Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly

Nov 18, 2002

While it's brand new to GameCube, Spyro the Dragon games is a series that's been well established on the PlayStation. So, part of publisher Universal Interactive's thinking is to perhaps bring Spyro the Dragon: Enter the Dragonfly to a whole new audience. This is a noble effort, but Enter the Dragonfly is nearly identical in every manner possible to its predecessors. It's got cute, likeable Spyro, the levels are filled with easy-to-collect gems, enemies and enough space to create a feeling of exploration. Additionally, it's filled with lots of relatively clever mini-games to steal your valuable time. And since nothing was ever dislikeable about Spyro, these are all good things.

However, much like Universal's Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex, Enter the Dragonfly is essentially a replica game, a side step or a lateral move rather than a pace forward. Even if you haven't played the series before, the gameplay is shows itself to be rooted in the years past. It must also face up to the likes of other popular franchises such as Nintendo's Super Mario Sunshine, which is a platformer that continues to grow in complexity.

If you've played Spryo before and want more of the same, Enter the Dragonfly is suitable. However, if you're looking for something more sophisticated, complex and representative of a next-generation platformer like Mario, you're barking up the wrong tree. As well, it should be of concern to you if you're thinking of picking up the GameCube version, because the visuals are plagued with an highly erratic framerate. This is not the debut Spyro deserved on a Nintendo platform.

The Facts

Spyro's first appearance on a Nintendo home console
Dynamic dragon-breath lets you spray foes with fire, ice, electricity, and even bubbles
Over 25 huge 3D levels for Spyro to explore
Unique weather effects such as tornadoes, monsoons, snow, and rainbows diversify environments
Classic Spyro gameplay offers up platform jumping, numerous obstacles, item collection, and mini-games
Search for over 100 dragonflies and gems
Foil the evil Ripto's plans by saving the dragonflies and restoring order to the Dragon Realms
Soar through worlds number of vehicles including tanks, UFOs, and planes
No progressive scan support
No Dolby Pro Logic II support

Gameplay If you haven't played any of the three Spyro the Dragon games on PlayStation, then you have missed one of the more charming, classy and well-rounded platformers. Originally designed and created by Insomniac Games, the Spyro series brought new little essentials to platform games, including a looser, more free-roaming camera, gems that could be magnetically collected and a substantial and likeable supporting cast of characters. The result was an incredibly likeable franchise platformer that spanned three games on the PlayStation and sold millions of copies.

Now that Universal Interactive has taken full control of both the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon series, the current-generation versions of these series have maintained the games, more or less, right in line with the previous ones. That is to say, very little has changed; very little is new. If you have played the previous titles, you have essentially played this one, too. If you haven't, well you're probably a few years too late to be charmed by the gameplay style, because it's been done before.

Spryo: Enter the Dragonfly is something you can pick up and play for a while, set down for days or even weeks, return to, and continue playing. You might say it is like peanut butter and jelly or grilled cheese sandwiches; it's the comfort food of videogames. You won't be shocked or surprised by any of it, but it's good fun if you just need something light and easy to play.

The story is quite generic. After having stolen dragon eggs, elder dragons, and baby dragons in previous versions, evil forces have now kidnapped the new generation of dragonfly companions that would otherwise guide the youth of the dragon race. Thus, it's up to the ever-young Spyro and Sparx to re-capture them and to restore order to the dragon world. In doing so, you explore nine areas, each packed with collectible gems and dragonflies. Each world contains 10 dragonflies, and the approximate value of 600-900 gems (some gems are worth more than others). The new worlds, like before, are full 3D arenas, branching into smaller areas and catapulting Spyro into a variety of sub-worlds. They're all quite expansive, including tropical islands, Japanese dojos, icy plains, country farms (complete with farmers and flying saucers), and more.

This new iteration is really a lot like the previous version, Spyro: Year of the Dragon, with a few minimal additions that amass the little dragon's repertoire and expand his expertise driving vehicles. The biggest new features to the series come in the form of a slew of inventive mini-games, a solid garage of vehicles to pilot, the ability to climb specific walls, and new forms of dragon breath. The kinds of additions made in Enter the Dragonfly are essentially little ones. Spyro can now pilot tanks, planes, UFOs and a vehicle called the Mantaray; he can participate in numerous races, and he even gets to play a little music, Simon Says style.

The collection bit of Enter the Dragonfly is not terribly annoying, but it does take precedence. The only slightly interesting wrinkle, which involves collecting dragonflies (each with its own name), is that you have to, um...catch them all. Yes, it's a little Pokemon-ish. You also collect different kinds of breath, which add a little bit of newness to an otherwise familiar palette. You get flame breath, and earn bubble breath, with which to capture dragonflies, ice breath, to freeze things, and electric breath, with which to shock enemies. Each performs best on the level it's designed for (with the exception of bubble breath, which is solely for capturing dragonflies). Spyro can also now protect himself with a deflect ability, and can perform similar moves from previous games, such as gliding, head bashing and hovering. Climbing, however, is new. When Spyro sees a wall with ladder likes lines on it he can climb it. And those familiar magic spirals are back again, enabling Spyro to return to higher platforms by simply stepping into them.

Level-design wise, you'll experience nothing new. There is a hub section, gates to open up after having collected enough dragonflies, and more arenas and sub-worlds to explore, all opened up when you have collected enough dragonflies. With regard to characters, numerous pals from Spyro's past have returned, including MoneyBags, Hunter, Zoe, Bianca and Sparx.

Overall, it's a pretty predictable experience that is probably better suited for the younger audience. The kind of players that will not recognize how awful and horrible the framerate is, for example.

Graphics Enter the Dragonfly looks okay in the screenshots, but it's really nothing too special. The focus of the work has probably gone into modeling and animating Spryo, who is composed of 5,000 polygons and wobbles around like the tubby dragon he is. The rest of the world is vivid, yet dissatisfying and average with texture work.

Spyro zooms around with excellent motions, and the particle effects, as always, create a magical, Fourth of July-style feeling. Stalks of corn sway back and forth as do tall grassy patches when Spyro moves through them, and there's a rich fantasy-style look to the worlds. Flowers, bushes and trees all look substantial. The icy levels show off reflective surfaces, and the underwater locales are rich with ornaments, too.

However, all this work is for naught. The framerate is simply terrifying. It's like a manic-depressive hopped up on speed and heroine; it's totally volatile, often shifting to well below 30 fps. Frankly, we don't know how such a bad framerate was achieved, but if this is the kind of sacrifice that ported titles must see, it's really not worth it. As Spyro's debut on GameCube, he deserved to walk the red carpet. Instead, he got shafted.

Sound Perhaps one of the most enjoyable aspects of Universal's game is the music. As with the previous games, the music has been a big plus, with the first two games featuring former Police drummer Stewart Copeland. Here, the musical scores seem to continue the trend of lush musical landscapes, but this time, the themes tend to flow with mellower flavors. The music is actually soothing, and thought you listen to it for hours on end, the repetition isn't really agitating. The sound effects are decent, too, as are the voice actors. All of the characters are cartoony is sound, but they're cute, goofy and enjoyable to hear.

Pretty respectable sound work that suffices, but it's not attempting to be an aural dream come true. No Dolby Pro Logic II.