Despite playing a lot of PS1 games as a teen, I completely missed out on the original Spyro trilogy and haven’t played it until 9 years ago. Back then I decided to give both best known PS1 platformer mascots a go and while Crash Bandicoot series didn’t click with me at all (I did kinda like the last of the original games, though), Spyro was an incredibly pleasant surprise. It controlled well, had great levels, stellar music by Stewart Copeland, visually aged shockingly well and felt like a true timeless classic – and this is coming from someone who rarely likes platformers. And while I liked the sequel a lot as well, I did get bored by the third game that felt like it was going for needless gimmicks instead of simply being fun and never finished it. When I heard of the remaster coming I was curious about how the games will be handled and if any of the occasional annoyances will be fixed since the game was being completely rebuilt from the grounds up on Unreal Engine 4. The Reignited Trilogy ended up being enjoyable, but somewhat confusing.
What worked in the original games still works today – controlling Spyro the Dragon is a joy and levels, especially in the first game, are perfectly suited to explore his moves. Jumping and gliding is simple yet fun, the sprinting move was extremely ahead of its time in terms of how it controls and feels, fire breathing has a nice spread and range to it and using the dragonfly named Sparx as a health meter is just brilliant. Everything that expands on these features works really well too. When you need to fly instead of gliding due to a power up it’s fun, when you need to charge your sprint via special lanes it’s a bit challenging at first, but becomes really cool. And exploring all levels, gathering everything is simply a joy due to how vivid, varied and well put together the levels are.
The problems in the original titles always started when the games tried to “add variety” and deviated from the core gameplay. And unfortunately, it’s left almost always exactly as is in the remaster. The timed flying Speedway levels are annoying and, as with the originals, get progressively more annoying with each game. Mini-games that are occasional in the original and take up most of the game in the third title are as unnecessary and unfun most of the time as they used to be. Complicated and action-focused boss fights that started with the second game are as obnoxious and frustrating as they used to be. And occasional levels or parts of levels are as annoying or poorly thought out or hard to read as before. While it is great that a few of the changes were made, controls feel a bit better, for example, and some of the quality of life features that used to be unlockables in the third game are just a default feature now, it’s simply not enough.
Or more specifically – it feels quite enough in the original game that is the purest in terms of mechanics and ideas and due to that not a lot would need changing or updating as it just works really well. But even with the second game, when you’re getting more pointless mini-games and more troubles with the trolley, it’s baffling how some of the issues that were rightfully criticized two decades ago remain unchanged and as bad as they used to be. Third game, with its constant diversions into really bad attempts at skating, flying, FPS and on-rails shooter is insufferable at times despite also having some wonderful levels. Despite being most refined in some ways, the last entry is chock-full of moments when you’re just desperately going “why did you not change this 18 years later?!” at the screen.
And, really, this is the only big issue of Reignited Trilogy as a whole. Despite looking absolutely amazingly, despite retaining all of the greatness of the original titles it also, for whatever reason, decided that it’s okay to retain all of the really bad and outdated elements of the games. Which are few in the first game and countless in the third, where Insomniac Games seemingly wanted to experiment a lot and try their hand at as many different genres as they could fit in the game. If the games were being entirely redone anyway, and they were, why would they not be improved as well? Why not make the games better as well?
Sadly, they not only do not make them better, they sometimes make them worse. I’ve encountered a few weird bugs, like randomly dying in one hit, I’ve had more trouble judging my distance than in the original during longer and harder glides, I’ve had even more annoying trouble with the bosses in the second game than I had with the originals and a few sections seemed harder than what they used to be. In addition, there are several incredibly bad issues, especially with the PC port, where playing with a 60 FPS lock makes several sections of the game simply unplayable, so either 30 FPS (which seems to stutter) or uncapped options are the only valid choices. And lots of people are reporting potential issues with cloud saving, though I have not encountered that, luckily.
In general, playing through Spyro Reignited Trilogy was a pleasant revisit, but it was mostly due to the original games being good (especially the first two), and, unfortunately, the remaster didn’t improve as much as it could’ve. Again – it does look absolutely amazingly and it did introduce a lot of very welcome quality of life features that make this version in most ways a superior way to experience these wonderful games. But at the same time, I’m just confused about why so many things were left without improvements to make the games even more timeless than they are.