Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly

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Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly

Proof that littering truckloads of glitches onto next-generation debuts of beloved franchises really is a bad thing.
Protagonist(s): Spyro the Dragon
Genre(s): Platform
Platform(s): PlayStation 2
Nintendo GameCube
Release Date: PlayStation 2
NA: November 5, 2002
EU: November 29, 2002
AU: October 23, 2003
Nintendo GameCube
NA: November 19, 2002
EU: November 29, 2002
Developer(s): Check Six Games
Equinoxe Digital Entertainment
Publisher(s): Universal Interactive
Country: United States
Series: Spyro the Dragon
Predecessor: Spyro: Year of the Dragon
Successor: Spyro: A Hero's Tail


Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly is a platform game co-developed by Check Six Games and Equinoxe Digital Entertainment, and published by Universal Interactive for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube. It serves as the sequel to Spyro: Year of the Dragon, and is the fourth game in the Spyro series overall. Microsoft Windows and Xbox versions were planned but both were cancelled due to the game's poor reception.

Development

Upon completion of the original Spyro trilogy for the Sony PlayStation, the original developer Insomniac Games ceased production on the franchise and moved onto developing the Ratchet & Clank games. After the publishing agreement between Sony Computer Entertainment and Universal Interactive Studios ended in April 2000, Universal Interactive, who owned the Spyro intellectual property, was consolidated into Havas Interactive the following year, becoming a publishing label within the company and announced plans to bring an original Spyro game to the Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC, and Game Boy Advance.[5] Universal contracted two California-based studios to develop the game: Equinoxe Digital Entertainment, responsible for the game's art, and Check Six Studios, who handled its design and programming.[1][2]

Joel Goodsell, a game designer who had previously worked on the Disney Interactive Studios titles Gargoyles and Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue, joined the project after seeing a Spyro-themed demo they developed. Goodsell served as the original project lead and felt that Spyro needed a "tone update" going from PS1 to PS2. The developers initially created a darker, more adult take on Spyro, integrating steampunk visuals into the design and art. Based on Universal's feedback, the game was rewritten to be more traditional, with a plot involving Gnasty Gnorc and Ripto, antagonists from the previous games, teaming up and demanding revenge on Spyro. Universal replied that the game was "just a standard Spyro game design", asking what was special about it. Goodsell then wrote "an epic Zelda-esque RPG-lite Spyro design" including a hub-town and surrounding open world field with changing seasons. Universal signed off on this design in January 2002, leaving no feedback. Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly for the PS2 was unveiled on February 19, 2002, at Vivendi Universal Games' First Annual Games Fair in France;[3] a GameCube version was confirmed in July.[4]

The game was originally going to have 25 levels. Although this is fewer than the amount of levels in the previous Spyro games, the levels were going to be noticeably larger than the levels in previous Spyro games.[5] In addition, it was planned to have around 120 dragonflies that players had to collect.[6]

Several months into the game's development, Check Six and Equinoxe moved into a single office space in Venice, California. The game struggled with low frame rates, even as the visuals were simplified.[7] Check Six had difficulty paying their developers, missing paychecks, and the team was also pressured to release the game in time for the Christmas season. Goodsell felt that having two directors on the team, including Ricci Rukavina of Universal Interactive, hurt the team's morale and was a drain on Check Six's limited financial resources, he subsequently left the studio.

Stewart Copeland, composer of the previous three Spyro games as well as Enter the Dragonfly, stated he started to feel a "divergence" with Universal Interactive, stating "I remember the team came in to create the promotional materials for Enter the Dragonfly. They showed me an ad they had, which I didn't even recognize as Spyro. It was country and western-themed, and I think that's where the divergence happened for me. We were not on the same page any more."[8]

Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly was the only game developed by Check Six and Equinoxe before they closed down. Check Six was working on Aliens: Colonial Marines concurrently with Spyro, which was cancelled due to performance and production issues.[9] Equinoxe developed a prototype for a Nintendo game "that had a lot of promise, but Nintendo elected to not continue funding it after one particular milestone.

Summery

Taking place after Spyro: Year of the Dragon, Spyro, Sparx, Hunter, and Bianca are celebrating the baby dragons getting their dragonflies, but when Ripto appears and captures them, Spyro, Sparx, Hunter, and Bianca must put a stop to Ripto and save the dragonflies.

Why It Didn't Find All the Dragonflies

  1. Many glitches, due to the game being heavily rushed for the holiday season. There's even one glitch where you can headbutt near the place where you fight Ripto, go through the floor, and fight him.
  2. False advertising: On the back of the game's cover, Hunter is seen using his bow, but he is not seen using it at any point in the game. He doesn't even have it or his quiver on him.
  4. Because of how broken and unfinished the game is, it can be beaten in 5 minutes. Because you only have the fire breath, Ripto only has one phase. The world record for beating this game is just over one minute.
  5. Long loading times, especially in the PS2 version. It takes almost a minute for a single level or a smaller but similar amount of time for a challenge to load.
  6. The game's demo immediately starts playing six seconds after the menu boots up, and footage of one of the Speedway levels plays, in which Spyro starts flying in the wrong direction. The demo lasts all of five seconds
  7. Physics and collision detection that are not only wonky, but inconsistent. When Spyro pulls off a hover, it doesn't just drop him and let him fall naturally, but actually pulls him down to the ground like he's tied to the floor with a rope. On the opposite end of the spectrum, when you defeat an enemy or break a basket, the gem that appears falls so slowly you'd think you were on the Moon.
  8. Bad first impression: the very first cutscene at the beginning of the game starts with Hunter screaming at a balloon that just so happens to be shaped like the Sorceress.
  9. While the game does introduce new abilities such as new elemental breaths and the Wing Shield, they don't do much for the gameplay and are somewhat useless. The Bubble Breath can not defeat enemies. It can only catch Dragonflies and the Wing Shield isn't even usable until the eighth level.
    • Why would a mythological creature like a dragon use bubble breath as an attack?
  10. On that topic, for you to get the Bubble Breath and the Wing Shield, you need to find keystones that are scattered around the levels, which is easier said than done due to how confusing the levels are.
  11. Horrendous sound mixing; sound effects will sound closer than they are.
  12. Every time you start the game, Sparx gives you a tutorial on what you already know.
  13. Sometimes, there are dragonflies that you have to catch with your Bubble Breath, but due to the poor controls, catching them can be extremely difficult since they never stay put.
    • According to Bianca, says that the dragonflies run away from Spyro because they are shy, but there's this one dragonfly whose buzz means taunting, so that means they aren't shy. They are, in fact, making fun of you for not catching them, as shown in Square Eye Jak's review of the game.
  14. Clichéd and unfunny dialogue. There's even one line of dialogue during the final battle where Ripto breaks the fourth wall by saying that he doesn't want to sound like a video game cliché after saying he'll take care of Spyro permanently twice.
  15. There is one cutscene in the middle of the game where Ripto says that he'll send his Riptocs to get the dragonflies and stop Spyro, even though the Riptocs were already introduced at the beginning of the game.
  16. There are times when the Gems will have a different number of how much they are worth.
  17. Several bugs, such as being caught in an endless loop while talking to characters and the game freezing during loading screens. The PS2 version is also prone to crashing at random points.
  18. Most of the voice acting is poor, the biggest example being Ripto. Despite being voiced again by Gregg Berger, he barely sounds anything like his original version, this time talking almost like a gay stereotype.
  19. The Speedway levels are a pain to navigate, and if you mess up, you have to start the entire levels from the beginning.
  20. Some of the character models look awful (especially Ripto with his “banana mouth”).
  21. Many major characters from previous entries in the series are either absent or given minor roles. For example, Moneybags only appears once in the first level, Bianca only shows up during the beginning and end, and Hunter (despite appearing regularly) hardly does anything significant.
  22. Most of the levels are just carbon copies of levels from the original trilogy.
  23. Due to the game's rushed development, the plot is practically nonexistent and is illogical and flooded with plot holes and inconsistencies.
    • Ripto is the main antagonist, despite falling into a pool of lava after being defeated at the end of Ripto's Rage. How he managed to survive is never explained.
    • For some reason, Crush and Gulp can speak now.
    • Why can't the dragonflies just fly back to the castle on their own? They aren't captured by anyone evil and can easily fly back to the castle.
    • What does Ripto want to do with the dragonflies that he captures?
  24. A large amount of content was cut from the game. The game would've had 120 dragonflies to save, and 25 levels, and Gnasty Gnorc would've appeared as one of the main villains, but (as mentioned earlier) due to the game's rushed development, the final product only has 90 dragonflies, nine levels, and Gnasty Gnorc is absent (but briefly mentioned by Ripto in the opening cutscene).
  25. While the game feels short, the levels are enormous and almost hub-like.
  26. Only one hub world with eight levels in the entire game. Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon had four hub worlds with 33 levels, almost four times as much as this game.
  27. There's only one boss fight in the entire game, which is against Ripto. The fight itself is very bad.
  28. All that you get for completing 100% of the game is Ripto gaining a third/final phase and transformation in his final battle, and an ending cutscene after the final battle showing Spyro winking at the player, which (while better than nothing) is somewhat insulting for fans who got the patience to fully complete it.
  29. The PAL box art is awful and also creepy to some, due to Spyro's look and his creepily black eyes.
  30. While the dub is bad enough, the dubs in other languages are even worse.
    • Perhaps the worst of all is the Italian dub of the game, due to its bad voice acting that makes all characters look bored and the atrocious lip-syncing.
      • Speaking of the Italian dub, due to the terrible voice acting, there is an inappropriate moment when Spyro tells Porkins "Scoverò i tuoi amici" (I'll find my friend). The word "scoverò" is the first-person singular future tense of "scovare", which means "to find". However, it sounds almost like the word "scoperò", the first-person singular future tense of "scopare", which means "to sweep" and "to fuck".

Redeeming Qualities

  1. The graphics and environments, aside from the character models, look pretty great.
  2. While not as good as the original PlayStation trilogy, the soundtrack is decent.
  3. Some of the challenges can be fun.
  4. Although flawed, the elemental breaths are a cool idea that was reused later in The Legend of Spyro series.
  5. The game does bring back the glitch where you can swim in the air.
  6. The GameCube version of the game (while still flawed) fixes several of the problems that the PS2 version has. That's why, the GameCube version is a very good port, as one of the best-selling GameCube games in history.
  7. Cool box art in the North American version.
  8. Very neat controls, besides the stuttering camera.
  9. It had a very funny television commercial, where the farm was under attack by Spyro.

Reception

Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly was met with a mixed to negative reception, with the PS2 and GameCube versions receiving Metacritic scores of 56 and 48, respectively. Despite the game's negative reception, both versions of the game sold well enough to be given "Greatest Hits" reprints.

Trivia

  • Gnasty Gnorc was supposed to be the main antagonist, but due to the winter release, the creators of the game didn't have any time to put him in. There were also going to be more levels, Ripto and Gnasty Gnorc would have worked together, a few more hub worlds to explore, 120 dragonflies to collect, and a solid framerate with fewer glitches according to AntDude.
  • A kid from New York suffered an epileptic seizure while playing the game, and it caused permanent damage. His family eventually won the lawsuit against the creators of the game.

Videos

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Italian dub

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References

  1. ↑ https://thewumpagem.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/the-enter-the-dragonfly-investigation-part-ii-interview-with-joel-goodsell/
  2. ↑ https://thewumpagem.wordpress.com/2018/05/04/the-enter-the-dragonfly-investigation-part-i-interview-with-warren-davis/
  3. ↑ https://www.ign.com/articles/2002/02/19/universal-announces-spyro-enter-the-dragonfly
  4. ↑ https://www.ign.com/articles/2002/07/09/spyro-enter-the-gamecube/
  5. ↑ https://www.ign.com/articles/2002/05/24/e3-2002-spyro-impressions
  6. ↑ https://www.arkad.nu/p/spyro-enter-the-dragonfly-ps2
  7. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWgWT_p24L4
  8. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20170206072357/https://www.gamestm.co.uk/interviews/talking-spyro-with-the-polices-stewart-copeland/
  9. ↑ https://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/15/aliens-colonial-marine-cancelled/

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