The PlayStation was a massive success during the mid and late 90's with some of the best games in its library from Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VII, Tomb Raider and Gran Turismo. It was also the home to many platformer titles on that console alone where Nintendo had Super Mario 64 and Sega had Sonic the Hedgehog. Sony at the time had success with Crash Bandicoot developed by Naughty Dog which was released back in 1996 and would later be one of Sony's main mascots for that console; Sony wanted to sell more consoles worldwide by targeting both young and old gamers alike and wanted more family-friendly games for the console.
Between 1996 - 1998 there were a few good platformers were released at that time with games like Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, Croc and Tomba! And of course, there were some games that weren't that memorable for many, but got poor reviews and with most developers starting on the PlayStation getting used to the technology games like Bubsy 3D and Rascal were games that used tank controls, but had bad camera issues and visuals looking outdated when comparing to games like Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario 64.
More and more games on the console started to use the Analog controls for the DualShock controller and things a lot easier for playing most games using the left analog stick to move around. One developer named Insomniac Games had some success with their first game released on the PlayStation with Disruptor, which got a few fair reviews from a 7/10 but the sales weren't good as they thought it would be. Originally it would have been released for the 3DO it would have been later be rejected by a lot of publishers after switching to the PlayStation, Universal's executive producer Mark Cerny at the time saw that much potential in Insomniac Games and signed a contract with Sony to release three games for the PlayStation.
When I mention that Sony wanted to compete with Nintendo on releasing platformers, the idea of an open-world game seems like a great idea with a small team and getting ideas on what develop wasn't an easy challenge in the end the suggestion of a game based on a dragon was a perfect and the idea that a 3D platformer would appeal to the younger audience. Originally Spyro was meant to be green, however when blending in with the grass texture and environments, another thing that would be changed was the size of Spyro who could have been a massive dragon would be harder to animate and move around when it came to gameplay. Insomniac made Spyro small and purple plus the original name would have been Pete the Dragon however, when think of that name you could tell that cause trouble and confusion with Disney's title of Pete's Dragon. The name Spyro was chosen and would be later be an icon and a staple to the PlayStation franchise.
Spyro the Dragon was released in North America on September 9th 1998 and would later be released in UK/Europe a month later. With a simple story of a small dragon named Spyro who venture through the dragon kingdom to rescue the other dragons from a spell placed by Gnasty Gnorc. Spyro isn't alone, he is companied with a dragonfly named Sparx who would be your health and every time you get hit by enemies Sparx would change a colour where Yellow is strong, Blue is medium and Green being weak is Sparx isn't there you are close to being hit by an enemy and losing a life. Not only there's collecting gems from treasure crates, collecting dragon eggs from thieves you also have to rescue the dragons that are trapped in crystal statures. Spyro would be voiced by Carlos Alazaqui who was well known for voice Spunky from Rocko's Modern Life. Many of the dragons you rescue would be voiced by Clancy Brown, who is well known for voicing Mr. Crabs from SpongeBob SquarePants and Michael Gough, who voiced Gnasty Gnorc who would later voice Osmund Saddler from Resident Evil 4.
Looking at the graphics and visuals from now it still looks impressive for a PS1 title, which ever world you were travelling in the game you just wanted to explore every part of each level from collecting all treasure to rescuing dragons. The enemies you see are on the screen all of them were well detailed on movements, animation and responding to the player by block your path, the bosses might have felt a little easy still a challenge to be added in of course the flight levels you can easily spend a good hour or more trying to collect everything within a time limit but need to be done in an order to get the fastest time.
The soundtrack would be composed by the drummer Stewart Copeland from the British band The Police, wrote the compositions by playing through early versions of the game's levels in order to get a feel for each one's overall atmosphere for each of the levels for getting the right music to fit the right level. Some of these pieces would be used in Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show one of them would be Wizard Peak being one of the most memorable tracks throughout the game if you ask me.
Spyro the Dragon was a huge success with positive scores and reviews having both young and old enjoying the game a lot and selling 5 million copies worldwide. Two more games would be released after by Insomniac Games improving the graphics, gameplay and challenges for both Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage and Spyro: Year of the Dragon which were bigger successes in the franchise and fans were wanting more from the purple dragon. Insomniac Games decided to move on with their next project for the PlayStation 2, we all know that they are now a well known developer around the world and with their next game being released in October on the PlayStation 5 for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 you can see how far they have come from the PS1 when it comes to developing games and Spyro being that purple dragon that started it all off from being a success.
Back in 2018 the Spyro Reignited Trilogy was released on all platforms Toys for Bob did a great job on getting the game as accurate as the original games when it comes to gameplay, graphics, visuals and animation. The first Spyro game really shines out the most from the Reignited Trilogy from the Home Worlds to the stage levels same goes when rescuing the dragons, each one has a different design and personality makes you wonder if another Spyro game could be developed sometime in the future, even the voice actors from the original games make a return including Tom Kenny as Spyro. Stewart Copeland returns once again to composing the soundtrack, giving it a remastered treatment, you do have the option to switch back and forth with the Reignited and Original soundtrack.
Have any favourite moments or memories from Spyro the Dragon?
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