The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning

I didn't like this game when I first got it, mainly because I didn't want to see Spyro try its hand at being a lord of the rings rip-off with its story whilst reinventing its gameplay as a beat em up. I've since cone to appreciate this game for what it wanted to achieve even if I feel there's far better options out there in this regard.

The lord of the ring’s comparison is accurate as we have Elijah wood voicing our hero fresh off his performances from the Peter Jackson trilogy, joining him is Gary Oldman as iagnitus who I'm guessing is his biological father given how he's the mentor figure of the story. We also have David spade as sparx likely to make it somewhat kid friendly but really feels out of place as his performances is more in line with his role of Kuzco from the emperor’s new groove rather than the more down to earth performances of our two leads. We also have an interesting villain with Cynder as she's a corrupt dragon who's on the hunt for our hero's and only meets up with them late into the game. That's enough with the story and characters, let's look at the gameplay which seems to heavily borrow from devil may cry both in terms of combat and how powerups work. The combat here is decent, we have a vast move set for Spyro that he can perform in fairly cramped areas to allow for combos to be pulled off. This is accentuated by his different breath abilities that he acquires throughout the game which serve as his ranged weapons to chain to his horn attacks that serve as his melee weapons. Just like dmc, his attacks can be upgraded with in game currency which serves as energy he collects throughout his journey. He can also replenish his health and breath abilities by collecting gems which no longer serve as currency or meaningless collectibles like they did in previous games. I guess the big issue with all of this is that most of it is redundant due to a lack of consequence for dying in a level, Spyro immediately respawns with full health as if nothing happened with the only disadvantage being that enemies gave their health restored upon coming back to life. This reminds me of legacy of Kain defiance when it comes to a game being too easy for its own good, except that game made up for its pushover combat by having clever puzzles and frustrating platforming. This game has neither as without the combat, Spyro is just wandering around vacant levels and only occasionally has to solve a basic puzzle to progress through the campaign.

Had there been consequences for dying of if the combat was more refined like in dmc, this would be an amazing game, as is this is an average game that has potential and will hopefully one day reach it in a remake in the future.