darkSpyro

Personal Opinion: Krome nailed the games perfectly with A New Beginning and The Eternal Night, and I've wished ever since the game was released that Krome made it, they just seemed to have perfected the games. (Remember, this is my personal opinion, don't go yelling at me if you disagree) I always thought it was odd that this game was so incredibly different with it's new company. As much as I love this game, I still and always will wish Krome made it, I often even day dream of how amazing I'd seem. Now discuss.

Krome Studios were more familiar with the story of the LoS than Estranges Libellules.

If Krome made DotD, then the game wouldn't have any Spyro and Cynder character design plotholes.

Krome Studios started off the LoS series with A New Beginning which was alright, but needed some improvements in the next title, and when The Eternal Night came along, it just got a whole lot worse, I hate that damn game so much, and I reckon that the next title at the time The Darkest Hour, which has now become Dawn of the Dragon, probably would have been even worse, or just as bad. When EL came along, it seemed that they tried to do something fresh for the closure of the series, but with the short amount of time they had, it all went downhill once again. The game starts off fine, and then ends up becoming like The Eternal Night with it's stupidity.

Apparently, Krome planned to make the game like this one.

And I've played it and it was AWESOME.

Plus, have you seen all the dropped concept art, huge serpents made of water, pillared rooms with pools of acid, a yellow Spyro clone, Spyro diving underwater to reach a submerged chest...

I remember they talking about some storyboards apparently from Darkest Hour; I think it's been lost on Spyroworld.net long ago(Aura,you've still got them,before the first pics of free-flight were revealed?), but if they were really from what Krome was planning to do,sounded awesome. The trio having adventures in a volcano and still small,iirc.
Not to mention,TEN(which had the best storyline of all games,though the GBA was obviously more polished and was less broken) was building some epic plot around Malefor and the world beyond the Temple(White Isle had some interesting places far from it);not to mention plot hooks like on of Skabb's parrots being still around,some unnacessible areas of the Temple,and of course everything to do with Dark Spyro. (Also the 3 special TEN shorts,which threw the game's plot around but really showed off Krome's potential)
ET took it like a excited pet over some new treat and ate it all on one bite. I even think they copied the gameplay for the HTTYD game they released a bit later. Graphics are ok,concepts weren't too shabby,but damn,all that work over LOS's plot,destroyed,and a gameplay that was bad made even worse... Time constraints or not,they could've done a much better job,even without implementing all the cutscenes they had to drop as they said it on the old LOS forums.

Activision has seriously made me mad at them for what they have done. >.<

It would have been SO much better..
I wish Krome would come back and remake the Darkest Hour...(<DotD's true name)

Spyro wasn't owned by Activision at the time when the decision of changing game developers was made.

The producers were the one who made the decision in order to make DotD look like the next generation.

Then badness would come.

...this game would have been horrible. Krome clearly showed how well they can't handle pressure when it came to how TEN turned out. I finished that just yesterday, and I'm glad they were not really a part of the finale. The differences are staggering to what was implimented in DotD compared to its last title and it shows on the better quality.

From a design standpoint, the levels would be more linear but also be better designed. I'd imagine most of the levels would be pretty dark theme wise, since the majority of Krome's levels in the Legend games were dark and sinister. There would be a better balance between using breath weapons and physical melee. The story may also have made a lot more sense. <.<;

Quote: HIR

From a design standpoint, the levels would be more linear but also be better designed. I'd imagine most of the levels would be pretty dark theme wise, since the majority of Krome's levels in the Legend games were dark and sinister. There would be a better balance between using breath weapons and physical melee. The story may also have made a lot more sense. <.<;

I just finished playing all 3 today and started doing so mid week. From the perspective I got from the games, Krome can tell a story, but when it comes to gameplay they need some work. It's enough to give them slack for ANB for being a first entry but the game could easily be beat in 8 hours in which is how long it took me. I found that a fair time frame and the story was done well enough even for the combat that I felt like wanting to go through it again. David Spade for example made a great sparx.

TEN I only saw the scenes on youtube and mostly the part of dark spyro so going into the game I didn't know much other than that. I thought it was going to just take me 8 hours like ANB which was fine because of how much i paid back then for it. I was wrong. Krome had some good elements of story, but for the most part before the arena the game felt rushed to get to this point as in sloppy. The temple level has way too many cheap deaths, horrible platforming segments. I got stuck in one particular point of jumping due to how bad the spiders fired and always nailed me and falling into a pit of spiked vines. The difficulty is absurd for level 1 which painted a picture of exactly how the rest of the game went. Horrible checkpoint placement. Cheap death after cheap death. Arenas where you can fall during boss fights happened way too much, due to the fact of not realizing there was an edge. Even the final boss fight of gaul its just plain n00bish to even put it in for a final battle. (I died over eight times simply from spyro's knock back roll backwards and off the arena and i was only slight back from center).

DotD in what came out was what you would expect from the end of TEN. From what happened, your hero is locked away the world is going to go bust. I wouldn't doubt that Krome would have done maybe a few tweaks in the story to get to Malefor, but to say they would have done better than that for the controls? I don't think so.

To further give my point I'll talk about the combat between the three games:

In ANB you got the basics and several of the breath attacks were in different ways superior based on the game's mechanics. Fire breath was obviously strong, but if you also used the normal electric breath and it's ability to throw enemies, you could take out legions by simply throwing them off the platform (it registers instakill and you can do this to just about every enemy except bosses in game). The apes also had less chance of countering attacks compared to TEN.

TEN: Fire breath and also Earth flail and electro spin, dragon time. What needs to be added against the second boss battle of Skabb was what I found out other than the given strategy because his pattern was so cheap that most of the times you could easily get knocked off his platform. Using earth flail easily stuns him and takes massive damage off of him to the point you could cut his battle down to a minute or less instead of having to run around so much. Electro spin against the green lazers + dt or interestingly enough using dt + any breath power could almost give you infinity breath power if used correctly. Dt however had to compensate for horrible platforming that up until the final level, 90% of platforming in order to save yourself a cheap death and repeat cut scene due to bad checkpoints was to use this.

DotD: I highly recommend the ps3 version as that is the one I had, and to be frank the combat is just much tighter in this to the point. You're dealing with slightly older dragons and its war now, so you need more of a focus on combat. It shows in this game on how well it was executed with a balance of the breaths and fighting. Some of the better breaths made a return and are actually useful. For one you can block and dodge, last i checked spyro could not do any of that in the previous ones. The dodge alone is so tight I could be low on health and can take down an elite by the actual triangle and square attacks. The elements even have different powers to solve puzzles which in the case of cynder's shadow for instance helps you get a few collectibles, plus her fear blast is one of the strongest attacks on upgrading. Flying also feels natural and as long as you follow actual wind currents you don't have a problem where to go meaning unlike the previous two, some spots you had no idea where to go, at least here it felt more natural and free roaming. I like the fact from the previous game I can actually explore an environment and not actually die every three seconds due to how constricted it was.

Quote: tigerdr

DotD: I highly recommend the ps3 version as that is the one I had, and to be frank the combat is just much tighter in this to the point. You're dealing with slightly older dragons and its war now, so you need more of a focus on combat. It shows in this game on how well it was executed with a balance of the breaths and fighting. Some of the better breaths made a return and are actually useful. For one you can block and dodge, last i checked spyro could not do any of that in the previous ones. The dodge alone is so tight I could be low on health and can take down an elite by the actual triangle and square attacks. The elements even have different powers to solve puzzles which in the case of cynder's shadow for instance helps you get a few collectibles, plus her fear blast is one of the strongest attacks on upgrading. Flying also feels natural and as long as you follow actual wind currents you don't have a problem where to go meaning unlike the previous two, some spots you had no idea where to go, at least here it felt more natural and free roaming. I like the fact from the previous game I can actually explore an environment and not actually die every three seconds due to how constricted it was.

I gotta disagree with that. I have played DOTD and other games way too many times to doubt anyone would question that the gameplay is just FLAWED,but apparently I was wrong.
Let's start with breath and melee balance. All you need to defeat 90% of the game is do the finishing moves and upgrade Cynder's fear all the way;spam Fury when you don't feel like being nice.You're in for a bad time if you think you can melee stuff like Wyverns with the weird way the characters move when fighting,specially on air,on the other hand just spam breaths to get through anything.At least TEN made you combine fighting moves and the breaths to fight but DOTD made fighting only to get through the sturdier and slower enemies.
Dodging won't keep you alive.Not only sometimes it goes random ways on air,the camera never helps and you're probably too far from it to notice what's going to happen.Blocking also doesn't work much,maybe stop projectiles but that's it.
Now,free flight?It's cool and all,but it never felt any natural.There are only wind currents to stop you or to force you somewhere,and on other places it's just faster than walking.Maybe the puzzles were inventive with it,but the exploration would've been just as fun if we were still bound to the ground,not to mention you can get lost very easily by trying to control the flight.
I might've not played this in a long time since my copy stopped working,but I do remember what was jarring.Maybe I'm wrong in some aspects;though,really,play Avalar several times,and it's where the mistakes are shown,(to begin with,I think just about any Legend fan remembers the village defense part and hates it;it gets better as the level progresses but just try to complete it with no guides).

I agree with Krome having a better hand at story than gameplay,but the thing is that they improved between ANB and TEN,they would've done way better than EL.It'd probably would be a really dark setting with some really cheap difficulty,but it'd be a good game overall;after playing DOTD for long enough and comparing to other games you notice it's all bells and whistles.

I'm not going to really go in depth, but I know that The Eternal Night turned out "unfinished" because the game was rushed through development to get it out since Sierra's merger with Activision was looming on the horizon. A New Beginning had more development time and turned out much better as a result. Dawn of the Dragon, by contrast, had a MUCH WORSE development period, due to Activision canning Krome and tossing the game to a new developer with limited time to meet the near-holiday release.

Forget the story, which I could care less about. I once owned the PS3 version and I'm immensely glad I sold the game back. The gameplay really suffered from some inherently bad decisions. At the core of it was the repetitive combat. Most of your breath attacks used up your magic energy so quickly they were useless for the entirety of the game, a problem I never had with ANB and TEN. So you were forces to rely on melee often when it wasn't beneficial. Trying to combat in the air was not going to end well due to the free flight system, a fact which frustrated me in levels like the Destroyer where flight-based combat was NECESSARY to beat the level.

So that meant it was up to the ground-based combat, which tried to be a bad cross between God of War and Devil May Cry. It just ended making me want to play those games instead. Speaking of them, a lot of the set pieces and enemy combat seemed HEAVILY influenced by those 2, better series of games. In fact, the ENTIRE Malefor battle is a rip off of the final boss of the first Devil May Cry. And the game had pointless Quick Time Events, but unlike God of War, where they were interesting and used to spice up combat, they were essentially "PRESS A TO NOT DIE." I have awful reflexes. So I could breeze through a sequence, miss a Quick Time Event, and die as a result. ANB and TEN never had any Quick Time Events.

If you didn't have a friend, you were forced to content with poorly-programmed AI, which gets in your way a lot. And the gimmicky tether caused endless amounts of frustration, especially in some of the "platforming" sections. Why the game couldn't just use Kirby logic and teleport the AI to you is beyond me.

I'm not gonna go any further. Everyone who knows me knows I HATE HATE HATE Dawn of the Dragon. It's not the worst game in existence, but it's certainly one of my least favorites. <.<;

That would explain and exactly how TEN felt in being rushed as to me DotD was just better overall and I do have to agree on the loss of breath quickly, but in the end that was actually common in the other games as well. ANB not so much but TEN with its combat I found I ran out nearly constantly especially in the first part of the game. It wasn't until the close final level of TEN did I realize on slowing time to conserve breath energy but by then at the measure it was countless hordes that cheaply got through attacks of breath and constantly pounced you. Something else I enjoyed of DotD was the not so focus on apes >.> I mean when I first played DotD around when it came out I never knew the trilogy had them. Playing through all three, they needed more variety for the first two. Though with how Gaul was it did make sense as to why there was a monkey infestation, but it still wasn't an excuse to keep the majority of the enemies in the game monkeys. That was one thing the game had right.

From what you said though how could Krome make it better if they were already under pressure? The proof is how TEN came out and if they had an even shorter cycle to make DotD they just wouldn't deliver. They already proved that point in their inability to do so. The trilogy was not a bad idea as in the end the whole thing can feel like a hollywood production so in a way you get a spyro movie experience in the interpretation. DMC 1 was ok, i never got to the final boss so I would have had no idea that was similar, but it seemed the malefor battle just felt like how the others had focused. Each game had a point of using your abilities for the first to a second phase. How did you finish off EVERY final boss in the trilogy? Your convex/fury breath as in your special attack. All three did it and it makes sense. The malefor battle in using the fury breath to finish him did from what was taken. From a gameplay perspective it just fit into place.

The flight mechanic you had to really just sit there for a moment and take in. As in you had to learn how wind currents work and if you went against them especially in some of the levels like the destroyer is why you would be frustrated. Floating islands and the one plains level after the first are good places in seeing how to work it. Even the burning lands gives you a bit of leeway in learning. To me it was fun and going through all three it was more than welcome than the die here or die there by bad jumps. I can see why some enjoy TEN but the story even for that game is rather shady at best.
Combat in the first two I have to say ANB was better than TEN and even the gauntlet of enemies in cynder tower as much as it kind of felt like a chore, it was doable and worth the climb. TEN was a punishment in that department. DotD might have used similar elements like God of war and DMC but if you hate QTE I should already tell you to not even bother with RE6 because that game is 100x worse with it and frustrating because of it. This game is light on that challenge. The AI also did do some work, but I think that also depends on how you look at it. Making some jumps from the closeness mechanic did add a bit of thought in how to do things. In some ways that was part of a challenge, but it wasn't as say difficult in trying to jump to moving jellyfish like in TEN. Also the AI partner wasn't as much targeted as the player during single play as to let you use energy of both dragons seperately. Easy to swap and live and use the fact of the armors to regen. Many of the crystals found also did this more than in the other two games but the fact of the breaths draining in a more realistic way meant you had to be more strategic with it. Though in each game that strategy varied somewhat because TEN had effectively one of the cheapest mechanics to allow enemies 3 or more hits simultaneous while you are trying to recover.

It's understandable though if you wanted krome to finish it and as others pointed out they probably had good ideas for other games but look at the development time, it wasn't hellish as you put for the trilogy. (Pretty much the same that is being done with skylanders and again coincidence or not that tfb is not being the primary maker for it? vv should be ok but that remains to be seen on how the wii u version i have i play through but i'm not worried on it. Yet its similar to only let the ones working on it for the first two but someone else on the third) If I was activision i would have tossed krome off the project the same way if I played through TEN at that time instead of now. Sierra and vivindi games were still part of the trilogy even without krome so it was still done nearly almost like the others.

I can see how it rubbed you the wrong way, and its nice to be different on it. I just would consider it more of DotD my fave out of the three, ANB next and TEN in last due to just wtf Krome on its implementation. TEN the only way to love it is to keep playing through it more than once, but for me I'd probably only play through it one more time. Its difficulty level and bad programming in spots doesn't justify it like the other games just did different things better. Though its ok if you don't like it.

This conversation makes me wonder how others will take up VV working on swap force and its going to be interesting on who's going to love or hate it? Not to spoil anything on that for others but I highly doubt there will be a skylanders 4 as swap force is most likely the conclusion.

I didn't want Krome to finish it, but I certainly didn't like Activision saving money by recruiting some random, no-name French studio to work on the game when they have several decent, in-house developers. The results speak for themselves: Dawn of the Dragon is the lowest rated amongst the three games and Activision decided to leave the Legend universe and dissolve the Spyro franchise, more or less. I think this game was doomed to fail from the beginning. <.<;

Quote: HIR

I didn't want Krome to finish it, but I certainly didn't like Activision saving money by recruiting some random, no-name French studio to work on the game when they have several decent, in-house developers. The results speak for themselves: Dawn of the Dragon is the lowest rated amongst the three games and Activision decided to leave the Legend universe and dissolve the Spyro franchise, more or less. I think this game was doomed to fail from the beginning. <.<;

Actually TEN was the lowest rated of the three if you go by the metacritic ps2 scores. Between the two games I would have to agree with them. http://www.metacritic.com/game.../critic-reviews

It depends on the experience you got with either game. TEN on the ps2 is just brutal and should get handed the use of the Nintendohard title while DotD was a lot easier in that aspect. It just didn't feel like a chore. You could check the metacritic on DotD but the general consensus is that it did far better than TEN.

They both have strng and weak points... I reaaally don't like Eternal Night. The story was great- but the gameplay sucked. It was beyond hard. It was so unfair that it was a chore, and the payoff you got wasn't fantastic. It's better to be lazy and just watch the cutscene compilation that's floating around on YouTube.

However, the story would certainly have been better because Krome are much more familiar with the characters and the general theme and direction of the series. But I like how Dawn's gameplay turned out, even if it has flaws and annoying inconsistencies- but let's face it, the last two games did as well(not as many, though I think EL's work was fair for being less familiar with them). Spyro flies perfectly within a second of taking off during cutscenes and the flying levels, but barely glides a meter in the gameplay. :/

Personally, I wish that Krome would have done the story at least, so we could have a more involving plot. It isn't terrible, even though it has a ton of plotholes, but there are numerous occasions that are supposed to be emotional that you'll just say "what?" at, or just notice the inconsistencies with too much to actually feel emotional. There were also several missed points that could have been interesting to expand on(namely, Mole-Yair's planned return...).
Actually, it would have been cool if the guys who made the TEN shorts had made the story for this game. Those shorts are what the story SHOULD be like. But that's a pipe dream, they just made those as throwaway.

I don't really care much either way, though. Dawn was a nice conclusion, overall, and filled the "sequel" role: it expanded on the last two games while feeling different. It also has a lot more opportunity for exploration, which I don't think Krome would integrate very well(they tried that with Scrolls and Masks in TEN, and those basically required a guide to finish collecting unless you're a true masochist). Hey, at least it's nicer to you than TEN's "I have no son" mentality.

In conclusion, I agree with what most of tigerdr said. The fact that Krome were going to try and make the game so different from the last two (Post #4) makes me more glad that they didn't end up making it as well. Like HIR said, the game was never going to be as fantastamazing as it should have from the start, you get either a rushed, unbalanced game, or whatever you want to call Dawn as it is now. I'll take the latter, if it doesn't mean replaying The Eternal Night.

I understand a lot of you don't like TEN, but it should be assumed for everyone person who doesn't like TEN, there's one who doesn't like DotD. That's because they're polar opposites.

I am one of those who doesn't really like DotD, but I'm not complaining. Life's too unpredictable.
From what I gather The Darkest Hour would have been far superior to Dawn of the Dragon, but again, life's unpredictable.

Well all we had to go off for the Krome version was the name and a fleeting rumor. So I'm not going to jump to any conclusions. I maintain my opinion of DotD and will never play it again. <3

@Darchangel Yeah, you're right. I can see why people hate DoTD though... In fact, I used to love TEN, and hate Dawn. They both have their own problems, it just depends which you can see more unignorable flaws in. I know Dawn has a ridiculous amount of plotholes, and mechanics that are very flawed in some spots, plus confusing or frustrating level design(to this day Burned Lands is my least favourite level in a Spyro game), which is why I use headcanon, but if you're thinking critically about it then it's extremely flawed since the story was half the game, and many of the new mechanics that would have been truly awesome didn't work correctly or placed annoying barriers in front of you. And the graphics try looking epic, but just look generic, silly, or downright weird a lot of the time. Both of them are flawed, as well as ANB, I personally just found Dawn to have more interesting gameplay.