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Spyro: A Heroes Tail Review - Gamecube

One game franchise that has surly taken a turn for the worse is the Spyro series. Once an ever popular franchise that was top notch, now it seems Spyro just doesn't cut it for the gaming industry any more in terms of freshness and appeal to older gamers. In fact, the only real reason why Spyro is still having new adventures is because of the hardcore fans that still love the purple reptile, and of course kids. However, seeing as how more and more violent games are taking the market now days, you can forgive some of the series recent downfalls because while it won't appeal to older gamers, young children will still love it no matter what and can legally play and buy it.

Gameplay

Once again, it's time to take control of Spyro the dragon in another attempt to save the Dragon Realms from a new foe, the evil dragon Red, who has planted Dark Gems that are infesting the lands and turning everything in sight into evil creatures who have nasty tempers. In order to save the Dragon Realms you must find the Dark Gems and destroy them using a bunch of different techniques some of which are new to the Spyro series.

These 'new' moves are by no means new to the platform gene in itself, and one can say it is surprising they haven't even been added in past Spyro games, but it will add some much needed freshness to this franchise. The new moves include the wall-kick which is basically Mario's wall-jump in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine that let's you jump in between walls to slowly climb/jump up them, the Tail Swing which acts like a lasso and allows you to swing across hazards. The last ability is the Ledge-Grab, which has been around for about decade and a half. A side from its new moves A Hero's Tail has also received a few tweaks in the control system that now allows you to make jumps and move characters around more easily and efficiently than ever before.

You can also purchase a few abilities including Fire, Ice, Electricity and Water Breath attacks which are used against elemental enemies, Water Breath for example, takes out fire enemies with ease. These are also used to solve many puzzles you'll find and while it sounds good in text, it can get a little boring. Unfortunately, A Hero's Tail mainly consists of tedious puzzle filled levels that have you jump from platform to platform and solve puzzle after puzzle, leaving the fighting in a bit of a backseat. It wouldn't have been too bad if it wasn't for the bad level design you'll encounter because you'll find that you either immediately know where you're going or you'll be left with no sense of what direction you should go too whatsoever. To make matters worse, you'll often have to backtrack through these levels in order to find a single gem that you (continued next page)