Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly is the fourth game in the Spyro the Dragon series and the first Spyro game to be on the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Gamecube. Gameplay is similar to the previous three console games. The only playable character is Spyro, however he can man several vehicles: Hunter's Manta Ray and the UFO's make a return appearance from Year of the Dragon, alongside two new vehicles, the tank and the Spitfire attack plane. The game faced development issues that affected the final product, which resulted in being poorly made. Upon release, it was widely criticized for its numerous glitches, long loading times, and choppy framerate, with fans and critics calling it the worst entry in the franchise.
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Before playing through Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, I was led to believe by years of watching videos and reading information about the game, that it was an unbearable broken mess that is one of the worst experiences in gaming. I am happy to report that it is, in fact, not that bad. At worst, it is a slightly glitchy, kind of annoying basic platformer; and at best it is a little distracting romp through an otherwise barebones Spyro game. Don’t get me wrong, the game still isn’t very good, it is littered with half baked ideas, technical glitches, and just some of the weirdest aesthetic choices I have ever seen in a game; and from what I can tell, a lot of these bad design choices are the result of a troubled development. But I think the overall experience is ultimately fine, definitely not as dreadful as most people make it out to be.
The big elephant in the room with the entirety of this game is its lack of anything interesting. Nothing stands out, it is all just standard Spyro structure really. The player goes through a linear stage, even more linear for this game's case, collect gems, gather the special items, here they are dragonflies, and the player is done. The Insomniac trilogy, for the most part, proved that this was a winning formula, but what made it so much fun was those slight deviations and changes to the status quo that shook up the players' train of thought. Think of obstacles like the egg thieves, or the entirety of Tree Tops, that recontextualized the environment and the players abilities and asks them to think outside of the box. Enter the Dragonfly does not do that, at all. It is a shallow, hollow imitation of what came before. The game tries to do this; Spyro has a handful of new elemental breath types in conjunction with his fire breath, but nothing is ever done with them. At the most, there will be a section that requires hitting certain objects with different breaths; put out the fire with the ice breath, burn the scarecrows with the fire breath, and electrocute the poles to turn on the power. These breath types would be so much more interesting if, lets say, the player could create platforms on water or lava with the ice breath, or melt metal doors/ice barriers with the fire breath, or maybe even have to electrocute watery areas in order to turn the power on in a level, thus creating a new hazard in the process. But no, the new abilities stop at very surface level challenges that require very little brain power. As well, if it was not clear with my description of what this game considered to be a puzzle, the stages themselves are severely lacking.
Something I really appreciated from the first Spyro game is the abstract sense of nostalgia its set of levels gave me, it was like a happier version of the whole liminal spaces phenomena, like I had been there long ago in a dream I had when I was younger. All of Enter the Dragonflies levels are the exact opposite of this feeling, I have never been to these places before and I would really like to leave. The range of aesthetics this game goes for are just boring as all be; there is a dojo, an island with a luau theme going on, two separate farm levels, a very basic ice level, and a jungle temple. These themes are extremely basic and uninteresting and offer no real intrigue beyond the initial concept; they are quite actually just linear straight shots from the beginning to the end of the level; no alternate paths, no secret hideaways, and barely any of the now standard mini game side missions. Although, I am rather grateful for that last part, but I want to cover that later. The only level that doesn’t follow this structure is the Thieves Hideout, a level where all the egg thieves in the dragon world hoard their treasure, and is themed after The Thousand and One Nights. Not only does it have probably the most interesting concept for a level in the whole game, maybe series (so far at least), but the Arabian theming makes it stand out amongst the much more boring levels in this game; and, of course, there are many winding pathways to traverse and secret areas to find in this level, because what kind of thieves hideout would this be if it didn’t have those. But sadly, this is the only level in the game of this caliber, everything else is just fine. Actually, they might be worse than fine because of just how buggy this game is. There is a decently high likelihood that whenever the player enters a stage, something is going to glitch the hell out; I think I can recall a moment from each of the game's nine levels where some glitch made itself apparent. In some of them, gems would just fall through the floor and be unobtainable unless the level is restarted, others had problems with collision, where some platforms Spyro would just fall right though like he was a ghost, and in one instance in Honey Marshes, the level just refused to load in, leaving me walking on invisible ground unsure of where to go because I couldn't see anything. So, on top of already being rather boring levels, there is a good chance the level is just going to be broken whenever the player hops into them. But, all of this aside, I do think there is some good that this game has, albeit very minimal.
During the games development, one of the bigger issues the developers faced was building the game from the ground up, as they did not have access to any of the original source code or assets from the original trilogy. It is unclear whether or not the publishers, Universal Interactive, had denied them access to those original files, or if they simply didn’t have them on record to use, but either way, this led to many of the games shortcomings. Specifically, the one I want to point out is the change to how Spyro controls, here he is much stiffer, or tighter, depending on your perspective. Spyro in the original trilogy was much more floaty and less precise, which helped those games achieve the more free and dreamlike atmosphere they were going for, but it didn’t work so well in the more critical platforming sections. Which is why I was very happy to find out that Spyro is much more predictable to control here, making the few difficult platforming sections present more palatable. Additionally, like I mentioned earlier, the side mini game missions that plagued the last two games have had their presence greatly reduced; as well, I think they are better designed too. There are now two special gates in every level that lead the player to their respective side mission, these missions vary from piloting vehicles like tanks and UFOs, to sliding down giant mountain sides toboggan style. I like this implementation better than how 2 and YOTD did it because there being two per level doesn’t take away from the level itself, and the new mini games are based on the player’s abilities rather than having their own independent rules and control schemes, allowing them to flow much better into the pacing of each level. On top of this, the bugs that I mentioned earlier aren’t as bad as I made them out to seem, a simple restart of the level will likely fix whatever problems arise, this leaves the levels to be their ok sleeves; they aren’t bad levels, just not all that interesting, distracting for a little while than anything, which I will take a million times over having to a stupid trolley minigame over and over again.
Truly, I don’t think this game is that bad, it has problems, no doubt, but the overall game is fine. I understand why people scream to the high heavens that this game is an abomination, but I just can’t get behind that sentiment, especially when I have played games far far worse than this.
The big elephant in the room with the entirety of this game is its lack of anything interesting. Nothing stands out, it is all just standard Spyro structure really. The player goes through a linear stage, even more linear for this game's case, collect gems, gather the special items, here they are dragonflies, and the player is done. The Insomniac trilogy, for the most part, proved that this was a winning formula, but what made it so much fun was those slight deviations and changes to the status quo that shook up the players' train of thought. Think of obstacles like the egg thieves, or the entirety of Tree Tops, that recontextualized the environment and the players abilities and asks them to think outside of the box. Enter the Dragonfly does not do that, at all. It is a shallow, hollow imitation of what came before. The game tries to do this; Spyro has a handful of new elemental breath types in conjunction with his fire breath, but nothing is ever done with them. At the most, there will be a section that requires hitting certain objects with different breaths; put out the fire with the ice breath, burn the scarecrows with the fire breath, and electrocute the poles to turn on the power. These breath types would be so much more interesting if, lets say, the player could create platforms on water or lava with the ice breath, or melt metal doors/ice barriers with the fire breath, or maybe even have to electrocute watery areas in order to turn the power on in a level, thus creating a new hazard in the process. But no, the new abilities stop at very surface level challenges that require very little brain power. As well, if it was not clear with my description of what this game considered to be a puzzle, the stages themselves are severely lacking.
Something I really appreciated from the first Spyro game is the abstract sense of nostalgia its set of levels gave me, it was like a happier version of the whole liminal spaces phenomena, like I had been there long ago in a dream I had when I was younger. All of Enter the Dragonflies levels are the exact opposite of this feeling, I have never been to these places before and I would really like to leave. The range of aesthetics this game goes for are just boring as all be; there is a dojo, an island with a luau theme going on, two separate farm levels, a very basic ice level, and a jungle temple. These themes are extremely basic and uninteresting and offer no real intrigue beyond the initial concept; they are quite actually just linear straight shots from the beginning to the end of the level; no alternate paths, no secret hideaways, and barely any of the now standard mini game side missions. Although, I am rather grateful for that last part, but I want to cover that later. The only level that doesn’t follow this structure is the Thieves Hideout, a level where all the egg thieves in the dragon world hoard their treasure, and is themed after The Thousand and One Nights. Not only does it have probably the most interesting concept for a level in the whole game, maybe series (so far at least), but the Arabian theming makes it stand out amongst the much more boring levels in this game; and, of course, there are many winding pathways to traverse and secret areas to find in this level, because what kind of thieves hideout would this be if it didn’t have those. But sadly, this is the only level in the game of this caliber, everything else is just fine. Actually, they might be worse than fine because of just how buggy this game is. There is a decently high likelihood that whenever the player enters a stage, something is going to glitch the hell out; I think I can recall a moment from each of the game's nine levels where some glitch made itself apparent. In some of them, gems would just fall through the floor and be unobtainable unless the level is restarted, others had problems with collision, where some platforms Spyro would just fall right though like he was a ghost, and in one instance in Honey Marshes, the level just refused to load in, leaving me walking on invisible ground unsure of where to go because I couldn't see anything. So, on top of already being rather boring levels, there is a good chance the level is just going to be broken whenever the player hops into them. But, all of this aside, I do think there is some good that this game has, albeit very minimal.
During the games development, one of the bigger issues the developers faced was building the game from the ground up, as they did not have access to any of the original source code or assets from the original trilogy. It is unclear whether or not the publishers, Universal Interactive, had denied them access to those original files, or if they simply didn’t have them on record to use, but either way, this led to many of the games shortcomings. Specifically, the one I want to point out is the change to how Spyro controls, here he is much stiffer, or tighter, depending on your perspective. Spyro in the original trilogy was much more floaty and less precise, which helped those games achieve the more free and dreamlike atmosphere they were going for, but it didn’t work so well in the more critical platforming sections. Which is why I was very happy to find out that Spyro is much more predictable to control here, making the few difficult platforming sections present more palatable. Additionally, like I mentioned earlier, the side mini game missions that plagued the last two games have had their presence greatly reduced; as well, I think they are better designed too. There are now two special gates in every level that lead the player to their respective side mission, these missions vary from piloting vehicles like tanks and UFOs, to sliding down giant mountain sides toboggan style. I like this implementation better than how 2 and YOTD did it because there being two per level doesn’t take away from the level itself, and the new mini games are based on the player’s abilities rather than having their own independent rules and control schemes, allowing them to flow much better into the pacing of each level. On top of this, the bugs that I mentioned earlier aren’t as bad as I made them out to seem, a simple restart of the level will likely fix whatever problems arise, this leaves the levels to be their ok sleeves; they aren’t bad levels, just not all that interesting, distracting for a little while than anything, which I will take a million times over having to a stupid trolley minigame over and over again.
Truly, I don’t think this game is that bad, it has problems, no doubt, but the overall game is fine. I understand why people scream to the high heavens that this game is an abomination, but I just can’t get behind that sentiment, especially when I have played games far far worse than this.
Unlike most games I try to play completely blind, I ended up caving and researching BTS information about development before I even finished the first level. The reason I wait until after is so that I can play the game and form an opinion on it divorced from knowledge about a troubled development cycle that would cause me to feel sympathetic and grant it a higher review score. About halfway through the first level, I dropped my controller and did as much research as I could about what the hell happened here, I was THAT baffled (you can read a bit about it here: https://thewumpagem.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/the-enter-the-dragonfly-investigation-part-ii-interview-with-joel-goodsell/)
I'll start by saying things I like. I really like the idea behind the cycling breath power-ups. Joel Goodsell said in the above-linked interview "The original games did a great job with forcing the player to change up charge vs. breath attacks with clear enemy visuals, and I wanted to continue deepening this aspect of the Spyro franchise." I never really considered that enough to put it into words enough to praise this aspect, but with this philosophy, I think this was a really smart way to try and deepen Spyro's gameplay.
I also think the game LOOKS pretty good! Some models like Hunter and Ripto look pretty awful, but for the most part, Equinox did a really great job approximating the designs of just about everyone to give them a higher poly count without actually having any of the assets on-hand. Environments look really nice as well.
Check-6 did their best trying to approximate the controls of the Insomniac trilogy, which I appreciate. Many things feel close enough, like the gliding, jumping, sprinting, and I even like how climbing is actually faster here than it is in the Insomniac games. I think it's an improvement. But mainly, Spyro feels extremely sluggish if you're not constantly sprinting (funny, because I said the same exact thing about Wrath of Cortex, which this game shares many similarities with). Unlike Wrath of Cortex, though, this game feels unfinished in the sense that it's extremely unoptimized, full of bugs, AND has barely any content that distinguishes itself from predecessors.
This game TRIES to run at 60 FPS but usually falls more into the 30-45 range. I'm not usually a stickler for framerate, I think a game should run at whatever is most consistent, but they apparently had to scale the game back A LOT to try and reach a more acceptable frame rate, and it STILL doesn't maintain a solid 60. I'd rather them have just capped at 30 if the game was going to be this inconsistent.
Most of the content in this game is just really disappointing and lackluster. It's not just that this game can't distinguish itself from YoTD with its content, it just barely HAS content period! My jaw genuinely dropped when I saw there was only 7000 Gems, 90 Dragonflies, and 9 levels excluding the final boss arena (which you can clip through the floor and access immediately in the first hub area, if ya Gnasty). On one hand, that's not even half as much content as YoTD had. On the other hand, it's less game for me to play, so I'm grateful. On my third hand I just grew out of my torso, they also increased the amount of Gems per stage to like 700-800 per, which is REALLY excessive because these levels are gigantic. They're so big that they literally have entire sections of level in multiple levels that are just long, winding hallways. I didn't realize what the point of these were until it suddenly clicked that these exist to waste your time so the game can finish loading the next area without a loading screen.
The camera being on the right thumbstick now feels WRONG. L2 and R2 are used simultaneously for a defense move I really haven't been using at all because of how unnecessary it is. The buttons individually don't seem to do anything. The camera centering button I talked about in YoTD that made camera controlling a lot smoother and faster has been completely removed, and replaced with an inventory button. This is stupid because you can only have 5 things in your inventory at once, and most of the time, you're just going to be dropping things off at the Crystal Dragon statue or the NPC whose item you're supposed to deliver as soon as you get it, so why do I need to be checking my inventory often enough to need a button dedicated for it?
The rest of this review is just going to be spent listing all the glitches and Jank I experienced in a single playthrough. Sonic 06 somehow has a reputation for being a buggy unplayable mess, but I've already experienced more glitches before even finishing the game than I did completing 06 with every character:
-I headbutted a wall while falling and ended up being able to walk on nothing multiple times. There was also time I just headbutted a wall while running and ended up sliding across the whole screen unable to move stuck in the headbutt impact animation.
-Remember when I mentioned that the hallways in levels exist as loading zones? I wouldn't have realized this if I didn't run too quickly through one of these hallways and got to the next area only to find that none of it had loaded in and I just fell through the floor.
-Multiple sound effects are poorly mixed. There's one where Hunter's talking about UFOs where it sounds like he's trailing off midway through the voiceline, and then the next textbox is back to full volume.
-If you switch the game between natively supported 16:9 and 4:3 mid-game, the HUD elements will stay where they are until you exit and reload a level. If you start on 4:3 and change to 16:9, the HUD elements will stay centered as if you're still playing on a 4:3 TV until you enter a new area. If you, for whatever reason, switch to 16:9 on a 4:3 TV by accident and load a new area, your HUD will be rendered completely off screen.
-Switching to widescreen also messed with some layering and stretched out textures in the skybox in Crop Circle Country. The two moons layered on top of each other and became ovals.
-You can just clip through the power-up-gated fences you need to use to progress through the game without the correct power-up. You can just charge into the gates and you can go through to the next area.
-The honeybee enemies in Honey Marsh just keep infinitely spawning out of the honeycombs you need to destroy for a dragonfly and they wouldn't fly. So they just kept getting dropped into honey and dying instantly.
-In the last third of the game, pausing or opening the Atlas at any point for me caused the left earphone audio to stop working and be replaced by a beeping sound effect that persists through the whole level until you leave the area.
-The Riptoc wizard enemies in Thieves Den layer too many sound effects while they're alive, so the sounds will keep playing for a while after they die. Also, using the guard to deflect their magic attacks is extremely inconsistent and makes no sense. To send the magic back towards them, I had to turn AWAY from them.
-I randomly clipped through a drawbridge in Jurassic Jungle. I guess various platforms and bridges like these have actual physics to them? So they'll wobble when you land on them. Really obnoxious to put in a platformer with strict jumps like this, but I landed on it in a weird way that caused me to just fall through and die.
-Probably the funniest glitch I experienced. In Dragonfly Dojo, there's a bit where you (apparently) have to freeze the baby dragons to platform on them to grab the kites. Not only did the baby dragon ice blocks not work as platforms when I hopped up on them, I accidentally clipped into a Riptoc at the same time that I froze him and we both ended up frozen. I couldn't move at all and I couldn't pause. I actually softlocked the game by attacking an enemy too close. A similar bug happened randomly after collecting a dragonfly in Jurassic Jungle, where I just lost the ability to move with the analog stick or d-pad, couldn't charge, jump, or flame. I could pause this time, though, but I have no clue what caused this.
-When you do get the kites, they shrink and start flickering in the baby dragons' hands.
I'll start by saying things I like. I really like the idea behind the cycling breath power-ups. Joel Goodsell said in the above-linked interview "The original games did a great job with forcing the player to change up charge vs. breath attacks with clear enemy visuals, and I wanted to continue deepening this aspect of the Spyro franchise." I never really considered that enough to put it into words enough to praise this aspect, but with this philosophy, I think this was a really smart way to try and deepen Spyro's gameplay.
I also think the game LOOKS pretty good! Some models like Hunter and Ripto look pretty awful, but for the most part, Equinox did a really great job approximating the designs of just about everyone to give them a higher poly count without actually having any of the assets on-hand. Environments look really nice as well.
Check-6 did their best trying to approximate the controls of the Insomniac trilogy, which I appreciate. Many things feel close enough, like the gliding, jumping, sprinting, and I even like how climbing is actually faster here than it is in the Insomniac games. I think it's an improvement. But mainly, Spyro feels extremely sluggish if you're not constantly sprinting (funny, because I said the same exact thing about Wrath of Cortex, which this game shares many similarities with). Unlike Wrath of Cortex, though, this game feels unfinished in the sense that it's extremely unoptimized, full of bugs, AND has barely any content that distinguishes itself from predecessors.
This game TRIES to run at 60 FPS but usually falls more into the 30-45 range. I'm not usually a stickler for framerate, I think a game should run at whatever is most consistent, but they apparently had to scale the game back A LOT to try and reach a more acceptable frame rate, and it STILL doesn't maintain a solid 60. I'd rather them have just capped at 30 if the game was going to be this inconsistent.
Most of the content in this game is just really disappointing and lackluster. It's not just that this game can't distinguish itself from YoTD with its content, it just barely HAS content period! My jaw genuinely dropped when I saw there was only 7000 Gems, 90 Dragonflies, and 9 levels excluding the final boss arena (which you can clip through the floor and access immediately in the first hub area, if ya Gnasty). On one hand, that's not even half as much content as YoTD had. On the other hand, it's less game for me to play, so I'm grateful. On my third hand I just grew out of my torso, they also increased the amount of Gems per stage to like 700-800 per, which is REALLY excessive because these levels are gigantic. They're so big that they literally have entire sections of level in multiple levels that are just long, winding hallways. I didn't realize what the point of these were until it suddenly clicked that these exist to waste your time so the game can finish loading the next area without a loading screen.
The camera being on the right thumbstick now feels WRONG. L2 and R2 are used simultaneously for a defense move I really haven't been using at all because of how unnecessary it is. The buttons individually don't seem to do anything. The camera centering button I talked about in YoTD that made camera controlling a lot smoother and faster has been completely removed, and replaced with an inventory button. This is stupid because you can only have 5 things in your inventory at once, and most of the time, you're just going to be dropping things off at the Crystal Dragon statue or the NPC whose item you're supposed to deliver as soon as you get it, so why do I need to be checking my inventory often enough to need a button dedicated for it?
The rest of this review is just going to be spent listing all the glitches and Jank I experienced in a single playthrough. Sonic 06 somehow has a reputation for being a buggy unplayable mess, but I've already experienced more glitches before even finishing the game than I did completing 06 with every character:
-I headbutted a wall while falling and ended up being able to walk on nothing multiple times. There was also time I just headbutted a wall while running and ended up sliding across the whole screen unable to move stuck in the headbutt impact animation.
-Remember when I mentioned that the hallways in levels exist as loading zones? I wouldn't have realized this if I didn't run too quickly through one of these hallways and got to the next area only to find that none of it had loaded in and I just fell through the floor.
-Multiple sound effects are poorly mixed. There's one where Hunter's talking about UFOs where it sounds like he's trailing off midway through the voiceline, and then the next textbox is back to full volume.
-If you switch the game between natively supported 16:9 and 4:3 mid-game, the HUD elements will stay where they are until you exit and reload a level. If you start on 4:3 and change to 16:9, the HUD elements will stay centered as if you're still playing on a 4:3 TV until you enter a new area. If you, for whatever reason, switch to 16:9 on a 4:3 TV by accident and load a new area, your HUD will be rendered completely off screen.
-Switching to widescreen also messed with some layering and stretched out textures in the skybox in Crop Circle Country. The two moons layered on top of each other and became ovals.
-You can just clip through the power-up-gated fences you need to use to progress through the game without the correct power-up. You can just charge into the gates and you can go through to the next area.
-The honeybee enemies in Honey Marsh just keep infinitely spawning out of the honeycombs you need to destroy for a dragonfly and they wouldn't fly. So they just kept getting dropped into honey and dying instantly.
-In the last third of the game, pausing or opening the Atlas at any point for me caused the left earphone audio to stop working and be replaced by a beeping sound effect that persists through the whole level until you leave the area.
-The Riptoc wizard enemies in Thieves Den layer too many sound effects while they're alive, so the sounds will keep playing for a while after they die. Also, using the guard to deflect their magic attacks is extremely inconsistent and makes no sense. To send the magic back towards them, I had to turn AWAY from them.
-I randomly clipped through a drawbridge in Jurassic Jungle. I guess various platforms and bridges like these have actual physics to them? So they'll wobble when you land on them. Really obnoxious to put in a platformer with strict jumps like this, but I landed on it in a weird way that caused me to just fall through and die.
-Probably the funniest glitch I experienced. In Dragonfly Dojo, there's a bit where you (apparently) have to freeze the baby dragons to platform on them to grab the kites. Not only did the baby dragon ice blocks not work as platforms when I hopped up on them, I accidentally clipped into a Riptoc at the same time that I froze him and we both ended up frozen. I couldn't move at all and I couldn't pause. I actually softlocked the game by attacking an enemy too close. A similar bug happened randomly after collecting a dragonfly in Jurassic Jungle, where I just lost the ability to move with the analog stick or d-pad, couldn't charge, jump, or flame. I could pause this time, though, but I have no clue what caused this.
-When you do get the kites, they shrink and start flickering in the baby dragons' hands.
I miss being a wee lad and being blind to all the bullshittery :(
Huge fan of the original trilogy. I had always given up on Enter the Dragonfly after a single level or two, but I finally decided to go all the way. After beating the game today, I was struck with a very strong feeling of, "That's it?" against a final boss that only seemed to have one attack, one phase, and one hit point after you break his shield before unceremoniously playing the credits. It was seriously one of the most underwhelming conclusions I have ever witnessed in a game. Granted, this was only one "version" of the final boss. As you continue to put up with Enter the Dragonfly's awful framerate and other technical issues, you will inch ever closer to that 100% tally.
I saw Spyro's head twist 180° and stare back at me. I have clipped through the floor while walking normally. I have seen entire sections of levels fail to load, or characters/objects fail to spawn during some challenges. All of this, while the engine clearly chugged and the music would sometimes de-sync between the left and right channels. I fought and suffered while looping through some levels over and over, always missing one final gem somewhere, either amidst clutter or in areas that were much too large. All in the name of seeing this train wreck through to the end.
There is a single opening cutscene, and then one more about halfway through the game, both of which offer very little context or incentive for you to care when compared to the earlier Spyro games. You truly feel like you are just going through the motions in EtD. At some point, and with absolutely no indication, a portal in the floor of the singular hub area will open, and you can challenge the final boss. And once you hit 100%, again with no indication, the final boss will be complete with three whole phases. Phase 1 and 2 are identical, and phase 3 is completely random in terms of how long it takes for the game to arbitrarily "decide" when it's finally your turn to deal damage. It's spectacularly awful.
Once you deliver the final blow, you are treated to one final cutscene where Spyro essentially says, "Glad that's over!" and winks at the camera. The end.
I am so glad that this game is complete now, so I can move on with my life and never wonder why Spyro faded into relative obscurity. Enter the Dragonfly was a hot mess, and from the gameplay alone you can tell that it had a troubled and/or rushed development. It's deeply saddening that this game was the dragon's downfall, and I recommend that no fan of the series actually bothers with it.
I saw Spyro's head twist 180° and stare back at me. I have clipped through the floor while walking normally. I have seen entire sections of levels fail to load, or characters/objects fail to spawn during some challenges. All of this, while the engine clearly chugged and the music would sometimes de-sync between the left and right channels. I fought and suffered while looping through some levels over and over, always missing one final gem somewhere, either amidst clutter or in areas that were much too large. All in the name of seeing this train wreck through to the end.
There is a single opening cutscene, and then one more about halfway through the game, both of which offer very little context or incentive for you to care when compared to the earlier Spyro games. You truly feel like you are just going through the motions in EtD. At some point, and with absolutely no indication, a portal in the floor of the singular hub area will open, and you can challenge the final boss. And once you hit 100%, again with no indication, the final boss will be complete with three whole phases. Phase 1 and 2 are identical, and phase 3 is completely random in terms of how long it takes for the game to arbitrarily "decide" when it's finally your turn to deal damage. It's spectacularly awful.
Once you deliver the final blow, you are treated to one final cutscene where Spyro essentially says, "Glad that's over!" and winks at the camera. The end.
I am so glad that this game is complete now, so I can move on with my life and never wonder why Spyro faded into relative obscurity. Enter the Dragonfly was a hot mess, and from the gameplay alone you can tell that it had a troubled and/or rushed development. It's deeply saddening that this game was the dragon's downfall, and I recommend that no fan of the series actually bothers with it.
trop de souvenirs
The best thing about this game is that you can lag switch yourself through the final boss door at the beginning of the game, ending it instantly.