| Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Check Six Games (PlayStation 2) Equinoxe (Nintendo GameCube) |
| Publisher(s) | Universal Interactive Studios |
| Composer(s) | Stewart Copeland Kenneth Burgomaster Peter Neff |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube |
| Release date(s) | PlayStation 2[1] Nintendo GameCube[2] |
| Genre(s) | Platform |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Rating(s) | |
Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly is the fourth game in the Spyro series, developed by Check Six Games for the PlayStation 2 and Equinoxe for the Nintendo GameCube and published by Universal Interactive Studios. It is the first Spyro game for the sixth generation consoles, PlayStation 2 and GameCube, and the first console Spyro game not to be developed by Insomniac Games. It is also the first game not to be exclusively released on one console. Universal Interactive was going to port this game on the Xbox and PC shortly after the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube versions, but both versions got ultimately canceled due to the negative reviews, according to IGN.
Contents |
The story begins shortly after Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The dragons are in celebration of a rite of passage for the young dragons and for the Grand Dragon Parade, with the arrival of new young dragonfly guardians for the baby dragons. However, during the party, a strangely alive Ripto (the circumstances of his return are left unexplained) teleports in via a portal along with Crush and Gulp (their return is also glossed over) and disrupts the celebration, intent on capturing the new young dragonflies to weaken the baby dragons. However, his spell misfires and the dragonflies become scattered throughout the Dragon Realm. He doesn't realize this until he gets back to his lair and once Crush tells his master what really happened, Ripto ends up killing both of his henchmen in his rage with one single zap from his staff, which is why he is the only boss in the entire game (this part of the story isn't shown until the player has collected over half of the dragonflies). So, Spyro is tasked with recovering the realm's new crop of dragonflies.
Spyro eventually completes his mission, and faces Ripto. Spyro wins the battle and Ripto runs for his life, swearing that he will be back (even though he never appeared in the rest of the original series again, excluding the spin-off titles released after Spyro: Season of Ice). The game ends back at the party, with Spyro winking at the player.
According to this, the game was originally going to be about Gnasty Gnorc coming back and teaming up with Ripto so that the two could get all of the dragonflies for themselves as well as contain around 120 dragonflies to collect, over 25 levels, a framerate of 60 frames per second and fast loading times. However, Universal Interactive Studios forced the developers to rush on developing the game in order to be available by Winter 2002 (with this being the only title that both studios ever produced), and therefore it suffers from an inconsistent framerate, long loading times, graphical glitches, sound issues and lock-ups. Additionally, Gnasty does not appear anywhere in the game at all (but is mentioned by Ripto in the intro), there are only nine levels for the player to explore (all of which are in one hubworld) and only 90 dragonflies for the player to collect. Also, the popular characters Moneybags and Bianca appear just once each in the entire game; Bianca at the very beginning (where she mysteriously disappears afterwards and doesn't return till the player beats the game) and Moneybags in the first level. And after being paid gems as always to assist Spyro, he never returns the gems to Spyro unlike in the previous two games.
| Reception | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Aggregator | Score |
| GameRankings | (PS2) 55.43%[3] (GC) 47.16%[4] |
| Metacritic | (PS2) 56/100[5] (GC) 48/100[6] |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| GameSpot | (GC) 3.2/10[7] (PS2) 2.8/10[8] |
| IGN | 6.0/10[9][10] |
The game received very negative reviews amongst critics and fans alike due to glitches, long loading times (although they are much shorter on the GameCube version), confusing level design, lacklustre gameplay, repetitive music, bad voice acting, sound issues, lock-ups at certain or random points (which never happen in the GameCube version), poorly-animated cutscenes, unresponsive controls, cliché character dialogue and finally, lack of a storyline and inconsistent framerates.
Despite the negative response, the game sold enough copies to receive Greatest Hits (Platinum Edition in Europe) status on the Sony PlayStation 2 and Player's Choice status on the Nintendo GameCube.
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