darkSpyro

Quote: Razz

It doesn't really back up your point Super. Professionals and companies don't do the things you suggest Insomniac did. They had outgrown Spyro, which is why they were doing Ratchet instead of pursuing a contract extension. I've talked with some of these people personally and, while they enjoyed working on Spyro, they almost always cite the Ratchet series as their favorite project.

And you can tell they enjoy it so much when you listen to interviews for the various games. They're always pretty enthusiastic and I highly doubt they're just putting on a show for the cameras. >.>

I didn't say they hated it, just that they overall liked the Ratchet games more when all was said and done. Spyro was one of their earliest projects and a stepping stone for the people who worked there and for the company as a whole. They look back on it fondly, but they feel better and more strongly toward other things. Any artist or writer will tell you similarly that their early work is not their favorite.

I think it's probably easier for Insomniac to make money on Ratchet & Clank, just because of the weapons, now in my opinion, weapons do not make the game, yet they seem to think that, it's mainly weapons and gadgets, it's great and all, but the novalty kind of wears off after a while, leaving just the level design to look at, from some of the Ratchet games I've played, some of the level desgins are great, but it lacks for the fact that later on they add way too many enemies and seem to go over the top with it, I don't like that at all, and you seem to have to keep going back and collecting bolts just to buy something that costs you your whole bolt counter, lol. I find them too time consuming after a while. It seems like those games are getting too much the same now. I don't know why but All 4 One looks a bit gimmicky in it's game mechanics.

I also still believe that any video game company still put a front on just to attract more customers, which is clever, but for some reason I don't like it, it's like they're lieing in a way.

Quote: CAV

Quote: HIR

...If you're 6-11 years of age. >.>

I'm 14 and this looks to be decent.

I guess I'm special.

this. i'm 12 and i think the game will be decent.

i don't understand why people are flaming the game so much. when i read the wikipedia article about the game, here's what it said:

Even though this game is still in development, it has received a large amount of negative criticism from many Spyro fans. Common complaints include Spyro's different character design, the game's younger target audience (compared to The Legend of Spyro trilogy), the absence of popular characters from the Original series and the Legend of Spyro series (such as Sparx, Hunter, and Cynder), the concept of using toys in order to play the game, the recommendation of having to buy all 32 toys in order to see the game's full experience, and for being another continuity reboot. The negative criticism on the game also involves some fans claiming that Skylanders will fail upon its release based on what they strongly dislike about the upcoming game so far in development, as evident in the comments of IGN's upload of Spyro's character trailer on YouTube. Some fans have also been sending hate mail and death threats to Activision and Toys for Bob to try and get them to cancel Skylanders, but both gaming companies are ignoring the harsh demands of the fans and are more focused on Skylanders' younger target audience.

When a second trailer was released on June 6, 2011 from E3 2011, it has received mostly negative reaction on IGN's upload of the E3 trailer on YouTube.

Praises include the excellent-looking graphics, music and gameplay, and it should be noted that most professional reviews for this game have been positive. How well the interactive toys are liked seems to vary greatly from person to person, but as these are optional, they are generally not considered a major flaw.

According to the Sterne Agee analyst, Arvind Bathia, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is testing apparently very well with kids, who are the game's target audience.
----
MANY people it said.

i understand there will be haters, but i'm just happy spyro's getting a new gamein almost 3 years.

See, it's sitting well with the kids. Which means it is going to probably be a good game for its target audience. >.>

Quote: HIR

See, it's sitting well with the kids. Which means it is going to probably be a good game for its target audience. >.>

Hey, I'm hardly 6-11... I'm nearly 20, and I still think this game looks amazing so far.

Quote: pankakesparx456

Quote: CAV

Quote: HIR

...If you're 6-11 years of age. >.>

I'm 14 and this looks to be decent.

I guess I'm special.

this. i'm 12 and i think the game will be decent.

i don't understand why people are flaming the game so much. when i read the wikipedia article about the game, here's what it said:

Even though this game is still in development, it has received a large amount of negative criticism from many Spyro fans. Common complaints include Spyro's different character design, the game's younger target audience (compared to The Legend of Spyro trilogy), the absence of popular characters from the Original series and the Legend of Spyro series (such as Sparx, Hunter, and Cynder), the concept of using toys in order to play the game, the recommendation of having to buy all 32 toys in order to see the game's full experience, and for being another continuity reboot. The negative criticism on the game also involves some fans claiming that Skylanders will fail upon its release based on what they strongly dislike about the upcoming game so far in development, as evident in the comments of IGN's upload of Spyro's character trailer on YouTube. Some fans have also been sending hate mail and death threats to Activision and Toys for Bob to try and get them to cancel Skylanders, but both gaming companies are ignoring the harsh demands of the fans and are more focused on Skylanders' younger target audience.

When a second trailer was released on June 6, 2011 from E3 2011, it has received mostly negative reaction on IGN's upload of the E3 trailer on YouTube.

Praises include the excellent-looking graphics, music and gameplay, and it should be noted that most professional reviews for this game have been positive. How well the interactive toys are liked seems to vary greatly from person to person, but as these are optional, they are generally not considered a major flaw.

According to the Sterne Agee analyst, Arvind Bathia, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is testing apparently very well with kids, who are the game's target audience.
----
MANY people it said.

i understand there will be haters, but i'm just happy spyro's getting a new gamein almost 3 years.

I'm twelve, too, and I think this game looks decent. It's not the best idea I've ever seen, but I'll give it a go.

Quote:

Some fans have also been sending hate mail and death threats to Activision and Toys for Bob to try and get them to cancel Skylanders, but both gaming companies are ignoring the harsh demands of the fans and are more focused on Skylanders' younger target audience.

Death threats? DEATH THREATS?!

One word: shame.

Anyone who threatens a life over a stupid game clearly has life issues of their own.

I'm outside of the targeted demographic, as well as a hardcore fan of the original series. While I was really (REALLY) hoping for remakes of the originals, I'm looking past that and accepting that this is what we've got for now. It looks like a great game, to be honest. If we want remakes of the originals or if we want Spyro to go anywhere we need to show our support for this game. Otherwise Activision or the other gaming companies will kill him, just as those wacky gamers threatened to kill some of the Activision dudes.

Now presidential problems, I can understand, but a videogame? Really?

Quote: HIR

...If you're 6-11 years of age. >.>

I'm thirteen, and I'm looking forward to it. =P

Quote: HIR

See, it's sitting well with the kids. Which means it is going to probably be a good game for its target audience. >.>

I'm not really a kid. A minor, yes, but 14 years of age doesn't really count as a kid.

Also, you shouldn't necessarilly just say that only kids will enjoy it, seeing how a fair amount of critics (all of them over 18) are praising the game so far. Kids certainly will enjoy it fair more than older people, and it will be the majority of their sales. But that doesn't mean teens and adults will automatically be turned off by it. All the proof you need is on this very site.

I think that any kid can like any type of video game.....well I did, when I was younger even liked the gory video games that I would hate to see now. Guess I didn't know much different, I just accepted it back then, didn't have much reasoning.

Why would anyone kill someone else over a video game? It is just a game.
And I'm looking forward to the game, even though I'm twelve.

Quote: Kittykat33

Why would anyone kill someone else over a video game? It is just a game.
And I'm looking forward to the game, even though I'm twelve.

@ Bold: Some people I think are mental. Unless they are mos likely chatting rubbish, half of them probably just send a silly e-mail, and that's it, and the other half don't do anything about it. There's nothing they can do to change it anyway.

I'm not bothered about the game.

Yea, I'm not surprised the companies just ignored them.

Quote: Kittykat33

Yea, I'm not surprised the companies just ignored them.

It would not be professional to reply to such spam, because to me, that is what it is.

Quote: Kittykat33

Why would anyone kill someone else over a video game? It is just a game.

It's happened before. It's called being mental.

Quote: CAV

Quote: HIR

See, it's sitting well with the kids. Which means it is going to probably be a good game for its target audience. >.>

I'm not really a kid. A minor, yes, but 14 years of age doesn't really count as a kid.

Also, you shouldn't necessarilly just say that only kids will enjoy it, seeing how a fair amount of critics (all of them over 18) are praising the game so far. Kids certainly will enjoy it fair more than older people, and it will be the majority of their sales. But that doesn't mean teens and adults will automatically be turned off by it. All the proof you need is on this very site.

I'm aware of that. But I find it best to measure a game based on its target audience. There will ALWAYS be exceptions to the rule and that's great to hear.

Quote: CAV

Quote: Kittykat33

Why would anyone kill someone else over a video game? It is just a game.

It's happened before. It's called being mental.

Most of the time they really wouldn't have the guts to do it and just making one overzealous statement they don't like it

Quote: HIR

I'm aware of that. But I find it best to measure a game based on its target audience. There will ALWAYS be exceptions to the rule and that's great to hear.

Yes, but you basically just said how it's appealing to the kids, and nobody else. You also act as if that's a bad thing, as if Spyro was never targetted to kids before.

Quote: Jackson117

Quote: CAV

Quote: Kittykat33

Why would anyone kill someone else over a video game? It is just a game.

It's happened before. It's called being mental.

Most of the time they really wouldn't have the guts to do it and just making one overzealous statement they don't like it

Yes, but there have been cases of people finding and killing others over video games, more often than not multiplayer games......more often than not FPS....

Quote:

Quote: Jackson117

Quote: CAV

It's happened before. It's called being mental.

Most of the time they really wouldn't have the guts to do it and just making one overzealous statement they don't like it

Yes, but there have been cases of people finding and killing others over video games, more often than not multiplayer games......more often than not FPS....

That's madness! Who would do such a thing?

Quote: CAV

Quote: HIR

I'm aware of that. But I find it best to measure a game based on its target audience. There will ALWAYS be exceptions to the rule and that's great to hear.

Yes, but you basically just said how it's appealing to the kids, and nobody else. You also act as if that's a bad thing, as if Spyro was never targetted to kids before.

Not quite... it's just unusual because the target age of the previous trilogy was so very different from Skylanders. It was like swinging from one side of a pendulum to another.

Quote: Fireball

That's madness! Who would do such a thing?

I already told you. Mental people.

Quote: HIR

Not quite... it's just unusual because the target age of the previous trilogy was so very different from Skylanders. It was like swinging from one side of a pendulum to another.

Not really. LoS was only aiming for a few years more than Skylanders. It was still for kids.

I'd argue that LoS didn't know what demographic it was aiming for. Part of it wanted to be for kids, but another part (possibly the bigger part) was trying to sucker in their parents (that is the only reason you ever get people like Elijah Wood and Gary Oldman to do voice work for your kids fantasy game).

Past Spyro titles were, no contest, marketed towards the young, though. They had the side effect of attracting older players, which is probably why the franchise survives today.

Sometimes it would be aimed for adults with it's all-star cast, dark (but corny) storytelling, and..............I won't even touch on that. But at the end of the day, it was targetted towards kids, seeing how the story, character development (or lack thereof), and attitude seemed to be aimed towards the 9-12 demographic primarily.

But that's just me.

I read an interesting review of ANB once that outright said that the game didn't seem to know what audience it was aiming for and I've always agreed with it. It's kind of like LoS wanted to appeal to everyone and tried waaaaay too hard on all fronts ("dark/edgy" "story" for the older players, cutesy characters and cliches for the younger, movie-esque score for the film fans, etc.) and wound up failing in every way.

I guess you have a point.

To me, Spyro is, has, and probably always will be a kids franchise. I could never take LoS seriously as an attempt to drag in teens and adults. Spyro is one of those video game characters/franchises that is really hard to make into a teen/adult franchise where they are the target audience.

I'm in total agreement with you here, CAV. LoS struck me as a bit ridiculous from the outset and it overall proved that it was by the end. I'm exceedingly glad that Toys for Bob realized this and set a specific age demographic to aim for. I think that's going to go a long way toward making Skylanders liked by more people.

LoS is one of those games where you need to try and forget the technical things before they completely drive you nuts. I enjoyed LoS for what it was: Spyro games. Dumb, poorly written, plothole filled, corny Spyro games, but Spyro games nonetheless. I simply don't want to see anymore of them.

I was the opposite: the only way I could enjoy LoS was by categorizing it as not-a-Spyro-game (because, honestly, they have nothing in common with any Spyro game save that the titular character happens to be a purple dragon). I'd probably still enjoy LoS somewhat for being a cheesy, bad set of dragon games if we weren't constantly reminded that they're Spyro games by the fanbase.

Quote: CAV

LoS is one of those games where you need to try and forget the technical things before they completely drive you nuts. I enjoyed LoS for what it was: Spyro games. Dumb, poorly written, plothole filled, corny Spyro games, but Spyro games nonetheless. I simply don't want to see anymore of them.

The upside to all the plotholes in Legend of Spyro is that it allows those holes to be filled with many interesting and very decent fan fictions.

^Yeah, but barely any of them are decent.

Quote: Razz

I was the opposite: the only way I could enjoy LoS was by categorizing it as not-a-Spyro-game (because, honestly, they have nothing in common with any Spyro game save that the titular character happens to be a purple dragon). I'd probably still enjoy LoS somewhat for being a cheesy, bad set of dragon games if we weren't constantly reminded that they're Spyro games by the fanbase.

I could never take any Spyro game seriously. They were always silly in some sort of way, be it intentional or accidental. So it rather fit like a glove, and I was able to enjoy them as Spyro games.

My only real problem is the fanbase, and the people that think it can continue even though it wrapped up rather............nicely?

That's another odd thing with LoS: it's almost total lack of lightheartedness is what made it so un-Spyro for me. And I didn't take it seriously at first, but then I got sucked into the fandom and it all got weird for a bit before I just had to throw up my hands and hate it. If not for the fandom, I'd probably think of LoS the way I do AHT: as hysterical but not for any of the reasons it intended.

And, yeah, I think my real problem is with the fandom. I could still enjoy the games if not for the people who can't calm down about them. This current crop whining about Skylanders is ridiculous (and the classic fans doing it really should know better by now).

I couldn't care less about lightheartedness or not. When I first got the ANB, it didn't mean **** to me. I honestly didn't even notice the difference between LoS and old Spyro games. It was funny (for the wrong reasons), so I went with it.

I remember putting ANB in for the first time and laughing so hard it hurt at that opening narration. And I loved Tall Plains; it reminded me a lot of iSpyro. But, thanks to the rabid fanbase, I think we're not really allowed to like LoS if we don't worship it outright (especially DotD and/or Cynder in specific), so I just gave up over the years. There are things I do like about LoS, but saying them brings the fanbrats out, so it's just easier and less tiring to hate in a generalized way.

LoS had to grow on me, I didn't like the new atmosphere to begin with, but if you do what I did and do crazy things out of the situation (Like talking to Spyro through my TV) it becomes pretty fun.

Quote: Razz

I remember putting ANB in for the first time and laughing so hard it hurt at that opening narration. And I loved Tall Plains; it reminded me a lot of iSpyro. But, thanks to the rabid fanbase, I think we're not really allowed to like LoS if we don't worship it outright (especially DotD and/or Cynder in specific), so I just gave up over the years. There are things I do like about LoS, but saying them brings the fanbrats out, so it's just easier and less tiring to hate in a generalized way.

I hardly remember the opening narration. I just seemed to like Sparx's dialogue first time playing through.

I know that feeling.

So you basically half-fake-hated it?

It's Ignitus talking about the wars and being overdramatic, just wishing he was in Middle Earth so hard. It killed me the first time I heard it.

Oh, no. I do hate DotD a great deal. There's no faking in that. Early on, I tried really hard to like it, though, until I just had to admit that it sucked and I'd been had. ANB and TEN, though, I do have a fondness for, it's just been severely tainted by DotD and the fandom that came with it. I can't see cute, fat, knife-grafted-to-her-butt Cynder without thinking of skanky DotD Cynder and her creepy fans and then throwing up a little in my mouth by the end of it. D:

Oh, that. I just had a blank expression on my face.

Quote:

So you basically half-fake-hated it?

Cynder fanboys/girls are just fun to laugh at nowadays.

Honestly, I like David Spade voicing Sparx better than anyone else.

I think Billy West's Sparx was the only time in all of LoS that got a laugh out of me from the game's script that was supposed to be funny. I laughed a lot at David Spade's Sparx, but mostly because he sounded so bored the whole time.

Quote: Razz

I think Billy West's Sparx was the only time in all of LoS that got a laugh out of me from the game's script that was supposed to be funny. I laughed a lot at David Spade's Sparx, but mostly because he sounded so bored the whole time.

Arguably, my favorite Sparx dialogue was in The bell scene in Munitions Forge.

Quote: Razz

I laughed a lot at David Spade's Sparx, but mostly because he sounded so bored the whole time.

That's part of what made it funny.

I loved the thing with the bell. "Nah, I was just talking about my day I gotta do." Also: "I'm sorry I called you fat and purple and fat!"

I felt that ANB had it's target audience set. I didn't really find it very serious at all. As in, it didn't really feel like it was meant to be serious. Only at the end, but that tends to happen even in light-hearted video games (it sort of happened in AHT). And the game itself was easy, so no problem there.

TEN was the one I felt was most lost in who it's target audience was. Though it doesn't change how much I love it. It's difficulty was awesome for me, but kids would definitely have trouble with it, mainly because they wouldn't be able to create diverse combos or come up with techniques on a whim, and the games attacks seem to be designed for that, as opposed to ANB, which was designed more around bombarding enemies, and was pretty simple (I pretty much just used fire breath the whole time in AN. As for the story, TEN's is a little too dark and meaningful, but then again, it's not short of funny jokes, even from Spyro himself.

DotD had it's target audience right on the gameplay front. It was not too easy, like ANB, but was not extremely challenging (maybe in the Burned Lands and with Elite Enemies it was, though), like TEN. And the game was a lot more open and had a lot of collectables and it had a good bit of variety in terms of objectives and puzzles, which harkened back to Classic Spyro, and those games definitely had their target audience right. And in regards to combat, the game could be played by just using more ranged attacks, or getting more technical. In short, it may not have a definitive target audience, but it does cater to every audience, without hindering the tastes of others. On the storyline front, at felt like it was trying to be too much like a war movie for older people. But in the end, I really feel the story is like some family movie, as it has some nice jokes and touching moments. And they did say that's what they were going for. So I think DotD's target audience is simply "everyone". Which is really the best audience to go for, and I think they pulled it off well.

I pretty much agree with you on all points except for that bit about DotD succeeding in appealing to everyone. On my first playthrough, I actually enjoyed DotD up to a certain point, but it takes a severe turn down Way too Dark and Depressing Lane that it never recovers from and that tainted everything after it.

I did find DotD to be depressing
I was playing this song in my head for the rest of the game after The Destroyer.

Around the 2:00 mark.

I didn't find the Opening to ANB funny, I found it Audio Erotica thanks to Gary Oldman.

insert perverted grin

DotD? Depressing? Really?
...Unless you mean in a sense that you hate it enough for it to be depressing to play.

But the storyline wasn't very depressing for me. Maybe the Burned Lands a little bit, but not anything else (...OK, and maybe the "you've left me with nothing to fight for" line.....). I found TEN much more depressing, but in a good way.

And by "everyone", I didn't literally mean "the whole world". Maybe "appeals to all ages" would be a much better term. I guess I was borrowing the "E for Everyone" rating from the ESRB there.

But yeah, I've seen people of all ages enjoy my copy of DotD. And one of the producers (I think, could of been someone with a different position) did say they were going for a game families could enjoy. And I think they pulled it off well. May not be a masterpiece like a lot of people wanted, but hey, families go to watch tons of movies that are just a quick laugh/warm adventure, guys watch plenty of random action movies, and girls watch plenty of random chick flicks/romance movies. It doesn't really need to be a masterpiece or incredibly stand out to be something a family would enjoy.

I don't think DotD was depressing. I thought it was fun.