This is a showcase of baffling business decisions. I really want to know how the creators of this game landed on the final decision that was "Sparx the Dragonfly needs to be voiced by David Spade - and yes, we WILL spend the money in order to have a celebrity voice our dragonfly - and he needs to look like a creepy little human with weird bug abs". There are blogs dedicated to how Spyro Reignited ruined the Playstation games' aesthetics with their design changes (and honestly, not knocking the existence of said blogs since the PS1 Spyro games are visual works of art that carefully chose the most effective color palettes) but those are nothing compared to the lawless land of the early 2000's where a bunch of people in a board room gathered around and were like "what if the little bug from the old games is the one-liner spouting comic relief and he's voiced by an SNL cast member".
"Well surely the rest of the game makes up for it, right?" No, it's painfully mediocre. Like every other aging platformer star trying to release a game in the mid-2000's to show that they're still relevant damnit, this game has a combat-based fighting system! Hell yes, just like Crash of the Titans, Sonic Unleashed, Pac-Man World 3, and god knows who else, I have to sit there and watch Spyro repeatively smack an enemy like an idiot while enemy fights constantly interrupt level flow because Gameplay, I guess. The one saving grace is that it becomes extremely easy to cheese the combat system with certain breath abilities so that you can just breeze through this game and admire the two things that aren't embarrassing, which are the soundtrack and the environmental design.
Also, the fact that this game opens with Spyro's egg drifting down the river like the story of Moses from the Bible while DAVID SPADE, ELIJAH WOOD, AND GARY OLDMAN AS IGNITUS dramatically flash across the screen and as the orchestra swells is...incredible. There are many cutscenes in this game that almost feel like parody but no, they are taking this Chosen One Born Special Magically Purple shit 100% seriously. Kids on DeviantArt ate this melodramatic story up at its release but I can't help but look at it and go "you were so lazy in penning this Chosen One story that you tied Spyro's Heroic Specialness to his skin color".
At least the music's nice and it's a very purdy Gamecube game. I just wish it had actual substance.
"Well surely the rest of the game makes up for it, right?" No, it's painfully mediocre. Like every other aging platformer star trying to release a game in the mid-2000's to show that they're still relevant damnit, this game has a combat-based fighting system! Hell yes, just like Crash of the Titans, Sonic Unleashed, Pac-Man World 3, and god knows who else, I have to sit there and watch Spyro repeatively smack an enemy like an idiot while enemy fights constantly interrupt level flow because Gameplay, I guess. The one saving grace is that it becomes extremely easy to cheese the combat system with certain breath abilities so that you can just breeze through this game and admire the two things that aren't embarrassing, which are the soundtrack and the environmental design.
Also, the fact that this game opens with Spyro's egg drifting down the river like the story of Moses from the Bible while DAVID SPADE, ELIJAH WOOD, AND GARY OLDMAN AS IGNITUS dramatically flash across the screen and as the orchestra swells is...incredible. There are many cutscenes in this game that almost feel like parody but no, they are taking this Chosen One Born Special Magically Purple shit 100% seriously. Kids on DeviantArt ate this melodramatic story up at its release but I can't help but look at it and go "you were so lazy in penning this Chosen One story that you tied Spyro's Heroic Specialness to his skin color".
At least the music's nice and it's a very purdy Gamecube game. I just wish it had actual substance.