Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly (スパイロ・フォース・スーパー in Japanese) is the fourth game in the Spyro the Dragon series and the first Spyro game to be on the PS2. It is also the first Spyro game for the sixth generation consoles, and the first game not exclusively released on one console.
Setting
Unlike the other Spyro games, Enter the Dragonfly has only one homeworld, with nine attached realms. This homeworld is known as the Dragon Realms.
Story
The story begins shortly after Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The generation of young dragons, whom Spyro recently saved from the Sorceress' clutches, are about to celebrate a rite of passage: the assignment of their newly arrived dragonfly guardians. However, during the party, Ripto (who appears to have survived the events of Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!) teleports in via a portal and disrupts the celebration, intent on capturing the new dragonflies in order to weaken the young dragons. However, his spell misfires, and the dragonflies, including Spyro's dragonfly companion, Sparx, are scattered throughout the Dragon Realms. After finding Sparx inside the castle in the Dragon Realms homeworld, Spyro is tasked with recovering the other dragonflies.
After Ripto disappears, Bianca gives Spyro Bubble Breath, so he can capture the dragonflies. Spyro goes to the different realms connected to the Dragon Realms in search of the missing 90 Dragonflies. When Spyro enters the Dragonfly Dojo, he discovers that Ripto's new minions, the Riptocs, have infested the area, along with all the other realms he must travel to. Spyro has to defeat them as well, in order to recapture the stolen Dragonflies.
Eventually, Spyro travels through all nine realms attached to the Dragon Realms, and enters Ripto's portal with the combined magic of all of the Dragonflies. When the battle begins, Ripto creates a fire-resistant shield for himself. Spyro destroys the shield and beats Ripto. But when Spyro thinks he has Ripto on the verge of defeat, Ripto uses a magic spell to grow to twice his size. He then erects a flame barrier, making Spyro's flame breath useless. Spyro now uses his Ice Breath to bring down the barrier and freeze Ripto. Finally, in one last act of desperation, Ripto uses his magic to grow even bigger and incorporate body parts of Crush and Gulp into his own body. Spyro easily brings down the monster with his Lightning Breath. As Ripto is defeated, he curses Spyro. Spyro discovers because Ripto was a dinosaur, he was unable to properly use magic. This is what lead to Ripto's hatred of dragons, and is the reason why he is so relentless in destroying the dragons and vows to come back (though he never returns in the rest of the original series, except in spinoffs).
In the end, the festival continues, the baby dragons receive their dragonfly companions and the Dragon Realms are safe again. The game ends back at the party, Hunter then asks Spyro if everything is finally back to normal before Spyro responds by turning to the player and gives them a wink for doing a great job.
Gameplay
Gameplay is similar to the previous three console games. The layout of each realm is similar to those past. Furthermore, unlike its prequel, sequel, and the Spyro: Advance games, the only playable character is Spyro. However, Spyro can man several vehicles: Hunter's Manta Ray and the UFO's make a return appearance from Year of the Dragon, alongside two new vehicles, the tank and the Spitfire attack plane.
In this game, Speedways no longer appear as individual levels, but instead are added onto realms, accessible via Challenge Portals. The typical speedway layout stays fundamentally the same as Year of the Dragon, without the Hunter Challenge.
Lastly, portals have been replaced with other methods of transportation to the individual realms. For example, to go to Cloud 9, Spyro must ride a whirlwind up into the clouds.
Skills
Spyro starts with an array of skills, and learns more as he progresses through the game. These include:
- Fire Breath (Default)
- Running Charge (Default)
- Glide (Default)
- Head Smash (Default)
- Bubble Breath (Rune)
- Ice Breath (Rune)
- Lightning Breath (Rune)
- Wing Shield (Rune)
Enemies
See Enemies (Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly).
Realms
- Dragon Realms
- Level 1: Dragonfly Dojo
- Level 2: Crop Circle Country
- Level 3: Luau Island
- Level 4: Cloud 9
- Level 5: Monkey Monastery
- Level 6: Honey Marsh
- Level 7: Thieves Den
- Level 8: Jurassic Jungle
- Level 9: Ripto's Arena
Development
The game was originally going to be about Gnasty Gnorc teaming up with Ripto in an attempt to capture all of the dragonflies for themselves. It was supposed to contain 120 dragonflies to collect, over 25 levels, a framerate of 60 frames per second, and relatively fast loading times. However, Universal Interactive Studios forced the developers to rush on developing the game in order to be available by winter 2002 and therefore it suffers from an inconsistent framerate, long loading times, graphical glitches, sound issues and lock-ups. Additionally, Gnasty doesn't appear anywhere in the game at all (although he is mentioned by Ripto), there are only 9 levels for the player to explore and only 90 dragonflies for the player to collect.
Reception
Critical reception for the game was mixed to negative, due to its numerous glitches, irritating sound issues, and frequent long loading times. It is considered by many critics to be one of the worst, if not the worst, game in the series. However, the fan reception has been mixed-to-positive.
- GameSpot - 2/10[1][2]
- IGN - 6/10[3]
- Gamershell - 6/10[4]
- Amazon - 2.5/5
- PlaystationWeekly - 4/10
- Nintendo Action - 2.5/5
Gallery
Trivia
- Enter the Dragonfly was the last game in the series to feature a musical score composed by Stewart Copeland, who had previously composed the scores of the original trilogy of game.
- The game was originally going to be released for the Microsoft Xbox and Windows platforms, but were cancelled because of the negative reviews. If this would have happened, it would have been the first Spyro game to be released on PC and Xbox.
- The game's title is a pun on "Enter the Dragon."
- The game did very poor due to very long loading times which would sometimes glitch up the game.
- This is the last game to feature the original voice cast, and beginning with A Hero's Tail, the voice cast is entirely different.
- There are only 90 dragonflies to collect. This is odd, as there are 151 baby dragons (If you count Yin & Yang as two.) who need dragonflies. This is likely due to the developers not having enough time to include more levels.
- There is a dragonfly called Cinder, whose name is similar to Cynder's, the deuteragonist of The Legend of Spyro series.
- Gnasty Gnorc was originally going to be in the game as a second antagonist, but due to the team being on a schedule to release the game during the 2002 holiday season, he was cut out, though he was mentioned by Ripto.
- The first Spyro game not to be developed by its creator Insomniac Games, who abandoned Spyro to work on Ratchet and Clank.
- One can find Ripto in Spyro's eye on the box art.
- An infant suffered from a seizure from playing this game which caused permanent damage. The mother of the infant filed a lawsuit and therefore won the case to cover ongoing treatment for the child.[5]
- A lot of the recycled details in this game come from levels present in the demo versions of the previous Spyro games. Some examples are that a couple of the enemy sounds are the same as some of the Rhynocs from Molten Crater and Seashell Shore. Also a lot of the characters and chant spells from Colossus return. Avalar and Frozen Altars were also to be mentioned, but were cut.
- A level called Enchanted Forest was to be featured in this game, but was removed for unknown reasons. A picture from the instruction manual shows the possible portal to the level.
- Both development companies Equinox Digital Entertainment & Check Six Studios where shut down after the game's release due to the unknown reasons but, it is believed to be due to the game's poor reception.
- It was the only title Equinox Digital Entertainment ever developed. In Check Six's case, it was the only title developed by them to be released. Check Six Studios would later begin development of a title in the Aliens franchise called Aliens: Colonial Marines, but the studio went under before the project's completion, resulting in it's initial cancellation(it would later be picked back up by publisher SEGA and developer Gearbox and released).
References
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