Pre-order Spyro Reignited Trilogy

While kids today probably only know Spyro the Dragon from the now-defunct Skylanders series, the little purple dragon actually got his start in the PSOne era. The Spyro games were among some of the most popular and well-received 3D platformers on the original PlayStation, and while the dragon's star faded in the PS2 era, the original titles are still considered some of the finest platformers from that period. It should be no big surprise that Spyro Reignited Trilogy was met with great excitement from a certain generation of gamers. We got some hands-on time with the remaster at E3 2018, and we're pleased that it shows a lot of love to the little dragon that could.

Spyro Reignited is a loyal re-creation of the original games, but it's a full remake, not a port. It's easy to imagine a remake messing up what the original games did well, and the developers are aware of that. That's why one of their top priorities was to re-create the games as accurately as possible. To do so, they went over the game with a fine-tooth comb and tried to make everything as accurate as possible. They even invented something called a "Spyroscope," which they used to go over emulations of the original games to make sure the physics were spot-on. The result is a remake that's as close to the original as it's possible to make.

While Spyro Reignited is as loyal as possible to the original game, even the very best PSOne 3D games were working under tremendous limitations. There's only so much that developers could do on a system that can probably be outperformed today by literal toasters. While the developers felt it was important to stay loyal to the source material, they're still updating some features of the user interface to make the games more playable. One example is analog camera control. The original Spyro predated the invention of the Dualshock controller, so while the camera control was fine for the time, it would be hopelessly outdated to modern gamers. The addition of camera control on the analog stick seems like a very reasonable compromise between accuracy to the original and modern playability. The same goes for the addition of an auto-save feature.

There are also visual changes. The PSOne hardware had to scrimp and save for every pixel it could get, so a lot of the areas in the original game lacked detail. The developers don't want to completely change the game, but they have worked to add more style to it. For example, a dragon who's an art critic now resides in a building full of portraits, and its design better reflects its personality rather than being a cut-and-dried generic one. The interface has also been updated, so all three games in the Reignited collection share the same UI, rather than changing between games.

All in all, Spyro Reignited Trilogy looks to be the ideal HD remaster of an old game. It hasn't thrown everything out the window, but it has also welcomed some modern updates. The core gameplay that fans loved is the same, but even the most die-hard of fans are going to appreciate improved fast travel and a better camera. In short, it's looking to be the absolute best version of the three original Spyro games ever made. Spyro Reignited Trilogy will be released in Sept. 2018 for PS4 and Xbox One.