Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly

"At least I paid $20 for this instead of $50"

So I walk in to my local Blockbuster and take a look at the BUY GAMES rack. I see some mediocre games I could care less about. Then there in it's midst, was Spyro. I consulted my mom if I should buy it or rent it. What the hell, it's a Spyro game...I'll buy it. Even better, it was 19.99, brand new. (Well, I can see why it was being sold for so little brand new...) I waited a while to play it...I wanted to build the suspense so I can enjoy it to the maximum. Finally, I decided to load it up. Good God, I wish I rented it first....

GRAPHICS 3/10
As I rode home with my newly purchased Spyro game, I decided to read the instruction booklet, just because that's always a good idea when buying a new game. So I looked at the characters. "Ha," I thought. "They look pretty dumb. Good thing they don't look like that in the actual game..." How very wrong I was...they look EXACTLY like that, if not worse. The graphics are nice, but a little too fluid for my liking. My brother said it looks smooth, yet choppy. Yes, yes it does. I guess to describe the graphics--if they ever made a Spyro movie (for God knows what reason), this is what it would look like. It reminds me of the graphics of Donkey Kong's Search for the Crystal Coconut or whatever it's called...it's just a little too weird for me. I think they could've done less on the graphics and done more with the loading time.
It was smooth, but choppy in some places, so I'll give it a 3 just because I'm nice.

SOUND 4/10
Mediocre. I don't really have much else to say. It's alright. Except when you pass a swirly thingy, it's annoying screech follows you everywhere to the point you just have to turn off the system. Then you realize you just lost an hour worth of playing and must attempt it again, only to shut it off again due to the lame sounds. The voice acting could use some work, but it's all right. Spyro's "what do I need to do?" is pretty lame...terrible acting on his part. But other than that, it's all right.
Sound's not too bad, but not too good, so near the middle. 4.

CONTROLS 0/10
The controls have got to be the worst. I could hardly control Spyro. Standing on an edge? 9 times out of 10, you won't be turning around to save yourself. Spyro's rotating range is way too huge, he'll walk right off. Very terrible. And then came the speedway (s). Flying was a total bomb. Remember in the old Spyro games how you could press X and he'd go higher? "What?" you may ask. "My dear Karin18, whatever do you mean? What does X do?" "Well my dear friend," I will answer. "No one really knows what X does. Does it make you fly higher like it did? No, no it doesn't. Does it make you fly faster? No, I'm afraid not." What the hell DOES pressing X do while you fly? I surely can't tell. Spyro flaps his wings and that's about it. As for going higher....just press down on the control pad or analog stick. Speaking of control pad, who else here uses that instead of the analog stick? I do. So needless to say, while I was charging (super charging I guess...even though Spyro's speed doesn't change. There's just dirt that appears), I could barely turn. It was just terrible. As if the damn speedways weren't tough enough...
So needless to say, the controls absolutely SUCKED, so that earned them a 0.

STORY 3/10
After looking at the characters and thinking how terrible they looked, I decided to read the story. Aww, each little dragon gets a dragonfly. How cute. Ripto's somehow back (never explaining why) and decides that dragons are useless without their dragonfly's that just follow them around and take their hits for them. Let's steal them. Good idea. Haven't played the whole game through yet (so I could be biased.....nah), so I don't know how it ends. It'd have to be pretty damn good to get back up to ten....And what the hell's this you have to catch 'em in bubbles? How lame...if they wanted to be rescued, they'd come to you. Sounds like slave labor: "come to me, you damn dragonfly, because I want to rescue you. You don't want to be rescued? Well too damn bad! *blows bubbles and miraculously captures one*". That is a new addition: Spyro's new breath techniques. I thought that was pretty cool. The bubbles were lame, however. You had to basically touch the dragonflies in order to blow your bubbles and capture them anyway. It was very difficult IMO to catch them...maybe if you just FOUND them, like the eggs or orbs in the 2nd and 3rd...
I gave it a 3 just because the baby dragonflies look cute in the instruction booklet.

EXTRAS 0/10
I just added this because I didn't know where to put the rest. This is just for terrible things....like loading. OMFG. I turned on my new Spyro game...just to play it 5 minutes later. The loading time is INSANE. "So here's Spyro flying on a....rock....(newly acquired gems fly to the bottom of the screen........LOADING.....)....................(suddenly LOADING vanishes) YES! I'm almost there.........almost.........almost...........*gets up and gets something to drink*........still....Spyro is flying on a rock...." What the hell is up with that? I don't even know if it's loading or not. I don't think so as it usually tells me. So why the hell do I still see Spyro flying on a damn rock?! DO THEY THINK I WANT TO SEE SPYRO FLYING ON A DAMN ROCK?! NO, I DON'T!!! It drove me crazy. NOTE: If you fly into a new world, go make yourself a 3-course meal...seriously, it'll take that long to load, I kid you not.
Next up, the levels. It didn't explain it very well, and I was used to the portals from Ripto's Rage and Year of the Dragon....no portals to be found here. I find myself flying on a rock for eternity and I'm elsewhere. "OMG!" I think. "I didn't get all the gems from before! I hope I can go back..." Not to worry. I was just in a new level. Turns out there is only one home world (which I learned about 3 worlds into the game as I had completed three worlds and was about 40% complete). Other than that, ...well, read the rest of the review.
So, 0 out of 10 for extra things that I disliked.

REPLAY 2/10
Unless you REALLY liked this game (unlike me), I wouldn't play it again. The controls were just too much for me. I couldn't handle it. I'd rather play the 2nd and 3rd again like 1000 times over before I played this again. Cute, yes. Fun, no. It became a chore to play...or maybe just to overcome your anger and say, "damn them...I WILL beat this game if it's the last thing I do!" It probably will. Either you will die because it's so bad or you will kill your PS2 (which please, don't. It cost more than this game did...)
I gave it a 2 because you could think of better ways to handle situations I guess.

OVERALL 2/10
I just added them all up and took the average. If you doubt my math, too damn bad.

RENT OR BUY:
Definitely rent. Don't make the mistake I made and buy it just because it is a Spyro game. I didn't like it, however, someone out there might. I just came to tell you what I thought. Enjoy I guess....

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 05/26/04