The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning (Game Boy Advance)
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The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning is a 2006 hack’n’slash action adventure platformer developed by Krome Studios (known for Ty the Tasmanian Tiger) released on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, GBA, and Nintendo DS, released in October 10, 2006 in North America, October 27, 2006 in Europe, and November 2, 2006 in Australia. It is a reboot to the Spyro the Dragon series, taking a more serious and dark tone compared to the previous.
This page will cover the GBA version, also developed by Krome Studios, with the assistance of Big Ant Studios.
Why It Sucks
- The gameplay is much more bland and boring than the console versions. It’s more of a generic beat’em’up with barely any challenging platforming.
- The graphics look muddy and ugly, even for a 2006 GBA game, Spyro has a barely visible face and the backgrounds are very boring.
- The combat is lackluster, since you just mash the attack button and hope for the best.
- The enemies are absolutely pathetic, they sometimes just stand there and take all the damage, and when they do attack, they don't even try to kill you.
- While the music is okay, the soundtrack is limited, and most levels have no music at all.
- Speaking of the music, there’s a total of five tracks in the entire game.
- The sound effects sound grainy and annoying to listen to.
- The minigames are the same thing over and over again, which is to race against someone under a time limit, and it’s way too easy, you can beat it around a minute.
- The bosses are barely even challenging, for the most part, you just stand there and then attack the boss’s weak point, over and over again.
- The game could be completed in around 1-3 hours or quicker due to the easy difficulty.
Redeeming Qualities
- Much like the console versions, Spyro gets new abilities as the game progresses, which is a nice change of pace, and some of the abilities are satisfying to use against enemies.
- The music is okay, despite it being compressed and limited.
- The 2D art in the cutscenes look fantastic for a late GBA game.
Reception
While the console versions and DS versions received mixed to positive reviews. The GBA version received negative reviews from fans and critics of the game. IGN scored it a 4.5/10 (Bad), GameSpot gave it a 3.9/10 (Bad), and Metacritic scored it a 44/100, indicating ‘generally unfavourable reviews’, while the user score was 5.6/10.