Spyro: Year of the Dragon is the third installment in the Spyro series and the last Spyro game Insomniac developed. In this 3D adventure, Spyro have to retrieve 150 eggs that the evil Sorceress has stolen from Dragonworld. To survive, he will have to utilize all of his signature moves along with several he's recently picked up, like the ability to control vehicles like tanks, submarines, and speedboats. As an extra bonus, you have the option to choose from a wacky cast of characters: Sheila the kangaroo, Sergeant Byrd the flying penguin, Bentley the Yeti and Agent 9 the space monkey.
Also in series
Released on
Genres
Reviews View More
обосраный кал раздутый
spyro kinda goated
This review contains spoilers
First off, compared to the second game, I had absolutely no issues with camera controls in this one. They added a fast camera centering button, rather than having to slowly utilize the First-Person camera to re-center your camera all the time.
Next, I highly appreciate them consolidating the amount of Things to grab in this game. I hated collecting a lot of the Orbs in the second game, so reducing the things you need to get in this game to just ONE (Dragon Eggs) was appreciated. You have to get a lot of them, but you get Dragon Eggs left and right, more than enough to complete the game. And rather than doing constant side quests and helping NPCs for them, you can just find a lot of them hidden in levels.
The game balances a really involved and in-depth storyline with humor and comedy. If the second game was Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, then the third game is Sonic SatAM. I loved the little lore drops of the Dragons coming from this other world, and that they were the source of magic in this world before they were banished by the Sorceress and took all the magic with them. I loved the slow progression of Bianca turning away from the Sorceress once she realizes she can't make concessions with her master regarding the safety of the Dragon Eggs. I thought it was neat that Hunter gets kidnapped partway during the story, and that locks you out of doing his challenges during levels until he's freed by Bianca later on. I liked that they developed a cute romance between the two of them as well.
The game is pretty funny, too. I lost it when I saw Greta reference The Matrix through the entirety of Fireworks Factory. The end of Charmed Ridge was really funny too. It was a funny twist that the princess actually WANTED to get with the cat prince, and gives you an egg if you let them ride off on his magic flying motorcycle (which I can't decide if that's supposed to be a reference to Grease or not). There's a bit where one of the NPCs asks you to go check on his girlfriend Rapunzel in the tallest tower. When you get there, she says something like "I have a restraining order against that guy, can you tell him to leave me alone". All the NPCs in Spooky Swamp speak in haiku. Though the quality of the writing is not much of a shock considering how much I enjoyed the first two games' writing.
I really liked the additional "Playable Critters". On one hand, I hate that they were used to essentially gate certain levels from being beatable, forcing you to backtrack (akin to Colored Gems in Crash); on the other, everyone but Agent 9 was really fun to play and their levels were mostly great. I thought it was cool how Agent 9 had a House of the Dead-style level and a Doom-style level, but I got the feeling his levels were the least developed of the bunch. I didn't like his controls, and he was easily the most obnoxious and unfunny of the four.
Being able to play as Sparx was really cool, especially that you could upgrade him by finishing each of his levels. I didn't utilize the Treasure tracking feature much in 2, but it came in REALLY handy during the endgame wrap-up of collecting everything I was missing in hub worlds and in levels where the Gems were just really tough to find on my own.
At the start of the review, I did say I appreciated them limiting progression to Dragon Eggs, but god some of the levels were just completely awful to try and complete. The Yeti boxing sucked, I kinda hated Haunted Tomb, the Leap of Faith Egg in Dino Mines was really stupid and the enemies are really annoying to fight, the rooftop jumps in Frozen Altars frustrated me to no end... and oh my god, the Yeti snowboarding in the Super Bonus Round was awful. Ripto's Rage was just kinda tedious, but this game actively frustrated me with some of the stupid shit they want you to do.
I don't see myself ever trying to 100% this game again, but I give it half a star more than Ripto's Rage just because I think I had an overall better time with this one, barring those few moments of gamer rage lol. Also, getting to charge into Moneybags and beat all of the Gems he squeezed out of you was so satisfying and I laughed my ass off the whole time. I liked him in the second game, but he's a sleazy motherfucker in this one.
Next, I highly appreciate them consolidating the amount of Things to grab in this game. I hated collecting a lot of the Orbs in the second game, so reducing the things you need to get in this game to just ONE (Dragon Eggs) was appreciated. You have to get a lot of them, but you get Dragon Eggs left and right, more than enough to complete the game. And rather than doing constant side quests and helping NPCs for them, you can just find a lot of them hidden in levels.
The game balances a really involved and in-depth storyline with humor and comedy. If the second game was Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, then the third game is Sonic SatAM. I loved the little lore drops of the Dragons coming from this other world, and that they were the source of magic in this world before they were banished by the Sorceress and took all the magic with them. I loved the slow progression of Bianca turning away from the Sorceress once she realizes she can't make concessions with her master regarding the safety of the Dragon Eggs. I thought it was neat that Hunter gets kidnapped partway during the story, and that locks you out of doing his challenges during levels until he's freed by Bianca later on. I liked that they developed a cute romance between the two of them as well.
The game is pretty funny, too. I lost it when I saw Greta reference The Matrix through the entirety of Fireworks Factory. The end of Charmed Ridge was really funny too. It was a funny twist that the princess actually WANTED to get with the cat prince, and gives you an egg if you let them ride off on his magic flying motorcycle (which I can't decide if that's supposed to be a reference to Grease or not). There's a bit where one of the NPCs asks you to go check on his girlfriend Rapunzel in the tallest tower. When you get there, she says something like "I have a restraining order against that guy, can you tell him to leave me alone". All the NPCs in Spooky Swamp speak in haiku. Though the quality of the writing is not much of a shock considering how much I enjoyed the first two games' writing.
I really liked the additional "Playable Critters". On one hand, I hate that they were used to essentially gate certain levels from being beatable, forcing you to backtrack (akin to Colored Gems in Crash); on the other, everyone but Agent 9 was really fun to play and their levels were mostly great. I thought it was cool how Agent 9 had a House of the Dead-style level and a Doom-style level, but I got the feeling his levels were the least developed of the bunch. I didn't like his controls, and he was easily the most obnoxious and unfunny of the four.
Being able to play as Sparx was really cool, especially that you could upgrade him by finishing each of his levels. I didn't utilize the Treasure tracking feature much in 2, but it came in REALLY handy during the endgame wrap-up of collecting everything I was missing in hub worlds and in levels where the Gems were just really tough to find on my own.
At the start of the review, I did say I appreciated them limiting progression to Dragon Eggs, but god some of the levels were just completely awful to try and complete. The Yeti boxing sucked, I kinda hated Haunted Tomb, the Leap of Faith Egg in Dino Mines was really stupid and the enemies are really annoying to fight, the rooftop jumps in Frozen Altars frustrated me to no end... and oh my god, the Yeti snowboarding in the Super Bonus Round was awful. Ripto's Rage was just kinda tedious, but this game actively frustrated me with some of the stupid shit they want you to do.
I don't see myself ever trying to 100% this game again, but I give it half a star more than Ripto's Rage just because I think I had an overall better time with this one, barring those few moments of gamer rage lol. Also, getting to charge into Moneybags and beat all of the Gems he squeezed out of you was so satisfying and I laughed my ass off the whole time. I liked him in the second game, but he's a sleazy motherfucker in this one.
Is this actually a 5 star game? Not really, it's more like a 4 star game. However, it is the first game I ever played, and the one that started my obsession with video games, so fuck it we ball.
:C: [01/Mar/24] - 20.000/15.000 joyas | 150/148 huevos | 20/20 logros
Normally, when I play through a game, I will accumulate about two and a half pages worth of notes on whatever game I am playing. These couple of pages are usually filled with things about the game that I find interesting, as well as any meaningful ideas I find interesting; I find that writing down interesting findings helps me remember the games better later on, as well as help me better write the reviews for them. Spyro: Year of the Dragon has barely a page for its entry. This is not because I think it is a bad game, not by any means; it is honestly a great improvement over Spyro 2. But, that improvement doesn’t necessarily come from a place of innovation, rather a correcting step backwards; a step that was definitely needed, but in the process, creates an experience that is very much more of the same.
What I have come to realize is that Spyro suffers from what I like to call the Tomb Raider dilemma. This is a dilemma where the first game in the series comes out the gate near perfect, and it leaves the developer in a situation where they don’t really know where to go. Either, they do more of what works and risk being criticized as derivative, or they try new stuff and risk alienating the players. Spyro 2 attempted the latter and, for the most part, failed; it ended up being an experience that just lacks the sense of flow and progression that the first game had, and replaced with boring and infuriatingly bad mini games and side quests. Conversely, Year of the Dragon corrects the additions made by Spyro 2 by having its side quests function within the realm of the games core mechanics, rather than them having their own proprietary controls and mechanics. The primary form of these changes comes from the new playable characters; there are five of them in total, and while each of them do play differently from Spyro, they aren’t too dissimilar and the objectives of their stages/quests are the same as the rest of the levels, that being to collect gems and save dragon eggs. Compare this to the mini games from Spyro 2 like the ice hockey and or crystal popcorn section that don’t follow the core gameplay loop and are really jarring in conjunction with the rest of the game. Though there are still a couple of mini game type challenges that made their way into Year of the Dragon, they control way better than the predecessors and are overall more fun; the skate boarding challenges are a great example of this. But, these improvements are not without drawbacks.
Year of the Dragon is a big game, it is bigger than Spyro 2, and it is much bigger than the first game; and because of how this game streamlines and uses the Spyro gameplay loop, it is really noticeable just how big this one is. Spyro 2, despite its bad game design choices, still distracts you from its increased run time by having you do different tasks; but here in this one, it is very much noticeable. The new characters do help slightly with variety, but their sections are so few and far in between, it feels like an eternity before you get to play as one of them again. Because of this, and the prior mentioned streamlining, a lot of this game’s levels kind of overstay their welcome. Personally, I felt really burned out by the end of the game because I felt like I just played a longer version of Spyro 1, which isn’t a bad thing per se, but nonetheless that's how I felt. Additionally, none of the levels reach the peak that they should, there is no real crescendo if you will. Spyro retains all the abilities he gained in Spyro 2, yet there is no level that pushes the player to utilize those abilities in interesting and creative ways; the game is just content with giving the player easy as all get out levels throughout the entire game until it is just over. There is a slight difficulty spike in the final world that I enjoyed, but still nothing stands out. I don’t think I could name a level from this game that isn’t one of the new characters' home world missions. It all just adds up to a game that just doesn't do a whole lot
I know the general fan consensus is that this is the best game in the trilogy, and I can understand that, but for me it's just ok. I think overall Year of the Dragon is a good game, not quite as good as Spyro 1, but definitely better than Spyro 2. It just doesn’t do anything that hasn’t already been seen in the previous games, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetic. It is more of the same, albeit a good more of the same.
What I have come to realize is that Spyro suffers from what I like to call the Tomb Raider dilemma. This is a dilemma where the first game in the series comes out the gate near perfect, and it leaves the developer in a situation where they don’t really know where to go. Either, they do more of what works and risk being criticized as derivative, or they try new stuff and risk alienating the players. Spyro 2 attempted the latter and, for the most part, failed; it ended up being an experience that just lacks the sense of flow and progression that the first game had, and replaced with boring and infuriatingly bad mini games and side quests. Conversely, Year of the Dragon corrects the additions made by Spyro 2 by having its side quests function within the realm of the games core mechanics, rather than them having their own proprietary controls and mechanics. The primary form of these changes comes from the new playable characters; there are five of them in total, and while each of them do play differently from Spyro, they aren’t too dissimilar and the objectives of their stages/quests are the same as the rest of the levels, that being to collect gems and save dragon eggs. Compare this to the mini games from Spyro 2 like the ice hockey and or crystal popcorn section that don’t follow the core gameplay loop and are really jarring in conjunction with the rest of the game. Though there are still a couple of mini game type challenges that made their way into Year of the Dragon, they control way better than the predecessors and are overall more fun; the skate boarding challenges are a great example of this. But, these improvements are not without drawbacks.
Year of the Dragon is a big game, it is bigger than Spyro 2, and it is much bigger than the first game; and because of how this game streamlines and uses the Spyro gameplay loop, it is really noticeable just how big this one is. Spyro 2, despite its bad game design choices, still distracts you from its increased run time by having you do different tasks; but here in this one, it is very much noticeable. The new characters do help slightly with variety, but their sections are so few and far in between, it feels like an eternity before you get to play as one of them again. Because of this, and the prior mentioned streamlining, a lot of this game’s levels kind of overstay their welcome. Personally, I felt really burned out by the end of the game because I felt like I just played a longer version of Spyro 1, which isn’t a bad thing per se, but nonetheless that's how I felt. Additionally, none of the levels reach the peak that they should, there is no real crescendo if you will. Spyro retains all the abilities he gained in Spyro 2, yet there is no level that pushes the player to utilize those abilities in interesting and creative ways; the game is just content with giving the player easy as all get out levels throughout the entire game until it is just over. There is a slight difficulty spike in the final world that I enjoyed, but still nothing stands out. I don’t think I could name a level from this game that isn’t one of the new characters' home world missions. It all just adds up to a game that just doesn't do a whole lot
I know the general fan consensus is that this is the best game in the trilogy, and I can understand that, but for me it's just ok. I think overall Year of the Dragon is a good game, not quite as good as Spyro 1, but definitely better than Spyro 2. It just doesn’t do anything that hasn’t already been seen in the previous games, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetic. It is more of the same, albeit a good more of the same.