- Name: Epic Spyro
- Developer: Vicarious Visions
- Publisher: Activision
- Release Date: February 30th, 2017
- Consoles: PlayStation 4, XBox One, Nintendo NX
Plot
"Some time ago, in a distant land, a small purple dragon called Spyro the Dragon was exploring his land, until he found a very peculiar place: the Activision's HQ. He decided to enter and see what's inside. He saw a group of producers of a developer called Toys for Bob creating a world made for the forgotten video game characters. A world created so they can have a happy live. A world called Skylands.
When the producers where tired and decided to go to their homes, Spyro decided to play with the codes of this new place, but he accidentally created a monster know as The Darkness. Spyro tried to stop The Darkness, but he couldn't. Seeing that he couldn't stop The Darkness, and the producers where coming back to that room, Spyro decided to escape, leaving The Darkness enter in Skylands.
Years have passed, Spyro gained fame by his games, but, with time, his fame was fading away. One day, The Darkness came back to get Spyro, pushing him inside Skylands. When Spyro arrived, he discovered that The Darkness destroyed Skylands, turning it into the Darklands. Now Spyro, with the help of Sparx and forgotten video game characters, needs to find his way home, destroy The Darkness, and save Skylands, before he's stuck there and become forgotten too."
Characters
- Spyro: The main character (and the only playable one) of the game. He needs to find his way home while battling against The Darkness.
- Sparx: Spyro's old friend. He follows Spyro when he's captured by The Darkness. He helps Spyro know about his moves and tries to help him during his adventures in Skylands, even if he doesn't know much of the place.
- The Darkness: The main antagonist. He plans to fully destroy Skylands while he finds a way to get to Spyro's world, and Spyro is a crucial item for his objective.
- Crash Bandicoot: Crash is one of the main residents of Skylands, and for some reason he thinks that he was forgotten thanks to Spyro. Spyro needs to know why. Crash helps Spyro guiding him about the things in Skylands. He is followed by Aku Aku, who helps in his communication.
- Coco Bandicoot: Crash's sister. She was turned into a statue by The Darkness and Crash needs to find a way to save her.
- Skylanders: A group of heroes, residents of Skylands. They're a important part of the game's plot. Since The Darkness totally dominated Skylands, the Skylanders decided to give up on saving Skylands and to live his lives normally. But some of then still try to battle against The Darkness.
- Cynder: A particularly important member of the Skylanders in this game's plot. She constantly tries to make Spyro remember of her, without success.
- Dr. Willie: A video game forgotten character that now works for The Darkness, helping him in his plan to exit from Skylands.
- Kaos: The old antagonist from the Skylanders. Since he failed multiple times to defeat the Skylanders, The Darkness decided to search for another villain to help him. Now Kaos is quite depressed because of that, and he doesn't have much purpose in life. A important part of the game involves Spyro helping Kaos find a new purpose in life.
- The Doom Raiders: A group of villains in Skylands. Since The Darkness has control over Skylands, these villains are free to wreck havoc together with all the other villains that are loyal to the group. One important part of the game involves capturing the Doom Raiders and other villains using Traptanium Crystals.
- Persephone: A fairy of Skylands. She trades items and money for special upgrades for Spyro.
- Dragonflies: A common species in Skylands. Like Sparx, they're very useful and will help you in the game if you save then. Many of then are caged trough the stages. Saving all of then gives some surprises at the end of the game.
- Other Forgotten Video Game Characters: Characters like Mega Man, Banjo and Kazooie, Alex Kidd and others help you in the game, sometimes as a secondary role, sometimes a important one.
Gameplay
The basics of the gameplay are similar to Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon. You explore a free-roaming stage as Spyro, collecting items, defeating enemies and solving puzzles. Spyro has Sparx as his health, which starts at the usual 4 Health Points, but can be upgraded up to 10 Health Points.
The game has a Quest system similar to Epic Mickey, that Spyro already had with Spyro: A Hero's Tail. The Quests can be obligatory, if they're part of the story, or optional. Some Quests can have a morality sense, where Spyro can choose between the heroic way or the villainous way of solving the problems. For example, when you help Kaos have a new purpose in life, you can choose between making him a good guy that helps others or making him become a villain again. All boss battles can be played on the good way (trying to stop briefly and befriend the boss) or the bad way (defeating the boss). Your chooses in the game change it's ending. Choosing different ways to solve Quests also give different collectibles, and can also have effects in the proper game.
To go between stages, you can enter on old televisions, where you play 2D small stages based on various old video games. Inside of those you can collect the game's cartridge/CD, which let's you play the stage again on a arcade run by the character Gex.
When you finish the game, you can play it again in the New Game+ Mode, which you start with all the collectibles and upgrades you had before.
The Visuals
The visuals will have it's unique style. Everything has a darker feel, but with the sensation that it was a happier place before. Some pieces of the stage are "decoded", so you can see the code of the stage, as a way to show the destruction made by The Darkness. In the majority of the time you can recover the decoded place somehow, like playing a quest or activating something. If you fall on a decoded area, you die by falling on a infinite hole.
The characters also have a unique style. Every character has the exact same appearance as in his first game. So some characters are 8-bit sprites, others 16-bit and others 32/64-bits (I try to not use characters that came after the 90's).