Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy [GBA] Review

Developer	Vicarious Visions
Publisher	Vivendi Universal
Genre	Platformer

The beloved purple dragon who has been in our hearts since his debut on the original PlayStation takes a brave stride into new territory in Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy. It definitely doesn’t fail or succeed; it just stands as a sign of the franchise’s degeneration. This GBA title goes back-to-back with its foundational twin, Crash Purple: Ripto’s Rampage.

Ripping a page from Pokémon’s book, Spyro Orange and Crash Purple are two parts of a complete adventure – or so developer Vicarious Visions wants you to think. Instead, you’ll do just fine simply buying the edition with the main character you adore most. Better yet, purchase the far superior mini-game based adventure Wario Ware, and have yourself a blast; the only thing you’ll find in Spyro Orange and Crash Purple are two mediocre wannabes.

Gameplay - Sometimes you’ve just got to wonder: why fix it if it isn’t broken? In 2001, Digital Eclipse released the innovative first handheld Spyro game with Spyro: Season of Ice. Due to its success, one year later DE distributed the much improved sequel Season of Flame, only to later unleash a final version of their portable dragon exploits, Attack of the Rhynocs. All three of these titles were played in an isometric, pseudo-3D viewpoint, which worked very well considering the way it was executed.

It is greatly surprising to see a side-scrolling Spyro, which is a daring move by the new developer Vicarious Visions. At first glance, I assumed the game would consist strictly of these side-view segments. Luckily, I was wrong – there are a plethora of mini-games to hold up what would have been a complete bomb without them.

In Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy, Spyro’s life-long nemesis Ripto has concocted a plan alongside Dr. Cortex, Crash’s adversary, to kill off the bandicoot and dragon and conquer a common goal of world domination. Since the plotline intersects with Crash Purple, you will occasionally encounter Crash and often veer away from his quest to focus solely on rectifying the damage your new rival Dr. Cortex has caused.

Even though the mini-games are fun and enjoyable, they’re still overshadowed by the better execution of the mini-games in Crash Purple. This is for two reasons: Spyro is a dragon with wings, and this has reserved him to a certain style of mini-games, mostly flying and linear shooting games. Secondly, a lot of these are recycled mini-games, and taken straight from Crash Purple. As a result, these mini-games feel less fresh, almost like an afterthought – but still fun enough.

While the mini-games are slightly worse than Crash Purple, the platforming overworlds are constructed slightly better. Once again, this is due to the fact that the main character is a dragon. Press A to jump, A again to glide and once more to hover for that extra tad of height, B to use your flamebreath, and R to charge; these are more complex and reactive controls than Purple.

The platforming level designs are more subtle than the other version, in which you could just speed through the levels extremely easily, this takes a bit more thought as not to risk dying. The looser controlling Spyro also allows for more motivating game situations, since you can charge, flame, run, jump and glide as opposed to Crash simply doing a retarded walk, jumping and spinning as his only attack. Just as in Crash Purple, these side-scrolling segments are the weak link of the package and may not have enough appeal to keep players going.

Spyro Orange ends too soon for the robust price tag. I finished it in eight hours as opposed to the seven it took me for Purple, but only because it has more difficult, beefy platforming areas that add a bit more challenge and length to the overall adventure, even if they’re not very pleasurable. It’s a cheap trick, just like the use of backtracking, and if this game only had the mini-games it would likely last a mere couple hours.

The multiplayer support is even better for Spyro Orange, with the focus being the collectable cards. Just like the Crash adaptation, you can connect with another copy of Orange or Purple to play multiplayer games. The best ones are the games you unlock when you collect more cards – which can also be traded with a friend using the link cable.

Graphics - Your eyes won’t be bleeding, but they won’t be feasting. The jungle theme is disappointingly redundant; even if that is Crash’s world, they could have mixed it up a bit. The whole visual package isn’t gaudy and full of character like Crash Purple is.

The sprites and enemies are a little more fleshed out for than Purple. As a whole, it’s very detailed and smoothly animated for a Game Boy Advance title, except for one disused exception: Spyro’s flame effect. In the platforming areas, Spyro’s main offense is his flamebreath, but every time the player activates it there is an annoying bout of slowdown and the whole frame chugs to a halt.

Sound - Just like the Crash edition, the sound is very clear and relaxing. The sound effects are once again right on, where every effect that spits from the speaker is perfect and matches its action, whether it be the heated spray of fiery saliva or a Rhynoc enemy being impaled by Spyro’s horn and landing with a thud on the cold, hard ground.

Crash Purple’s obnoxious and monotonous jingles infest the mind with their jarring nature, but Spyro Orange’s music is sprightly and frisky, reminiscent of the classic tunes from the PlayStation Spyro games. It’s much more tolerable than its twin’s music and keeps the player elated and wanting to progress further.

Bottom Line - Vicarious Visions took a big gamble with their new concept for the Spyro series, but they didn’t lose everything. There’s plenty of redeeming factors such as multiplayer support, more complex platforming than Crash Orange, and an unbelievable amount of various cross-over features with Orange. It pretty much equals its twin, with a few aspects that barely push it over the bar as the hardly better version. Just to be sure, don’t buy both. It’s not worth it – just get a friend to buy the other version if you’re desperate to try some card trading and cross-over multiplayer games. It had promise, but didn’t live up to its expectations; what did I expect? More than this.

Review by Cyrus Baetz