is more true than this one.
Year of the Dragon is the third Spyro game, and it shows, for better and for worse. Spyro controls better than ever before, perfecting the already brilliant gameplay from the first two games. Unfortunately, Insomniac decided that that wasn't enough, and added six more playable characters. Yes, this game features seven distinct playable characters, and six of them are utter garbage. Around 70% of the game is spent playing as Spyro, who plays perfectly. On top of this, around 55% of the game is just minigames. This is bullshit.

See, Spyro 1 was difficult, but in a fair way. The entire game was spent with one set of abilities (flight levels excepted, but they also set up their own set of consistent rules and abilities, so it makes sense). You had to use these abilities and your own detective skills to complete the challenges the game put forth. Yes, Tree Tops and Haunted Towers stood out as being way harder than the rest of the game, but it was fair. The game didn't switch the rules on you, it just put something far off, so you'd have to sit down and figure out how to use your abilities to complete the challenge. The entire game set up these moments, and if you couldn't do it, it was your own fault for not inspecting the level hard enough, or not understanding your abilities.
Spyro 3's difficulty is completely in sudden gameplay shifts. The hardest parts of the game are Agent 9's levels, which are not platforming, and are certainly not built up to. They throw a new set of rules and challenges to you and say "good luck :^)". You're no good at first-person shooters with awful, barely responsive controls? You're terrible at rail shooters with the slowest aiming known to man? You're bad at boxing? Well, then you're never getting 100% completion in this platformer.

If you're a completionist, you'll hate this game. If you just want to play through, doing what you want and leaving what you don't, you'll really enjoy it. It's got some of the best standard Spyro levels, in spite of some bullshit minigames.