darkSpyro

Title's self-explanatory.

For me I think it's Dawn of the Dragon. It's a nice game, but to be honest I don't think it's as good as the first two in the LoS series. I don't like this game all that much because a lot of the controls feel really slow and clunky to me (ANB and TEN's controls were really smooth and quick; me gusta) and the graphics look a teeny bit muddy. Well, probably due to my dinosaur TV and PS2, lol

-huge sigh- If only Krome and Sierra developed DotD... ;-;

I'd say all of the LoS games, but if I can only pick one, it's definitely DotD. Everyone talks up the story and the character designs and the voice acting when those things are just sub par at best and outright terrible or contradictory the rest of the time. Plot hole ridden story that's as paint by the numbers as anything inspired by Joseph Campbell can be. Character designs that are painful to look at (broken legs, broken wings, crushed organs...and yet, so many people say it's so "realistic" *groan*). Phoned-in voice acting at best (nobody tried at all in this game and I'm pretty sure a few lines were read as badly as possible on purpose).

I get why some folks like this game (I remember when it came out and how hopeful we all were) but it ultimately failed to live up to even the shallowest expectations. Bluh to this game I say. BLUH.

^ Exactly. The whole LoS trilogy is overrated. I personally love them(nostalgia), but they have tons of faults and a lot of people seem to not realise them when they're hyping them up, or outright deny them.

Besides that, I'd say that I honestly feel AHT is the next most "overrated". A lot of people say it's their favourite non-classic game, and even as good as the classics. Not trying to say that opinion is invalid, but objectively I don't think it's as good as the classics are. It's a nice little platforming game but the dialogue never seemed that clever to me and the open world ish gameplay and some certain things in the game just seemed kinda poorly designed at points(I wrote about some things I disliked on this topic). Then again, I haven't gone through the game in ages, so maybe I'm just saying that because my memory of the game is hazy and I don't remember it too well.

Also, I just think besides the LoS trilogy AHT's the next most overrated, it's still not very overrated IMO. Maybe ETD could be counted as more "overrated" than AHT because it's just objectively terrible yet has some stalwart defenders, but it gets more hate than love these days, and nobody ever talks about it any more. In general I don't think the Spyro series has any games that are overrated that massively, besides DoTD and the other LoS games to a lesser extent. Even then I think DoTD wasn't really awful, because it had decent combat and exploration- nothing particularly amazing, but decent enough- even with other problems and problems in those aspects of the game(and it still has a lot of bad stuff).

^The one thing that really bugs me with AHT is everyone's attitude and the 4th wall jokes. Especially the 4th wall jokes, good god.

Haha, the fourth wall jokes are part of why I love AHT so much, but that's just me. :D

I should say, too, that as much as I harp on LoS, I enjoy it for what it is: a cheesy trilogy of bad fantasy tropes. It's fun to read between the lines and make a better story of it or just laugh at how predictable it all is. But it's got nice music and good art (sometimes) so it's not entirely without merit. It's just not anywhere near as good as everyone makes it out to be.

Well, if Skylanders doesn't count, it's hard to say. I consider none of the games to be overrated, actually. Each of the games just has that feel to it that we all know and love.

But, yeah, The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon was horribly executed, but like Razz said, it's better to imagine your own story out of it, like I'm doing with the concept of Spyro Enchanted (the topic's now closed, though, so you'll just have to guess what it is).

Quote: ThunderBolt3811

^The one thing that really bugs me with AHT is everyone's attitude and the 4th wall jokes. Especially the 4th wall jokes, good god.

Yeah, I agree... I honestly can't remember a joke in AHT that I liked. Not to say I don't like the gameplay though.

Anyway, although I do really enjoy playing it for a little bit every once in a while and find it pretty fun, I'd say The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon.

Another detail I don't like about DotD is that Cynder has four elements like Spyro. I mean her elements are freaking metal, but it was kinda unnecessary to do. It just made her look like a mary sue... :/

Why didn't they just keep the dark fire stuff from ANB?

Cynder's four elements in DotD is one of the only things about that game that makes sense. It's kind of dumb in a story sense, but in a gameplay sense it's very crucial to have two different characters with the same number of differing abilities for players to choose from.

Dawn of the Dragon, and Year of the Dragon.

I think they're both as over-rated as each other.

I'm surprised to see so much "Dawn of the Dragon". I think everyone knows it's a bad game but, to be honest, after replaying it earlier this year I realised that it's probably the best of the TLoS games. Sure, it does some things wrong but at least it wasn't the same game we'd seen the previous two years like TEN was.

In fact, Dawn of the Dragon made the most changes from the original Spyro formula and whilst it doesn't feel like a Spyro game it pays off because, in my opinion, it works well... Except maybe the enemies having large amounts of health. That was a bit of a strange decision.

But visually it looks brilliant and it had a combat system that actually worked and wasn't limited to just "oh, well... you lock onto the enemy... then you attack them five times... and then you throw them in the air... and then you have to repeat the same process over and over again until they die". It added more variety with the light and heavy attacks, with the ground and are grab attacks etc. and I really enjoyed that.

But that's slightly off topic; the most overrated game is the first one. Anyone who says "it's the best Spyro game" is ignoring that the whole reason why Spyro 2 and 3 exist is because they improved so much on some of the most annoying features of the first game - the controls. The controls in STD are so loose! Spyro 2 improved on the controls massively and whilst it wasn't that large a game it was a more lot fun than the first.

Spyro 3 was larger yes, but by giving you everything from Spyro 2 and introducing nothing new it fell flat on it's face where they had an opportunity to improve. And don't even get me started on how obnoxious it was to give us characters that played in a completely different style whilst using the same control scheme as Spyro. I'm looking at you Sgt. Bird and Agent 9.

I hated the FPS sections in this game because, unlike every FPS ever where the "fire" button is a shoulder button so you can walk, aim and shoot at the same time, you couldn't aim and shoot at the same time because fire was the circle button. Insomniac! You made an FPS! It was your first game! How did you ruin this!

So yeah. Spyro 1 and 3 are overrated. That doesn't mean bad, it just means that everyone thinks so highly of them when really the only of the original 3 that any effort was put into was Spyro 2.

Spyro 3 Year of the Dragon.

The game is good, but come on! Where is the Hero-Villian thing? Not a simple cutscene.
So many playable characters? I mean, more minigames, but more characters? I think they were trying to get rid of Spyro.
For some reason I didn't found this game very "funny", compared to the first 2 games of course.
The OST is awesome, but just a few tracks...

Don't get me wrong, I like this game so much...

I can't see how any Spyro game could be considered overrated...

The same way everything is overrated. People over state the quality of a game for... Whatever reason. Doesn't make it a bad game, it just doesn't meet the expectations of the player based on what they've been told.

Besides, whether something is overrated is relative.

I'm not going to say Dawn of the Dragon gets it. Back in 2008/2009 I would have definitely said it, because this was, in my opinion, not enjoyable to play in any way, shape, or form. However, I honestly think that a lot of the people that sung its praises have matured and their opinions of the game have soured. So now it's fallen into, "Mediocre at best." Territory. I'm going to give my vote for the Legend trilogy to A New Beginning. Why? Because I overrate it. I think The Eternal Night does a bunch of things better from a technical standpoint. But I still like ANB more and have tons of fun wrecking everything with my fully upgraded powers. ^.^;

From the classics, I definitely think Year of the Dragon fits. I get that Insomniac was trying to do a bunch of cool new ideas with the different characters in mini-games, but it became an instance of "They tried to do too much, so the end result was a bunch of things that were average, instead of a few things that stood out." Sure, a lot of Ripto's Rage mini-games revolved around the same concepts. But I still had a blast with them. There were so many sections in YotD where the controls were clunky and frustrating. Still a fun game, since the majority of it is still expansions on what Spyro could do in Ripto's Rage. I just don't think the new elements that were added were that great. THE MUSIC ROCKS THOUGH. *brick'd*

The classics. Sure these games were amazing but they're not the best Spyro game in my opinion and hearing classic fans say "All the other Spyro games suck because they're not the first!" is just plain dumb.

Quote: bionicle2809

The same way everything is overrated. People over state the quality of a game for... Whatever reason. Doesn't make it a bad game, it just doesn't meet the expectations of the player based on what they've been told.

Besides, whether something is overrated is relative.

I think the majority of Spyro games are underrated. It's not like it's the most popular franchise.

Skylanders no question. It's just a semi-decent game made worse by the amount of purchases necessary to get the best experience. It feels like a money vacuum and while it was nice the first time it got tiring quickly.

Doesn't count? Really? Ok.

I guess I'd say the original games then. They're great games no doubt about it but a lot of people act like they're the best thing to happen since sliced jesus and that every game that has came out since then has only served to tarnish the reputation of them. They, largely the first one, are pretty standard platforming/action games. They might be fantastic games and it's just going over my head (it's been years since I've played them) but people seem to often put them on pedestal. Not bad games, just a little overhyped.

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As for Dawn of the Dragon, I would argue that it's not overrated at all. In fact, it's been called overrated and trashed so often that I would consider it underrated (kinda like another game series published by Activision...). I'm not sure if I would call it a good game but I wouldn't say it's a bad one either. And I don't really see anybody claim the game is fantastic anymore like they used to 4 or 5 years ago. Things from the game (and the trilogy for that matter) have more or less disappeared from public memory and are all but forgotten by us. I mean, who ever talks about Cynder or Ignitus anymore?

Dawn of the Dragon; and the LoS trilogy as a whole; is one of the most polarizing games I've ever played in that there's so much to like yet so much to hate. And while dS users have had this discussion in the past about it, it's been done so very long ago that I can only think of 5 people in this topic that were there to debate it (myself included). I'd say we open up another discussion about the game, because I frankly see it as something worth being dissected rather than simply tossed away as being bad or forgettable like the critics and fans often claim it to be today.

Quote: CAV

Skylanders no question. It's just a semi-decent game made worse by the amount of purchases necessary to get the best experience. It feels like a money vacuum and while it was nice the first time it got tiring quickly.

Doesn't count? Really? Ok.

I guess I'd say the original games then. They're great games no doubt about it but a lot of people act like they're the best thing to happen since sliced jesus and that every game that has came out since then has only served to tarnish the reputation of them. They, largely the first one, are pretty standard platforming/action games. They might be fantastic games and it's just going over my head (it's been years since I've played them) but people seem to often put them on pedestal. Not bad games, just a little overhyped.

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As for Dawn of the Dragon, I would argue that it's not overrated at all. In fact, it's been called overrated and trashed so often that I would consider it underrated (kinda like another game series published by Activision...). I'm not sure if I would call it a good game but I wouldn't say it's a bad one either. And I don't really see anybody claim the game is fantastic anymore like they used to 4 or 5 years ago. Things from the game (and the trilogy for that matter) have more or less disappeared from public memory and are all but forgotten by us. I mean, who ever talks about Cynder or Ignitus anymore?

Dawn of the Dragon; and the LoS trilogy as a whole; is one of the most polarizing games I've ever played in that there's so much to like yet so much to hate. And while dS users have had this discussion in the past about it, it's been done so very long ago that I can only think of 5 people in this topic that were there to debate it (myself included). I'd say we open up another discussion about the game, because I frankly see it as something worth being dissected rather than simply tossed away as being bad or forgettable like the critics and fans often claim it to be today.

Well what do you expect? When they first came out, the gameplay actually broke the mould, and no one had seen anything quite as fresh as this before, and since then people have grown an attachment to those games. That would be like that with any series, like Metal Gear Solid, or Tomb Raider as examples.

I don't really think any Spyro game is very overrated...
(The first two TLOS games are highly underrated though, if you ask me...)

The only games I consider overrated at all are Spyro 3 and LoS: A New Beginning.

Spyro 3 is a magnificent game, but I feel certain aspects of it, like the skateboarding, are not all they are cracked up to be, and it didn't do enough to build off of Spyro's gameplay, and instead gave you way more mini-games to cover that up. Most of these mini-games are fun, but I wanted to see more done with Spyro himself.

LoS: A New Beginning because the story actually barely existed until very late game. And the enemies are way too easy, and the moves you had were not as useful as in later games and felt very situational. Platforming and puzzle sections are also more bland than in the next two games. It's a good game, but I prefer it's sequels by a noticeable margin.