What is the first thing that pops into your mind when you think back to your childhood?
When I think back I get images of me, lying on my tummy on the floor in my parents house, ignoring the carpet pattern that is fast becoming one with my body and the pain in my elbows from propping myself up, just so that I can play 5 more minutes of Spyro on my PS1 on one of those old bubble TVs that used to static shock you if you touched it.
I still remember what it felt like to open the wrapping one Christmas and see my first ever console. It wasn’t just a device to play games on. For me, it was a way to get lost in countless different worlds and lose myself in my imagination – and the first of those adventures happened thanks to Spyro. Spyro was never MY game, I come from a gaming family and Spyro was most definitely an OUR game (my mom and I used to play it together). Spyro was never a multiplayer game, but we used to play on the agreement that once you died your turn was over – and my mom used to SUCK at any of the flying challenges so turns were never in short supply.
If you missed out on Spyro growing up or just desperately want to re-live your childhood (and I desperately want to re-live the Spyro from my younger years, not the watered down “for kids” version of him you get in the Skylanders’ games), good news. Spyro is back! The original three games are being remastered (so a bit like they are being ‘rebuilt’) for PS4 and Xbox One.
What exactly is Spyro?
Spyro, or Spyro the Dragon to be more exact, is a ridiculously lovable purple protagonist from a series of platform games where, you guessed it, you are a dragon and you get to go around being awesome, breathing fire and flying around – all while saving the Dragon Realms from peril… oh and you have a Firefly for a companion.
I think the reason why I loved this series as much as I did was that the original Spyro games were never overly pretty, complicated or all that hard to master, they were just fun. Even in the parts that were tricky, you played them again and again until you finally got it perfect, or you got a friend or family member to join in and do it for you, not because you had to, but because you wanted to. To a degree I don’t feel those same levels of excitement or achievement when completing something in a lot of games today. Weird.
Okay, so now that I’ve either sold you on Spyro or just reminded you of the love you forgot you had for the series, let’s move on to the reason for all of this nostalgia:
The Spyro Reignited Trilogy! All aboard the hype train!
They’ve gone and taken the first three Spyro games (the best ones) and to celebrate the first game’s 20th anniversary they’ve listened to the wish I made when I tossed that coin into the fountain a few years ago, and remade all three, from the ground up, so that in 2018 you can finally play the games the way your imagination lead you to believe you were playing them all those years ago. Each level you can remember from your childhood has been taken and remastered. So all the art re-drawn, all the sounds re-recorded (don’t worry, they’ve kept the original voice actors) and all the controls have been re-imagined so that you FEEL like you’re playing a brand new game and not just a game from the 90s that has been made pretty.
I know I get excited when it comes to games, but this time I’m excited about something really special. Spyro wasn’t just a game that I played, it was a way for me and my mom to spend quality time together while doing something that we both loved and enjoyed, and now, there is a chance for more friends and more families to experience that feeling that I got to have, all over again.
But that’s enough of me, as with most things gaming related, Spyro Reignited Trilogy is better seen than read about so lets all just take a moment to fall in love with the remaster:
I am excited to play this again. It’s been 20 years since I was that small little girl, lying on the ground, begging my mom to just die already so that I could finally play – and I’m more than ready to get my mom, put in the game and fight to have a turn again.
Did you ever play any of the original Spyro games, and are you hyped for this one? Let me know in the comments below?
