Spyro: Shadow Legacy [DS]

A lot of the engine issues can probably be attributed to an overambitious story that revolves around two versions of the same world. The adventure and most of the puzzles require Spyro to constantly leap back and forth between the real world and a shadow version of the same area in order to solve puzzles and earn experience. Because players swap between these realms on-the-fly, the game has to retain two versions of the area in the limited memory of the Nintendo DS system. The engine is clearly being overtaxed.

But this is only part of the problem. The game's scripting is horrible, with sloppy trigger points that interrupt the action at the most awkward of moments. The button mapping wasn't thought out very well, either; the X button is used for opening doors, swapping between realms, and attacking enemies, so there will be times where players will activate a realm swap or a trigger point while trying to take out an enemy.

The secondary portion of the screen is used for inventory display and selection, so it's utilized modestly for most of the game. But then the team decide to also use it for some clearly unnecessary character and drawing recognition for specific tasks. Want to teleport to another part of the map? Draw a triangle to pull up the map. Need to move an item out of the way? Jot down an equals sign. It's a control element that's completely unnecessary and draws too much attention to itself as a "what are we going to do with the touchscreen?" moment in the design pitch. Even if the development team didn't intend it to, Spyro: Shadow Legacy screams "B title" all the way through.

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