As a kid, I grew up with the original Spyro trilogy on PS1 and to this day, those games remain as some of my favorite games of all time. Later down the line, my family got a PS2 and I was so excited when I learned that a brand new, next-gen Spyro game was on the way. Just think of it: bigger levels, better graphics, more silly-looking Muppet-y characters, more potential for a story, more challenges, more minigames, more mystical and magical worlds to explore, so on and so forth. What kind of grand adventure was Spyro capable of having now?
Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly was the game that personally slapped me across the face and taught me that video games can be bad sometimes.
Just the way this game performs is a dead giveaway that it needed more time in the oven. The framerate is wildly inconsistent and you can probably count the amount of areas where it manages to reach 30 on one hand. The loading times are so bad that you’ll want to keep a book nearby to keep you entertained while you wait. There are so many glitches that I’m actually kind of surprised that Enter the Dragonfly even managed to get released. You can charge and clip right through the gates holding you back from progressing to the next areas. If you're underwater and you surface quickly enough against a wall, you can swim in the air to anywhere you want and beat the game in like 2 minutes. Sometimes enemies will just break, stand there, and do nothing as you approach them. Plus, there many questionable design choices that lead you to conclude that this game is just simply not finished; like as annoying as Moneybags is in the previous games, he only shows up once. Hunter shows up maybe 2 or 3 times. There are hardly any cutscenes outside of the intro and ending, so there's barely any story or interactions involving the main villain. Some of the NPC dialogue is awkward and non-nonsensical. There's absolutely zero indication as to when the final boss is available; you just go to the middle of the hub sometimes and maybe you'll see the gate open. I could go on, but mainly what I'm getting at is that it's so obvious the developers were not given the support this game truly needed.
Obviously no one wants to make a bad game. I really wanted to know what went wrong with this one. To my findings, this game was apparently Hellish to work on. It mainly consists of problems you could easily expect from this kind of mess. The deadlines were tight and were supposed to be on-track for a holiday release. Supposedly there were a few instances of higher-ups throwing out ideas and replacing them with their own without the lead designers being consulted. The developers often spoke with Insomniac – the developers of the original trilogy – to gain insight as to what makes a Spyro game a Spyro game. Once they came up with something, they would pitch it to the publishers only to be told “No, that’s not a Spyro game. Make it feel like a Spyro game” and they would not articulate any further. There’s even a hidden credits menu displaying all the developers who left during production for better gigs. To top it all off, this game was supposed to have about 2-3 times the amount of content it ended up with. If you’re genuinely curious about all this, you can check more out here.
It would've been so cool to see this game at its full potential. Instead, you're left with a half-baked disappointment. The publisher ought to be embarrassed that they let something in this state get released. It's certainly a bad look for your company, the series, and even the console to take a well-received PS1 series and make it worse in every conceivable way. Even with the lukewarm handheld titles, I think this is easily Spyro’s worst game. Though honestly, I would love to see a "remake" of this game where they make it into what it was supposed to be.
Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly was the game that personally slapped me across the face and taught me that video games can be bad sometimes.
Just the way this game performs is a dead giveaway that it needed more time in the oven. The framerate is wildly inconsistent and you can probably count the amount of areas where it manages to reach 30 on one hand. The loading times are so bad that you’ll want to keep a book nearby to keep you entertained while you wait. There are so many glitches that I’m actually kind of surprised that Enter the Dragonfly even managed to get released. You can charge and clip right through the gates holding you back from progressing to the next areas. If you're underwater and you surface quickly enough against a wall, you can swim in the air to anywhere you want and beat the game in like 2 minutes. Sometimes enemies will just break, stand there, and do nothing as you approach them. Plus, there many questionable design choices that lead you to conclude that this game is just simply not finished; like as annoying as Moneybags is in the previous games, he only shows up once. Hunter shows up maybe 2 or 3 times. There are hardly any cutscenes outside of the intro and ending, so there's barely any story or interactions involving the main villain. Some of the NPC dialogue is awkward and non-nonsensical. There's absolutely zero indication as to when the final boss is available; you just go to the middle of the hub sometimes and maybe you'll see the gate open. I could go on, but mainly what I'm getting at is that it's so obvious the developers were not given the support this game truly needed.
Obviously no one wants to make a bad game. I really wanted to know what went wrong with this one. To my findings, this game was apparently Hellish to work on. It mainly consists of problems you could easily expect from this kind of mess. The deadlines were tight and were supposed to be on-track for a holiday release. Supposedly there were a few instances of higher-ups throwing out ideas and replacing them with their own without the lead designers being consulted. The developers often spoke with Insomniac – the developers of the original trilogy – to gain insight as to what makes a Spyro game a Spyro game. Once they came up with something, they would pitch it to the publishers only to be told “No, that’s not a Spyro game. Make it feel like a Spyro game” and they would not articulate any further. There’s even a hidden credits menu displaying all the developers who left during production for better gigs. To top it all off, this game was supposed to have about 2-3 times the amount of content it ended up with. If you’re genuinely curious about all this, you can check more out here.
It would've been so cool to see this game at its full potential. Instead, you're left with a half-baked disappointment. The publisher ought to be embarrassed that they let something in this state get released. It's certainly a bad look for your company, the series, and even the console to take a well-received PS1 series and make it worse in every conceivable way. Even with the lukewarm handheld titles, I think this is easily Spyro’s worst game. Though honestly, I would love to see a "remake" of this game where they make it into what it was supposed to be.