darkSpyro

I was worried about spoilers but I needed to see this trailer anyways and oh man is it fantastic. All of the new dragons, the improved lighting in levels we've already seen (like Artisans), hearing so many classic Spyro lines... very nice. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm almost positive that they showed every single dragon that mentions Spyro's name, did they not?

I'm also pretty sure that some of the Spyro 2 clips are actually old footage however, since the banners are just Ripto's concept art.

To list off a few, there's no Nestor ("Thank you for releasing me, Spyro.") Oswin ("Hey, Spyro"), Titan ("Welcome to Peace Keepers, Spyro."), Useni ("Ahh, Spyro, thanks~!"), Mudada ("Fairies are always on your side, Spyro.")

and those are just the ones off the top of my head XP

I am boo boo the fool! Some of those are very obvious too... whoops! Thanks for letting me know.

- The opening shot of Artisans is an absolutely gorgeous angle. It really captures the sense of freedom you get when you first start up the game. That skybox is also looking soooo beautiful. Such an evolution from what we initially saw!
- Spyro's expressions are sooooo cute. I also really like the little "poof" noise that plays upon flaming the sheep.
- At first I was kind of surprised they went with a more snowy aesthetic for Cloud Temples, but then I remembered you get to use ice breath in that level. So, it makes sense. I also love how they interpreted the moving platforms!
- Sunrise Spring's coloration still looks kinda weird. Sky is a lot more purple than it was in the OG, which was mainly blue. It's one of the very few things I'm not a huge fan of.
- Were there always purple rock formations in Skelos Badlands? One of the other few things that seemed a little jarring to me.
- The bit of Cloud Spires is the first time we see Spyro "do a barrel roll!" while flying, which makes me curious for reasons I'll mention in a bit.
- Lofty Castle skybox. Hnnnngh. Blue still seems to have replaced the peach from the OG, but it's certainly an interesting and dreamy look, so I'm not complaining.
- Baruti's redesign is interesting. He was one of the "buff" Dream Weavers in the OG, but now he seems more elderly.
- Hunter's meme face is amazing. I bet that's when he's saying the "Teeth like THIS!" line.
- The Crystal Flight rings look as satisfyingly rainbow-y as ever!
- They seem to have put a lot of green back into Misty Bog, and the mist effect is a lot more pronounced now. I didn't mind the more yellow coloration they had going on before, but this looks quite good too, and is truer to the OG.
- Shell Beach portal makes me really excited to see the other unique portals in Spyro 3!
- Swim charge animation still looks kinda jank
- Ripto's concept art is still being used for the flags in this trailer, which is still kinda weird to me.
- I love the motivational posters in Gnasty's lair lol. Especially "Gnowledge".
- There's a really, really short glimpse of what I'm assuming is Molten Crater.
- Looks like Altair is our last dragon from the Toasty portraits, and our first look at a Magic Crafter! Considering his name (a star in the constellation of Aquila the Eagle), I love how they gave him a bird aesthetic. He's even holding a little star globe!
- DRAGON DADS LOOKING GOOD! I'm especially in love with Magnus (those Peace Keepers spots!), Halvor (whose head shape reminds me vaguely of Malefor??), Cleetus, and Cyprin (they kept the pose and made him like a gator!!!) I also continue to adore the Cajun accents the Beast Makers have! And I thought it was funny that Alvar is using his tail spikes like a kebob.
- Last shot is of Spyro doing the barrel roll again in front of a really striking and awesome looking eclipse. I think the level is supposed to be Dr. Shemp, and now this is what confuses me. Dr. Shemp isn't a flight level, yet Spyro is still doing these spins and has the streams coming from his wingtips like in a flight level. I guess it could be spliced footage or an edit made just for the sake of the trailer, but I'm not sure since the lighting on his body matches the direction of the eclipse. So I'm thinking that could be his "fly into the level" animation whenever he enters a level, orrr....my more hopeful side is wishing that might be a hint towards free flight! But that's a huge maybe : P

And one last thing, not about the footage but the music: it has the motifs from Sunny Beach and Glimmer, so I'm presuming it's a not-yet-heard part of Tiger Train!

Those were always there actually! It seems as though they're being emphasized in Reignited though.

I got to play the demo at Gamestop today and just wanted to post my thoughts. I also discovered a few weird physics bugs that might be of interest, as well as a few things which may be relevant to speedrunning, though I'm not a speedrunner myself so I'm uncertain how useful it'd actually be.

As a side note, I called this Gamestop in advance to ask if they had the demo, and they told me no. So even if your Gamestop says they don't have it, if they have a kiosk, go check it out anyway cause the employee might be wrong. Also worth mentioning that I played on the PS4.

The motion blur isn't really a problem when running, but it's really intense when you're swinging the camera around. The camera also moves quite fast, like active mode in the OG games. This is something I hope we have the option to change, since the motion blur is kinda uncomfortable to me and I always played on passive camera.

Personally I thought charging was ok. I don't know if it's exactly like it was before and I don't really have a way to test that, but it felt fine to me.

I can't recall if this was in the OG, but you can flame the hula girls that are dancing on top of the idols (you still can't flame Stella or other NPCs, though : ( ).

Here's a really interesting thing I found. You can still move around during the fish minigame in Idol Springs and if you get far enough away from the minigame area, the little fish counter in the corner goes away. But, your progress in the minigame is still retained, so if you return to the minigame area, you'll still have the same number of fish successfully fed. I can't recall this being in the OG, at least for this particular minigame. I didn't try to get too far away from the minigame area (like I didn't run all the way to the end of the level or anything), but I did swim around in the take and then returned to the minigame just fine. I could even see the fish jumping up from underwater! If it's possible to get really far away from a minigame and still return, I could see speedrunners potentially abusing this.

In Spyro 2, if I did a REALLY short glide and then pressed triangle (basically as soon after starting the glide as possible), I'd do the drop from Spyro 1 instead of a hover. This is probably something you're not going to encounter regularly since there's no reason to do that short of a glide. I didn't test this out in 3, but I'd assume it's also the case there.

Sparx gem finder is pressing down on the left joystick. Might have been found before, not sure. Instead of pointing in the direction of gems, he instead flies in a little circle facing the direction of the gems. In a way it's harder to use, since you can't just have it on constantly while moving.

You can hold the roll button for continuous rolling!

Flame charge seems like it's most definitely gone. Press f to pay respects.

The hover animation is really different. Spyro does one powerful flap instead of a series of smaller flaps. It also seemed to feel a little different? I felt like my movement forward while hovering was more pronounced. But again, I can't be sure without a way to compare.

There's definitely some awkward collisions and physics with skateboarding.

You can gradually come to a grinding halt on the skateboard and then crash if you spam the jump button. Again, this isn't really something you'd be doing in normal play, so it's not a huge issue. I just wanted to muck around with the controls and see what I could find.

One problem with skateboarding that I'm not sure if people have mentioned yet is you can do the big jump off an orange ramp even if you're not on the side that has the orange (ex. the little ledge at the very start of the Sunny Villa skate area).

Sometimes when gliding in Spyro 2, if I bumped into a ledge in a very specific way, I'd enter something similar to the hover animation and get pushed up successfully onto the platform, even without pressing hover. I thought I wouldn't make these glides, but I did due to the push. This was very hard to replicate so I don't have footage of it and I'm not sure if it's in the other games. Another thing potentially exploitable in speedruns? I've decided to call it the "glide bump" for now.

Similar to the glide bump, I managed to slide up onto a short, elevated surface in Stone Hill by walking at it in a very specific way. This was a lot easier to replicate, so I do have footage of it! 1. Note that I'm not pressing forward during the actual slide.
https://imgur.com/a/rFOi1NL

It would also explain the “fourth wall break” with the sheep breathing on the camera: it’s actually the DNN’s camera used by the crew of dragons which is interviewing him.

musician

Lateef

Is most definitely a Magic Crafter, though I don't think he's the exact same dragon from the trailer, since there seems to be quite a difference between the art and the dragon shown

has to be a Peace Keeper

... then I would put my money on that being Ivor, the old dragon from Dry Canyon.

Metalhead looks pretty cool (assuming that's him on the far left). I can't wait to see him in-game.

I get these are remakes and not exciting new games, but come on, there is more soul and passion in one level of Reignited than in a whole umpteenth Call of Duty title.