Turquoisephoenix
2011
I'm writing this review for this PS3 game on September 13th, 2021, the day it was announced that the LittleBigPlanet servers would be permanently shutting down, as a way to pay my respects. I didn't play this game at the peak of its heyday but still got to meet some friends through the community levels because there was still a good number of people playing it well into the PS4 era. Godspeed, LBP2. You really were an experience like no other.
"It's not the ball that's super, it's the monkey inside" - a key line of dialogue, delivered during the secret ending you only get if you 100% this game.
2012
I played this game while I was at home suffering from a mental cocktail of anxiety and depression because I was furloughed from my job and forced to quarantine because of the 2020 global pandemic, and co-oping with a friendly stranger who helped me no matter how many times I fell down that tower with the lights moved me so much that it made me ugly cry during the credits.
Part of me wants to be cynical and say that the game wouldn't have been as impactful to me if I played it at a different time when I wasn't so emotionally vulnerable, but that part of me also realizes that bringing cynicism to the table when talking about Journey feels like missing the overall message of the game. A big thanks to the developers of this game for giving me just a tiniest drop of hope in an otherwise bleak time. I'd apologize for not playing this game sooner but I realize now that I played it at the perfect time.
Part of me wants to be cynical and say that the game wouldn't have been as impactful to me if I played it at a different time when I wasn't so emotionally vulnerable, but that part of me also realizes that bringing cynicism to the table when talking about Journey feels like missing the overall message of the game. A big thanks to the developers of this game for giving me just a tiniest drop of hope in an otherwise bleak time. I'd apologize for not playing this game sooner but I realize now that I played it at the perfect time.
This was my first Spyro game.
My parents spent 50 dollars on this game.
This was a Christmas present.
Fuck.
My parents spent 50 dollars on this game.
This was a Christmas present.
Fuck.
1985
It's amazing that there was a time where Nintendo really leaned hard on the whole "Mario is a blue-collar worker living paycheck to paycheck in the inner city" thing. While the Mario of modern times hangs out on golf courses and tennis courts, the Mario of the 80's smashes concrete walls and scrambles to finish a building demolition project before his foreman comes and steals his wages in the bonus rounds. Fame has changed Mario. He no longer remembers the city that raised him.
I hate that this game exists because now I have an obligation to go "Um, ACTUALLY-" every time someone says Enter the Dragonfly is the worst Spyro game of all time.
2004
In high school, when I got all four of my wisdom teeth removed, my dad decided to get me Jak 3 to make me feel better.
I 100%d this whole game in a week while completely coked up on the strong pain medication that the dental surgeons gave me so, because of that, I have completed Jak 3 but I do not remember Jak 3. I had to have a friend tell me that there was driving in this video game. I only remember the ending cutscenes because the pain meds were starting to wear off.
Part of me wants to revisit this game but I also don't want to ruin the magic that is me suffering a Men In Black memory wipe over Jak 3. I remember liking it more than Jak 2 at least. I think the difficulty was smoother? Maybe? I remember fighting a giant robot with a smaller robot inside that I think was the bad guy but I can't be too sure.
I 100%d this whole game in a week while completely coked up on the strong pain medication that the dental surgeons gave me so, because of that, I have completed Jak 3 but I do not remember Jak 3. I had to have a friend tell me that there was driving in this video game. I only remember the ending cutscenes because the pain meds were starting to wear off.
Part of me wants to revisit this game but I also don't want to ruin the magic that is me suffering a Men In Black memory wipe over Jak 3. I remember liking it more than Jak 2 at least. I think the difficulty was smoother? Maybe? I remember fighting a giant robot with a smaller robot inside that I think was the bad guy but I can't be too sure.
You know those last two Harry Potter books where it's supposed to be all dark and edgy because they "grew up with the audience" so Harry Potter and his wizard friends are teenagers with romantic subplots fighting a war and there's death but in the end, you're just experiencing something that's worse than the previous adventures because the writing sucks now and the story is still about wizards named Hornswoddle Prissipants? This is the dragon version of that.
What a deeply embarrassing nightmare of a game with a deeply embarrassing story that hits every single tired beat. After being trapped in a magic time statis rock with his goth gf Cynder for several years so that they can sneakily change the art style, Spyro is A TEENAGER now which means this game has to have Spyro flirt with Cynder, who now has dragon boobs and a wasp thin waist since she also hit puberty, while the game takes an agonizingly long time to finally get to Malefor and get this thing over with. Spyro's ability to transform into "Dark Spyro" when he's feeling strong emotions makes a return in pivotal cutscenes and it's still a stupid idea. At one point Spyro weepily says that he can't fight Cynder because "he'll have nothing left to fight for" while they run Mark Hamil through about 50 different voice filters until he's undecipherable without the subtitles. There's also a level where Spyro and Cynder walk into a village full of cheetahs and literally every single cheetah is the same character model just with palette swaps. They do the Dumbledore funeral scene with Ignitus the Red Fire Dragon and all the dragon ghosts are also all just the same character model. All of the budget went towards Elijah Wood as Spyro, Mark Hamil as Malefor, and Gary Oldman as Ignitus and it shows.
The only reason you'd own this game is either because of childhood nostalgia or because you own an HD version of the game and therefore own a collector's item. There's free flying and it was impressive at the time, but since this game's art style is so weird, Spyro and Cynder's bones just break every time these poor bastards fly around in their environment with their paper thin wings until they hit an invisible wall. The combat is back, and it's just as bad as it was in the previous two games. The one saving grace is that they gave just enough of a shit that Cynder has a completely different move set with different breath abilities, but that's really it. I'm glad I get different color breath attacks depending on which dragon I choose. I'm glad Cynder has "Fear" as a breath.
So glad we only got three games of this nonsense before they rebooted Spyro a second time and, instead of having a cult classic where the games don't sell but at least the kids on Deviantart love it, they got a minor cultural phenomenon that would immediately sell millions of copies and toys. The Legend of Spyro walked (and fell face first) so that Skylanders could run and Toys For Bob would grow enough as a studio that we'd get Spyro Reignited. The Legend of Spyro is a weird time capsule and I'm glad the series has moved on.
What a deeply embarrassing nightmare of a game with a deeply embarrassing story that hits every single tired beat. After being trapped in a magic time statis rock with his goth gf Cynder for several years so that they can sneakily change the art style, Spyro is A TEENAGER now which means this game has to have Spyro flirt with Cynder, who now has dragon boobs and a wasp thin waist since she also hit puberty, while the game takes an agonizingly long time to finally get to Malefor and get this thing over with. Spyro's ability to transform into "Dark Spyro" when he's feeling strong emotions makes a return in pivotal cutscenes and it's still a stupid idea. At one point Spyro weepily says that he can't fight Cynder because "he'll have nothing left to fight for" while they run Mark Hamil through about 50 different voice filters until he's undecipherable without the subtitles. There's also a level where Spyro and Cynder walk into a village full of cheetahs and literally every single cheetah is the same character model just with palette swaps. They do the Dumbledore funeral scene with Ignitus the Red Fire Dragon and all the dragon ghosts are also all just the same character model. All of the budget went towards Elijah Wood as Spyro, Mark Hamil as Malefor, and Gary Oldman as Ignitus and it shows.
The only reason you'd own this game is either because of childhood nostalgia or because you own an HD version of the game and therefore own a collector's item. There's free flying and it was impressive at the time, but since this game's art style is so weird, Spyro and Cynder's bones just break every time these poor bastards fly around in their environment with their paper thin wings until they hit an invisible wall. The combat is back, and it's just as bad as it was in the previous two games. The one saving grace is that they gave just enough of a shit that Cynder has a completely different move set with different breath abilities, but that's really it. I'm glad I get different color breath attacks depending on which dragon I choose. I'm glad Cynder has "Fear" as a breath.
So glad we only got three games of this nonsense before they rebooted Spyro a second time and, instead of having a cult classic where the games don't sell but at least the kids on Deviantart love it, they got a minor cultural phenomenon that would immediately sell millions of copies and toys. The Legend of Spyro walked (and fell face first) so that Skylanders could run and Toys For Bob would grow enough as a studio that we'd get Spyro Reignited. The Legend of Spyro is a weird time capsule and I'm glad the series has moved on.