Collection essentials #378: Spyro the Dragon (PS1)

And now we have another famous game which provided a mascot for the PlayStation. 


As you can see from the images, you control the eponymous Spyro, who is a young dragon. The plot involves Gnasty Gnorc ( who is half gnome, half orc) turning every dragon except for Spyro into a statue and also scattering the dragons’ collection of gemstones throughout the worlds and even transforming some of them into living breathing bad guys. Being the only free dragon left, Spyro goes on a quest to free everybody and get the treasure back. 


This game is a “collectathon” 3D platformer with rather open-ended level design. The game is divided into many levels, but they are pretty big and meant to be explored to rescue every dragon and find every gem hidden within. 


Spyro has three very distinct moves which makes him stand out from your typical platformer hero. He can glide, spit fire, and do a headbutt charge. The game is well-designed around these abilities. Many enemies are immune to one of those attacks but not the other, so the player is required to mix things up often. The player must master the glide ability to find many of the game’s secrets, and be able to sniff out the best high-up starting points that make it possible to glide to hard-to-reach places. 


And these moves are what makes this game work. Spyro is so much fun to control!! And there aren’t any other platformer characters I can think of that really feel like him. The headbutt charge has a great sense of speed, the glide feels graceful, and spitting a triangle of fire to roast enemies is super satisfying. The low-key hero of this game is the camera. It’s hard to get the camera right in a 3D platformer, but they managed to make it steady and able to face in the appropriate direction, so you won’t get frustrated being unable to see stuff and you won’t get nauseous from Spyro’s rapid movements.


This is one of those games that wants you to go for 100% completion, as you’ll get the best ending if you do. Which…I haven’t done, I’m afraid.


I was regularly exposed to Spyro as a kid because it was popular and I had chances to try it out from time to time. But it was years before I actually got my own PlayStation, and I’m afraid I didn’t pick up Spyro right away when I did, and I honestly have no idea why. It could have just been that I wasn’t able to buy very many games back then and there were other games by that point that had a greater pull on my attention.


Eventually I did play Spyro as a young adult, and liked it a lot, to no surprise. It’s an easy pick for this list, being one of the most popular games on one of the most popular consoles and something easy to enjoy for just about anyone who likes video games. 


FUN FACT: Did you know that Spyro the Dragon, Pokémon and the first Harry Potter book all released in the United States in THE SAME MONTH? Boy, September 1998 was really something. Apparently sales for Spyro 1 were a little slow out the gate, and I wonder if those Pocket Monsters in particular were the reason why.

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