I mean, I could play them for hours and hours, even after I had beaten them time and time again. I still could. That's because the original games were chock-full of side missions, minigames, and other hidden areas to explore and things to collect and what-not. The real challenge wasn't beating the bosses but completing the rest of the game to 100%, and experiencing the whole world the developers had created. So this weekend I had that itch to re-live some of that and maybe find some of those gems and dragon eggs I could never find. I didn't find the originals, though I'm pretty sure there is one more place I didn't look which might still deal in original PS games, so instead I got a hold of a copy of Spyro: A New Beginning.
This sixth Spyro adventure is a reboot to the franchise, made by Sierra Games now instead of Insomniac, and is intended as a prequel to the first and a reinvention of the character. Great, I thought, back to the basics, back to the original dragon universe that I loved, from which the series had strayed so far after the first game. And from the look of the graphics, music, and voice talent (Elijah Wood, David Spade, Gary Oldman), it looks like they've not only updated the series to fit the new platform, but also an older, darker gaming audience. It's even got a decent enough story (read: backstory) for the character and sets you up for the chance to set things right in the dragon world, after some evil something has taken it over and imprisoned the dragon guardians, whom you have to rescue, much like in the first game. All this looks and sounds very good until you start playing.
Oh no, they've changed the controls. Why would they do that? This franchise is six games strong and you're changing the controls? Add new powers, sure, but work them into the existing framework the gamer is accustomed to. This is all backwards. Which brings me to my next point: Sparx. Sparx is a little dragon fly who follows you around, and in the original series, serves as your shield/health meter (he takes a certain number of hits for you, changing colors each time until he disappears, at which point you will be dead in one hit), and also assists in picking up gems and what-not as you walk around so you don't have to walk directly on top of every one. Sparx doesn't do anything in this game. Nothing. It's just David Spade following you around and saying things that don't help.Why am I so mad about all this? Because at this point, we're not even playing with the same characters, which are the only part of this franchise that have remained consistent. No matter what adventure Spyro faced, and the rules around him changed, at least we knew what was going on with Spyro himself.
They've also changed the fighting sequences, in what I can only assume is an attempt to grow the game up. But this game doesn't need to grow up, and neither do I. Now you have a true health bar in the corner, accompanied by a bar showing your breath power (more on that later). And as you approach an enemy, their own health meter appears in the opposite corner. In the old games, it took x number of hits to kill an enemy (and you), but here you just fight them until they die. I don't have any specific problem with that. What I have a problem with is how you kill things. Back to the breath meter. As you free the guardian dragons, they each teach you a new breath type (fire, ice, electricity, and earth), and there's a little training session between each level to master them. There are slight differences; ice temporarily freezes the foe, electricity lets you pick them up and sling them, (which comes in handy against big enemies on cliffs), but the problem is they all do basically the same thing -- hurt the enemies, which are mostly variations on the size and color of this baboon fellow, but are all the same.
In the old games, and really in all good games, the whole point of having multiple means of attack is that certain ones don't hurt certain enemies, i.e. if an enemy has fire-proof armor, you had to ram him instead. Not so in A New Beginning, where you can basically kill any enemy with any of your attacks, which totally defeats the purpose of having to learn all these different moves. It also defeats the purpose of having all these different kinds of enemies. In any good game, when a new enemy is introduced, you should have to think about how to kill this new and more impressive threat. Instead, it's just a matter of more or less button-mashing depending on how big its health bar is. Yes, this includes the bosses. There are also special attacks and combos to use, but this lends itself to eventual button-mashing in a confused melee.
Speaking of confusing, there are some crystal things you get after killing enemies and breaking open pots and rocks and stuff. The different colors tell you what they do - replenish health, breath power, or give you the opportunity to upgrade your breath strength. I can deal with that. But it doesn't count them or keep track. So it's not something that you're trying to recover all of, like the gems or eggs in the first two games, nor is there any specific number or price for each power-up or upgrade. And if your health is full, then the health crystals don't do anything - I thought maybe you could increase your health or breath meters, and therefore fill up more and more, but no. It's all very static and arbitrary, and only furthers the phoned-in feel of the game.
But none of that still is my biggest problem with A New Beginning. It's a decent game on its own merits, and for the right audience. But it isn't Spyro. And my biggest problem with this game isn't the health bar or the fighting or the different powers and controls. It's linear. This whole game takes place in tunnel-vision, and much like the oldest Mario and Sonic platformers, the only way to go is forward. Sure, the graphics are in 3-D, but the game isn't. You can't do the one thing everyone loved so much about the original Spyro games, and that's walk around and explore a 3-Dimensional universe. Instead, it ends up playing surprisingly like Rygar, another short, simple, and oddly satisfying smash-em-up linear platformer. And besides all that, it's incredibly short; plays through easily in one sitting. It left me wanting more only because you just learn some of the new powers in time to beat the last boss, and then the game is over. If they went through all that programming, there could have at least been some more levels or some different type enemies.
To sum it all up, I think the main problem in this game is that they pulled a total about-face on the Spyro formula. It was always a simple character - you could breath fire and charge with your horns and glide a short distance - that's it, but you had an incredibly vast and complex world to explore, and you had to figure out how to find, beat, and do everything with the little baby dragon. That was the point. This game started the trend of Grand Theft Auto, Gun, and the like, in which you have any number of worlds, missions, and minigames to do, that don't all lead directly to beating the final boss, but to completing the game to your satisfaction. You could go back and forth -- you had to, after you learned how to open that door back in the second world, and do whatever was behind it, or whatever. Half of the fun was looking at your game completion stats and seeing what you've missed and going to get it. And here they've reversed it. You have a more complicated character, with health bars and all these different powers and breath types and special moves -- all of which are ultimately indistinguishable in combat, and yet you have extremely short, simple, linear levels to complete - levels that don't require you to do anything different from the last except ram the occasional switch. And there's nothing to go back and find or finish once you get through a level, which is what always made Spyro so much fun and provided hours and hours of replay value.
Let me repeat: Simple character + complex world = good, timeless, hours of replay. Complex character + simple world = weak and pointless, zero replay value. Damnit, I'm gonna go find the originals cause now I made myself want to play them even more.
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