Classic Spyro is back! Spyro the Dragon was the first video game I ever played, and it cemented my love for collectathon platformers, dragons, and the color purple. It’s the video game I hold every other video game up to. And seeing it in glorious HD is a dream come true.

Something that bothered, me, though, is that dragon that shows up briefly. While we only have one example of a dragon, he looks so generic, and it makes me worried that Toys For Bob didn’t pay attention to the detail Insomniac put into designing the dragons of the five worlds. Because, while they did re-use the dragon models a lot, they put detail into each that made each land unique.

Without further ado, here’s the dragons (all images from darkspyro, because you don’t want me taking pictures of my PSP):

Artisans

Artisan dragons are probably the dragons you think of when you think of dragons from Spyro the Dragon. They have square-ish, protruding snouts, two horns with horizontal lines going through them, a simple color that is often bright for their main color with only some texturing around the spines, and a generally tan-ish belly that often has horizontal lines but the ones in Town Square tend to have a more pebbly pattern. These dragons tend to have ridges coming out of the back of their head and down their chin that looks like a beard and old-powdery-wig hair. Also, something I am noticing looking at basically all of them at once, is that nearly all of them have red-tinted wings. They also have cartoon eyes that are black with no other color to them.

Spyro is clearly of this dragon type, given his red wings, simple purple scales and tan belly, and two lined horns. He’s younger and has some distinguishing properties that don’t quite match, though, such as his very prominent crest.

Peace Keepers

Most Peace Keeper dragons have spots along their main coloration, and their main coloration is a more muted color compared to their Artisan contemporaries, with generally being browns, swampy greens, and pinks (for some reason). Their belly scales generally are a similar color to the dragon’s main scales to fit in, and while the wings do still often have reddish colors, they are just as often another color in the dragon’s main color scheme.

Peace Keeper dragons have smaller eyes than Artisans, and instead of the beard-type protrusions, they have fin-like ones on the backs of their heads. This homeworld is also where the bulkiest dragons are.

Magic Crafters

Whew, a lot of these guys look similar. Seems that the middle dragon is the most common version of the Magic Crafter. Anyway, these guys tend to have branched horns and pastel color schemes. Their bellies kinda melt into their main color and tend to be white or cream (or a brighter version of their main color). The way the scale and belly textures work, Magic Crafter dragons seem to have fur rather than scales. They also tend to have beards like the Artisans, but they may be actual hair beards given the texture.

Something very distinct about Magic Crafters is their eyes - they are small with a solid color - no whites. It certainly gives them a mystical look! They also have no eyebrows.

Beast Makers

A lot of these guys look like the top one. I’m starting to think that that model was their default. But hey, since this model is in all the lands, it shows the differences between each specie nicely!

Beast Makers have a similar color scheme to Peace Keepers, and have a scale (or wart?) texture all over their bodies. Their bellies almost always have that wavy/gloopy pattern to them. They tend to have very thick horns, and wide sideburn-type beard protrusions. Their eyes all have this cat-like quality to them, with the iris being small and thin. They also, much like Spyro, all have some sort of mohawk-type crest on their heads, but they don’t stand out as much as Spyro’s does. Of note, there’s a couple of dragons who have a very similar color scheme to Spyro’s here!

So, is Spyro an Artisan? Or is he a Beast Maker? He seems to be some sort of mix between the two.

Dream Weavers

Dream Weavers have a bright pastel for their main color, with clearly-defined scales. Their nostrils, similar to Artisans, are very clearly defines, as are their belly ridges. The bellies tend to be cream- or white-colored, too. Their horns are generally long, thin and brown-ish (like Spyro’s!), and they almost always have an additional horn on their snout. They have fin-like protrusions from their heads, except more wavy compared to Peace Keepers’ rounded.

Dream Weavers tend to have thick eyebrows made of their head that their eyes are set underneath. the eyes themselves are human-eye-like, with the color surrounding the iris, and taking up a large portion of the eye space but not all of it. The eyes tend to be yellow.

Conclusion

So how does this guy hold up? Uh, plain scales in a solid color? Check. Tan, lined belly? Half-check (it’s tan at least). Protruding square snout? I’ll give it a pass because that might not look that great in high polygon counts. Black, cartoony eyes? Well, they might just be black, it’s hard to tell. Beard/hair-like protrusions? None to be seen. Red-ish wings? Big fat NOPE! Seriously, I knew something was wrong with the wings. That must be it!

Is this bad? Well, it’s hard to tell without any comparison. If they make each dragon even more unique than in the Insomniac game, then this could very well be a good thing!

It’s probably too late in development to make any large-scale alterations to each and every individual dragon, so I’m just going to have to hope they did their research and these differences are intentional. What I really hope is that clothing isn’t the only difference between the different dragon types. That would be a definite downgrade to what Insomniac did to make each dragon seem distinct despite having only a few models to work with.