Summary

Much, much better than Enter the Dragonfly! Better graphics and gameplay, more like the Spyro of old. Extra characters to play, flight worlds and Moneybags make for an entertaining come-back! Kids and adults alike will love this colourful, if not too challenging, game. It makes a change for program makers to listen to the people who actually play their games! No more eternal loading times and wobbly cows dangling from space-ships! A good quality game with plenty of play!

Sound

Ok...I don't really notice it much!

Gameplay

Simple, not too challenging, but fun!

Summary

This game is a HUGE improvement over Enter the Dragonfly. It looks like Vivendi planned this one out and worked out the bugs before its release.

Sound

The music is very different. The first 3 games used Stewart Copeland's drum-beats and soothing tones. This game does not feature Mr. Copeland. The music is still light fluffy fare. My favorite is the voice acting. Because Insomniac is no longer at the helm, voices had to be changed. I definatly love Spyro's new voice much better. Hunter's voice is different as well, still close, but different. Probably my least favorite is Sparx. They gave him an actual voice in this game. I don't like that. Perhaps the biggest change is Moneybags. In the first games he was a stuffy, money hungry english bear in a suit. In this game he is, I think, Russian. His look is completely different. And I kind of like the change.

Gameplay

This game is fun. Yes, to all you hard-core gamers out there it may be on the easy side, but I personally find it challenging. The game set-up has been completely overhauled. Instead of having hub worlds with portals to various levels scattered about you get four LARGE hubs and no portals. I realize that may make the game seem small, but the hubs are very large. And while there are no portals to "levels", the hubs are divided into areas with some areas requiring a "gadget" or "elevator" (aka pretty looking load screens :) to get to. The advantage of the hubs is that there are really no loading times required. That was one of my (many) complaints about Enter the Dragonfly: load times took forever! Controling is pretty much the same in this game as in the previous Spyro games, though there are changes. My favorite change is the camera control. Instead of using the L and R buttons, you now control the camera with the C-stick. Various breath abilities are back, but unlike in ETDfly, you actually use your various breaths for puzzle solving. In the veign of Year Of The Dragon, you get to control a few other characters such as Sparx, Hunter, Sgt. Byrd, and a new character: Blink. Sparx areas are a bit like first person shooters, Sgt Byrd takes care of the flying levels (made more interesting by his ability to shoot projectiles at things), while Blink and Hunter play pretty much just like Spyro, though they both have weapons and Blink areas are always underground.