Spyro: Reignited Trilogy

Spyro the Dragon

The year is 2008. I am still playing on my PlayStation 1 (yes, a PS1 in the year 2008!). I usually share it with my brothers. Beside that PS1 is a disc holder, which contains pretty much many of the popular games on PS1. Digimon World 3, Crash Bash, just name any popular game, and there’s a high chance that disc holder will contain that disc. Dig through that collection, and you will find Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage and Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon.

Those two Spyro games were basically a huge fragment of my childhood. I played, and replayed, so many times. Even until I was in high school, I sometimes find myself back to those games using emulators. So, when they announced that they’re going to remaster those games in 2018, I’m thrilled to hear that. Fast forward to now, Spyro: Reignited Trilogy is out on 4 major platforms, PC, PS4, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch. Since I proudly own a Switch, I decided to buy and play it on the Switch.

So, how well does Toys for Bob translate the original experience into the reignited experience? Overall, I am pretty satisfied with the game. It’s not without flaw (heck, this game has so many flaws that I’m going to point out soon), but I can say that they got things mostly right.

So, let’s start with some positive stuffs.

First, and of course, the most obvious selling point of Spyro: Reignited Trilogy is the graphics. Right from the start, you can see that Toys for Bob has done an amazing job on upscaling the visuals from the old games. It certainly feels the same to the original games, just because everything is still in the same place, but it got the visual-bump it needed. It certainly spurs the nostalgia in my mind. Part of why everything is almost exactly the same is because Toys for Bob actually develops a tool to automatically converts all the asset placement, mesh, even the AI paths, from the original games to be used in Spyro: Reignited Trilogy.

The graphics of the environment and characters are so good. Run the game at 1080p resolution on a Nintendo Switch while docked, and you’ll be greeted by a nice sight of Spyro colourful world. On the Switch, if you want to play it on-the-go, keep in mind that the graphics will be toned down, with resolution down to 720p and some missing details, to maintain the framerate.

Autumn Plains on the Nintendo Switch when playing on the handheld mode (top) and docked (bottom)

Character model have been well-redesigned, still faithful to the classics, that if you’ve played the older games, you’ll instantly know who is that. I like the new designs for the major characters, like Sparx and Elora. Not everyone like the new design, though, an to accomodate that, there’s a hidden cheat that can make the game use the original models.

One of my favorite cutscene, and also a quick glimpse of the new character models

On the gameplay side, not much can be said, since this is a remaster. For those who are not familiar with the game, the game itself consist of several levels. You go through each of that level by walking, gliding, flaming and/or ramming the enemies. After several levels, you will be put up against a mini-boss. Rinse and repeat until you reach the final boss, but, with a difficulty that scales pretty reasonably. It’s not too easy, but not too hard either.

If you love platformer games, then you might consider this to be your next-go-to games. The original games were a perfect example of great platformer games, and this game is no different. It follows the same quality as the original games. But, bear in mind, being too faithful to the originals is a two-sided blade. While you carry all the good stuffs, all the errors/faults from the old games are also translated into the new games, and I don’t see Toys for Bob fixing that old faults, like, janky camera controls.

The music of Spyro is not that special, but it sounds good enough on this remaster. It doesn’t deviate that far from the original games, so if you’ve played them, you’ll instantly knows what music is that, inducing instant nostalgia.

Now, you cannot make a product without some mistakes, and this remaster is, sadly, shipped with some errors. One of my complaints is the animations, especially on the last game (Spyro 3). If you are playing as the side characters (Spyro 3 introduces more playable characters other than Spyro himself), their level-exit animation is just that character T-posing. That is clearly not a good sight, and it feels like someone in Toys for Bob is too lazy to devise another set of animations for that.

You good, Sheila?

Some objects in Spyro: Reignited Trilogy have weird hitboxes. On some enemies, the hitbox is either too big, or too small. This makes hitting some enemies a bit painful, while at some cases, they are hitting Spyro easier, thanks to a bigger hitbox. The ladder is a weird one, where if Spyro lands on top of a ladder, he will get stuck, with a falling animation.

Spyro reliving his biggest fear : falling

I am also a bit disappointed that Spyro: Reignited Trilogy doesn’t come with a new level. Activision’s other remaster, Crash Bandicoot: N’Sane Trilogy, has two new levels that is not present on the original games. The remaster of Crash Team Racing also includes several new tracks. Why Spyro doesn’t have new levels? Is it because that they want to keep it faithful to the originals? Adding a new level will not break that nostalgia, from my point of view, rather, it elevates the remaster value.

Despite all of my complaints that I have for Spyro: Reignited Trilogy, I still love this game. Playing it feels so nice, and it hits me right in my “nostalgia feels”. I will still recommend this game to anyone who are interested in a platformer game.

---

Writer Notes : Hello, there! This is my first actual post here! I am definitely still learning on how to write articles, so, I’m sorry if you feel weird about the flow of writing here. I will keep evolving, and hopefully, I will be delivering higher quality article here. At last, thank you for reading! (and thank you for reading this far!)