Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

[INDEX PAGE]

Previous rants:

Capcom and Used Games
PSN Outage
E3 2011 (Part 2)
E3 2011 (Part 1)
Portal 2, Valve and the fanbase
--------------------
This is a subject I've wanted to rant about but there were some things that stopped me from covering the Spyro franchise. As a kid who grew up with the Playstation, Spyro is of course one of many games I've played. Well, to be honest it was only Spyro 2 and 3. I didn't even have the first Spyro game and never even finished Spyro 3. I was unfortunate enough to have a pirated copy of Spyro 3 and that game resets your save when you face the final boss (similar to Earthbound where it deletes your save when you confront the last battle). That was a total blow for me and ever since I've never wanted to touch a pirated copy of a game with a ten foot pole.

I never owned the first Spyro game on the PS1 back then but I keep meaning to get either on PSN or getting a copy on eBay someday. With so many games to play you lose track on things but this game should be high up on my priority list. This leaves with Spyro 2 and I actually did 100% on this game. It was the one Spyro game that I got most fun out of and I only wish to re-experience it whenever the hell I actually play Spyro 1.

Of course, after Spyro 3, Insomniac Games and people have been saying Spyro has never been the same since or how the only good Spyro games were the ones by Insomniac. You're probably guessing I'm going to make a rant on how things have gone to shit ever since Insomniac dropped Spyro to make way for Ratchet & Clank but you know what, I'm not. I have absolutely nothing to say about post-Insomniac Spyro nor Ratchet & Clank, although I was hoping to pick up the free game on PSN which I left too late. Still, even if everyone else says post-Insomniac Spyro sucks, how do I know it's bad? Same goes for the Crash Bandicoot games after Naughty Dog handed the rights over except for Crash Bash (I wasn't highly impressed like I was with the other games). I'll also apply the same thing for Final Fantasy XIII which I still need to play. Sure, many have said the game is bad and have stated why but I'll only know if it's bad once I find a good time to play and if I happen to enjoy the game, that's too bad. Not to say I will enjoy it, though since the outcome can go either way.

What I will rant on regarding Spyro is the upcoming game Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. The first thing that will come to mind if you're aware of this is the new appearance of Spyro. I believe I speak for everyone here by saying Spyro looks fucking ugly. He doesn't look like the adorable dragon from the original games, he looks like a purple goblin with wings. His face certainly suggests that. Maybe it's not a beauty contest for video game characters but there's a reason why mascots like Sonic, Crash Bandicoot and even Spyro have (or had) their own time under the sun and they were appealing to the younger audience at the time. I mean, would Sonic even be a success if this was his appearance for the Mega Drive games (hideous looking animation and disturbing yet it's still hilarious):

The other issue gamers have with the new Spyro game is the use of the action figures and how it seems to be a money grabbing technique from Activision. Yes, we've heard Activision's ways of milking their franchises and even if they're doing it to Spyro now, this idea could have been good. To be fair, if they did a similar idea for the original Spyro games and the interaction with the action figures and the video games worked well, this is something I would have eaten up so fast and probably have my parents denying to get all the toys for me. There are 32 figures in total and 29 of them are sold separately (I assume they have set releases for a batch of them every so often). They're supposedly $10 each and all of that would come to $290 just to get all the toys. It's understandable why the use of toys is getting criticised for being a milk factor but hey, at least the money isn't going towards a virtual hat. The main issue might be a biased one but the problem is the appearance they've given Spyro. It's not an adorable looking dragon as he should be and kids deserve a lot better than this.

Of course, with Spyro's new appearance and the feature using action figures to enchance the video game, there's been a backlash over the new turn for Spyro. The majority of them are of course fans who enjoyed the original games. A lot of us have the right to say why the change of direction for Spyro is a bad turn but some apparently went too far. Some were so enraged and stupid that they felt they had to send death threats to Activision and the developers who are working on this game. To those who actually said they would kill the companies over this game, YOU ARE FUCKING IDIOTS! Did any of those morons stop and realise for one second that they were taking on Activision, one of the richest (maybe THE richest) gaming companies around and with all the money Bobby Kotick is swimming in, he'd probably have enough money to get lawyers down their asses? If anyone's arrested over death threats towards a multi-billionaire company (even though that's highly unlikely considering how little seems to have been done against cyber terrorism), no sympathy should be given out.

In conclusion, Spyro had his golden days and they were over and done with ages ago. Not much can be said about the later games due to not playing them but the upcoming Spyro game is not for the better judging by Spyro's goblin-like appearance and the expensive set of toys to collect them all. The kids who are unfortunate enough to experience Spyro in a hideous form and actually want to collect all the figures better save up their pocket money. Sadly, Spyro doesn't seem to be coming back to his true form and seem to be done just like Crash... Wait, they haven't done any major titles for Crash for a few years now. What do they have in store for him next?