Myviewing

User Score
9.0

Presentation - 9.0
Gameplay - 9.0
Value - 8.5

In 2006, some folks at Krome Studios who thought Spyro still had potential to make it big in the gaming world rejuvenated the series with The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. It was different from the usual Spyro outing by having more of an emphasis on action than it did on platforming, and brought the production values to insanely high proportions by hiring a talented voice cast with Elijah Wood, David Spade, and Gary Oldman and bringing in wonderful new visuals. Of course not everyone was pleased with the result, but it still managed to sell well enough to warrant another two sequels. The first one, A New Beginning, was a game built on solid foundations and had an interesting direction to give Spyro, but was a bit too short. Eternal Night fixed the length problem the next year, but was still hampered by visuals that were great last gen by now and had some technical problems such as hits from enemies that would seem to come out of nowhere and hit detection that came off at times. Now under French developer Étranges Libellules, known for the making of the Asterix games, and with much to carry plot wise, The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon has been released. You might be wondering, how does it turn out? Well if you're just one of those folks who simply hates these game just because they aren't made by Insomniac and refuse to play another one until the supposed day they return, don't bother with this review, you've already got your answer. Me however, I'm about to lay a lot of gooey praise on Étranges Libellules's desk, because I feel they have truly earned it in the making of Dawn of the Dragon.

The story takes place 3 years after Eternal Night when Spyro and Cynder defeated Gaul the Ape King. Still imprisoned, they are freed by mysterious enemies and chained by a magical bond that won't allow them to leave one another within a certain radius. They are both rescued by Hunter and then shown the way to Warfang after a series of obstacles with his people and fighting their way to the city, where the free people of the world defend themselves against the oncoming forces of Malefor. The story doesn't end there though, as it rests upon the shoulders of Spyro and Cynder to save the world from the Dark Master Malefor unless they are to witness the world's destruction. The story on it's own is simply outstanding, it's just awesome to see how far Spryo has come since the PS1 games to traverse in such an epic story. Of course the praise isn't without some criticism since the story does tend to seem inspired from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at times. The two examples coming to mind are when Spyro and Cynder come face to face with Malefor's army at the siege of Warfang, resembling the battle of Minas Tirith so much that it even feels like the stage from the game adaptation of said book/movie was reused at this point. The other one being when Spyro must continue onward with the support of Cynder into Malefor's lair near the end, seeming quite similar to Samwise providing support to Frodo. Despite it's inspiration however, it's really nothing to go proclaiming plagiarism over or bashing for just simply using as inspiration. If you, the player, want to complain about it, then name another child friendly icon that's able to use this source for inspiration and pull it off so well in this day and age, then get back to me. Even if it isn't the most original story you'll ever find in a video game, it's a very enjoyable one on it's own to see the characters face against the darkness and the chemistry between Spyro and Cynder is something that can carry players through the game storywise very well.

The first thing you'll notice when you first turn on Dawn of the Dragon are obviously the graphics. I just want to know, looking at the graphics, can you not simply stare at them and look in awe while playing the game? Still they look amazing and they look just as great in motion. Despite being built up from the PS2 version, the Wii version of Dawn of the Dragon is a very beautiful looking game in its own right and shouldn’t have anyone complaining about the visuals like in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The visuals are vibrant, colorful, and gorgeous, at least most of the time. The character models are all fairly detailed and the animation is fluid and graceful, most particularly for Spyro and Cynder. The environments are as sweet as Peeps thanks to the lush, full colors and fancy lighting effects that make the game look very good. Despite the many good things about the graphics, the game does suffer from some technical problems including frame rate issues which I managed to encounter twice when the game just completely froze for some odd reason, but the game went back to functioning after a while.

Sound wise, if it weren’t for the fact of the occasional sound glitch in odd places and Wayne Brady being chosen to for Sparx instead of David Spade or Billy West, I would call the sound factor perfect. The sound effects portray the impact of attacks and mass scale events very well, but as said before there are occasional points in the game where the sound clips load in odd places or they just tend to not load at all, but this only happens about once every 1,000 times you hear a sound effect anyway. In terms of music, the music is simply outstanding, an orchestral feel for the Legend of Spyro series is a very well done implementation to add to the epic feel. Every song fits, be it the calming tune of Avalar which will have you flying for an hour just to gaze at the environments, the epic theme of Malefor at the end to instill fear into all who face him, or the wonderful song that perfectly matches the relationship between Spyro and Cynder at the end credits. The music will have you searching for playlists on youtube or buying MP3 players to download the music. Then there’s the voice acting, simply great voice acting on all fronts, and Elijah Wood fits his role even better now that his character is older and the rest of the cast is supported with the charisma of very good voice actors. The only one I don’t particularly like is Wayne Brady as Sparx. Seriously why couldn’t they just get one voice actor for Sparx? What’s worse is that Wayne Brady just doesn’t fit Sparx’s character, but thankfully the writers seemed to have taken notice of this and made Sparx a much more minimal character than in the previous games. You won’t hear too much from these guys while playing the game, but in the cut scenes, their talent truly does shine.

So we’ve got enough said about the presentation values that Dawn of the Dragon succeeds at very well, but there’s one final thing to evaluate before deciding if the game is good or not, the actual gameplay itself. Just like A New Beginning and Eternal Night before it, Spyro for the most part plays like a kid friendly version of God of War. There are hordes of enemies to face and plenty of extras to find and truly awe inspiring boss battles now complete with quick time events. With these elements in place, what we have here is the most epic and complete entry to the Legend of Spyro trilogy, as well as one of the best Spyro games to date.

Following along with the logic of the beginning of the story, you can play as both Spyro and Cynder allowing you switch between them with the press of the minus button. Two-player co-op is supported in the game so long as you have two controllers, and there are several puzzles that are designed for both characters, such as helping each other get to the top of a wall or pulling a boat along the stream. If you’re playing single player, it is possible to play through without encountering puzzles that are absolutely impossible to do without a second player. Spyro and Cynder have different special attacks, with Spyro retaining his traditional main elemental moves (Earth, Ice, Thunder, and most importantly Fire) and Cynder taking on four totally different ones (Shadow, Poison, Wind, and Siren Scream). Just like the obvious influence it came from, Dawn of the Dragon lets you upgrade these moves by collecting blue gems scattered around the world. An interesting new addition to the the combat however, is that the game allows you to use armor for your dragons which are hidden in various nooks and crannies around the world, and you’re allowed to combine different armors to get their joint effects. Another interesting addition to the game is that Dawn of the Dragon is the first Spyro game to let players fly wherever they want. Two presses of the jump button, and you and Cynder are off into the skies where no height is too high to reach... At least besides the invisible walls. Even though you're able to fly wherever whenever, invisible walls keep you from being able to traverse to the highest scales you could desire. It's a bit disappointing to be unable to go anywhere at any time, but it's understandably done to keep the game from being too easy, otherwise players would be able to abuse the power of the sky so much that they wouldn’t have to encounter any challenge whatsoever.

The gameplay in Dawn of the Dragon is what you played in A New Beginning and Eternal Night. You collect gems through the game worlds while fighting hordes of enemies. These gems can be used to buy upgrades (blue gems), recharge your health (red gems) or recharge your mana (green gems). You’ll get them by defeating enemies, finding crystal clusters, and breaking pots in the game’s worlds. Combat in the game is actually fairly involved and includes light and heavy attacks, grabs, pounds and air attacks, all of which come together in a number of combos. These combos are pulled off by pressing the B button or pulling back the nunchuck in order to defend yourself against the enemies. There’s also the occasional Wiimote movement to deliver a heavy attack, and it’s not done to the point of exhaustion. Then of course there is the power attack that is involved in the combat, when your fury meter is filled after defeating a number of enemies, you will be able to unleash the fearsome wrath of the power of the purple dragon and easily defeat anyone who gets in your way. In terms of control schemes, unlike Eternal Night, the game doesn’t support the use of the Classic Controller, and altogether ignores the possibility of the Gamecube controller. Despite the forced use of the Wiimote and Nunchuck, the controls are never truly gimmicky or wonky to the point of not working, they work, you’ll just have to put in some effort with the Wiimote. If that’s not for you, then the PS3 and X360 versions do exist for a reason.

The game itself clocks in about 13 hours total, at least that’s how long I took, and when you beat a level, you’re able to revisit the level anytime you want, which allows for exploring freedom the previous two games lacked. You can find new armor that you overlooked your first time running through, defeat the elite enemies, rewatch your favorite cut scenes, play through your favorite levels, and face down one of the epic boss battle that you’ll encounter. Going back and achieving different objectives allows access to unlockables hidden throughout the game such as theater mode, and so on. Despite its length Dawn of the Dragon is a fairly content ridden game, and while you might not feel compelled to complete the game more than once, there’s plenty to do, and always new ground to cover.

In the end, what you have is a kid friendly version of God of War as said before. But the end result isn’t so bad when you have such top-notch production values, new areas of depth for the series, and a balanced difficulty that makes the game accessible to anyone willing to play. The game is outstanding fun from start to finish, particularly in the boss battles and when the two dragons must face huge hordes of enemies, and the final boss battle between Spyro, Cynder, and Malefor will be something to remember through your days in gaming.

There is one thing about the ending that I will spoil, and that’s the ending message at the end of the credits where the developers say, “Thank you to all of the Spyro fans who have helped to support our favorite purple dragon for the last 10 years. We could not have done this without your continued encouragement.” In response I have to say, “No, thank YOU developers for caring so much to make such an amazing trilogy of games for the series and making the end result being so epic and enjoyable for fans dedicated through these 10 years. The fact that these games aren’t selling as well as the Playstation originals is proof enough that there is no divine being watching over the gaming industry. For the people who haven’t tried them are missing out on something truly epic… Or they just have different tastes. But either way, thank you for such an outstanding trilogy that reinvigorated my interest in Spyro the Dragon, and I for one cannot wait to see where the purple dragon is taken later in 2009… Besides maybe the movie unless it actually turns out to be good.”

What I'm trying to get across though is this: The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon is an extremely well put-together platformer, be it for younglings or fans of the first two LoS games. The game is kept from being perfect because of some technical issues, but anyone looking for a fun platformer will have a blast with the game thanks to its solid gameplay foundations and its strong presentation.