By Leah Stone
I find now that I don’t have enough time for games, or the patience and focus needed to complete them, a problem that comes with being a Gemini, I struggle to complete anything. Plus I’m just no good at video games, plain and simple. I don’t actually remember completing any video games. Ever.
So no, I’m not a gamer. However there is one particular game that I do play, and have been playing since I was small. A game with everyone’s favourite purple dragon. Yes, I’m talking about Spyro.
I find now that I don’t have enough time for games, or the patience and focus needed to complete them, a problem that comes with being a Gemini, I struggle to complete anything. Plus I’m just no good at video games, plain and simple. I don’t actually remember completing any video games. Ever.
So no, I’m not a gamer. However there is one particular game that I do play, and have been playing since I was small. A game with everyone’s favourite purple dragon. Yes, I’m talking about Spyro.
Whenever someone mentions Spyro I instantly become nostalgic, remembering those days when I would spend hours on my Game Boy Advance as Spyro and I went on journeys catching fairies and obtaining gems, completing missions and just generally enjoying myself. Whilst so many of my friends were obsessed with Sonic, Crash Bandicoot, Mario or Pacman, my weakness was Spyro.
It all started for me with Spyro: Season of Ice. Released in 2001, a 5 year old Leah loved to join Spyro in stopping Grindor from taking fairies. He wants the fairies because he accidentally turned himself into a two-headed rhynoc with 4 headaches, and wanted their wings to make a cure. There are four seasonal realms within the game, and in each realm there are portals that lead to other realms, all the while Spyro is searching for Fairies to release and gems to collect. Being a Game Boy Advance game the graphics are not as great as what can be found now, however that doesn’t matter. There’s something about its old style that makes it even better to play, plus the game play is excellent.
The next Spyro game I bought was Spyro: Season of Flame. Released in 2002, again on Game Boy Advance, having given up on completing Season of Ice I took to this new game hoping the outcome would be different. It wasn’t. Whilst Spyro has been absent, a load of Riptocs have taken all of the fireflies from the Dragon Realms, meaning that the Dragons are unable to use their flame breath and therefore the temperature of the realms drops drastically. We lead Spyro around the realms to find the fireflies and save the Dragon Realms before the other Dragons are forced to migrate to somewhere warmer.
Next comes my most favourite Spyro game I have come to acquire over the years, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly on Playstation 2. I’m not going to deny it’s much easier to play video games on a bigger screen. However that still didn’t help me complete the game. Recently I did start a new game of Enter the Dragonfly after it has spent years untouched on my shelf. And it was this that rekindled my love for Spyro. I have learnt that it is not as difficult as I thought back when it was released in 2002, and may actually be on the verge of completing a video game for the first time ever!
In Enter the Dragonfly, Ripto returns with his two henchmen Crush and Gulp, intent on capturing young dragonflies, thus disrupting the lives of the baby dragons. However instead of capturing the dragonflies he accidentally sends them all over the realms, and it becomes Spyro’s task to find all of the dragonflies. Upon finding out that his plan backfired, Ripto kills Crush and Gulp and thus is the only Boss in the game.
In Enter the Dragonfly, Ripto returns with his two henchmen Crush and Gulp, intent on capturing young dragonflies, thus disrupting the lives of the baby dragons. However instead of capturing the dragonflies he accidentally sends them all over the realms, and it becomes Spyro’s task to find all of the dragonflies. Upon finding out that his plan backfired, Ripto kills Crush and Gulp and thus is the only Boss in the game.
The final Spyro game I have is A Hero’s Tail. Its remarkable how much the graphics
improved between the release of Enter the Dragonfly and A Hero’s tail (2004.) Although it is my least favourite of the four, it does have the highest quality visuals, but story-wise I prefer the older versions.
A Hero’s Tail introduces us to Red, a new villain in the games, an ex-Dragon Elder who had previously been banished, who places dark gems around the Dragon Realms, poisoning them, whilst sending Gnasty Gnorc (from the first Spyro game) and his followers to do his dirty work. Along the way Spyro collects both gems and Dragon eggs. The primary difference between this game and the previous Spyro games is that you can also play as Hunter, Sparks, Sgt. Byrd and Blink. Perhaps it is this that makes me like this one the least, I prefer games to be uncomplicated and would rather just have one protagonist instead of five. Plus I did rather like the original, not too basic but easy to understand, lower graphic quality and more rugged style of the previous games.
improved between the release of Enter the Dragonfly and A Hero’s tail (2004.) Although it is my least favourite of the four, it does have the highest quality visuals, but story-wise I prefer the older versions.
A Hero’s Tail introduces us to Red, a new villain in the games, an ex-Dragon Elder who had previously been banished, who places dark gems around the Dragon Realms, poisoning them, whilst sending Gnasty Gnorc (from the first Spyro game) and his followers to do his dirty work. Along the way Spyro collects both gems and Dragon eggs. The primary difference between this game and the previous Spyro games is that you can also play as Hunter, Sparks, Sgt. Byrd and Blink. Perhaps it is this that makes me like this one the least, I prefer games to be uncomplicated and would rather just have one protagonist instead of five. Plus I did rather like the original, not too basic but easy to understand, lower graphic quality and more rugged style of the previous games.
Sadly after A Hero’s Tail I didn’t buy any more Spyro games. And I’m glad I didn’t, because I wanted to preserve Spyro as I knew him as a child; a seemingly low-quality game at face value, but delve deeper and you will be surprised at how much fun it is. I didn’t want the graphics to be improved, for there to be more things to do, more people to play as, I wanted plain old Spyro. So I will continue to play the older versions, bringing back the nostalgia of my childhood, once more sitting on my bed, Game Boy in hand, or with my eyes glued to the TV screen as I misjudge a jump and send Spyro soaring over a cliff.
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