Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs Review

Developer	VU Games
Publisher	Digital Eclipse
Genre	Adventure

While the first two Spyro games for the Game Boy Advance adequately retained the presentation and (some) of the gameplay of the original console versions, this third iteration takes a few dragon sprints backwards. As the series has grown stale on the consoles, it is now suffering the same “sequel syndrome” on Nintendo’s portable system. Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs involves more adventure than action, which seems to have been developer Digital Eclipse’s intention. This adventure element consists of Spyro completing various quests for characters in the game. Unfortunately, the adventure here really boils down to another 10 hour collect a thon, and Spyro’s enemy engagements aren’t as novel as they were in his debut game. While it does not have any particularly glaring flaws, Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs is simply overly generic and, consequently, quite boring.

Gameplay - Everyone’s favorite fire-breathing purple dragon is thrust right into another crusade against the evil Rhnyo, albeit somewhat accidentally. Spyro has inadvertently torn a large hole in the space-time fabric between the sinister Rhynoc and peaceful Dragon Realms. Not one to sit around while a prime opportunity passes him by, Ripto immediately sends his Rhynoc armies through the space-time hole in attempt to wreck havoc in and eventually control the entire Dragon Realm. Once again, it is up to Spyro to defend the Dragon Realm from the menacing Rhynocs, confront Ripto, and seal the space-time fissure.

For Spyro, saving the Dragon Realm is nothing new. For some reason, though, the developer’s set up a small training area that you must complete before heading into the “real” game. The training level is not terribly time consuming, but it feels unnecessary in a game that has a very simple control scheme to begin with. However, it could be viewed as a necessary evil, as the developers were considerate enough to think of younger children (which this game would more than likely appeal to) or newcomers to the series who need a few minutes to get acquainted with Spyro’s attacks and gliding maneuvers.

Upon arriving on the Dragon Shores, you will be able to explore a bit and find portals to a couple of levels. Upon completing levels you will gain access to new areas of Spyro’s world, very similar to every one of his past games. Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs introduces a Journal that Spyro carries around with him the entire game. The Journal keeps tabs on how much of each level you have cleared, based on percentage of total gems collected, mini-games completed, and special items/abilities acquired or found.

Although the gameplay is heavily objective based, you will still feel as if you are participating in a monotonous, large-scale scavenger hunt. The sad reality is just that: Attack of the Rhynocs is filled to the brim with freely lying gems, breakable vases and pots that yield more gems, and enemies that, when defeated, reward Spyro with…more gems. Judging with the utmost fairness, virtually every character-based platform game has some form of item collecting to be dealt with, for better or worse. But a good platformer lessens the priority of item collecting by the integration of other gameplay mechanics, such as (in the most general sense) constructive puzzle solving and useful weapons or gadgets (think Mario Sunshine and Ratchet and Clank).

Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs sorely lacks in everything else but item collecting. Killing baddies with Spyro is overly simple and requires little to no skill no matter who he’s facing. All the regular enemies can be disposed of with a simple dragon breath or dragon charge attack, and rarely does either one show an advantage over the other. Even worse, bosses are insultingly simple to defeat. The potential for at least some occasional challenge is also wasted with the game’s boss fights. Additionally, enemy encounters have dropped significantly compared to past Spyro games; you will usually never have to face more than two onscreen adversaries at once. This drop in enemy frequency was most probably done to make room for the game’s adventure elements, which as explained above, are little more than glorified fetch missions. Granted, there are a few side-scrolling sections that attempt to break up the monotony, but they really involve the same aspect of collecting, only from a different camera angle.

Level design in Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs has also seem to taken a step back from the previous two Game Boy Advance titles. A majority of the areas rely heavily on 90-degree inclines and step-like formations that are intended to make the levels feel as three-dimensional as their console counterparts, but actually give the game very primitive, blocky looking environments. This could be a fault attributed to the Game Boy Advance’s lack of hardware support for complexly drawn environments, but the past GBA Spyro’s managed to overcome this without adding tiny cliffs and wedges everywhere. It seems as if every two seconds you have another tiny ledge that you have to jump up to. A flat, wide-open level design would have suited the game well, as this would mimic the vast stretches of land in the console version.

As far as the control scheme is concerned, Digital Eclipse has always done a great job of converting Spyro’s move set onto the Game Boy Advance’s button layout. However, due to the isometric viewpoint of the game (also used in the past two GBA titles), you may have a hard time controlling Spyro’s direction and jump landings precisely. It will feel more natural as you play, but there will always be times where you are never in complete confidence of the occasionally twitchy nature of lining up for a diagonal jump.

Graphics - Digital Eclipse makes good use of the Game Boy Advance’s rich color palette in both the game’s environments and characters. The Dragon Realms are brought to vivid life with the use of a wide range of bright hues that perfectly fit the mood of the Spyro the Dragon series.

Spyro himself is animated quite nicely. At a standstill, you can see his body breathing gently and he even moves his head around while his longtime guardian angel Sparx the Dragonfly flutters around nearby. Spyro’s running, charging, and flying animations also look fluid and seem to be comprised of a similar amount of frames as in the console versions. There really isn’t anything to pick on in terms of visuals here, so we will gladly say that Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs takes more than adequate advantage of the Game Boy Advance’s graphical capabilities.

Sound - Attack of the Rhynocs’ sound is a mixed bag. On one hand, the background music complements the colorful visuals – it is fittingly cheery and filled with many high notes, but thankfully avoids much of the repetition usually encountered in games of this type. The “voice acting” though, becomes quickly annoying and you will most likely be heading to the options menu to turn it off. Every time a character talks, a garbled voice accompanies the onscreen text. It really does nothing except become audibly unnerving.

Overall Value - Knowing that this is the third Spyro game for the Game Boy Advance, you should not have been too surprised to discover that does not offer anything new to make a worthwhile purchase. In fact, Attack of the Rhynocs takes a step back from the pleasantly surprisingly quality of Spyro’s initial GBA outings in its attempts to make the game more of an “adventure” than a platformer. Unfortunately, the design changes backfire and Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs falls into the ever-increasing category of generic Game Boy Advance platformers. If you really need a portable Spyro fix, pick up one of the earlier (and far superior) GBA iterations - Spyro: Season of Ice or Spyro 2: Season of Flame.

Review by Nick Pappas