Spyro: Season of Ice

"Spyro Becomes Portable, but is it a Good Thing?"

For the first time, Spyro the purple dragon and his partner Sparx the dragonfly appear on a Nintendo system. But, is this change a good thing? I found out by rushing to the nearest electronic store and purchasing Spyro: Season of Ice for a reasonable price. I had nothing to lose; the receipt was present in case the game wasn't worth my hard-earned cash. Now, I present to you my unbiased opinion about Spyro: Season of Ice!

Story: 8/10

If you're a Spyro veteran, then you'd probably guess by now that Spyro isn't the best in story. Like all the other Spyro games before, Spyro has to once again save the world from a reptilian dictator by collecting a mess of objects.

This time around, you're dealing with Grendor, a rhynoc librarian who got his scaly claws on your friend Bianca's spellbook. Since his physic leaves much to be desired, he casts a spell on himself to make him a lot bigger and a lot stronger. However, since Grendor read the spell upside down, he ends up looking like a large misshapen creature with two heads. To rid himself of his extra head, Grendor must freeze 100 fairies to make the remedy. So, Grendor enrolls the help of the rest of the rhynoc army to freeze every fairy in the fairylands. Spyro, being the gung-ho hero of the game, must save his fairy friends of the evil librarian.

Well, at least it has a plot. :p

Graphics: 9/10

Beautiful.

The characters, the worlds, the items, and the enemies all look like they came from the Playstation game! Everything wasn't ignored, including the animation of Spyro's movements. There's only one flaw however: The worlds are a little too brightly colored. Sometimes, it's hard to tell where the gems are hidden within the world's splendor.

Controls: 7/10

The moves are easy enough to perform. It's controlling them that's the hard part. Sometimes, it's hard to judge the flame breath's distance and it's almost impossible to charge through a level without falling or crashing into an enemy.

Gameplay: 8/10

If you hate collect-a-thons, then stay away from this game! In order to progress, you must collect enough fairies and gems to open the portals to the next worlds. The fairies are easy to spot, and most of them are sitting out in the open. However, some involve flaming some selected objects and others require for you to kill every rhynoc in the level.

There's one problem with the levels that no one can ignore. It's too easy to fall off the edge of the world and die. If only they made it where Spyro would float back to the edge like in the fairy overworlds, then maybe many of us wouldn't have to spend life after life to get to one spot of a level. Also, there is a problem of judging distance and height. Many times, I found myself gliding to a ledge plain in view, only to find that the ledge is too high to land on, causing the loss of another life.

Despite the flaws, it's fun to collect everything there is to collect in every level. (Yes, I am a perfectionist. So sue me. :p)

Replayability: 9/10

After you beat the final boss, you will probably feel the sudden urge to collect everything to get a perfect game. This will obviously take a long time to complete, unless you have a nack for finding things and/or you have superficial help. (Like, say, this site!)

After you collect everything there is to collect, the game will lose its luster, as with every other Spyro game before it.

Buy or Rent?

I'll leave that for you to decide. It all depends on whether you like collection adventure games or not.

Conclusion

This game is strangely satisfying to see Spyro in a portable form for the first time. It's also the only game where you can find an evil librarian with two heads! ^_^

All in all, it's a wonderful experience to behold if you like the purple dragon that is Spyro, but you don't have a Playstation to play him.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/25/03, Updated 04/25/03