I have a really complicated opinion on this one, a lot of negative things to say, but I’m still giving this a solid rating and I don’t feel like it deserves any lower or higher. The way I see it, Reignited gets my thumbs up in a vacuum, thumbs down as a remake.
I’m not even sure where to start. I think the overall direction here is kind of gross, way too saccharine. There’s a lot that TFB got wrong. But then, they completely nailed some levels, just enough to keep my attention.
It’s impossible for me not to compare these levels and characters to their original iterations, but I’d have the same praises and critiques if this were an original IP. There are places that TFB’s direction absolutely stuck the landing and genuinely impressed me, a ton of others where I had to wonder what the artists were even thinking.
A pervasive example is the music. Audio direction is consistently poor with bad mixes in tracks, too many synthetic instruments and a weird slant toward realistic sound effects, which clash with the energetic visuals. The voice acting is… not good. A lot of jokes ruined by delivery, a lot of forced niceness. Dynamic music is a good idea, but was lazily applied. The sound only feels like a downgrade from the original trilogy and the classic tracks they included don’t make up for everything else. Huge shame.
On a superfluous level, the visual shortcomings are less obvious. They’re more complicated. Different levels have very different issues, but some I notice at multiple points include lack of secondary/tertiary details, excessively flat textures, color temparature leaning too far in one direction and making less dynamic palettes, aggressive filters and a lack of volumetric effects making environments feel small or cramped. This is for the simplest, most widely-applicable examples. For something more specific, there are points where some design choice makes the tone confusing or weak, like giving the Gnorc world a naturalistic coat of wood- that makes it feel more familiar and friendly, which goes against the entire point of the world. Throughout the whole trilogy, the portal effects and atlas GUI are also gutted.
The strongest levels deliver with more dynamic palettes, stronger textures, strong secondary/tertiary details… they’re all I could have asked for. Shady Oasis is my favorite level here, visually. Some other great levels are Dark Hollow, Dark Passage, Zephyr, Bentley’s Outpost and Haunted Tomb.
For the sake of comparison, TFB would go on to make Crash Bandicoot 4 and that shows a huge evolution from Reignited visually. I don’t begrudge that Spyro and Crash don’t look exactly the same- Crash should have looked better given that it came off more experience and is more railroaded- but since that exists, it highlights even further where Reignited fell short and why those particular levels (among others) actually work for me.
I think I’m latently fascinated with this one. Two things in favor of Reignited: Spyro 2 actually improved overall, in spite of the tonal downgrade- it has the most consistently improved levels, where in the original game many looked vague and empty, plus QoL improvements help 2 the most- and since Reignited has a distinct direction from the originals rather than trying to replace them, it has clear value.
I’ll just never be able to embrace the overall direction here. The problem isn’t that it’s different, it’s just misguided and inconsistent in and of itself.
Any comparison to the original trilogy will make it seem like I’m only looking through rose-tinted glasses, but the originals really were tasteful and polished in a way that this is not. The simplest way to put it is that the original trilogy had cartoonish elements while Reignited just feels like a cartoon.
Still, Reignited is using the original Spyro trilogy as a basis and most of it controls great. Even some of the game feel has me shaking my head, but alas. Based on level design alone, with that sort of flow, this still makes for one of the best modern 3D platforming experiences. Even if you’re like me and don’t really like it, you’ll get something fresh and it has good value.
This will never replace the original trilogy though and for me it will never even match them.
I’m not even sure where to start. I think the overall direction here is kind of gross, way too saccharine. There’s a lot that TFB got wrong. But then, they completely nailed some levels, just enough to keep my attention.
It’s impossible for me not to compare these levels and characters to their original iterations, but I’d have the same praises and critiques if this were an original IP. There are places that TFB’s direction absolutely stuck the landing and genuinely impressed me, a ton of others where I had to wonder what the artists were even thinking.
A pervasive example is the music. Audio direction is consistently poor with bad mixes in tracks, too many synthetic instruments and a weird slant toward realistic sound effects, which clash with the energetic visuals. The voice acting is… not good. A lot of jokes ruined by delivery, a lot of forced niceness. Dynamic music is a good idea, but was lazily applied. The sound only feels like a downgrade from the original trilogy and the classic tracks they included don’t make up for everything else. Huge shame.
On a superfluous level, the visual shortcomings are less obvious. They’re more complicated. Different levels have very different issues, but some I notice at multiple points include lack of secondary/tertiary details, excessively flat textures, color temparature leaning too far in one direction and making less dynamic palettes, aggressive filters and a lack of volumetric effects making environments feel small or cramped. This is for the simplest, most widely-applicable examples. For something more specific, there are points where some design choice makes the tone confusing or weak, like giving the Gnorc world a naturalistic coat of wood- that makes it feel more familiar and friendly, which goes against the entire point of the world. Throughout the whole trilogy, the portal effects and atlas GUI are also gutted.
The strongest levels deliver with more dynamic palettes, stronger textures, strong secondary/tertiary details… they’re all I could have asked for. Shady Oasis is my favorite level here, visually. Some other great levels are Dark Hollow, Dark Passage, Zephyr, Bentley’s Outpost and Haunted Tomb.
For the sake of comparison, TFB would go on to make Crash Bandicoot 4 and that shows a huge evolution from Reignited visually. I don’t begrudge that Spyro and Crash don’t look exactly the same- Crash should have looked better given that it came off more experience and is more railroaded- but since that exists, it highlights even further where Reignited fell short and why those particular levels (among others) actually work for me.
I think I’m latently fascinated with this one. Two things in favor of Reignited: Spyro 2 actually improved overall, in spite of the tonal downgrade- it has the most consistently improved levels, where in the original game many looked vague and empty, plus QoL improvements help 2 the most- and since Reignited has a distinct direction from the originals rather than trying to replace them, it has clear value.
I’ll just never be able to embrace the overall direction here. The problem isn’t that it’s different, it’s just misguided and inconsistent in and of itself.
Any comparison to the original trilogy will make it seem like I’m only looking through rose-tinted glasses, but the originals really were tasteful and polished in a way that this is not. The simplest way to put it is that the original trilogy had cartoonish elements while Reignited just feels like a cartoon.
Still, Reignited is using the original Spyro trilogy as a basis and most of it controls great. Even some of the game feel has me shaking my head, but alas. Based on level design alone, with that sort of flow, this still makes for one of the best modern 3D platforming experiences. Even if you’re like me and don’t really like it, you’ll get something fresh and it has good value.
This will never replace the original trilogy though and for me it will never even match them.