Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly

Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly
Developer(s)	Check Six Studios Equinoxe Digital Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Universal Interactive
Composer(s)	Stewart Copeland
Series	Spyro
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2, GameCube
Release	PlayStation 2 NA: November 5, 2002 EU: November 29, 2002 GameCube NA: November 19, 2002 EU: November 29, 2002
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single-player

Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly is a platform video game, part of the Spyro series, developed by Check Six Studios and Equinoxe Digital Entertainment and published by Vivendi Universal Games. It was released for PlayStation 2 and GameCube; it was to be ported to the Xbox and Microsoft Windows, but were both cancelled. The game was poorly received by critics due to its short length, poor controls, lack of content, bad framerate and numerous bugs and glitches.

Story

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, Ripto teleports in via a portal along with his henchmen Crush and Gulp, disrupting 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. 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. The game ends back at the party, with the celebration being continued.

Development

The game was originally going to be about Gnasty Gnorc coming back and teaming up with Ripto so that the two could steal all of the dragonflies from the dragon realm. The game was to contain around 120 dragonflies to collect, over 25 levels, a framerate of 60 frames per second and fast loading times. However, Universal Interactive 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 Gnorc 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 whole game; Bianca at the very beginning (where she mysteriously disappears afterwards and does not return until the player finishes the game) and Moneybags in the Dragonfly Dojo level where he charges Spyro gems for his assistance.

Reception

The PlayStation 2 version of Enter the Dragonfly received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),^[5] indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom.^[6]

Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics according to aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic, which gave the PlayStation 2 version 56% and 56/100^[1][3] and the GameCube version 48% and 48/100.^[2][4]

IGN gave the game a 6/10, stating that, "Enter the Dragonfly is essentially a replica game, a side step or a lateral move rather than a step forward. So, what it comes down to is this: Are you up for more of the exact same Spyro game?" Ted Price, the President of Insomniac Games, even spoke out about how bad he found the game; in an interview, he stated, "Spyro has become an abused stepchild... Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly on PS2 and Gamecube was an absolute travesty."^[7]

A large criticism for the game was its numerous bugs and glitches. Some reviewers speculated that this was caused by a rushed development cycle to reach a scheduled release date.^[8] Matthew Gallant, writing for GameSpot, gave the GameCube version of the game a 3.2/10 and the PlayStation 2 version a 2.8/10, saying "Even the biggest fans of Spyro are going to have a hard time enjoying this game. The leap to the latest generation of consoles leaves them with a slower game, a shorter game (10 hours), and an all-around less enjoyable game, not to mention a buggy one."^[9][10] Critics also reported that the technical issues extended to sound. Gamershell claimed: "Let's remember some basic school knowledge first: sounds that origin from far away are more silent than sounds which are near us. Not so in Spyro. Something went very wrong with the sound positioning system. Sounds from far away often sound like directly in front of you."

Another criticism for the game was the framerate. Ben Kosmina of Nintendo World Report mentions that, "While running around the Dragon Realms (the overworld of the game) if there's too many sheep or moving characters on screen, the game will skip frames excessively. It also happens while running or flying through levels where there are a lot of characters, and even sometimes when there aren't any characters in the area! This is just unacceptable."^[8] IGN shared this complaint, adding "The framerate suffers often, chugging from around a maximum of 30 fps downward, depending on the area. Which is kind of strange, because these worlds aren't much bigger than those on the PlayStation versions of Spyro. There aren't many more enemies on screen, and the textures are still the same, simple flat shaded swaths of primary colors, just like the others. Oftentimes, entire areas pop in because of weird problems with load issues."^[7]

Critics also had issues with control and collision detection. Ben Koshima of Nintendo World Report mentioned, "Due to the awful control you have over Spyro when he's flying, you'll be plummeting off cliffs, missing switches you're trying to ground pound, swerving all over the place while trying to land properly and falling off small platforms for no reason at all."^[8] Darkstation claimed, "When you try to talk to a character if it does not already automatically pop up and start talking to you out of nowhere you have to get in a specific spot in which you have to get to talk to another character."^[11]

Notes

References