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alt title(s): Spyro; The Legend Of Spyro Video game franchise started in 1998 when Universal Studios commissioned Insomniac Games, starring the eponymous purple dragon, Spyro. Activision Blizzard is the current developer/producer/distributor of the franchise..
The story of the first game follows the young teenage (or child, hard to say) dragon Spyro, who must rescue his elders from Gnasty Gnorc, who crystalized them all, stole their treasure and eggs, and sicced his minions on their worlds, all because of a few insulting comments made by a Dragon during an interview.
Two sequels followed, both developed by the original game's team, and they were hits as well.
The Continuing Play Station 2 games are not developed by Insomniac, and their quality is extremely controversial.
Technically, the overall Spyro the Dragon series can be split into three.
- The "Classic" Spyro the Dragon series - The ones created by Insomniac. Insomniac Games President Ted Price later stated in an interview that they stopped creating Spyro games because the player character, Spyro, was too limited for them to add new features and actions (Ted states, as an example, that "he didn't even have hands, he couldn't even hold a gun." Obviously, he never played Jet Force Gemini, which had a dog as a playable character doing pretty much everything the humans could do.) Insomniac would later go on to make Ratchet And Clank.
- Spyro the Dragon (1998)
- Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage (1999) (the PAL version is called Gateway to Glimmer, which is arguably a better title)
- Spyro: Year of the Dragon (2000)
- The "Franchise Zombie" Spyro era - During this period of time, the Spyro series was handed between several different developers, often with mixed results. Notable entries include the Digital Eclipse GBA trilogy and A Hero's Tail.
- Spyro: Season of Ice (2001) (developed by Digital Eclipse Software)
- Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly (2002) (developed by Equinoxe Digital Entertainment)
- Spyro: Season of Flame (2002) (developed by Digital Eclipse Software)
- Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs (2003) (developed by Digital Eclipse Software)
- Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy (2004) (developed by Vicarious Visions)
- Spyro: A Hero's Tail (2004) (developed by Eurocom)
- Spyro: Shadow Legacy (2005) (developed by Amaze Entertainment)
- The Legend of Spyro series - Sierra's reboot and appears to be a different canon altogether. The first two games were developed by Krome Studios, with development of the third title given over to French studio Etranges Libellules (Strange Dragonfly).
- The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning (2006)
- The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night (2007)
- The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon (2008)
The two (or three, depending on who you ask) series are different continuities, similar to the difference between the classic Mega Man and Mega Man Battle Network.
There is a movie stated to release in April 2010.
The series has crossed-over or made cameos in a couple of Crash Bandicoot games.
The Classic Era contains examples of:
- Badbutt - Spyro is a prime example, as are Hunter, Sheila and Agent 9.
- Bag Of Spilling - Averted in Spyro's case in Year of the Dragon (he keeps his abilites to swim, climb ladders and headbash), though played straight with Sparx in the same game. He forgets how to point to uncollected gems by holding down the shoulder buttons, but you can regain this ability by clearing a special Sparx level after beating the second boss.
- Boss Arena Recovery - Most of the bosses in the original trilogy will have sheep drop down occasionally to replenish health.
- But Thou Must: Lampshaded in the beginning of Ripto's Rage.
Elora: Spyro's going to help us collect the talismans.
Spyro: I am?
Hunter: He is?
- Canada Eh
- Crack Pairing - Recently there's been some Ripto/Elora fanart and fanfiction. It would explain why you never see her again after Year of the Dragon...
- Crowning Music Of Awesome - Ripto's boss music in Spyro 2.
- Defrosting Ice Queen - Bianca.
- Double Agent: Spyro in the second game. He fights forces of Breeze Harbour when he travels to Zephyr. Guess what he does when he travels to Breeze Harbour. Done later in the game with the Robotica Farms/Metropolis battle.
- Dream Land - The Dream Weaver's world in Spyro the Dragon.
- Ensemble Darkhorse - The Egg Thieves in the first game. The second game had a couple of thief challenges, but the third game had a bunch (usually involving supercharge ramps).
- The best of which had Spyro chasing Moneybags. Sweet, sweet revenge. >:}
- Everythings Better With Penguins: Flying, ex-RAF penguins, would you believe.
- Everythings Worse With Bears - Moneybags, the resident greedy bastard of the series.
- Evil Sorcerer: Ripto and the Sorceress.
- Don't forget the Sorcerer in Shadow legacy.
- Fetch Quest - Pretty much all of the games, but Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs is especially bad at this, to the point where the entire gameplay is just fetching items to fetch other items to fetch the World Hearts.
- Floating Continent - A lot of the levels in Spyro 1-3 seem to be floating in the sky, so falling off the edge of the world will send Spyro plummeting into a blue abyss.
- Follow The Money - the gems in the first three Spyro games would often indicate hidden treasures and passageways.
- Fractured Fairytale - Spyro 3 has a whole level devoted to this, Charmed Ridge. The same game also has a mission which requires you to rescue Rapunzel from a tower. It turns out she's there of her own free will and has taken out a restraining order on the man attempting to rescue her.
- Funny Aneurysm Moment: At one point in Spyro 3, if you refuse to pay Moneybags to access an optional side quest, he gives us this line:
Moneybags: What are you saving your money for, another sequel?
- Furry Confusion - Bianca is an anthropomorphic rabbit in a game where Spyro kills rabbits for health, and sometimes she'll appear in the very same level as the rabbit fodder. Try not to think about it too much.
- Get Back Here Boss: Gnasty Gnorc is the biggest offender, but every boss fight in the first game has this, to a certain degree.
- Grimy Water - ALL the water in Spyro 1, just the weirdly colored water in Spyro 2 and 3.
- Honest Johns Dealership: Moneybags.
- Interspecies Romance - The original trilogy is full of this. Spyro the dragon falls in love with Elora the faun, Hunter the cheetah falls in love with Bianca the rabbit (which adds Carnivore Confusion to the mix), and Sgt. Byrd the flying penguin falls in love with a very humanoid fairy, and that's only naming a few.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: The Sorceress' economical solution to a lack of powerful minions? Mutate ones you've already recruited.
- Just Eat Him - Misty Bog in the first game had evil trees that did just this.
- Not to mention the hellhounds in Dark Passage.
- Spyro 2 continued the trend with dragon-eating bushes in Fracture Hills, which were harder to detect, and arguably more startling.
- Scrappy Level: Tree Tops. Oh god Tree Tops. Also any other level that focuses on supercharging.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change - Played with in Ripto's Rage with some of the minigames, becomes incredibly prevalent in Year of the Dragon. Year of the Dragon included game mechanics like skate parks, speedways, first-person shooter levels, different vehicles, different playable characters with different game mechanics, and at least one minigame in each level. Compare this to the first Spyro the Dragon game, which only had the Speedways.
- Video Game Lives - The original trilogy.
- What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome: The first three Spyro games' soundtracks were limited to use of Yamaha XG 98' for the PSX. There's a severe case Your Mileage May Vary on this though, but for this MIDI Sequencing troper, it's very questionable.
The Franchise Zombie Era contains examples of:
- Boss Arena Recovery - Done to death in A Hero's Tail. Not only are there butterflies surrounding the arenas, but the game will actually save your progress in the middle of the fight when you hit the boss enough times, so if you die, the boss' health remains 1/3 or 2/3's gone. The only time the game expects you to finish the boss in one go is with the final boss.
- Bubble Gun - Frustratingly used in Enter the Dragonfly.
- Degraded Boss - Gnasty Gnorc: Final boss in Spyro the Dragon, the very first boss in A Hero's Tail.
- Well, he takes more hits to kill in the latter. Heck, there are mooks on the very first HUB who take more hits to kill.
- Genre Savvy: Spyro and Hunter both lampshade common game cliches in A Hero's Tail.
- Unfortunate Implications: Moneybags being changed from British to vaguely middle eastern.
- Unwilling Roboticisation: Red's final form in A Hero's Tail.
- Whole Costume Reference - The ermine-trimmed gown the Ice Princess wears is based on an actual gown Ann Boleyn once wore.
- Winter Royal Lady - The Ice Princess from ''A Hero's Tail".
The Legend of Spyro Era contains exaples of:
All contain examples of
- As Long As There Is Evil
- Big Bad
- Bottomless Pit - In the Spyro levels that aren't floating continents.
- Averted though, in Dawn Of The Dragon, due to Spyro and Cynder both being able to fly. If they fall into a Bottomless Pit they'll eventually open their wings, and just hover there until you make them fly out.
- Bragging Rights Reward - The infinite superpowered flame powerup in Spyro 2. Getting all the orbs and gems in the game awards Spyro with a more powerful flame ability, but after completing everything, the only real use to this is making some of the completely optional Skill Points easier to get.
- However, if you get the perma-fireball (or load a saved game with it) then quit game, and start a new game (without turning off your Playstation) you get the fireball from the start of the game, making some puzzles and levels (notably Aquaria Towers) much easier.
- Broken Base: Sierra fans versus Insomniac fans; so bad that it would lead anyone who didn't understand the fans to believe everyone was either a LoS-tard or a "Classics"-tard.
- Butt Monkey
- Character Derailment - Where do we start on this one? It's almost gotten to the point where every single major character has had one of these during the series.
- Continuity Nod - Books describing the original three games can be found in Shadow Legacy.
- The music from the original Trilogy and Enter the Dragonfly was composed by Stewart Copeland (from the pop/punk band, The Police)
- Pretty much the bulk of first two Legend games.
- Deadpan Snarker - Spyro can be this at times, at least in the original trilogy.
- Dis Continuity - A lot of the fandom, in regard to TLOS series.
- Draco In Leather Pants: The biggest of the offenders being Ripto, Red, and Malefor (and possibly Dark Cynder if you want to count her in). So bad with some fans that it's lead to a lot of artwork flooding Deviant Art galleries and some pretty odd Fan Fiction.
- And in Malefor's case, it's gone out to being as bad as to make him be not evil at all, but merely under the influence of some other monster and that he crushed the eggs to save them. Tell me that isn't a severe case of this trope...
- Eleventh Hour Superpower - The final battle in Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! against Ripto himself, and Dark Spyro in The Eternal Night.
- Evil Minions
- Everything Trying To Kill You - Inverted. A lot of the on-screen creatures won't try to attack you. On the other hand, killing both the enemies and the peaceful animals has its own rewards, so in a way, this trope is reversed.
- Executive Meddling: Heck, this whole franchise was built around this trope. Originally, Sony of America wanted to create a "kid friendly game and character for the Playstation" (considering the games at the time were... rather adult and teen oriented), hence the creation of the franchise, in which Insomniac never even had the full rights of in the first place, which resulted after Year of the Dragon's release that the franchise was sold and then became a Franchise Zombie until purchased by Sierra, who being way past their time ended up being bought out by Activision games.
- Fan Dumb: See Broken Base for a major example. Literally, it's hard to determine if the Smash fans and Sonic fans are worse than Spyro's Fan Dumb.
- Funny Animals - many of the level inhabitants from the second game onward
- Furry Fandom: You got dragons, cheetahs, rabbits, reptilian things, and "dragonflies"... obviously a no duh as to why they are here.
- Hey Its That Voice - The first game in TLOS, with David Spade playing Sparx.
- Also, in the original trilogy, Spyro was first voiced by Carlos Alazraqui (probably best known as the voice of the Taco Bell dog) before voice duties switched to Tom Kenny.
- I Have Come Too Far
- Instant Awesome Just Add Dragons: In meta concept in regards to the original's on the Playstation, considering all the other games that were released on it at the time. In fact, it's lead this troper to believe that "Dragons bring Dollars".
- Also in some circles with the first three games, considering that there were several other characters you could play as, it was almost if as Spyro was just there to get you to buy the game. (Well, Insomniac never really like Spyro all that much anyone, as opposed to say, Jak And Daxter.)
- Jerkass - Moneybags. He's well aware that Spyro is the only person that can stop the Big Bad and yet he'll still lower bridges and barricade doors and prevent you from continuing until you pay a small fee...
- In the third game, he set up the obstacles and captured the characters for the Big Bad, for money. And subsequently freed them/let Spyro pass; for money. Why would anyone trust this guy?
- Kill It With Fire - Pretty much all of Spyro's enemies can be killed with his fire breath, with a few exceptions.
- Lampshade Hanging - The older game series did this a lot by poking fun at game mechanics.
- "But what if it's already too late?" "Relax, Spyro's still alive. If he weren't, we'd be going back to a previous save."
- Depending on who you ask, Dawn of the Dragon made this better or worse.
- Agent 9 in "Year of the Dragon". He's either the most annoying character in the original trilogy, or the most awesome.
- Magic Wand - the fairies' checkpoints; Ripto's scepter
- Maniac Monkeys: Dear lord, most of the enemies of the Legend series are this, and usually twice your size.
- Mascot With Attitude: During the original trilogy especially; there were even ads with Spyro "beating" Mario.
- Which makes it ironically humourous when Ty does the same to Spyro. I suppose the exploding boomerangs took him by surprise.
- Make Me Wanna Shout - Cynder's "Fear" element in Dawn of the Dragon lets her use superpowered screeches.
- Memetic Mutation:
- WE'RE TOO LATE!!!
- The sorceress is fat...
- The Napoleon - Ripto, obviously.
- The UK instruction manual actually mentions Napoleon in his character bio. He fits the trope that well.
- Nightmare Fuel - SPYRO WANTS COOKIES? SPYRO WANTS COOOOOKIES AND MILK?
- Non Mammal Mammaries: Surprisingly averted, despite the number of furry female characters... except for Bianca, a Lara Croft spoof and possibly the Ice Princess.
- Not So Different - TLOS. Sort of. In the final confrontation in Dawn of the Dragon Malefor claims that purple dragons were meant to constantly destroy and rebirth the world, and that Spyro has carried that torch that Malefor himself held in this regard. Ironically, Spyro ends up repairing the planet.
- The Obi Wan - Ignitus, very much so. Although his personality is more like that of Peppy Hare.
- Oblivious Adoption - Spyro in TLOS was raised by dragonflies, and more or less believed he was a dragonfly until the whole "breathing fire" thing set in.
- Obvious Beta - Enter the Dragonfly, anyone?
- One Gender Race - female dragons don't even show up until the hatchlings in Year of the Dragon; the Gnorcs and Riptocs.
- Gnorcs? No, not Gnorcs. The large Gnorcs in Cliff Town (amongst other levels) were most definitely female, complete with non mammal mammaries. Which for a race like them is rather...um, yeah.
- A few female Riptocs are enemies in Enter the Dragonfly.
- Seen in Cloud Nine, to be precise.
- And in the TLOS trilogy, Cynder ends up being literally the only female of any species seen. I think...
- There was Sparx's mom, Nina, but she had all of two lines and was never seen again.
- One Hundred Percent Completion - several Spyro games go beyond 100%.
- One Scene Wonder - The Ice Princess, who has a very charming design and attracted a small fandom, appears only to give the player a single mission.
- One Up
- The Other Darrin- In the first game Spyro was voiced by Carlos Alazraqui, then by Tom Kenny and Jess Harnell and now Elijah Wood.
- Our Dragons Are Different - To the point where the dragons in the original series (Artisan, Peace Keeper, Magic Crafter, Beast Maker, Dream Weaver) are a lot different to the dragons in the Legend of Spyro trilogy, where more emphasis is placed on color and element rather than realm and occupation.
- Our Fairies Are Different - Act as checkpoints, for one thing.
- Parental Bonus - Both done by Insomniac and Sierra:
- Stewart Copeland (drummer of the band The Police) did music for the Insomniac games. This might lead some to believe that he's the Pop Star Composer in this case, but shockingly, he doesn't fit that trope.
- The Legend of Spyro series had Malefor being voiced by Mark Hamill, who was Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.
- Spyro 3 is full of Parental Bonus. Moneybags' comment regarding Sgt. Byrd and how 'he's pining for the fjords' and the references to games like Tomb Raider and Doom, for example.
- Pirate Parrot - two parrots from The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night
- Plot Coupon - Dragon Statues, Talismans, Dragon Eggs, Dragonflies, and Light Gems, just to name a few.
- Press X To Not Die - Dawn of the Dragon picked up quite a few quicktime events.
- Replacement Scrappy - for quite a few people, the new cast of The Legend of Spyro compared to the cast in the original series, especially Cynder.
- For some, Ripto in the older series replacing Gnasty Gnorc as the main Spyro villain.
- Ridiculously Human Robots - Robot farmers and businessrobots in Avalar, to name an example
- Romantic Plot Tumor - Dawn of the Dragon averts this. The "love story" involved is actually subtle and never shoved down the player's throat, which allowed Cynder's "I love you" in the ending to take this troper completely by surprise.
- This troper saw it coming from the moment she saw the ending of the first TLOS game.
- This troper is unsure how anyone didn't see that coming from the end of A New Beginning. The love story was subtle until Dawn of the Dragon, maybe...
- Well, Cynder's pretty much the only female dragon in the trilogy and happens to be about Spyro's age. In hindsight, Spyro developing any sort of emotional attachment to her doesn't seem so surprising, considering the circumstances, I think.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness - Bentley the Yeti in Year of the Dragon is especially guilty of this.
- And Volteer in The Legend of Spyro Series.
- "No more Thesaurus for You!"
- Shallow Love Interest - Ember in A Hero's Tail.
- Shout Out: Many missions of Year of the Dragon have names which refer to other games, including Doom, Tomb Raider and Crash Bandicoot.
- Slippy Slidey Ice World
- Spirit Advisor - TLOS, Ignitus in the ending of Dawn of the Dragon. How ironic.
- Suddenly Voiced - Crush and Gulp in Enter the Dragonfly, Sparx in A Hero's Tail.
- This troper would say that Sparx's example began in Year of the Dragon. Being silent in the first two games, he gained a Kazoo-esque voice, mostly to speak to you during the speedways (if you listen carefully, you can even make out the English words through the Kazoo sounds, especially in Enter the Dragonfly). A Hero's Tail was just the first game where his speech wasn't obscured.
- Sugar Bowl: Pretty much played straight in the first three games, although with a dish of attitude. It's gone by the time Sierra stepped in though.
- Superpowered Evil Side - In the TLOS series, Spyro gets one and obliterates Gaul with it. It turns up again when Spyro gets upset over Ignitus' death.
- Take That: In one instance, if you didn't pay moneybags, he'd threaten to turn you into a blue hedgehog.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Female dragons have long eyelashes and wear collars, and the two villainesses of Spyro 3 possess eye shadow.
- That One Boss - Dear lord, Dawn of the Dragon's Elite Enemies. At least they're optional.
- Red the Dragon in A Hero's Tail.
- Both battles with Captain Skabb in The Eternal Night. I don't think I've ever had to start a fight over so many times.
- Theme Naming - Spyro, Ember, and Flame the dragons; all the fireflies, many of the level inhabitants
- And every TLOS dragon including Malefor, for that matter.
- They Changed It Now It Sucks - The general opinion of all the Spyro games after the Playstation trilogy.
- Training Dummy
- Not so unexpected though; the Speedways have their own portals and the minigames in Spyro 3 are indicated with a starry portal in the level.
- Unnecessary Roughness - The hockey minigames generally involve using Spyro's breath weapon on the opposition.
- Videogame Cruelty Potential - If there are cute, cuddly animals roaming a level, chances are, Spyro can kill them for health.
- Video Game Flight - Spyro has always been able to fly. However, for reasons not clearly defined (well, other than "it would totally break the gameplay"), he could only ever glide in normal levels until Dawn of the Dragon, which let him and Cynder fly freely.
- Well, sort of freely. You could fly at any time, but the game controlled your altitude automatically, which meant there were still plenty of places where inconvenient downdrafts would force you to jump/climb anyway.
- I assumed the reason Spyro couldn't fly in the original games was simply because he was too young, and his wings were only fit for gliding, unless he got a magical boost.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: The real word that Spyro comes from is actually spelled with an i (Spiro).
- Obviously, it comes from a cross between the Spy and the Pyro
- This troper always assumed his name came from "spiral," mainly due to some artwork in the first game's manual (if I remember correctly - it's been a while).
- I was thinking more of Spiro T. Agnew (Nixon's first vice president) or some Synthesizer company/brand called Spyro Synths.
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