#I just think it’s so fun how my artstyle completely changed depending on the medium I use. I think it’s so funky

[whump-it-like-its-hot]

Wanted to try bringing the forest creature version of my little guy Knut to life :) Oh the things a long distance bus ride are good for… (Spoiler alert, not much except eating and drawing)

[ladala99]

Spyro Reignited Countdown - The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon (Console)

I can’t help but have mixed feelings about this game. One one hand, I love it. Of the Legend of Spyro games, this is, by far, the one I’ve put the most playtime into. I legitimately have fun with this game, well beyond the fun I have with the first two games in the series.

But on the other hand, it doesn’t close the story in a satisfactory way. It’s like reading the first two books of a trilogy by one author, and then reading the last as bad fanfiction but illustrated by a talented artist. It’s good, but it’s not the end you were hoping for.

And I also have to keep in mind the way I play: with infinite health and mana cheats on, and the game language set to one I don’t understand very well. This way, it’s a great stress-relief game, and the sub-par voice acting doesn’t bother me.

Gameplay

With the game developer swap, the gameplay changed drastically. It’s still an action game, and you still have a similar moveset, but the way the game plays is completely different. I’ve never played God of War, but I’ve heard this is what this game is most similar to.

The camera is now a lot less movable, enemies act very different, and I haven’t played enough Action games to really describe the differences. Melee feels a lot less powerful, but at the same time, the elemental abilities don’t feel very powerful either. You have all sorts of melee combos, but honestly I hardly used more than the basic attacking and grab attacks depending on the enemy. Like, grab if you can, and if you can’t get behind it and attack.

The default difficulty is between A New Beginning and The Eternal Night, meaning it hits a good medium. I think, anyway. As stated before, I don’t really play it the way it’s supposed to be played.

I also can’t judge the control differences, because I switched consoles from PS2 to Wii for this game. Motion controls make this really good for stress-relief, as instead of button-mashing, you punch the air really quickly. And there’s a lot of button-mashing in this game.

Oh yeah, and this game has cutscenes where you have to press certain buttons at specific times to move on. I really don’t understand the appeal of this type of gameplay. This is the only game I own to have that feature, iirc.

Additional Playable Character

You actually get one this time: Cynder! She plays exactly like Spyro except with different elements, though. Still, it does essentially add a second health bar, mana meter, and set of abilities if you’re playing single-player, and really shines when playing two-player.

Collectables

Health and mana upgrades return, and are much easier to find this time around. This time, they’re fairly similar looking to gem clusters, but are more hidden. Each does not give a straight upgrade, rather requiring you to find multiples of them, and Spyro and Cynder each take a different amount to upgrade their abilities: with Spyro upgrading health more often, and Cynder upgrading Mana.

The game also considers Spirit Gems, the upgrade-based gem-cluster, to be collectables. These are the easiest to find and they’re fairly numerous. Not as numerous as gems in the Classic titles for sure, but more numerous than any other collectable.

Armor is a new feature in this game. Each piece is fit to a specific dragon and gives a unique bonus to them. Collect all three pieces in a set, and you get a special ability, some of which are very powerful. These tend to be in their own unique paths and secret areas, but aren’t as difficult to find as the health and mana upgrades.

And unlike The Eternal Night, you can return to levels you completed at any point. Overall, collectables are very well-done in this game. They’re fun to find, rewarding if you do, but still aren’t the game’s focus. And that’s okay.

Breath Abilities

Spyro and Cynder both have four abilities each, all available from the very beginning. They’re all used not only in combat but also for various small puzzles.

Spyro’s Fire breath is as staightforward as it gets. Upgrades do, like previous games, send enemies running, though. The secondary is Comet Dash again, establishing it as a standard. It can burn down vines to reveal new paths.

Spyro’s Lightning Breath will chain between multiple enemies if they’re close enough to one another, and will also paralyze them. It doesn’t do much damage, though. The secondary creates a large ball of electricity that I hardly ever used. For puzzles, it powers up gates, keeping doors open for a limited amount of time.

Spyro’s Ice Breath has a icicle shard attack that slows down opponents. I literally don’t remember using the secondary at all, nor if there are any puzzles that require it.

Spyro’s Earth Breath I only remember the attack where you essentially turn into a boulder. I don’t think I ever used it in combat, and that boulder attack is used a couple of times to smash down walls and through a floor.

Cynder’s Poison attack is the most straightforward, sending globs of acid at opponents and causing lasting damage. I don’t recall the secondary attack It’s used on the same vines as Spyro’s Fire breath.

Cynders’s Wind is hardly useful in combat, moving opponents around rather than directly damaging them. The secondary whirlwind will knock enemies into one another, though, causing damage and racking up huge hit combos. It’s used to blow open some doors.

Cynder’s Fear is my favorite. It does a pulsing attack that stuns opponents. The secondary throws out balls of energy that do massive damage and stun opponents. For puzzles, there’s a couple of times you need to scream at some tuning forks to activate some bridges for some reason.

Cynder’s Shadow is also neat. Its secondary is a cloud of darkness that makes opponents target one another. The primary is the Shadow Dash, where you melt into a shadow and attack opponents when you come back up. It’s used for puzzles a lot, where you turn into a shadow to go underneath gates then activate a switch on the other side to let Spyro in.

Overall, some pretty neat variety, but the fact that mana drains so quickly when not using cheats makes them much less useful and hard to fully explore. I honestly just use Fire and Fear 90% of the time.

Bosses

Have some neat gimmicks. Generally, you’re just fighting something a lot bigger than you, going through the stage while it attacks you, or in the case of the Destroyer, the whole level is the boss.

Then there’s Malefor, where you need to dodge attacks and slowly move towards him to get your own attacks in before he runs off.

These bosses have a very different feel from previous games, but it’s not a bad thing. They’re generally legitimately fun to fight.

Levels

They’re beautiful. Okay, maybe I’m just referring to Twilight Woods, Valley of Avalar, Burning Lands, and Floating Islands. Still, that’s a good number of them. I just love flying around them.

Every level has various secrets, and the main level is easy to follow. Sometimes the camera does tell you exactly what to do, but it’s generally necessary since something that was not interactable before becomes interactable.

The only one I dislike is Dragon City, but that’s pretty much because it’s all combat. Different levels have different focuses, and it does mean that there’s a lot of variety, as far as the core gameplay can have variety.

Since you can fly freely now, there’s really not much in the way of platforming. There’s a little, and in general it’s forced by you carrying something heavy, invisible walls, and strong gusts of wind. It works well enough, but is a little strange at times because why can’t you just fly higher?

Story

Malefor has returned while Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx were frozen in time. Under orders, some Grublins come and break them out, attempting to feed them to the Golem. This fails, and Hunter shows them the way out. The rest of the game involves learning about how Malefor intends to destroy the world (Awakening the Destroyer who walks around the world and breaks it apart at the end), trying to intercept and stop it, and eventually facing Malefor himself. Along the way, Sparx gets abandoned and Ignitus dies, both to the stupidest of reasons.

The voice acting is horrible in this game as well. I don’t even know how they messed it up, since it’s the same actors for the most part. But a lot of the time it’s just so lifeless and emotionless, especially on the part of Cynder. And even if, in the case of Ignitus, the acting is fine, the movements of the characters just don’t work.

And then there’s the tragedy of Volteer being super silent. What’s with walking dictionaries in the Spyro series going dumb?

Overall, this is not the finale The Legend of Spyro deserved. At least on the story side of things. And since that’s my favorite part of The Legend of Spyro, it’s a big shame.

Unique in the Series?

Oh boy is it. It’s the only Spyro game with free-flight and focus on two-character gameplay. These two things alone define this game’s gameplay, so it makes this game completely unique from the rest.

The artstyle is also unique to this game, with these character designs never returning. Which isn’t that bad, since they were weird. Especially Ignitus. The only character that improved from previous (Legend, anyway) titles is Sparx. The cheetahs weren’t bad, either. But the dragons are just no.

So yes, but it’s not too bad that it’s unique. Spyro’s so much about gliding, so yeah.

Conclusion

I have mixed feelings about this game. It’s good on its own, but it isn’t a satisfactory conclusion to The Legend of Spyro, and of course it’s still extremely different from the Classics.

Still, I love the game itself. I might be playing it completely wrong, but the way I play it, I love it. I’m glad it exists, even though I’m sad at the nonexistance of The Darkest Hour (Krome’s name for the third Legend of Spyro title).