A longtime fan of the old trilogy looking for new lore. . .

Cooking Spray · Nov 15, 2008 6:27 AM

Hello, all. I can't believe I'm actually joining a Spyro-related forum, even though I enjoy the series - I've never been much of a serious gamer, in general. Recently, though, I've fallen in love with my old Playstation again, and taken a more serious interest in the fandom. . . it's a natural tendency for me to desire to peer further into fiction and become obsessive. =]

I'm a longtime fan of the original trilogy, but I haven't played any of the games that have been released since - with the exception of Enter the Dragonfly, which I only rented and never progressed very far on. My question to all of you is: which of the newer titles are worthwhile?

My focuses are more on characters and story than gameplay, but a balance of both is good. I ask because a lot of the recent releases were given merely average or poor reviews on gaming websites, but I wanted a more tailored perspective. So many fans are talking about characters and events that I'm very curious about!

Oh, and it may or may not be helpful to add that I rather like the Hunter/Bianca storyline. I'd love to see more of either of them.

ratchet · Nov 15, 2008 6:46 AM

Hello Cooking Spray and welcome to the forums. I must tell you that in total there are 8 Spyro console games in total and 5 excclusive handheld Spyro games, heres what they are:

Consoles:
Spyro the Dragon
Spyro 2: ripto's Rage
Spyro: year of the dragon
Spyro: enter the dragonfly
Spyro: a hero's tail
The legend of Spyro: a new beginning
The legend of spyro: the eternal night
The legend of spyro: Dawn of the dragon.

Handhled exclusives:
Spyro: Season of Ice
Spyro: Season of Flame
Spyro: attack of the Rhynocs
Spyro: orange
Spyro: shadow legacy

Enter the dragonfly (as you have played) and a hero's tail are the most similar console games to the originals, Enter the dragonfly being the most similar. In m point of view, AHT is not really that good, you may like it, except is still medicore. Plus, it has no bianca in it either. Thye First 3 gameboy games are good except you wont find them in stores these days. They feature most of the original characters and stick to the Spyro gamplay. But because they are handheld they are obviously not as fun as the originals but still worth a buy. As for Spyro Orange, you may like it, but probably wont. Its a minigame game with pretty lame minigames, but might be still fun depending on your taste. Spyro: shadow legacy i must confess bores me. Its nothing like the originals and goes in a more combat direction. THere's alot of backtracking and exploring, it's not really fun. You may like it though, theres lots of people do. Now for the Legend of Spyro series. The LOS series, debatably, has the best story out of any Spyro games, but the catch is that it is absolutely NOTHING like any Spyro game you have ever played. Its a reboot meaning the story is completely new. It has a whole new cast of characters, and scraps the old one (with an exception of Spyro and Sparx who have had a radical appearence and personality change anyway). The gameplay is completely different, and so is the mood. But if your one of those people who just bought the originls because it was "a dragon game" you might like this, the majority of people here like the LOS series!

As for my personal opinion, The originals are defiently the best, nothing beats them. But here's my order from Best to worst of all Spyro games:
1.Spyro: year of the Dragon
2.Spyro 2: ripto's rage
3.Spyro the Dragon
4.Spyro: season of flame
5.Spyro: attack of the rhynocs
6.Spyro: season of ice
7.Spyro: A hero's Tail
8.Spyro: enter the dragonfly
9.Spyro: dawn of the Dragon
10.Spyro: the eternal night
11.Spyro: a new beginning
12:Spyro: orange
13.Spyro: shadow legacy

Hoped that i helped!

Cooking Spray · Nov 15, 2008 7:46 AM

Thanks for the breakdown! That did help quite a bit.

I bought the original games way back when because I had a cousin who played them, and I thought they looked wickedly fun. I also have always liked anthropomorphic characters; I don't consider myself a Fur per se, but some of my major fandoms fall into this vein. Long story made short, I am not really a "dragon fan", but I have grown attached to Spyro's lexicon. I always thought the characters were well-designed and intriguing.

So far, the titles that most intrigue me are Enter the Dragonfly (despite how disappointing it seems to be considered, I think it's something that I have to see through as a completist) and the Legend of Spyro series. The stills I've seen from the latter look so lush, and even though it is a reboot, as you say, all that I am hearing about Cynder and the other additions to the cast really pique my interest.

The GBA games also might be worth a second look. As it happens, I inherited a GBA recently, but have no games for it - I've never been one for handheld systems, but if these games include the original characters, I think it might be worth tracking them down. =]

spyromaster330 · Nov 16, 2008 3:41 AM

The TLOS series is good, especially if you are looking for story rather than gameplay. Though because you are a fan of the original series, you might not like it because it is completely different from the old games. ETD isn't a very good game, its really glitchy and has a crappy storyline and is really short. It also as a really slow framerate. If you look past all of these problems though, you might enjoy the game. I didn't really enjoy AHT, but at least it wasn't slow and glitchy like ETD. The GBA games are ok, Season of ice is ok, though its a bit hard. Season of Flame is my favourite GBA game. Spyro Orange is bad, its really boring. I don't recommend that game at all. Attack of the Rhynocs is ok but I haven't really played it much.

Stormy · Nov 16, 2008 3:39 PM

Personally, I strongly disliked TLoS, and I'm a very big fan of the original games. The story in TLoS is way more hyped up than it should be (all it is is the typical cliched epic-hero-saves-the-world-from-the-evil-darkness-threatening-to-consume-us-all type thing; nothing special), and the gameplay is boring at best and frustrating at worst. It features such things as "elemental breath types" and "aerial melee combos" where you basically beat endless monkeys to death with your tail, and it's very linear. You'll probably want to avoid this one if you're not a big dragon fan because the characters spend a lot of unnecessary time emphasizing Spyro's "special purple dragon-ness." Also, it completely discarded all of the original Spyro characters, so no more Hunter and Bianca, unless you count the cheetah thing in DotD who happens to be named Hunter as well. sad

Like ratchet said, the first three GBA games are similar to the original storyline and general feel, but, being handhelds, they're definitely not as good. I'd say they'd be worth looking into, though; I enjoyed them, especially Season of Ice. Don't bother with Orange/Fusion; it's one of those sidescroller things, not like Spyro at all, bleh.

#1 Nov 15, 2008 6:27 AM

A longtime fan of the old trilogy looking for new lore. . .

#2 Nov 15, 2008 6:46 AM

Re: A longtime fan of the old trilogy looking for new lore. . .

#3 Nov 15, 2008 7:46 AM

Re: A longtime fan of the old trilogy looking for new lore. . .

#4 Nov 16, 2008 3:41 AM

Re: A longtime fan of the old trilogy looking for new lore. . .

#5 Nov 16, 2008 3:39 PM

Re: A longtime fan of the old trilogy looking for new lore. . .

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