Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Throwback Thursday, where we take a look back at the old, simpler, and less graphically impressive times in gaming to reminisce in nostalgia. While last week, we released a retro review of Crash Bandicoot, this time, we look at his younger purple brother with wings: Spyro the Dragon for the PSX.

When the first Spyro came on the scene, Crash Bandicoot was already in his prime, with the release of what many say is the best in the series, Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. I call them brothers because they are the mascots of the first PlayStation console. The Spyro demo was in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, and vice versa. This trend continued with Crash’s and Spyro’s next three games. Afterwards, they have been known to make cameos in each other’s games and even had crossover titles on the Game Boy Advance.

 

 

The Spyro series has seen several iterations on its main series until it was revived and given the Christopher Nolan treatment with the Spyro trilogy and then turned into a launching point for Activision’s Skylanders series.

 

It all started, however, with a dragon being too short.

 

A news reporter interviewed dragons in five different realms: the Artisans, the Peace Keepers, the Magic Crafters, the Beast Makers, and the Dream Weavers. Then Gnasty Gnorc, a banished gnorc who has his own realm, sees the newscast live and turns all the dragons into crystal. Spyro, a short dragon whose size prevented his capture, travels across the six realms to release the dragons and defeat Gnasty Gnorc.

 

 

Spyro’s open world became a staple in the series, and it works so well here. The game has beautiful colors, nice landscapes that are large enough to explore for secrets and small enough to not get lost in. While the level variety could have been better, the game still has a nice variety among the worlds where not one of them looks alike. These environments go from peaceful meadows to icy caverns to dark castles to even a sky fortress. They all look amazing.

 

 

The great look also comes with the enemies. While the variety is the standard fare, they can interact in different ways. Some gnorcs will run and hide and even moon Spyro before he rams them with nice sharp horns.

 

Along with all of the dragons, there are other collectables in the game that Spyro needs to find, like gems and dragon eggs. These are either hidden in the levels or require some skill to get them all. These can range from using a version of super-speed and gliding to get to a long area or blasting open chests with a well-placed shot of a cannon.

 

 

One area where the game is lacking is the roster of characters. None of the dragons besides Spyro stand out, Gnasty Gnorc doesn’t have that much personality, and nothing else has any character beside the little purple guy himself. It would be only later on in the series that we see some of the characters that become the staple of the series.

 

With graphics that still hold up today and gameplay that was innovative at the time, Spyro deserves its place in PlayStation history. Sure, Super Mario 64 had an open world like Spyro and hub worlds with multiple collectables, but could Mario fly? Could Mario have great voice acting that gave him personality. Could Mario be a dragon? The answer is no. Spyro was a badass purple dragon that saved the five realms from a magical gnorc.

 

 

Disclaimer: No sheep were harmed in the making of this article. A few gnorcs, but no sheep.

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Shawn Richards studies games to understand how they work. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.