After spending a few hours playing the three games included in the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, I have to admit that I might have been a little harsh on them back I had my first look at last year’s BGS. These remakes look absolutely gorgeous, and while they’re pushovers when it comes to difficulty, there’s a lot of charming content to be played through, and if you’re any sort of fan of Spyro that has played the original versions back on the first PlayStation, the new versions of Spyro The Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage and Spyro: Year of the Dragon, you’re bound to fall in love with them all over again.
The thing is that I never had that kind of nostalgia for Spyro. I dabbled with some mascot games during that time, but never really dabbled at all with Activision’s purple monstrosity. Sure, Crash was a fun diversion, but it honestly did not hold a candle to Metal Gear Solid to my teenage mind at the time. Now, some twenty years later, the pretty graphics were the only thing grabbing me in the new packaged release for Spyro — that is, until I played a little more than I did at that event. I get that the main gist for these games is that they’re not as linear as others of their ilk, and for that, I can certainly appreciate the devs taking a different route instead of simply having you romp through level after level bumping and roasting fools, most of which are already running away from you.
As a package of older games that have been repainted in order to garner a new audience, I’m positive that Spyro Reignited Trilogy has enough power to draw in a crowd, if not only due to its visuals, which are saturated with color, incredibly well animated, and quite simply a joy to look at, but also thanks to its ease of play. Regardless of which of the three games you play, they control the same, making them easy to jump back and forth as you want, which should make them very playable to younger gamers keen on having something fun to play. For older players who never came into contact with Spyro, I’m not 100% sure the amount of depth is enough to keep their attention for too long.
The closest comparison I could draw for these Spyro games would be the LEGO franchise. Every new game on that series plays similarly or just like the previous release, making them a no-brain call to pick up if you enjoyed playing whatever came before the newest disc you’re buying. They’re easy enough that kids can enjoy and pass around the controller between friends, or join in with parents and siblings. In that regard, Spyro isn’t as strong of an experience, given that it’s single player only, but the connection can be made between these products when it comes to approachability. Activision made the smart decision of making every single Spyro game available in the Reignited Trilogy instead of breaking them up, which instead would probably make picking them up individually a much less likely proposition, given how samey they ultimately play.
Developer Toys For Bob has done a tremendous job bringing these games to proper high definition. Character models and objects look absolutely great, in sharp, colorful, drop dead gorgeous detail, with plenty of decent to great cartoony voice acting to boot. I played these games on an HD 4K TV, and man, they look bonkers in motion. Gameplay wise, as was mentioned before, these games were already breezy twenty years ago, so don’t expect to be particularly challenged in any regard in 2019. On the other hand, if you decide to go for the platinum trophy for every one of these, there’ll be plenty to hunt for in terms of collectibles, a staple of character driven platformers from that time. It’s also worth mentioning the glaring omission of subtitles in the game, which considering its appeal to kids, should be available, as well as to facilitate hearing impaired players to enjoy the incredibly well produced cutscenes and dialogue.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy will be a blast for anyone with any nostalgia for Spyro, and for any younger players looking for a colorful platformer to have fun with, there’s definitely a lot going for this collection. Although I wasn’t personally very excited for playing this, I can certainly see its value and the amount of work that went into bringing these iconic games back to modern consoles. There’s a value for nostalgia, and if you have lacked the belief that it’s a motivating factor for selling products in this day and age, you needn’t look further than this collection in order to prove that.
