Who doesn’t like Spyro? Well, maybe the people who aren’t familiar with him, but err… Well, everyone who knows the purple little dragon has a liking for him. He’s just…I dunno, likable. The younger crowd knows him from the pretty recent Skylanders series and perhaps the less recent The Legend of Spyro series. While the older coots (such as myself, mind you. I even got a cane! ) know Spyro all too well from his first games by developer Insomniac Games on the Sony PlayStation. And that’s the game I’m going to talk about in my first review on this site!

I started up the game, watched the green goblin-ish creature (their names are all ‘Gnorc’, by the way, but I’ll come back on that later) climbing the snowy mountain, sticking the Insomniac sign in the ice, getting knocked over by Spyro who flies in another circle, then lands perfectly on a platform which is followed by the title screen popping up. All accompanied by the catchy Spyro tune we all know and love…right? Right…? Anyway, this brought a tear of nostalgia to my eyes, because I’m one of the old coots who played this game when it was only months or so old. I started a new game…

The game started with a cutscene of Spyro chasing down and killing some harmless innocent sheep, so the tone was set immediately. Even though I got a few chuckles out of this happening, the first cutscene also tells you about what is basically the plot in this game. The dragons are mocking Gnasty Gnorc, an evil but ugly villain in a distant realm. Gnasty Gnorc doesn’t appreciate this, and attempts to trap every dragon in all the dragon realms in crystal statues. He even almost succeeds, and manages to trap every dragon, except for one. Yeppers, that’s you. You’re a 4 year-old dragon cub, and the only dragon left free. It’s your destiny to rescue every dragon, recover all the treasure stolen by the Gnorcs, and finally face and defeat Gnasty Gnorc.

When the cutscene was over, I could start playing, and damn was it fun! Everything is so bright and colorful, and the visuals overall just look really good for a 1998 game. You can glide, charge and flame baddies (be careful which baddy you charge, and which you flame), but you can’t swim yet. Apparently Spyro’s a little too young for that. Oh well. Charging isn’t recommended on narrow bridges above a bottomless pit. Spyro steers a bit awkward while he is charging, as if he’s skating on ice. Also fun, but it doesn’t really help when you need to reach a destination and need to take a sharp turn where you thought you had room enough to steer, but alas where proven wrong as you helplessly plunge into the abyss. Which has happened to me quite a couple of times actually! So yeah, mind the charging controls, they could have had a little fine-tuning. I mean, there are a lot of glaciers in this game, but it's like Spyro is constantly skating on ice when he's charging.

The first levels are really simple, and very short. These short levels mainly consist of a few enemies you need to fry, and treasure you need to recover. In the next area, you should already have reached the portal back to the homeworld! Easy as pie, right? Well, don’t get overexcited because the levels will get tougher. MUCH tougher. There were a couple of times I really had to hoard for lives (just kill off enemies you’ve already fried once and you’ll earn pearls for an extra live), because otherwise I wouldn’t have beaten the game. Spyro the Dragon is one of those games that starts off very simple, but gets more and more difficult as you progress. And this type of difficulty curve is done really well to, by the way, because a lot of games start off easy, but get really hard way to suddenly.

The verdict? Spyro the Dragon is a game without many downsides. I mentioned that steering while charging can be hard, and perhaps you may find the game a little short if you rush through it instead of exploring the levels a little, but I can’t spot any more flaws. It’s funny, the graphics are great for its time, and it has a stellar difficulty curve which is just right for kids to not give up when they wipe out for the so-maniest time. I give this game 8.6 out of 10 purple gems. That’s 8.6 times times 25 points!

Pros:
- Colorful, but also moody
- Really funny without being too in-your-face
- Starts off simple, steadily gets more difficult
- Spyro is just so lovable!

Cons:
- It’s a little short
- Charging controls are a bit awkward

OrdannonsX : It's about time I see someone making a review for psx. Great job man!

Your review is lengthy, detailed and easy to read but you missed one thing. You forgot to describe the graphics, sound, depth... etc.

However, you still did a great job! Please continue and have fun making reviews on vizzed!

OrdannonsX : Good review. I don't really have to explain anything to you because its a great review. Keep up the good work. Have a nice day.

Hello there. I always enjoy seeing new reviewers, but you should know that copying any portion of a review from another site is against the rules on Vizzed. So please, try to avoid doing so in the future. Thanks.