Games, Books and Films

Krome, 2006, 3D Platformer

Spyro’s third PlayStation2 outing (and sixth console appearance in total) saw something of a rebirth for the purple dragon. Despite its immediate predecessor, A Hero’s Tail, managing to recapture a good deal of the variety and simple, fun platforming antics of the revered PSOne instalments, many felt change was needed to allow the series to compete with the best of its genre. For better and for worse, change is exactly what you get with A New Beginning marking the biggest design shift yet seen for Spyro.

When I spoke of a ‘rebirth’, this is to be taken quite literally – developers Krome have taken the story back to the very beginning and started from scratch. In this reimagining of Spyro’s beginnings, we find the titular hero growing up in a dragonfly village with his pal Sparx, oblivious to the fact that not only is he a dragon but also the ‘chosen one’ (cue inspirational music) in a quest to free four elder dragons and defeat Cynder, a dragon who has been tainted by dark powers.

Whilst in the immediate, TLoS: ANB may not play all that different to the earlier games, fans of the Spyro’s early outings will soon discover some fairly major changes. The story elements, though hackneyed and clichéd in the extreme, have nevertheless been bolstered and given an extra kick by a host of big-name actors providing the voices. Elijah Wood’s performance as Spyro is solid enough and Gary Oldman’s presence as dragon elder Ignitus adds further distinction, though it’s actually David Spade (8 Simple Rules…) as Sparx who comes across best; delivering a controlled performance full of rapid-fire wit and sarcasm, single-handedly raising many of the cut-scenes above the mundane.

Visually its environments are more or less on a par with A Hero’s Tail though some improvements can be seen particularly in the cut-scenes with far more detailed character models, Spyro in particular looking fantastic. It’s as colourful and tidy as ever with progressively more interesting designs the further you progress – the final scene set against a space/galactic backdrop is rather lovely – but it never hits the highs it hints at, with the trademark flying levels and epic vistas notable in their absence.

The combat-system is the main area of the gameplay that has been strengthened, with a great deal of new attack moves and combos added to Spyro’s armoury. Rather than carrying a monetary value, gems of varying colours now each have their own unique properties. Red and green for instance help rejuvenate health and breath powers, whilst accumulating purple gems allows for a spectacular Fury attack that causes major damage to the surrounding area – idea if you find yourself surrounded. Finally the blue gems can be spent upgrading the various breath techniques, which is cool as you get the real impression that Spyro is becoming more adept as you progress.

Sadly, the reason the combat has so much going it for it is because it has become the games one single point of focus, casting aside much of the exploration elements that made the earlier games such fun. The flame, lightning, ice and earth breaths Spyro obtains are great and have various uses in combat, but are almost never called upon to be used in the field of play. Indeed, most of the platforming elements have been extracted altogether. The prominent dash feature of old has been banished to the R1 button and goes virtually unused due to its inconsistent responsiveness, lack of mobility and the fact that no areas are really big enough for it to be of use. Elsewhere, little joypad dexterity is called for as the few jumps and traps that must be traversed are entirely unchallenging. Whilst on the whole controls are responsive and enemy types pose at least a few different problems, the battling quickly gets repetitive as wave after wave of foes greet you with ceaseless persistence. If you’re not fighting through levels, you’re fighting to learn new techniques, with only a couple of not-very-good on-rails flying section to break up the monotony.

It’s also cripplingly linear; one of the series strong points has always been the depth of extras and secrets that can be uncovered once a new ability had been earned. In A New Beginning however, there is absolutely no freedom to explore, no backtracking or returning to earlier levels and no secrets, with virtually all of the mini-games and side-quests of old cast aside. It’s also rather short, with only five medium-sized levels to tackle, and given that Spyro appears to have infinite lives and very generous re-spawn points, the game can be finished easily in just a few hours.

Thus despite a couple of notable steps in the right direction, A New Beginning can’t help feeling like Spyro in his most diminished form. It’s not a bad game; in fact, it lays some rather promising foundations for the inevitable Legend of Spyro sequels, but the potential needs to be converted into results fairly soon if Spyro is to survive another generation. The cute nature, simplistic gameplay and gentle difficulty-curve make it more suitable to younger gamers, but if it’s purple dragons you’re after, the older (and cheaper) Spyro instalments are a better investment than this.

OVERALL: 5/10

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