Dharma Bum

If you’re playing a game, and you’re progressing through every level without wondering what to do next, it was designed competently. If you’re playing a game, and are having fun, it was designed well. But if you’re watching a five year old play that game, and not only is he having fun, but he’s beating it, and screaming "Watch out, Spyro!" during cutscenes and laughing at David Spade, that’s a great game.

Such was the case with the last Spyro game, The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. As the title implies, this game was a reboot of the franchise, whose roots go back to the original Playstation. Released in November 2006 for last gen consoles, sales for the game did okay, but with the changing of the guard from the PS2 and GameCube shifting to the PS3 and Wii, and with the X-Box 360 already gobbling up its predecessor’s wall space, Spyro didn’t bring in the numbers it could have if it was released as a current gen title. It received many awards for its platforming elements, and many GameCube centric media outlets gushed over it as the system’s last true hurrah. A Nintendo DS version was also released, which utilized the tiny handheld’s hardware extremely well.

In other words, Spyro didn’t under perform because it was a bad game, but because it said, "GameCube," "X-Box," and "PS2" on the boxes instead of "Wii," "360" and "PS3." It really is a great game, and deserves a chance from anyone who enjoys cute dragons, platforming games, or both.

The game features a great cast of voice actors, including one of my favorites, Jeff Bennett, better known as the Chuck Norris of the Star Wars universe, and my least favorite, Cree Summer, who just does her Suzy from Rugrats voice every time she has a voice acting job. The title character, Spyro, is played by Frodo. David Spade plays himself as the sidekick, a lovable, fast talking dragonfly who young children can imitate, apparently, very easily. Rounding out the main cast is Gary Oldman, who plays a dragon version of Sirius Black. And yes, that’s as awesome as that sounds.

The story is about Spyro, a young, three foot tall, purple dragon who grew up believing he was a dragonfly. After a temple that housed dragon eggs was raided, an elder dragon sent Spyro’s egg down a river, Moses style. When some baboons invade the swamp he grew up in, Spyro accidentally breathes fire saving his adopted brother, a firefly/dragonfly thing named Sparx. From there, he learns that he is a dragon, and Sparx and Spyro leave the swamp to find out what happened to his people.

The gameplay is probably two thirds beat em up, one third platforming, with a couple really neat rail missions that has Spyro flying through the sky, or chasing after an underground train. It’s simple button mashing and hopping from point A to point B, and should be accessible to just about anyone.

The narrative is pretty thin, and the expressions on the models are pretty limited, and usually that would be a bad thing. But that just makes it great PG rated entertainment, as everything is very simple and easy for young gamers to understand. There’s some cartoon violence, but no adult themes, no cursing, and even the game’s villain sounds like a six year old girl, and is revealed to be about as harmless at the end.

So, all in all, Spyro is a solid platformer. More impressively, it’s an entirely appropriate game for young children. With a market clogged with M rated games, it was refreshing to play something that wasn’t about space marines or hardcore gangstaz for a little while.

I should note that while The Legend of Spyro was built for last gen systems, there are a few ways to rig a solution so you can play it on current platforms. With a downloadable patch via X-Box Live, the game is playable on the X-Box 360. Early PS3 SKUs can also play the game, as they have a PS2 emulator built in, but that feature has been cut from current PS3 units. The Wii can also run the GameCube version, but you’ll need either a GameCube controller, or the Wii’s classic controller in order to play the game properly.