The Legend of Spyro was the most horrible thing a company could do to their series,
ever.

You have this best selling franchise started by one company and they decide to sell it to some stupid, no-name company, hoping that a fresh pair of eyes can take it further. they continued with the Spyro-ish games, making Spyro: Fusion, Season of Ice, Season of Flame, A hero's tail, Enter the Dragonfly, and Shadow Legacy. Me, I never played any of the handhelds but I think I make up for it when I say that I completly loved Spyro: Enter the dragonfly. That was considered the worst in the Spyro series. For some reason A Hero's Tail was also frowned upon. I currently don't know why. As far as I'm concerned there was absolutely no Spyro game I disliked, Some frustrated me but, as we all know, that comes with the territory. I loved every single game, that is, until the "Legends" were made.

I heard tid-bits about Shadow Legacy. I was never fond of the whole Shadow relm thing. One, It is WAYY too dark for a Spyro game and Two, Shadow relm is such an over used Cliche`e. However the only thing I did like was the fact that Spyro could cast magic spells. The casting of magic seemed like a freakin' awesome idea! Well, after this so-called Vivendi Universal ran out of Ideas after Shadow Legacy, they decided to go in a completely different direction. (which is a complete, freakin' understatement)
So they made the "Legends". If you search around on the web, you will find that the main thing that people had problems with is the gameplay. Apparently, most dont like the button-mashing and the absence of puzzles. Personally, the puzzles in the Spyro series were never really strong. You want a game with puzzles, then I highly suggest you purchase StarFox: Adventures. That is DA' BES GAME EVER! I am talking about EPIC, Ingenious puzzles designed only for the truest of Adventurers. StarFox: Adventures is like playing Indiana Jones except with a '5 "11 Antropomorphic talking fox.

Anyways, sorry for getting
subject like that. Back to
discussion at hand....

The problem that seemingly gets overlooked by everyone is that there was much more that was destroyed by this conversion. Spyro was known as the Spunky, mischievious fire breathin' dragon. Cocky and nieve, he was hardly ever cautious. Sparx the Dragonfly never really had a description but Sparx was pretty much Spyro's concience. When Spyro said "Yea!", Sparx was there to say " Hold on Spyro, I'm not too sure about that." These two buds were a awesome pair. However the "Legends" destroyed this whole entire thing. Our feisty, mischeivious hero was replaced by some ugly goody two-shoes. This new Spyro (we'll call him Harold for the time being) is all noble and stuff. He is Valiant, and yet not without humility. Harold was doubtful and unsure of his power whereas Spyro would have taken it with stride.

Our Cool, cocky hero was replaced with a good, noble, valiant wuss!

Now I completely understand why evil hates good so much! It's enough to make anyone switch sides!

As far as the gameplay goes, I dont mind button-mashing, heck I play Super Smash Bros. Melee. The whole thing with collecting gems in order to breathe fire is an absolute insult to any dragon fan. Dragons have the natural ability to breathe fire, WITHOUT some stupid trinkets. Not only is he a wuss, he is a fake wuss, a pretender.

Another thing I would like to comment on is his ridiculous design. I mean, what the heck is up with the bug eyes, no eyebrows and just plain ugliness all over. He looks like someone just took a clay model of Spyro and dropped it into a dryer. After they took the melted product out, they gave it to a 3 year old to reconstruct. If you can look closely enough without throwing up and/or going into a fit of absolute rage, you can see that Harold resembles the beginning sketches from InsOmniac's first sketches for Spyro. They are located at the Animation Academy link on the front page.
However, there is still a clear difference between Spyro's concept art and Harold's ugly mug. If you look at the expressions on Spyro's faces, you will see his personality. If you've played A New Beginning, You will know Harold's personality. Self explanitory.

Even though Spyro has never been known to be smooth, His design is sleek and simple. Even though no animal in this world has beefy eyebrows, Spyro pulls it off exeptionally well. He has many design flaws such as his hock on his back legs, also acts as his heel. If anyone remembers Timon & Pumbaa from the Lion King, Timon's back legs are EXACTLY like Spyro's. Another flaw in Spyro's design is a far as aeronautics is concerned, he technically should be incapable of flight. One more flaw is that he has no thumbs. However, If he did, that would have contributed to even more horrible things that Sierra could have done. It was one of the reasons InsOmniac sold Spyro because they could do no more with Spyro quoting that "He couldn't even hold a gun." Now just imaginge if he did, and Sierra incorporated that into the "Legends."
The good thing about his feet is that at least he has true claws worthy of being on a dragon versus the little scrawny, pathetic ones on the Young verson of Harold and the older Version of him in Dawn of a Dragon.(oops! did I type that wrong? *giggles evily*)
Next is one of the most horrible things to happen to our spunky hero, HE GOT A GIRLFRIEND!!!! And I'm not talking about the self-appointed girlfriends like Ember from A hero's tail or Amy the Hedgehog. You actually GET cool points if you have crazy self appointed girlfriends. Spyro, like Sonic always made the effort to keep away from these little crazies and we were always there to laugh our butt off when they did. Not so much with Harold and his lady friend Sarah. YEA, I called Cynder, Sarah. What of it! I played A New Beginning and Cynder was decently high on the Coolness scale. When the battle began between Cynder and Harold, I was MORBIDLY SHOCKED BY HER LAMENESS!!! At the beginning of the Game, Ignitus the big red winged snake explained that Cynder was a great, maleviolent force capable of turning the tide in battle. When I get there, she begins to beat me with her paw and tail! THEY TRASHED MY FAVORITE SERIES FOR THIS CRAP?!? I get to the final battle and she continues to beat me some more. however, she has another super secret special move, she flies stupidly in circles around the entire stage, Spraying fire all over it. So I sit there, on the side of the stage,passing the time by counting the creepy monsters in the sky until she decides to finish so we could get back to fighting. She lost cool points but she still stayed in the running because of her character design. But it was too good to last. She plummeted right off the cool scale into oblivion with no chance for parole when Dawn of a dragon was released. I saw on youtube the last boss fight of Dawn of that Dragon between Harold and the Dark lord Sauron. (Or was it Malefor?) Before Harold finishes him off Sarah says something concernigly to Harold and Harold replies with some sickingly vailiant phrase. And just before the Great God Harold releases his ultamate, super glowy restoration move that will somehow heal the world, you hear in the background, a faint voice with the dreaded words that would make even our super cool purple friend quake in fear..." I love You..."


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!

That is why I gave her the name Sarah, She does not deserve to be called Cynder.

This whole series is completely whack! Spyro was turned into a goody two-shoes. The elder Dragons are a bunch of wussy cry babies, afraid to get hit by a claw and tail. Harold is butt-ugly and he totally denies it. The whole storyline is so D@#%$ Dark that I had to use a flash light in order to even play this crap fest! Even as I type these words, they feel like two polar opposite generes, Spyro the Dragon was a unique tale that involved a VERY simple Idea. A Stinking Nasty Gnorc imprisons the Dragons of a world. A spunky little dragon will save them. The End. No Hollywood magic went into it, no special effects, 5-star voice actors and big name stars. Spyro is a perfect example that greatness can come from anywhere, from the big to the small. The old and the young. The ones with the most power or even, in our case, the most average of joes. Spyro was an average Joe. He is NOT a rare purple Dragon with God-like powers and unique blood line. He was just another Dragon who decided to make a difference. Why couldn't Vivendi be happy with that? We were, or more importantly, Why didn't they just let Spyro die, fade away in all his glory like a deceased king set off in a boat with all his possessions into the great open waters. They had many, and I mean MANY other franchises they could have focused on and one day, one prospective developer would come along with all the RIGHT answers for Spyro's evolution.



The "Legends" were a Revolution that should have never Happened. Now I'm not saying that we InsOmniac Fantards only want our old Spyro back. What I am saying, Instead of a destructive Revolution, a revolutionizing Evolution was the answer.






'Nuff said.