Thanks! Yeah it's always annoying when you want to see a review of a game where they actually give it deep dive but then it turns out that most videos are just making fun of it. There's a place for that for sure but I like seeing the more analytical side of things more!

Oh man, that's so annoying. With how long it took me to get everything in this game I would have been really angry if it had done that to me. It's a bit of a slap in the face that the only thing you get for getting 100% is that ending cutscene. The other games gave you secret levels or a permanent power-up which was really cool. The quality of these games just nose-dived as soon as Insomniac stopped making them.

Do you prefer it to the original trilogy? This is why I love video games in general, something that one person thinks is fairly average can be someone else's favourite game, I love how differently people can react to things like that!

I completely disagree with that Year of the dragon>a Hero's Tale

Yeah, I can see this game having a lot of nostalgic value if you played it as a kid and it would make it a lot easier to look past it's flaws. I never played this when I was a kid though so the issues were probably a lot more annoying for me personally! I am very interested to see what The Legend of Spyro does with the series, I'll most likely cover them at some point because I would like to have talked about all of the console Spyro games at some point (and the handheld ones, but that's a big undertaking haha).

Thanks! Let's hope so, that's the next big milestone for the channel, to hit that would be amazing!

I always try to put a lot of effort into all of the videos :) But yeah this one was a pain to get 100% on, so in that way it required a lot more effort to get through haha! I never even played this one as a kid, I always stuck to the first and second games primarily. I didn't actually play this one or Enter the Dragonfly until making these videos! They've done well with Crash, so I have confidence that the next original Spyro game will be good too. We'll just have to wait and see :D

A lot of people would probably agree with you. For me though I really didn't enjoy it. It feels like it lacks a sense of character and there's not really any elements of it's gameplay that stand out to me. But hey! That's just my opinion on it! :)

@@PixelPursuit a terrible opinion

@@PixelPursuit Appreciate the mediocrity. Since there is the forbidden game on the DS that was the actual final game of this continuity until the Reignited Trilogy gave us a new chance. Do you like music? Do you like non button mashing Gameplay? Do you like RPG elements when they are well implemented? Do you perchance enjoy games without a bad camera angle or bad jumps, to name a very select few things that a hypothetical game can have? Do you find yourself mildly disappointed instead of drained and enraged and unfulfilled? Shadow Legacy is the game to ruin your day (assuming you play it for more than five minutes). I have had both of these games and Spyro 2 and 3 growing up. I may have missed the travesty of Enter the Dragonfly but at least that game is hilariously bad and has some okay ideas. Shadow legacy isn't even so bad it's good. It's like unfinished in the worst ways. Not even broken, just ambient noises, button mash gameplay with shoehorned RPG elements that makes me just feel silently mad. Not righteous indignation. No wonder you never heard of this game or don't acknowledge it. Nobody does. It's a nothing game.

I was going to talk about that, but I cut it from the script because the video was getting pretty lengthy! But yeah the music in A Hero's Tail is kinda lifeless and unmemorable. This was the first main series game to not have Stewart Copeland as the composer for the soundtrack, so that's probably why it's not as good and doesn't have the same style. We'll have a new game soon enough, my bet would be that in 2021 there will be a new one. I'm fine with the long wait so long as it's good and not like Enter the Dragonfly or A Hero's Tail!

Pixel Pursuit Or worse, the legend of spyro games or Skylanders 😂 after all of that I’m surprised spyro is even still standing!

@@GregCubed I haven't got around to The Legend of Spyro yet... Maybe one day I'll tackle that but not for a while! I doubt I'll ever look at Skylanders, it really doesn't look appealing to me at all haha! But yeah he's been through a lot hasn't he! Rayman got through the Raving Rabbids though, so I'm sure Spyro can get through his demons!

Yeah you're completely right! What I meant though was that this was the final game released on a home console in the original continuity, not counting the portable ones! It does have a very similar style to Avatar so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some inspiration taken from that. It's been years since I've seen Avatar! I wonder if it's aged well after all this time...

Yeah, it's a huge grind if you decide to go for 100%. Although to be fair it's probably quite a grind just to finish it normally too haha! But yeah it's a huge insult to have the reward be so lacking on top of that. In Spyro 2 you got to replay the game with permanent super flame! Now that was a completion reward!

To be fair it does have it's fair share of elements that are enjoyable! It's a good game overall but it's just not a good Spyro game because it lacks a lot of what gave the older games their identity.

Oh nice! I really like the t-shirt too! I still wear it quite often! :D

The Spyro PS1 trilogy is amazing isn't it. They must have really pushed the hardware to it's limit to have such massive games with incredible graphics. I had never played any of the Spyro games outside of the Insomniac ones either until I made these videos and now I know I didn't miss out on anything. It's no wonder nobody really talked about these ones. I've actually never played a Skylanders game, good to know they're better than these games! Thanks! :)

That green this is Gnasty? I never even thought of that.

So these were your childhood Spyro games then! Out of interest have you ever gone back to the original three games on the PS1? What did you think to them? It would be interesting hearing the opinion of someone who played the PS2 era ones before the PS1 games! I remember liking Tag Team Racing too, but I feel like if I went back to it now, my opinion could be very different :D I'm pretty sure they explicitly call the green guy Gnasty don't they? At least that's what I remember haha!

@@PixelPursuit I don't remember much of Hero's Tail. I just loved it when I was little. Never got past the swamp stage but there was a save on the GameCube I think at the hospital that had the jungle level with Hunter. I played and clocked Spyro 2 on ePSXe in 2015 when I was in year 7 and my dad thought I'd need a computer. He caught me on the electric level at like 2 in the morning but I don't think I played the other 2. I platinumed the trilogy when it was released. Can't remember where I got the money to buy it though, lost access when the account I bought it on was banned and I had to factory reset my PS4 in November.

@@PixelPursuit I'm helping my sister play through ETD at the moment, she loves finding the dragonflies and doesn't even notice the glitches.

I really should play Mario Galaxy again, I got close to 100% completing it but then something happened to the save data and I never started it again. I don't even remember much about it which is weird, I have no recollection of a ball rolling level but if I had known that I would have used it as an example in this video!

@@PixelPursuit ok.

I just think that it's nowhere near the level of quality that we had already seen in the original games. Plus I didn't like the new direction they took with this one either, it felt a bit messy!

@@PixelPursuit probably because how experimental it was

Crashestery Maybe, but when I reflected on my experience with AHT there was hardly anything good about it. The odd few times it did something kind of interesting it was a situation where either an older Spyro game had already done it much better or another platformer has done it better. It’s just as bad as Enter the Dragonfly but for very different reasons. If ETD ran better and didn’t have glitches it would be better than AHT in my opinion. I had no issues with depth perception in AHT at all, and that’s something I can be really susceptible to. I also never fell for an eternity or experienced any kind of glitch like that. I’ve actually been thinking for a while now about scrapping the scoring system because I feel like it doesn’t work properly. When you start comparing scores to other games it will sometimes work but sometimes it can give the wrong impression. For example I gave some Hugo games a 3/10 but they’re worse than AHT, but the Hugo games were better than some other Hugo games so I had to heighten the score, but I feel like 3/10 is right for AHT generally when compared to other games coming out at the time. I don’t know, maybe I’ll stop doing that and do rankings for games within the series, I feel like that would work better. But yeah I totally agree that Lemoon Twist is worse than this haha! Also, I wasn’t aware that Square Eyed Jak had reviewed this game. I’ll probably give that a watch! Anyway, sorry for the long comment back haha!

@@PixelPursuit I highly recommend to check out Square Eyed Jaks reviews, he's hilarious and you may get some inspiration from his reviews and editing and he has reviewed everything with Crash and Spyro's name on it.

Crashestery I like Square Eyed Jak, I’ve seen a lot of his more recent stuff! His Tony Hawk series was particularly great. I’ve actually just watched his AHT video and it came across like he hated it even more than me haha! I’m pretty sure that I’m going to scrap the scoring system in my videos because it’s a very flawed way of summing up a games quality. I’m definitely going to check out some of his other Crash and Spyro videos, I don’t know why I’ve not watched them already really...

@@PixelPursuit At best the scoring system is useful as a quick reference to the overall feeling of a game, but it feels redundant when you've already spent some time talking about the game. The numbering system is basically converting and compressing your subjective feelings into an objective number, and has the issue of not compensating for games with similar scores that you feel much differently on.

Yeah, I agree. I like how giving a game a score is a quick way of summing everything up, but it's when you start comparing scores that the whole thing falls apart a bit. I'm going to stop with that scoring system from now on, I don't want the emphasis of the entire review to be based around a number when it's extremely vague on what that number actually means. Like you say, I think it's pretty obvious how I feel about a game from the review itself anyway haha!

I just really didn't like the direction they took the series with this game. The open ended level design was a really interesting idea but pretty poorly executed and most of the level themes were really boring. Plus the side content was repetitive and there was nothing there to make each level stand out. Both Enter the Dragonfly and A Hero's Tail are bad though and not really worth your time unless you're a huge Spyro fan or you grew up with them and have a lot of nostalgia for them. The original Spyro trilogy and the Reignited Trilogy are the way to go!

I was holding the controller preemptively, in anticipation of what lay ahead. I'm not sure what the trailer reminds you of, I mean the voice over they used sounds very similar to a lot of film trailers from the 90s and early 2000s, so it could be anything really! Haha, I remember wanting that game when it first came out but I never ended up getting it! As for Chicken Little, I've never even seen the film, so I definitely haven't played the game! A lot of the Disney games can be pretty good, probably the best one I've played is Toy Story 2 on the PS1 (I think everyone has played that at some point though).

@@PixelPursuit And the presentation felt like the "here's this, here's that, and now they have to work together" feel. And you still haven't because? Started on PS2, now available on every HD console, with physical releases on Wii U, PS4 and Switch (of course still having their digital counterparts). A fun game that feels like the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was more of a beat 'em up with its combat (especially engaging on the harder difficulties) and was a 3D platformer. Chicken Little follows the movie rather faithfully (though being its own thing at the same time), not just having 3D platforming stages but also incorporates gameplay styles that match up with scenes with the movie. It's cutscenes comprise of scenes from the movie with its own created for many points in the game.

Yeah there's probably something specific you're thinking of that's very similar to the Twinsanity trailer, I have no idea what it is though haha. I'm really not sure why I never ended up getting it. I guess looking at it now it kinda looks a bit more dated than when it came out. I probably should play it though, it would be weird giving it a go after all this time. It having beat em up elements is probably another factor that put me off slightly, I'm not really into that style of game, but you never know, it could impress me. Chicken Little sounds like it could be fun. I would probably have to watch the film too, otherwise I would be a bit lost haha. I remember when film tie-in games did that all the time. Pretty much all of the PS1 ones use the film clips as cutscenes and they're always really heavily compressed which is funny looking back on it today.

​@@PixelPursuit Dated? Is it some animations and presentation coming across as a bit janky? They will generally space out the fighting with platforming and puzzles. Fighting itself I would best descibe as Batman: Arkham Asylum (where you will find yourself fighting groups of enemies), but having a much faster pace. It gets to the point that it doesn't feel like a bunch of guys standing around waiting to punch you (unlike that game), which certainly differs it from other beat 'em up games. Makes it more engaging that they are challenging (especially on harder difficulties) and don't stick around for too long. Even a bit ahead of its time when you think about it. There's more to it, but its not very often you see beat 'em ups handled like that. You don't necessarily need to watch the film, as the game itself will give you enough details to follow the story if you ask me. But hey, if you want to do a comparison, I'm all for it. The compression quality isn't too bad, either. Maybe even good. Depends on how you feel. There's some, but alright at the very least for what it is.

Nah, it's not anything to do with the game itself, it's more so to do with the overall vibe the game gives off. It's probably just a subjective thing but I feel like the character design of Kay is quite unappealing nowadays, but maybe I'm just mis-remembering haha. That is interesting, I've noticed that it's a trend in that style of gameplay to have only one enemy at a time actually fight you and it always looks a bit weird. So it's good to know this game doesn't do that. It's good that it's got that variety as well and the focus isn't too much on the fighting. I think that's my issue with platformers with beat em up elements to be honest. They tend to focus way more on being a beat em up than on a platformer when it should be the other way around. Yeah, I would imagine the compression of the video is fine with it being a PS2 game. I'll take a look at some gameplay and see what I think. If I see it in a nearby shop I might take a look at it and see what I think!