Review #4: Spyro: Year of the Dragon pt. 2

Yeah, I know. I derailed my last part, but that was to get a few points across, and so no one's in the dark about how I feel about the abused Spyro series.

SYNOPSIS:
This is a classic Spyro game, and deserves to be forever remembered as one of the most intricate Spyro games in the series. It has a plethora of amazing worlds, a bunch of minigames to play (including skatebording), and mindbending puzzles. It is the first game I've ever seen where you can get 117% of the game beaten. Yeah, it's amazing. The graphics are improved more in this game, and some of the voices too. And the best thing is the music: Who ever thought of an old PS1 game to have great memorable music?


STORY:
On the other side of the world, where dragons once roamed before they suddenly left a millennium ago,, a scaly Sorceress plans to make herself more immortal than she already is, by making a spell out of dragon wings, and using her apprentice, Bianca to carry it out by telling her that doing so will bring magic back to the Forgotten Realms. Bianca and the Sorceress's army of Rhynocs go to the other side of the world to steal the dragon eggs right out from the dragons' noses, barely getting away. Spyro decides to leap into action and save all 150 of the dragon eggs. Along the way, Spyro's friend, Hunter the Cheetah, appears to fall for Bianca, even as she keeps trying to kill Spyro. Hunter actually saves her from being eaten by one of her own monsters once, which she appreciates. Later, Hunter is captured in what was supposed to be Spyro's trap by Bianca, but she apologizes to him, which he accepts. When Bianca learns of the Sorceress's true plot, she switches sides, saves Hunter, and decides to help Spyro with destroying the Sorceress for good...or not. Anyway, along the way, the Sorceress had captured a kangaroo, a flying spy penguin, an articulate yeti, and a crazed cyber monkey and paid a man named Moneybags (Spyro players should know and loathe the name) to keep them in cages. After Spyro pays with gems he finds in each of the worlds to get them out, they help him on his quest to get the dragon eggs.

After Spyro collects exactly 15000 gems (easily gotten after you steal all your money back from Moneybags at the end) and 149 dragon eggs, you open the portal to the Super Bonus Round. Aptly named, this place is awesome! A great powerup spot, a snowboarding course, even more gems, and...the SORCERESS?!! Yep, she pulled a Ripto. After you defeat her again-in a flying saucer, no less- she's gone for good, and you get the last egg. Long game, huh? It's long, and tedious at times, but it's a good game overall. 8/10

GAMEPLAY:
X is to jump, Square makes Spyro charge. Charge into enemies, charge into jars, charge into thieves holding eggs. Circle makes Spyro breathe a short flame. Good for short range. In the Frozen Altars world, his breath changes into icy breath, making the enemies freeze into blocks of ice. X in the air makes Spyro spread his wings and glide. Triangle after that makes him hover in the air, getting a little extra height and distance. Gems on the ground can be picked up by Sparx and turned into currency used to unlock certain doors or pay certain bears. Triangle in the air makes Spyro somersault, then dive headfirst into whatever's below him. Generally, a move for almost any situation.

Sheila the kangaroo's controls are similar, except she can't glide. Instead, she has a double jump, as well as a big jump taken almost off of Mario. Circle of Square makes her kick her big feet out and break stuff. She can stomp on things too with Spyro's headbash combo. Srgt. Byrd can fly for as long you hold the X button, shoot his shoulder rockets with Circle, and drop items he's holding onto the unfortunate below with Square. Bentley the Yeti can bash things in with his club with Circle. He can also deflect projectiles by using Square to spin his club like a kung fu graduate. He can't jump that well, though, but he's strong. Agent 9 the monkey can shoot his stun laser by pressing Circle. When he gets bombs, he can throw them by pressing Square. Holding down Square gives him pinpoint accuracy. Sniper mode is Triangle, where he can look around and shoot, and zoom the camera in for extra accuracy. There's a lot of vehicles in this game, but I won't go into detail about those. 9.5/10

GRAPHICS:
The graphics have improved slightly from the last game to allow the vehicles and the skateboard, as well as the new characters. Also, something I'd like to put here instead of in the gameplay area: This game has automatic difficulty levels. I'm not sure how many levels there are, but depending on how you're doing in the game, the game itself makes the difficulty harder when you're winning and easier when you're losing lives. It's not one of those games where you choose your own difficulty level, because everyone would pick "easy". Well, there's a cheat to do that, but I won't say it. You shouldn't either. Anyway, this game is great because of that difficulty level. How many other games in 2000 could do that on its own, huh? 8.5/10

SOUND:
The sound quality has improved, too! Now that they could add bass to PS1 sound, lots better possibilities were considered. In the first game, the sound was kinda "eh...". The second was good, but it had that serene, vacation-y feel to it. Now they changed it to a man-on-a mission feel. I'm not dissing the last game, since that was all about Spyro getting back to his vacation, but this one had him determined. Even when he was offered the chance to go to Dragon Shores, he said he still had to find all the dragon eggs. Some of the music is really famous, like the Fireworks Factory music. Japanese undertones on a near-techno beat, that's how I describe it. 8/10

FINAL VERDICT:
This game is the apex of dragon gaming. It was hard, harder than the last game, but it was fun, rewarding, and sometimes pretty funny. Go find this game; I think it's in the Playstation online store. You'll love running around, collecting gems, seeing the cool graphic effects, and all that other jazz. When you beat the game, make sure you look up the cheats, because alot of them make Spyro different colors, head sizes, and depth. Yep, 2-dimensional dragon.

Final rating: 8.5 out of 10