It's the same map layout/assets from "From the Darkness," but while that game was a successfully scary and atmospheric horror puzzler, this game just feels repetitive and flat. The only enemy in the game is this shirtless fuck who chases you around cursing in Russian. He pokes you with a stick, then the game starts completely over.

Every item location is randomly generated, so there is no memorizing the puzzles. If you don't finish the game in one go, you'll have to start completely over next time, with everything randomly placed again. It makes the game monotonous, because the Russian guy can sometimes just randomly appear on the same floor as you without making any sound, so he can kill you without you even realizing he's there.

If the game were just an eerie walking simulator where the fear of a potential entity were the hook, I think the formula would work. But the bad enemy AI that can sometimes unfairly kill you and undo all your progress does not combine well with the randomized puzzles element.

The atmosphere is nice and spooky. The graphics aren't bad. Everything else kind of falls short.

It's particularly heinous to take such a beloved character from such a beloved trilogy of games and then completely throw out everything that made them beloved in the first place in the service of making a "better" or "modern" gaming experience.

We didn't need Spyro to become an epic fantasy with booming orchestral music, dark edge, and blood and gore. But hey, if the updates game mechanics at least added something significantly better to the formula, I could have forgiven the misplaced tone shift. But even the new mechanics and move set feel like tacked-on elements ripped straight out of the spectacle fighters that were big at the time such as Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, and God of War. It's incredibly bizarre to add such elements to a 3D platformer. And the character just wasn't designed for that sort of gameplay. He's a dinky little dragon who is built like a cat. He's not a fully able-bodied humanoid. So, you're still stuck doing things like throwing projectiles at a distance while being bombarded with arena-based enemy ambushes that just makes the combat needlessly infuriating.

And yes, Spyro's new design looks god-awful. But that's the least of this reboot series's problems. If the gameplay felt like a natural evolution of the foundation built by the original games, I wouldn't care if the main character were an ugly fucker. But nothing else redeemable is found elsewhere, so the bad character design feels like a bigger offense as a result.

Anyway. I don't like this game. And I don't like the revival era of the franchise it belongs to. None of these "Legend of Spyro" entries are fun for me. In fact, they made me sad and depressed to play.

It's rare that a game so simultaneously artful and fun to play comes along and ticks every conceivable box for me, but The Banner Saga has done it. While I had heard for years about this series, I wasn't certain if it would be up my alley, primarily because tactical RPGs are not my bread and butter. I often feel awkward and lost at sea when I jump into such a game, but The Banner Saga has helped me make the jump into its world quite easily.

The two main draws of the game are its gorgeous art style (inspired greatly by the stylized impressionism of Eyvind Earle) and its brilliant writing. The story is stock enough in its general set-up, but the snappy dialogue of the main characters, as well as the how the story changes based on player choices, elevate the writing overall to something impeccably replayable and entertaining.

The game is also not too relentless in its combat sections. Yes, it's typical strategy, grid-based RPG goodness, but it doesn't feel terribly punishing to the less-initiated. While there is perma-death in the game, it never occurs from mistakes made in battle. Instead, if a fighter falls during combat, that counts as merely an "injury" that one can quickly recover from by resting at camp. The perma-death mechanic actually stems solely from choices made through dialogue and actions outside of combat. And in those scenarios, it feels much more fair when a player is punished in this way for making a dumb choice rather than losing a fight despite doing one's best.

One of my favorite RPGs of all time, now. Gorgeous. Memorable. Fun as hell. Unique enough to have its own distinct identity. Required playing.