'Legend of Spyro' tough to conquer

• By MILES THORPE
• 2theadvocate.com staff
• Published: Nov 21, 2008 - UPDATED: 4:53 p.m.

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In “The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon,” you take on the roles of Spyro, the purple dragon, and his companion, Cynder, a sometimes feisty girl dragon. Having been frozen in ice for the past few years, you must escape your imprisonment with the help of a mysterious fox named Sparx.

The gameplay is fairly basic and incorporates four different actions: a weak attack, a strong attack, a grab technique and a breath weapon. Most of the combat sequences turn into a button-mashing event and lack any real need to strategize.

Both Spyro and Cynder can use their dragon breath for extra damage in a bad fight and you can freely switch between dragons at any time. Spyro’s breath is focused on elemental powers like fire and lightning while Cynder’s options are more varied with poison, fear and darkness.

Some of the tougher monsters, called Elites, require you to use a specific breath to take them down. However, there are no hints as to which one works. This results in a trial-and-error routine with the loading screen as you try to find the right damage type for the fight.

Running, jumping and floating around the screen is fun at times, but often enough, the camera becomes a real hindrance. There are too many instances when you are put in an area in which the camera is in a locked position and doesn’t allow you to look around. This caused some frustration when falling off a ledge or missing a jump sequence was due to a faulty camera position.

While both Spyro and Cynder can somewhat fly, it seems that the developers were fairly stiff in actually letting you use that power to the fullest. Often times, I would see a ledge that looks easily reachable, only to be dropped to the ground just shy of the mark by some invisible wall that prevented me from getting to that ledge via flight.

The game does come with a co-op option, allowing you and a friend to control the dragons. You can play through the entire game in this mode, however the same camera frustrations can turn the cooperation into a tug-of-war struggle in some areas of the game. While both players are trying to get to a common goal together, the camera will sometimes cause you to lose sight of one of the dragons, making it difficult to navigate.

Scattered around each area of the game are crystals that you can use to replenish your dragons. Red crystals are for healing, green crystals help fill your “mana” so you can use your breath weapons, and blue crystals are collected to help you purchase upgrades to increase the breath weapons of Spyro and Cynder.

The soundtrack and voices are excellent in “Dawn of the Dragon.” The background music never hampers the setting, only adds to it with its orchestral tempo. The main characters are also voiced by popular Hollywood talent. A quick look at the credits include: Elijah Wood, Christina Ricci, Wayne Brady, Gary Oldman, and Mark Hamill.

Graphically, the game displays every color and hue of a rainbow in vibrant detail. The dragons animate well and the visual effects in combat are almost blindingly colorful. In fact, in several big fights, it becomes difficult to see what you are doing amid the giant balls of yellow explosions, blue stars and green gases.

“The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon” certainly aims high in trying to bring top voice talent with a good narrative into a fun and colorful game world. Unfortunately, there were several roadblocks that weren’t conquered. Having a sometimes faulty flying mechanic along with a sometimes defective camera system really brings the fun to a halt in several spots of the game.