Questions for veterans

[A n a s t a s i a]

I've never played any Spyro before but i decided to pick it up cause it looks extremely cute. How do you compare it to the original game? something is missing? Except graphics, is it actually better?

[SneakyBeat]

There's frame rate related bugs and some nasty hitbox changes. Spyro 1 mostly benefits from the changes (major exception of tree tops) but Spyro 2 and 3 are iffier so there's good reason to stick with the originals on replays. If you already bought it then go ahead and play it but once you get any achievements you care about, then you might want to play the original 2 and 3 on replay.

They also added gem tracking for all 3 games which is a god send with the new grass, you gotta click in the left analog. Also go to the music options and enable original music.

[Terepin]

I just love the snotty elitists saying "new stuff sux because they changed it, keep playing old stuff till you die".

As someone who's childhood was defined by the entire trilogy, I can safely say that the core remained the same. One cannot and should not expect a 1:1 copy for various technical and practical reasons. I cannot recommend enough this excellent review:
https://youtu.be/42ke7aCZ5kI

[A n a s t a s i a]

Originally posted by SneakyBeat:

There's frame rate related bugs and some nasty hitbox changes. Spyro 1 mostly benefits from the changes (major exception of tree tops) but Spyro 2 and 3 are iffier so there's good reason to stick with the originals on replays. If you already bought it then go ahead and play it but once you get any achievements you care about, then you might want to play the original 2 and 3 on replay.

They also added gem tracking for all 3 games which is a god send with the new grass, you gotta click in the left analog. Also go to the music options and enable original music.

Why are original Spyro 2 and 3 better?

[SneakyBeat]

Originally posted by Tasha:

Originally posted by SneakyBeat:

There's frame rate related bugs and some nasty hitbox changes. Spyro 1 mostly benefits from the changes (major exception of tree tops) but Spyro 2 and 3 are iffier so there's good reason to stick with the originals on replays. If you already bought it then go ahead and play it but once you get any achievements you care about, then you might want to play the original 2 and 3 on replay.

They also added gem tracking for all 3 games which is a god send with the new grass, you gotta click in the left analog. Also go to the music options and enable original music.

Why are original Spyro 2 and 3 better?

Not better, different which is why I used the word iffier. On one hand modern graphics vs PS1 graphics, on the other, a lot prefer the classic art direction (expecially the sky boxes). More QoL features and better frame rates vs a less buggy game. Year of the Dragon reignited is notably buggy since it was rushed out and outsourced.

If you enjoy 2 and 3 reignited, it's worth considering the originals on a replay is my point. Spyro 1 not so much (for a laugh, check out the original Spyro 1 voice acting, 2 and 3 use the reignited VA)

[Soulmyr]

Spyro controls much better across all 3 games, and the ability to find gems from the start makes collecting everything a less frustrating experience.

Spyo 1 gets the biggest improvement because the original is very basic.

Spyro 2's gameplay felt the same to me, though I didn't like the new sounds and voices and some of the redesigns for the enemies and NPCs.

Spyro 3 is the same deal, though the companion gameplay felt a bit better in some cases (Sgt. Byrd and Agent 9). Some of the minigames felt different, some better (Sparx plays like a twinstick shooter) and some worse (Bentley's whack-a-mole).

It's hard to go back to emulated Spyro after playing in 60FPS with a modern control scheme though.

[Valden21]

I only have one question: Do the fauns in Fracture Hills still sound like valley girls?

[HighLanderPony]

I think it's better overall, except for the occasional hiccup (that might've happened in the OGs, too).

[Finical]

Aesthetically? There have been some changes, not all of them great, depending on what you prefer. Most gnorcs are ugly instead of dopey and cute (except the big ones in Ice Cavern), so they're less "gnorc" and more "orc". The guns used in the first level of Gnasty's World are now purple ooze/paint guns, leading to an annoying situation with censorship. Spyro's a little lighter in color than he was in the originals (but thanks to a recent mod on Nexus Mods you can change that on PC if it actually bothers you) and his shape has changed. Personally, I like the change, but I'll always love the original, too.

Gameplay-wise? Overall positive. Spyro's gameplay was already solid, make no mistake. You can easily go back and play the originals, there's nothing wrong with them. That's why the developers made it a point not to mess up the controls when creating the Reignited Trilogy. They did, however, do a little bit of a touch-up to make things smoother and easier for players. Your charge's jump height is increased in this, turns while charging are sharper and you can now easily use a charge and jump combination to get some extra distance on your glide. Perfect for those tricky jumps like the one in Dry Canyon to reach that locked chest. Flight levels feel a bit more hectic, at least when I played on PS4, but recently on Switch they didn't feel quite so bad. Maybe because I made good use of flap instead of turning my camera. And, of course, there is the really wonky skateboard physics in Spyro 3 in Reignited. When doing tricks, it's just plain fun. When racing? It messes you up constantly. If you skate too close to a ledge in, say, the Super Bonus Round's yeti race, you might go straight up in the air as if you were trying to do a trick in one of the previous arenas. That costs you time and is really frustrating, especially as coming down guarantees a crash or death. Jumping off surfaces and landing can also be a royal pain in the ass with skateboarding too. Overall it's worse, but there's something to be said about its weird approach that is also kind of fun, so I'd say it's a net loss, but only a minor one. It is still fun.

Bugs? Most of the issues from Spyro 3 are gone, at least as far as I'm aware, but some worse ones were included. There's a bug that I don't think has been fixed still which occurs with the gem counter. In the original, the dynamic difficulty in Spyro 3 would mess up and cause certain eggs to disappear permanently or gems and make 117% impossible to reach. In Reignited, there's a three-game-wide gem counter glitch that causes you to get more or less gems than you need per level. This issue has been patched and now if you're missing gems, you can just leave the level and come back to fix it. Inconvenient, but no longer game-breaking. On my Switch run, one green gem went missing on me in Wizard Peak. I managed to leave the level and come back so that Sparx could find it, but had that not worked, I'd have had to restart my entire save over again, losing progress in all three games, just so I could do the bonus level Gnasty's Loot. There's also a glitch in Spyro 3 where in Lost Fleet, if you move too fast, the NPC will stop progressing through the level and softlock your game's progress. Making it impossible to finish the game. The achievement for killing all of the vultures in that level is also glitched so that if you use the wrong cannon to finish off some of the vultures, you won't get it, at least on PS4 and Xbox One. As well as the previously mentioned wonky skateboard physics that can be difficult to deal with.

I think that's enough to give you an impression of it. I'll always play the originals, but I'm more than satisfied with this remake.

[MMGoverRsquared]

Originally posted by Tasha:

I've never played any Spyro before but i decided to pick it up cause it looks extremely cute. How do you compare it to the original game? something is missing? Except graphics, is it actually better?

It’s way worse, so much was censored out from the original.

[HighLanderPony]

Originally posted by Mushu:

Originally posted by Tasha:

I've never played any Spyro before but i decided to pick it up cause it looks extremely cute. How do you compare it to the original game? something is missing? Except graphics, is it actually better?

It’s way worse, so much was censored out from the original.

It really isn't that big of a deal.