The only handheld Spyro game I own, is Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs. It’s nothing special, but it’s a nice way to kill some time if you have nothing else to do or play. Like I have right now. So I decided to look up some Spyro games in the Retro Game Room, and stumbled across Spyro: Season of Ice. Here’s what I think about it.

The Graphics

 Season of Ice is a pretty early GBA game, and as such, it doesn’t have to be the best looking game on the system. But a lot of stuff in the game just looks plain ugly. It looks like developer Digital Eclipse put effort into detailing the maps, what with the water and the waves hitting the shores and all, but all these details look a little half-finished. What’s more annoying, is that the tilted top-down camera is placed too close on Spyro, so there’s no easy way to check your surroundings, which might result in death by drowning. This could also be a good thing though, as your eyes won’t have to absorb so much ugliness at once, am I right guys? Huh? High five! Yeah!

The Sound

‘Seasoned’ Spyro veterans should recognize some of the original Spyro music and little sound effects such as your fire breath and the chime when you pick up treasure, making for a quick nostalgia boost. The rest of the music, however, is a little underwhelming.  The music hardly plays a part in the immersion I had in the levels (a thing I personally keep in high regard) making most of the music and the levels as a result, feel really… bland. Some tunes may sound pretty catchy when you first hear them, but become forgettable very quickly after. And the sound the little frogs make when they jump around… It sounds like a hyperactive clown going wild on a pogo stick. Grrrrr, it is so annoying…

The Addictiveness

If you’re an addict of the PlayStation games, you’ll find yourself strangely hooked on Season of Ice for a while, mainly because the core of Season of Ice is the same as what made the PlayStation games such a blast to play. But after a while, you’ll see through the familiar formula, and find that Season of Ice just isn’t very fun to play. The worlds are pretty big, but repetitive. They’re also not fun to navigate due to the stiff running and glide controls.

The Story

The story is as simple as it’s always been with the Spyro series. The game starts with Spyro, Hunter and Bianca lying on the beach in the ever-returning Dragon Shores, when Bianca gets a letter from Zoe the fairy, saying that all the fairies have been captured, and Spyro has to set out and free them all, and recover the treasure stolen by the Rhynocs. It’s Spyro standard to have a simple plot such as this, so that’s not a bad thing.

The Depth

Spyro: Season of Ice seems to implement the same formula as the original Spyro games on the PlayStation. You explore big worlds, collecting stolen treasure, frying baddies and freeing people in captivity. Every level requires you to fry every single enemy in the level. What’s more, there are characters in every level who give you extra missions such as lighting lighthouses, to give a you a little more to do. Also, the Sparx levels are back from Spyro: Year of the Dragon. Only this time they aren’t fun, but they’re still here. So Season of Ice has all the right ingredients in order for you to have a grand old time. Right? No, because navigating through the worlds isn’t fun, and every new level you go through feels like the one you just completed. True, there are side missions which are quite varied, but they can’t hide the fact that the core of going through each level remains the same.

The Difficulty

This game still has a lives system (a lá old school Spyro the Dragon), but it’s much less forgiving. There’s still a way of grinding lives, but it’s more tedious than on the PlayStation games where you could simply fry 10 small animals to be granted with an extra live. That isn’t a thing here. Here, the only thing granting you an extra live are the blue butterfly bottles. There’s a way to screw with the game to make them keep coming back, but this is so tedious to do, you’d be more inclined to just duke it out hardcore. But be careful not to become impatient and wanting to rush through the levels by charging, even though I can’t blame you; charging equals an insta-death in areas with lots of water around. The stiff controls also makes defeating baddies more difficult than it should be, often resulting in you taking a hit.

Spyro: Season of Ice is a prime example of how a Spyro game just doesn’t work on a handheld. The old school Spyro games where about huge worlds to explore and collect stuff in. It seemed like Season of Ice wanted to keep that formula, but the tilted top-down camera prevents any comfort in exploring the large but bland maps. And I know, perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on the game’s visuals since this is a pretty early GBA game, but I still feel that this game could’ve looked a lot better. If you want to play a handheld Spyro game, play Attack of the Rhynocs. It’s much more refined.

Pros:

-          The old school Spyro the Dragon formula feels familiar

Cons:

-          A couple of ugly visual bugs

-          Stiff controls and tilted top-down camera make for awkward navigation

-          Ugly textures look way too primitive, even for early GBA technology

-          Once you complete a couple of levels, the rest of the game feels tedious