Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly [PS2]

Preview Information
After sitting in the producer spot for nearly five years now, Universal Interactive has become a full-fledged publisher with a litany of well-established titles to run with. The Spyro the Dragon series, once developed by Insomniac Studios, is now in the hands of Equinoxe (also working on Aliens: Colonial Marines), and ships to PS2 in Q4 2002. Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly is the first next-generation Spyro game for PS2 and Universal plans to keep the core gameplay elements of the series fully intact. What that means is Spyro will get the next-gen treatment in visuals, with prettier, larger, and more populated worlds, and it means that Enter the Dragonfly will expand on the notions that were inherent to Spyro: Year of the Dragon. Players will adventure out into the colorful fantasy worlds in the Spyro universe, porting to different lands, greeting a wide variety of odd and funny creatures, solving a slew of puzzles and entering into a handful of mini-games.

In Enter the Dragonflies, Spyro discovers that the natural order of his world has been drastically altered. After completing his previous adventures, he is able to enjoy the Year of the Dragon Festival, but after it ends and much to his dismay, the dragonflies have been stolen. For those who don't know, the beautiful and magical dragonflies in Spyro's world are the source of all the dragon's magic! So naturally Spyro must venture out into the world and re-capture all of the dragonflies to restore order in his land. Yes, it's a tall order, but little Spyro isn't as naive as he once was, and he's got considerable skills in his pocket after three adventures. This new adventure sounds like Spyro will spend a reasonable amount of time flying, and hopefully he'll be able to stay in the air longer than in previous games.

This time around Spyro learns some new tricks that enable him to face new challenges with a larger variety of weapons. Along with blasting enemies using his standard dragon firepower, Spyro earns new breath abilities, including ice, electricity, and the strange bubble breath attack, used specifically for solving puzzles. What makes the extra attacks so eloquent is that Spyro apparently can switch between the attacks in realtime onscreen, rather than only being restricted to one attack at a time. Going with the previous expansion of Spyro's skills and abilities, Universal looks to incorporate new vehicles to pilot as well as a slew of mini-games to compete in. All in all Spyro shows excellent potential and it should please platform-adventure fans of all ages.

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