Spyro the Dragon is a platformer developed by Insomniac Games and the first in a trilogy for the PlayStation. You control the titular Spyro who can charge, jump, glide and breathe fire. Charging and breathing fire will defeat enemies and these are the only abilities you have from the start to the finish. However, enemies will get harder as they start to wear armor and attack you. Spyro also has the ability to dodge roll using the shoulder buttons. The best thing about Spyro is the openness of the game. You are placed in a hub world, with level entrances that you can tackle in any order you wish. The game encourages exploration through placing treasure gems in all the levels. Levels feel very big and the colorful cartoony graphics still hold up to this day. You can feel overwhelmed each time you enter a level but it is satisfying when you have explored every nook and cranny and obtained everything that level has to offer.
In addition to the gems you free dragons that had been turned into crystal as well as recovering dragon eggs by chasing down fast enemies. The story is simple, the antagonist, Gnasty Gnorc, has turned all the dragons except for Spyro, into crystals. Furthermore, he has transformed various treasure gems into his minions. Spyro must travel the various worlds in order to defeat all his henchmen, free all the dragons, collect all the treasures and finally defeat Gnasty. Luckily, Spyro can take more than one hit. He is joined by Sprax, a dragonfly. Spyro can be hit up to four times, and Sparx changes color to depict how much health Spyro has left. He can recover health by eating butterflies.
Enemies respawn if you exit and return to each level, but instead of dropping treasure gems after Spyro defeats them, they drop a clear gem instead. Collect enough of these gems and Spyro gains an additional life. While the game has voice acting, a lot of the dialogue and the tone are very cheesy. You get a piece of dialogue for every dragon you release and their dialogue can be quite humorous at times. Although the frequency of the ones that just say "thank you for releasing me" is a bit lazy. While the game supports the analogue stick, the camera can only be controlled using the R2 and L2 buttons which is a shame. You can't even invert the camera controls either. Still, the camera isn't bad and the game controls very well.
Even though all the moves you had access to in the beginning of the game is all you'll ever have, the game never gets boring. This is because the level design is very good, it continually presents you with new things in each world from supercharges, to hidden areas, to different styles of enemies. Each level is refreshing and you always look forward to what the game has to offer next. The only slight annoyance in the game is how if you die in the final boss you have to restart all over again. While you get faster each time you redo it, it's frustrating when you get to the last stage and accidentally drop to your death and then having to repeat what you have already passed is always not ideal. Overall, Spyro the Dragon is an awesome platformer that still holds up to this very day. The colorful graphics, the clever level design and the multitude of things to collect is a lot of fun and addictive.
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