Spyro's last game is as fun and refreshing as you could ever want it to be,
User Rating: 8.7 | Spyro: Year of the Dragon (Platinum) PS
Spyro: Year of the Dragon is Insomniac's last good Spyro game and was also the last Spyro game on the Playstation. Year of the Dragon takes all of what you know about Spyro and adds in additional characters and another storyline to keep the game alive. Each character has a unique world and their own abilities to help Spyro throughout another adventure you'll come to love and enjoy. Just like in every other Spyro dragon, you have to help collect something. In the first one it was Dragons, and now it's Dragon Eggs. You explore 25+ 3D worlds, torch a few baddies along the way, solve some fairly simple puzzles and collect some gems. All of this is familiar in the other Spyro games, and it really shows. Spyro hasn't come across any new moves along the way besides the ones he learned from Spyro 2, and his controls are fairly identical to the controls of the past two games. Along with the average Spyro action, there are many fantastic mini-games along the way that are much well designed and addictive than other mini-games from Spyro in the past. To name a few, there's boxing, submarine battles and, my personal favorite, skateboarding. That's right, it's skateboarding where you can pull off many tricks and skills off of many ramps and half pipes located throughout a huge skateboard park. I actually thought this was funner than some Tony Hawk games. The biggest difference though is the addition of four new playable characters. Well, five if you wanna count Sparx's side-scrolling adventures (some of the hardest things I've ever done in a platform game). To help you in your search for the Dragon Eggs comes Sheila the Kangaroo, Sergeant Byrd the flying penguin with rocket launchers attached to his wings, Bentley the yeti with a GIANT club, and Agent 9 a space monkey with a gun. I dunno if you just heard me though but just in case you didn't I'll say it again, you get to play as a space monkey with a gun. How cool is that? Insomniac obviously took some adjusting to level designs to satisfy each character's different abilities. Spyro's levels haven't changed for the most part, but the characters levels are each different. For instance, since Bentley the yeti can't move very fast he has very small levels, while since Seargent Byrd flies around he has huge levels that I'm very impressed with for one. Sheila's levels for the most part involve jumping on high up platforms, and Agent 9's levels are all about fighting with your gun meaning that it's gonna be against other enemies that shoot at you. It may seem like a gimmick to simply add new characters but it's actually a nice way to end Spyro on a good note in this case. Spyro has always been one of the better looking games on the Playstation. Just like in other Spyro games, Year of the Dragon rarely ever dips in framerate even when you're flying through the air or hitting a super charger. I was especially surprised that the super chargers didn't slow the game down considered the screen is moving at such a fast pace. Special effects like explosions, fire, and water also come out looking ok which come together nicely in the end. The character animations also kinda remind me of Loony Tunes. Like when Spyro gets going in a Super charge, his feet turn into a blurry circle kinda like Roadrunner. Sheila also kicks out with both feet kinda like the old cartoons involving a kangaroo that kicked everything in it's sight. Agent 9 tends to keep his entire body stiff while he runs and even Bentley slumps like the Humpback from Notre Dame. The character animations are very unnoticed and I think that they were pretty original and delightfully cartoonish. Voice acting is also cartoonish and fits well with the overall Cartoony attitude of Spyro. Every creature has a different accent and weird voice that you may think at first is some kind of European stereo type. It may sound like that but it wasn't meant to (at least I think). It was more meant to be comedic and funny, like the Professor. Same music and sound effects return from past Spyro games so there's not much else to look forward to there. This game is addictive and enjoyable and might be worth a second play through. Even if it's not for you, there's plenty of side quests and mini-games and gems to collect that you'll love to play all the way through just to see the ending. Let me put it this way, if you liked or loved the past Spyro games, than you'll like or love this one. Not only do you play as Spyro again but you also play as Sparx and his other new arrangement of characters. Insomniac has pretty much ditched the Spyro idea so it's nice to know that Spyro went out on a good note with Year of the Dragon.
