Ah Spyro, my late grandmothers favorite dragon and every 90s child's favorite hero on four legs. During this time we were experiencing next gen consols such as the game cube, the dream cast the xbox and the very popular Play station 2, and three of these consoles all share the game, Spyro: A heros tail or tale I forget how it was marketed as far as the name went, but in any case it may not be the best spyro game but its definitely far more better and superior to Enter the dragonfly thats for sure.

The point is is that this game to me succeeded where enter dragonfly had failed, in fact I only ever finished enter the dragonfly once and I have not touched it since but the a heros tail along and restored my faith in the series, Spyro was back and better than ever with old friends and new friends including Sparx the dragonfly. Hunter the Cheetah, Sergeant James Bird,  and newcomer, Blink the mole. each character has a different style of gameplay., Spyro is the major playable character and can charge and breath elemental attacks. Hunters gameplay I immensely enjoyed, as I played his two levels in dragonfly falls and Gloomy Glacier, I said to myself "I wish Hunter had his own game with that gameplay," as for Sparx, his levels are on rails shooting stages as you try the make your way to the levels exit while shooting down enemies.

Sergeant Bird takes over the speedway levels equipped with bombs and homing missiles as he attempts to shoot down the targets provided and finally, Blink the moles levels take place deep beneath the ground (which incidentally I always hated that was one thing I didn't like about this game) But thats enough about the introductions, now that those are out of the way lets begin with the games story.

Story: as far as story goes, this game is quite good with handling something this delicate, you gotta be gentle with the plot you know. Anyway, the story is quite simple, kiddish in a way if you will. The dragon realms have once again been invaded by gnorcs led by their ruler, Gnasty Gnorc who somehow survivedhis defeat at the paws of spyro the dragon as we get a glimps of what the gnorcs are up to they proceed to go through a dark portal, Gnasty couldn't do that before meaning he has gotten stronger but how? after his minions leave with the very important plot devices known as the dark gems, Gnasty Gnorc proceeds to enter a cave and when he does, a monstrous red dragon with an underbite o all things lands and seals Gnasty inside but the red dragon is actually in cahoots with Gnasty and is in fact the main villain of the game, who then flies away without saying anything, enter the opposition. in a small lab, Spyro is being briefed on the red dragon named... well.. red (not the most imaginative name is it?) Spyro is then sent off to find out more about the mysterious Red and seek out the dark gems in order to destroy them and bring peace to the dragon realms once again. Alright now, its time to get to the graphics.

Graphics: Where do I begin? Well for starters the graphics are a vast improvement over enter the dragonflies graphics, that's for sure the Graphics a bright, vivid, cartoony and the colours are complimented very well with the graphics Spyro, Hunter all the characters have very bright amazing colours that looks like the world is a fantasy novel in some places, a tropical getaway in others but regardless the graphics are far more superior than its predecessors and some moving objects like the flow of magma are very smooth, but sometimes the graphics can be a bit distracting if I'm honest with myself about this heck of a game and i often fell into death pits and traps because of them. but aside from that little setback its still a good game and i love it so much and that's a fact, I could not part with this game even if I tried but its not entirely perfect I'll get to that. In the meantime, its time to cover the sound of Spyro a heros tail.

Sound: ah the sounds of Spyro are not easily forgotten especially when you were growing up with the classic spyro like I did from the hopping of the sheep fodder to the voice acting  now this game has a vast number of musical themes such as the tropical calming of Dragonfly falls to the epic boss music that makes it feel like theirs a lot at stake the music in this game is something else, I can tell you that and the sound effects are amazing too, like the yetis in the Icy Wilderness for example, they sound a lot like big grizzly bears. The voice acting of some characters are top notch but some just don't feel right like Jess Harnell providing the voice of Spyro I get spyro is cocky but in the original trilogy they didn't make him out to be a materialistic jerk and I'll tell you why that is. Spyro in this game onwards won't seem to help anyone unless there will be something in it for him as a reward, Spyro that is not how a hero should act and that voice sounds so nasally. If there is one levels theme that I absolutely enjoy, its the level, Crocovile Swamp because of the didgeridoo in the levels music, no I am not an aboriginal Australian I am a white Australian  just in case there may have been some stereotyping. now the next part is the addictivness.

Addictiveness: this game is fairly addictive, not too much not too little, its just one of those games you just find in your cd case and when you find it you just take one good look at it and after a few seconds you somehow either find yourself playing the game or playing something else entirely different altogether I was addicted to this game as a kid in the sixth generation of video games it was like Spyro had returned from the depths of that was enter the dragonfly, and the gameplay as each character is fun as well except for those good for nothing Blink the mole levels I cannot stand those levels at all but playing as Sparx was addictive as anything shooting down enemies on auto pilot reminds me of Star Fox in a way and Sergeant Bird was fun to play as shooting homing missiles and dropping explosive bombs to rack up some gems for money and hunter, well like I said before he should have his own game with that style of game play, that would be so cool now for the depth.

Depth: now this game has a few things to offer, such as collecting light gems to power various gadgets from the professor and can also unlock doors to secret areas there are also 80 dragon eggs to collect each one in sets of 10, by completing a whole set you can unlock a truckload of awesome stuff such as concept art, playing as the character flame or ember and a 3d model viewer after defeating the main game itself you can look around for more dragon eggs and light gems in order to achieve 100% completion. once you mange to do that you will be treated to an alternate ending where the four dragon elders are gathered around a tv set and begin arguing in the manner of stereotypical old men at the nursing home, (no offense to the elders of real life society mind you) and As I mentioned earlier you can play as five different characters altogether each one with their own tricks and skills up their metaphorical sleeves the other four characters, (sans hunter) are in the style format of mini games where you will be given a dragon egg the first time and a light gem on the second success. However Spyro can play cannon mini games for the same rewards.

there are 40 dark gems, 80 dragon eggs and 100 light gems in the game and they must all be found (or destroyed in the dark gems case) if you wish to obtain the alternate ending though if anyone wants my honest opinion on that ending, its not as good a reward you would have hoped for. Moneybags, that "brazenly avaricious duplicitous larcenous ursine" as the Spyro 3 Bentley would refer to him as makes a return however  there's some good news gamers, instead of impeding your path so he can con you out of gems, Moneybags has become a more respected shop owner, whose products are actually quite useful including but not limited to lock picks a key chain for more lock picks a shock wave upgrade to your horn dive techniques, secondary breath weapons for fire, electricity, ice and water a jar of butterflies that can act as emergency provisions for sparx (and by extension spyro) a gem multiplier and an extra hit point for sparx, allowing him to take one more hit for the purple dragon.

the breath attacks are all useful and can be switched between using the d-pad on the controller Fire attacks can kill enemies instantly (I wonder what cooked gnorc meat would taste like?) and can be used to light firework crates and rockets that can destroy boxes made out of reinforced steel. Electricity breath is more powerful than the fire breath ability but its only downside is that it will take longer to defeat enemy characters but apparently thats the only little con about it. It can activate machinery by using it on those mechanical... whatever they are, and totally eliminates the need to carge metal chests with spyros horns. Now water breath is a little trickier it cannot defeat most enemies, it can only slow them down however it is highly effective against fire based enemies such as fire imps and phoenixes. it can also be used to spin waterwheels to gain more access in a specific realm. Ice breath is by far more useful than water breath because not only can it defeat the fire based enemies that I just mentioned, it can freeze gnorcs in their tracks gives them some cold feet if you will. then you just finish them by charging with your horns.

And one more thing I forgot to mention and this really annoys me. You can only fight each boss once and only once, so as a result the depth section lost a point for this, and last and certainly not least is the difficulty, lets go we're almost done.

Difficulty: the game itself is not that difficult but the controls might get in the way of that causing unintended deaths and costly mistakes but despite those cons the game isn't really that difficult a young gamer as young as ten could handle it, nine years old minimum and there's no game I cannot beat, ever since I was three years old i was given command of an Nes controller in my hands and now I have 20 years of video game experience so I like to consider myself a pro in this field so Spyro a heros tail? not even a challenge once you get used to it. its definitely aimed towards a younger demographic (and they could have done another game like this one in that case instead of Skylanders if that werereally the case.) Alright its time to wrap this up.

This game is an okay game something I would definitely play again if given the chance like I did today its a classic to me and possibly to many other fans of the classic spyro series truly somethingworth playing although it is a small bit of a far cry from the original trilogy some might even consider it a throwback but not to me its a good game thats all for now, Arwingstarfighter, singing off, see you next game