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Spyro the Dragon Game Review

Spyro the Dragon is a 1998 platform game developed by Insomniac Games for the PlayStation. It’s one of the best PS1 games and one of the greatest platformers of its era.

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“Thank you for releasing me!“

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This game was made with the intent to bring family audiences to the PS1, a console that until that point was overly adult-oriented in its output. It worked and it was a big seller. It also received very good reviews from critics. But I would counter that this game is quite an underrated gem given that it’s simply amazing and not often mentioned when discussing the platformer genre. It really deserves more love.

Spyro the Dragon is a 3D platformer where you play the titular purple dragon. He is a very young dragon who has such a fun, feisty voice and that typically too cool for school personality that was quite the rage for mascots back in the nineties. He is adorable throughout. I just wished that the plot were stronger.

Yes, this game has a story, but it’s too slight and underdeveloped when in reality it had a lot of potential as the basic premise is so good. You have to save these dragons that have all been turned to stone. Gnasty Gnorc did this out of spite because they were making fun of him, which was such a silly idea for a story that I found to be quite amusing. But how Spyro himself factors into all of this is never explained and the whole world felt underdeveloped, which was disappointing as there was a clear opportunity here for more.

Spyro the Dragon is an absolute treat for fans of collectables such as myself. I love trying to collect everything there is to gather in a single game to reach that elusive 100 percent and this is one of the best such experiences. You have to rescue these dragons that are turned to stone and each level has a couple of these dragons. But you also can collect gems that are scattered throughout levels and often in very secluded places.

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There are also dragon eggs to be obtained and those are guarded by these odd-looking thieves who are actually very fast and would try to escape when you stumble upon them. Catching them properly at times required very fast movements and even a couple of well-placed jumps. This was a surprisingly demanding part of the game and one of the best.

There are six worlds and each world has a handful of levels. One of those levels includes a boss fight, which isn’t really a boss fight per say, but more so a chase. You need to chase and catch most of the main bosses and some of those could be quite tricky. The last boss was especially difficult as you need to chase him on these very narrow paths from which you can easily fall down if not careful. This is a rare level that was rather difficult in a game that is overly easy and leisurely to go through.

And that brings me those flight stages. Each world has one of these levels and they are by far the hardest parts of this entire game and the only ones that gave me headache. Two of these were especially difficult to properly beat and it took me almost a third of my entire playthrough to just beat these two levels. You have to pass through rings or gates and this is the easier part, but the harder thing to do is to destroy chests or certain objects and that required perfect timing and precision. These levels are the most difficult because they make you think fast – calculating what is the best order to go through all of these rings and objects is crucial.

There is also a home world in each world and this is where all levels are situated inside portals. Flight levels are very well hidden and some of them it took me quite a while to find. When you are ready to go to the next world, you talk to the balloonist and he will take you there in a hot air balloon. I loved this element that made the game feel even more adventurous and charming.

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By far the best part of the game is collecting these gemstones. They are multicolored and gorgeous to look at. Finding every single one of them was so fulfilling for my OCD brain. Some of them are inside enemies that you have to kill, some are in treasure chests and others are in breakable boxes. Some even require blasting with dynamite or hitting them with your head while in full charge or destroying them with your powered-up fire breath. Most levels would have a handful of gems in the most hidden, secluded or obstructed sections of the area possible and trying to find them by observing or traveling through the whole level made this game such a joy that feels like a real adventure.

So yes, Spyro is very much an exploration and adventure game first and foremost. There is combat involved, but very little in fact. And I loved that about this game as it made it feel more universally appealing, pleasingly leisurely and immensely charming. You destroy enemies either by breathing fire at them or by ramming at them with your head. Both of these attacks worked for me and I used them interchangeably. Some enemies even have to be strictly killed with one of the two moves – the ones with armor have to be rammed while the larger ones have to be neutralized with fire. This distinction made the gameplay more varied.

Sparx the dragonfly accompanies you at all times. Its color corresponds to your general health, which was a neat idea that worked. The dragons giving you advice on the game after you free them was another very neat idea that cleverly eliminated the use of annoying tutorials. For the most part the game is very forgiving – there is no real game over, the enemies are mostly on the easier side of things, and the only real obstacles are of the platforming variety instead. I would have appreciated that falling in water would not kill you off almost instantly, but that is a small nitpick.

Spyro can also use his wings to glide in midair, letting him travel further distances in the air and access areas otherwise unreachable via a regular jump. This is gliding rather than actual flying, which means that you first need to climb the tallest part of each level if you want to successfully glide from one big cliff to another. I adored this traversal as it was intuitive, adventurous and just a whole lot of fun. The game felt extremely open-ended and varied in its level design, impressively so for the time.

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What I did not love was the charge. It worked well for the enemies, but breaking certain boxes with the charged move was more difficult. The hardest part, however, was traveling via this charge. You see, certain areas require you to charge your way on these boost pads and then jump to another pad and to another until you reach your destination. These sections were by far the toughest for me personally as they weren’t all that intuitive and were just a pain to get through. This was the only mechanic that I did not love and that gave me a headache.

Spyro the Dragon aged very well in terms of its audiovisuals. Graphically, you can see that it is obviously polygonal and rough around the edges, but its unpolished look was actually quite charming to me. The character designs were fabulous and couple those goofy-looking characters with very colorful interiors and natural surroundings and you’ve got a game that very much resembled a cartoon in the best way possible.

But I have to talk about that soundtrack. This is easily one of the best-sounding games of its era. The sound design is terrific with various sounds that were pleasantly over-the-top and cartoony, but the score is just amazing. So many themes here were instantly memorable, atmospheric and cozy, accompanying their worlds beautifully. It sounds as great as it does because it was composed by none other than Stewart Copeland from The Police himself.

This platformer controls surprisingly well for the time, though with some caveats. Again, how charging worked was clumsy and overly complicated. But other than that, jumping, gliding and running around worked well. The camera was also unexpectedly solid. Again, there were moments when it wouldn’t listen to me, but more often than not it followed my movements competently and I was able to see everything that I was supposed to see. This just goes to show that Sega did not know what they were doing as this game was released the same year as ‘Sonic Adventure’ and the camera was infinitely better here.

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Spyro is quite lengthy for a 1998 game and it features excellent world building. Of the six worlds, the first one was charming but too easy, the second one was a bit forgettable and the last one was overly short and boss-heavy. Dream Weavers and Beast Makers were both exceptional and so memorable while my favorite has to be Magic Crafters as it had the most unique enemies and the most gorgeous locations. The level design is consistently incredible in this game that is unlike anything else in the platforming genre. Being open world and yet having closed levels was a brilliant choice as was the collectible nature to the gameplay experience. The main loop of collecting chests, beating up enemies and gliding your way to reach specially hidden items was just so good that I really wish more games took notice of this approach.