It's 9 o'clock on a Sunday evening, and after what feels like hours of grinding, I'm seconds from throwing down my controller in absolute disgust. It's all due to a toad: an irritating, wretched toad that won't stop rolling around in all its remastered splendour over the TV screen - and my poor purple dragon. This, of course, is a boss fight in the remastered version of Spyro: Year of the Dragon, and like the rest of the trilogy, the aging mechanics make you suffer. But god does it look and feel wonderful.
Hot on the heels of last year's Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy, Spyro: Reignited Trilogy is the latest attempt to feed the near-insatiable demand for gaming nostalgia. If the title hadn't already given it away, Reignited takes the three games from the original trilogy - Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon - and gives them a fresh lick of paint. Aside from some aesthetic changes, Reignited dutifully follows the level and gameplay design of the originals practically to a T. It's effective at fanning the flames of nostalgia, yet with this sense of familiarity comes the weirdness mechanics long forgotten (with good reason). It's pleasant and engaging at first, but I wonder whether Reignited is able to provide sufficient motivation for players to replay it.
For returning Spyro players, much of the joy of Reignited comes from re-discovering familiar faces given a new and stylish twist. Gone are the hard polygonal lines, and in are new, soft, Dreamworks-esque designs. Frankly, I'm relieved that Spyro has finally been given the makeover he deserves. Rather than the weirdly squashed face of his Skylanders predecessor, he now wears a perpetually cheeky grin and displays some charming quirks. If you leave Spyro alone for a little while, he'll start licking his claws like a cat - while his dragonfly companion Sparx will zoom up to the screen and give you a wink. This sort of attention to detail extends to the wider environments, as characters and enemies have been embellished with endearing animations. When Spyro shoots out flames, the grass blackens and smoulders with glowing embers. Enemies cheekily shake their butts at you, while starfish you can kill to feed Sparx will dance with hearts in their eyes as you approach, just to make you feel guilty as you slaughter them. It's a world that feels alive and bustling, making exploration a delightful aspect of the game.
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