darkSpyro

Sans TEN GBA, of course, which I think is the only genuinely great thing to come out of TLoS.

The story is riddled with problems. The art style is incredibly generic and lacks charm. It takes itself way too seriously. It has some frustrating moments (in particular, Burned Lands). But flying around is way more interesting than the horribly limited exploration of the first two, it has far more replay value and there's better variety to the combat.
I'm not saying it's some unappreciated masterpiece, because it's definitely not, but I think the gameplay is more deep and fun than ANB or TEN ever were. :V

Flying around was interesting? Take Avalar out of that equation and please tell me how fun it is to fly in the closed areas where I can go 2 meters in the air and that's about it. Plus the extra /floaty/ controls.
And the gameplay is a rehash of every modern Hack and Slash ever plus dragons. At least ANB and TEN had the strange,grim aesthesics to compensate for the nothing special, but (sans super hitstun) hardly boring in a first playthrough unlike whatever DOTD called its combo system. The gameplay in all three games is just a big meh, but if the plot is also ripped straight from LOTR and Star Wars, put into a blender, and nicely poured in a bunch of LOS fanfics, it just becomes more aggravating than the previous ones.

Honestly, that's not on unpopular opinion. There are maybe three of us who don't like DotD, we're just sick of being told how great it is, so we're loud about the dislike. :D Honestly, I felt like it was a really bad God of War knock-off and the flying in the original PS1 games worked so much better (and was legitimately free flight, which cannot be said of DotD). Storywise, DotD completely ruined whatever cool stuff was being set up in ANB/TEN.

^ Oh, t seems like the unpopular opinion here and in the general fandom.

@Bifrost I don't think flight was that great, but I think it's better than the platforming in the other two. I actually liked it in The Destroyer, The Dam, Burned Lands and Floating Islands. It's pretty clunky, but at least the game has some larger, more impressive areas 'cause of it. And it still has a way better collectable system than the last two games, which makes exploring more interesting.

Honestly the game design in all three is pretty mediocre, but I thought it was way too easy in ANB, and too cheap in TEN. Not denying this game has cheap moments, but I don't think they're as prevalent as in TEN. And the combat isn't anything special, but I still like it more than the other two, because the acttacks feel more reasonably balanced.

No debates the story sucks, but I think it was pretty shallow in the other two, so it's not a huge loss to me.

It wasn't as shallow as in DOTD, because it had some stuff between the lines that could be found at least - too bad that,if the blog posts from the Concept Artist, there were tons more in cut content. Yet some stuff still says,like how Malefor's TEN design has a very hard to notice scar which is never brought up but implies a few things; how White Isle seemed to be an eldritch mix of magic and technology; how Cynder's reign over the land in ANB was so great that her army of apes had already mixed in with the areas they stayed on. It was a lot more tied to the aesthesics than the plot, unlike TEN GBA, and that getting lost in DOTD made me stop getting distracted and only accentuate the negative.
Floating Islands? Really weird excuse for Malefor to make his throne out of a half-destroyed temple, niiice. The Dam? I could make so many comparisons to Gondor even if it's not even a city. Burned Lands? SOMEONE GET THESE PURPLE TROLLS OFF ME OH GOD.
At first glance DOTD really did feel gigantic and just begging to be explored,but as everything started to get stale it lost the charm too quick. Maybe if it kept the style of the previous games it'd have stayed above average, but without Krome's crew they wouldn't be able to do it.

(can't say I don't like The Destroyer,though - except for the eternally respawing Wyverns and the crappy job with the flight wind current "floors",not many 'innards of big monster' levels can feel less like a monster and more like a volcano out to kill you, and a better volcano than Burned Lands tried to be)

Well agree to disaggree, honestly I just ignore the plot in this game (besides some of the more funny-dumb bits) and don't care for it in the other two (except for bits of ANB ), I only like this better because I prefer the gameplay itself and don't mind the losses :V

^ Now that's a unique take on things. Gameplay wise, I did like DotD's style more than ANB/TEN (although that doesn't say much for either series; they're kind of boring for me to play). Off these boards, you'll see that DotD shows up the most in fanfic and fan art. I think those fans just ignore all the gaping plot holes and like DotD solely because of Cynder's last line.

Kinda funny how the TLOS series has started it's own cult fandom of generic furry fantasy dragons land that kinda branches out of the Spyro fandom itself.

Oh lawd! I am laughing really hard right now because this is 100% TRUE. I was recently commissioned by someone who's never played a Spyro game but has the serious hots for Spyro and Cynder. XD And I get pestered by furries constantly to draw more Spyro art. XD

Yeah, Dawn is definitely more popular in that regard, but Dawn seems to get more love as a game. Then again, these games get no love outside of te fandom, anyway.

NO, DOTD is the worst of the 3. I like ANB for the introduction to the characters, the levels and environments. I have a soft spot for TEN because that was my first ever Spyro game and I love the elemental move sets.

DOTD was slow, complicated, the camera barely worked and at times it was hard. The game froze on me like twice and the story is very bland compared to the previous two. Either that game was rushed and they had to take out story elements and features or they were being uncreative and just wanted to make a game. If they had expanded a bit more with story, world building and NO CYNDER TAG TEAM(Seriously that is so inconvenient and gimmicky if your playing it alone). It would be better.

Make a LOS 4, have it be like DOTD but with a lock on feature better camera, no co-op and better story and involve the NPCs more I will be happy. That and the movie. I'm still sad about that.

Either way it was a better way to celebrate Spyro's 10th birthday than what they did with his 15th.... Stupid Activision.

Popular Opinion: Mark Hamil did not need to have voice filter to work

Quote: Jackson117

Popular Opinion: Mark Hamil did not need to have voice filter to work

I agree with you on the fact that Hamil is a great voice actor but he is not Brian Blessed or Christopher Lee. So in order to make Malefor's voice low, bombastic and demonic they needed the effect. But it is still Mark's interpretation of the character Malefor that eventually can be heard in the sounds of the dialogue. He did basically a satisfying work in my opinion.

I remember his voicework in as several cartoon villains like the Skeleton King from Super Robot Monkey Team tv series and Emperor Griffon from Dark Cloud 2.

In a voiceover interview on DotD, you can see Mark voice out one line from his dialogue as Malefor when it wasn't distorted, and it actually sounded more menacing and spine-chilling than the final version.

The only reason there are bad vibes is because I'm always ready to attack this game like the not-so-vicious internet predator I am. ^.^; Check the old reviews thread. So many people were saying "10/10 best spyro evar!!!1" that I admittedly responded with a bit of backlash on my part. >.>

Yeah, one user here brought up my10/10 review on DotD years after I realized how rushed the story was.

I think that it does better in combat than its two predecessors do. The thing is, most of everything else........................


Yeah, it's one of the reasons why I've never played this game.

I don't think it's an unpopular opinion considering DOTD was the favourite among the young obsessive TLOS fans back 2010.

And the free flight wasn't even good in Avalar. You were still restricted even there.

ANB was the best of the three, but even ANB wasn't that great. It had the best atmosphere since TEN was so dark and gloomy. But the combat didn't suit the level design and I felt that the game could have benefited with the enemies dying in one hit. I used to get so peeved that the enemies just wouldn't die and wouldn't piss off.

Quote: Jackson117

Kinda funny how the TLOS series has started it's own cult fandom of generic furry fantasy dragons land that kinda branches out of the Spyro fandom itself.

Yeah I noticed that too. I've seen a lot of fan dragons on DA drawn in the same style as TLOS dragons (which have crappy anatomy). TLOS certainly brought out a lot of fan fiction and fan dragons, and I've noticed it pleased mainly a much younger fanbase who where more easily pleased, and a lot of them never had the first three classic games as part of their childhood (considering they seem to only remember the Amy clone as being Spyro's possible love interest). I don't know if they're still here today, but there was a lot of that five or six years ago. It makes me wonder how much of them were actual fans of TLOS, and how much of them were just jumping on the bandwagon.
And don't get me started on the ember vs cynder for spyro's luv ****. i liked to answer with 'elora' whenever one of these pops up.

The wars between the classic and TLOS fandoms were funny, and I feel embarrassed that I used to be a part of them. It was kind of annoying though that the classic fans were thought of as evil while the TLOS fans seemed to got treated with less hate, even though both fandoms at the time were equality terrible and rabid. I'm pretty sure the fandoms from both sides have matured now and realized that whole war was stupid. But now that the DOTD hype is gone and Skylanders have taken over, I think the majority have come to a conclusion that all Spyro games weren't good after YOTD and that TLOS wasn't a good trilogy, since that's the opinion I now see almost everywhere.