Spyro A Hero’s Tail – GC – Review

Spyro is back, and has recovered admirably from his game faux pas in the forgettable Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly. In his latest adventure, Spyro: A Hero’s Tail, developer Eurocom has designed a simple platformer that, while not bringing anything new or overly exciting to the genre, does deliver a good example of what a fun game for the younger crowd should exemplify.

The story is short and not worth describing, it just suffices as the reason why Spyro must collect gems everywhere he goes and destroy the dark gems he finds scattered around. Each time a dark gem is destroyed, the surrounding landscape, which has been darkened with evil, returns to its former bright and cheerful glory.

This is a simple platform game, with Spyro executing basic moves like a head stomp, jump, double jump and glide. He can also wall jump and pole vault with his tail. And, of course, he can use his breath to attack. New to the franchise are additional playable characters, Blink the mole, who can burrow and cause things to explode; Sgt. Byrd the Penguin, who can fly and drop bombs; and Hunter the Cheetah, who can shoot a bow and arrow, and also spin attack with it. Sparx the Firefly is back, and can fire missiles. Most of the times players will play these guys in mini-games.

Spyro’s main goal is to collect as many gems as possible to buy useful things at Mr. Moneybags’ shop. Some of these serve the purpose to advance the game, but mostly they’re just powerups that increase the value of the gems, give extra lives or increase the affect of attacks. He also must destroy all the dark gems. Sometimes, there are added goals in various mini-type games, such as when Sgt. Byrd must take out targets and dive through rings, amongst other tasks, or when Blink the Mole has to collect dragon eggs, which are another collectible which will unlock special features.

Spyro is easy to move around for the most part, and he can double jump from platform to platform. Sometimes, though, it’s a little difficult to get across, unless the double jump is timed just right. That’s the only real difficulty in this game, as the enemies are laughably avoidable for the most part, and the bosses are very easy to defeat. The hazards are also few and far between; when Spyro misses a jump, he simply lands at a lower level and tries again.

The game is easy to play, but at times suffers from a lack of direction, despite having both a map and goals listed. The map isn’t very useful, as it doesn’t offer much detail. While the worlds aren’t very big, many times Spyro is just wandering around, because he missed getting all the dark jewels. And, how to get up to other platforms isn’t always obvious, these types of puzzles are a little more obtuse than they had to be. However, the worlds are so bright and colorfully drawn, that most kids won’t mind too much running Spyro back and forth.

The designers kept the interface simple, most of the moves are accomplished with the A and B buttons, and the menus are accessible by the Z button. There are three game save slots, which are saved automatically throughout the game.

A Hero’s Tail looks wonderful on the GameCube, and kids will love the bright, pastel colors. Everything is pink, purple and yellow. Spyro, Blink, Cheetah and Sgt. Byrd are all nicely animated and really cute, my daughter especially loves playing as Blink and wall jumping with him. The music is good and features light, catchy tunes, a little similar to the type of music in Zelda: Wind Waker. The cartoony, bright atmosphere is similar to Wind Waker, as well.

This is a great game for kids, but older players will find everything a little too easy. My 14-year-old daughter is having a wonderful time with this game, but she’s no arcade queen. She usually prefers strategy simulations like Zoo Tycoon and Animal Crossing, and adventure games like Nancy Drew, although she does love Wind Waker, which is unparalleled as an action platformer.

Concept: 6.5
Been there, done that. But the execution is good.