It may be almost the exact same game as its predecessor, but that's not to say it's much less worthwhile.
+ gameplay is still solid
+ controls are still excellent
+ tons of eggs to collect
+ speedway levels are great fun
+ extra characters are a smart addition
Negative:
- wait… haven't I seen some of those positives before?
- some graphical issues are less forgivable the second time around
- the levels get a little boring after the first area
Spyro the Dragon was one of the defining characters of his genre back in the day. He had three great games: a great start, an even stronger sequel, and now the third one: Year of the Dragon. Does it live up to the expectations generated by its predecessors or does it fail to live up to the other two?
When an evil Sorceress from another world sends in a bunch of goons to kidnap the eggs in the world of the dragons, you know who to send back to retrieve them. Hunter the cheetah! …Oh, and Spyro of course! Basically you go on a journey to get back the eggs through four big worlds each with a lot of levels, and each of which has a lot of stuff to do for completionists.
The core gameplay of YOTD is pretty much exactly the same as it was back in Ripto's Rage: you charge, you glide, you breath fire, and you get power ups through gates every once in a while. Thankfully all the abilities you learned in the previous game are available to you right off the bat. The downside to this is that you don't learn any new abilities as the game goes on, which makes the Spyro gameplay hardly vary at all.
Fortunately, there are four other characters that come into play every once in a while to change things up a bit. Sheila the Kangaroo can jump really high and kick enemies to kingdom come, Sgt. Byrd can fly and shoot the crud out of baddies with his shoulder cannons, Bentley the Yeti can smash guys with his giant club (my personal favorite), and Agent 9's levels are kind of like third-person shooters. These guys each have their own level and also have a few areas throughout the game within other levels in which you can get eggs. All the characters are really fun to play as and offer some great diversity.
The game has four huge home worlds, each of which has many levels. The first world is home to a handful of great, fun levels, and then you go to the second world and find that you're suddenly not having as much fun. Could it be that the levels are just… not so great? I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about the later levels that I just don't like. Maybe it's the slight lack of creativity, I don't know.
Although many of the regular levels aren't much fun, there are four speedway levels in the game as well, and these are surprisingly entertaining. They each have a time attack mode where you have to fly through rings, torch cows, and the like within a time limit, but there is also a race on each of these levels as well as a Hunter challenge, usually involving you playing as the cheetah flying around in a plane shooting down sheep in flying saucers. Good times…
Collecting eggs is the main goal of the game, but there are many ways that you get them. Of course there are some lying around on the ground every once in a while but there are also times when you have to do certain tasks to get them or play a minigame kind of thing. There are also a ton of gems, but these are more annoying to collect as they are all over the place and if you want them all you'll have to do a lot of backtracking. Still, the combination of eggs and gems makes for a great game to try to complete.
The visuals of YOTD are exactly the same as they were in Ripto's Rage. Nothing has changed. Yes, Spyro's eyebrows still detach from his head every once in a while. Yes, everything still looks a little polygonal. They weren't so bad the first time, but when there is zero improvement in a game that came out a year later, polygonal and occasionally glitched graphics are a bit less forgivable. Not to say they look horrible for the time, but I definitely would have liked to see some kind of improvement in this area.
The sound effects are no different than they were back in Ripto's Rage, but there wasn't really anything that needed changing. There are still nice, sometimes silly effects that fit well with the game. The music is great as usual and is, like the sound effects, fitting to the environments. Some of the tracks are reused a few times but it's really not a big deal.
Overall, Spyro: Year of the Dragon is still a great game. It may be exactly the same as its predecessor except for a few fun variations in the gameplay, but that's not to say it's a bad game by any means. The Spyro formula had already proven itself twice, so why change it for the last game of the generation? Still, a few new abilities and graphical improvements would have been welcome and the levels could have been much more enjoyable. Despite these few flaws, though, YOTD is great for anyone who liked the other two games or someone looking for a game simply made to be completed, and I would also recommend it to just about anyone who likes 3-D platformers.
Gameplay: 9
Grahpics: 7
Sound: 8
Value: 9
FINAL SCORE: 8.4/10