Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly

The Way of the Dragon. Strength. Discipline. Bubble Breath.

NA release: 19th November 2002
EU release: 29th November 2002
JP release: N/A
Developer: Equinoxe Digital Entertainment, Check Six Studios
Publisher: Universal Interactive
NGC Magazine Score: 40%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

In a very similar story to Crash Bandicoot, Spyro was a PlayStation-exclusive franchise owned by Universal Interactive that had a sucessful trilogy on PS1. However, due to exclusivity deals ending and the original developers wanted to move on to new stuff, the task of a fourth game ended up in the hands of a new studio for a new generation, with development rushed for a quick release, something extremely evident with Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly.

The problems are present from the very start, where the opening cutscenes brings back three returning villains (with zero explanation). Two of these will appear in one more cutscene mid-game, but will just vanish with no boss fight with them. One of Spyro’s main allies just pops out of existence after one conversation, and someone that you pay gems to in order to progress only appears once. You still have to collect all 7,000 to see all the stages of the final boss, though. Another notable thing is the loading screens. In the original games, the loading was disguised by Spyro flying through the air. The new developers attempted to do this, but it didn’t quite work, so they added a loading screen before and after the transition cutscene. So instead of a smooth experience, there are now three loading screens.

Everything else is just rather dull. The levels are large and empty, and having to find all the gems means you’ll have to trawl though large areas of flat land multiple times. Spyro’s new breath abilities also don’t offer much in terms of combat, so it’s just a case of turning to the one you need to activate the obvious switch then go back to fire. It’s a shame as there are some nice level ideas, like floating palaces and a Jurassic Park/Terminator hybrid level.

The actual movement also comes across as stiff, with the levels no really utilising Spyro’s abilities all that well. It’s just a long mostly straight path forward (with obscenely long, empty corridors connecting some areas) until you “finish” the level by circling back to the start, looking for dragonflies to collect on the way. These dragonflies (despite being your friends) try to flee from you, so you have to catch them with your bubble breath. There were definitely some good intentions from the developers, but the project being rush just shattered it.

Poor

It’s a very bad port from the PS2 version. The frame-rate is so poor, that there’s a constant trail of after-images left behind objects as they flicker across the screen. In a game as light on graphical complexity as this one, it’s inexcusable – particularly since the PS2 version doesn’t suffer from the problem to such an extent. We thought the days of sub-standard GameCube conversions of multi-format games had vanished with SSX Tricky and Tony Hawk’s 3. We were mistaken.
Martin Kitts, NGC Magazine #75

Remake or remaster?

I feel like the Spyro Remake engine could be used to improve the other Spyro games.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly.