Spyro Reignited is a breath of fresh air for me, as it not only brings back a beloved game series from many gamers' childhood years, but it Spyro Reignited is a breath of fresh air for me, as it not only brings back a beloved game series from many gamers' childhood years, but it also lovingly recreates the Dragon Worlds with the added details that our childhood imaginations previously had to fill in due to the limitations of the Playstation 1's hardware. While not a 100% 1-for-1 recreation, due to the creative liberties taken to make the game look and feel a little more modern, it still feels like you remember if you grew up with these games. If you want to play the games with a more classic approach to the controls, including the non-analog camera controls of the PS1 originals, you can do that via the options menu. Otherwise, the controls feel like they should if they were modernized, with a few interesting tweaks made for comfort. With the Reignited controls, the R2 button now serves as a secondary button for your fire breath, so you only have to focus on X and Square face buttons if you really want. Another interesting change is now all 3 titles have the roll move, which was previously only in the original Spyro the Dragon, accessible with the L1 and R1 buttons. Sadly, this doesn't translate to the hover, and ability that would have made some of the more tricky jumps of the original game a little less teeth grinding, as it remains a part of just Ripto's Rage and Year of the Dragon. It sometimes feels as though the game's gliding physics were made more for the second and third entries, as there are times when the game expects a little too much precision from your glides in the first game. It's nothing game breaking, but it does mean you might fall into death pits in the first game a little more than you would like.



A lacking element of the game is additional content, as there isn't really anything new in the game. While that may seem like a great thing to the more die-hard OG Spyro fans, it may be off putting to newer fans who expect a little more. There are no unlockable skins, or any content that was previously region exclusive, such as the Dragonfly Eggs from the Japanese versions of Spyro 1 and 2, which required the Pocketstation. It would have been nice to see that content, even if all it did was

effectively unlock skins for Sparx in those games, they could have unlocked extra skins for both Spyro and Sparx. Unlike Crash's recent N.Sane Trilogy, Spyro lacks an optional secondary playable skin. Of course, there are color changing cheat codes that were carried over from the PS1 games, so you can still play as a red Spyro and pretend it's Flame if you so desire (though do note that there are a few codes that don't work as of present). The only addition you'll find is that now Spyro 1 has Skill Points, though one has to wonder what the point is when the game has Trophy support that serves a similar function.



The graphics are gorgeous to look at, with the added detail to all of the previously flat, textured environments, and the more easily decipherable enemies that you probably didn't realize what they were meant to be as a child. The added animations to Spyro make him feel more alive, bouncy, and expressive. The added details, such as making each of the Dragons (barring two) look visibly distinctive from one another really adds more character to the universe that the series lives in. There are a few design decisions, in terms of the graphics, that you may find questionable if you're super familiar with the originals, but otherwise it's a huge step up from the extremely dated (if still charming) PS1 graphics.



Voice acting wise, the game is more dynamic than the originals, with Tom Kenny adding a youthful playfulness to the character he first voiced nearly 20 years ago. Some may miss the old voices, and some of the line delivery doesn't land as well as the original (a personal example being Agent 9's deliver of the lines he says when you enter his level lacking a little bit of the craziness of the original voice's delivery), but for the most part, all of the voices feel like they suit the characters well.



In terms of other audio, some may find the absence of some sound effects to be a little disheartening, but the new sounds work well.



Musically, the game has two soundtracks, so if you want to hear the new versions of the songs made for this trilogy, you can do just that. Or, if you're feeling like the game needs an extra touch of nostalgia to scratch that Stuart Copeland itch, fear not, the original soundtrack can be toggled on in the options menu. All of the Reignited versions of the songs are great, and suit the environments well enough, but the option is nice.



All that said, the game has some glitches. I personally had an enemy in one of the Magic Crafters worlds of the first game be invisible, but that was the extent of anything serious. There is some slowdown to expect if you restart areas a lot, but just restart the game and you'll be fine.



Overall, I'm super happy with this remaster, despite it's flaws. 8.5/10 … Expand