The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon

Preview from Cav - Friday, 27 June 2008 @ 1:10am

One of the privileges that AJ and I had while visiting Tantalus Studios in Melbourne, other than AJ drinking some of the finest coffee in Melbourne, was to get our hands on the new Spyro game for the Nintendo DS that Tantalus is currently working on: Spyro - Dawn of the Dragon. This hands on is an exclusive 'World First' and I, for one, was very proud and excited to get this opportunity. Now some of you may say.... oh wow, Spyro, whoopee! But I am sure that if you think long and hard enough, that Spyro has actually crossed your gaming path before and yes, you know you secretly did enjoy it.

We were shown the very impressive alpha build by Matt Spriggens, Lead Designer and Andrea Blundell, Producer at Tantalus Interactive, who informed us that the DS version of this game has been in production since November 2007. We were handed a pair of Nintendo DS Lites and we were away. Mind you this was actually the very first time I had played a DS Lite. I bought my DS not long after release and haven't seen the need to upgrade, although it is becoming increasingly hard to purchase Car Chargers and Styli for it (hang on – Styli?? Is that the plural for Stylus, or did I just make that up??) as they have both changed shape.

Being the gamers that we are, AJ and I bypassed the tutorial and got straight into it. Spyro: DOTD, to steal a term from one of my favourite pastimes, is a 'tag team' affair giving the player the opportunity to switch Spyro and Cynder while venturing through the game, a move which actually saved my ass on numerous occasions! Another advantage to the swap is the extra hit given by the incoming Dragon.

Each playable Dragon has a variety of special attacks, which of course, are regulated by a meter known as the Breath Meter. Meter runs out, powers run out – so it's either switch Dragons or beat up some bad guys to collect gems to rejuvenate you health and power bars. With the swap mastered, the next real learning curve is to ascertain which enemies are venerable to which powers. With that in hand you are ready to take on the world!

AJ and I were lucky enough to play through the three different play types for Sypro: DOTD. Firstly we played a side scrolling level, which took us through a cave type environment. Enemies came at a gradual rate, which gives one the opportunity to learn the controls, which are simple to grasp. Enemies can be attacked with combo moves and I am more than happy to announce that I amassed a 17 hit combo, heaps more than AJ pulled off, which Matt Spriggens told me was actually quite a feat.

I also managed to find a hidden mask in the level, another success that AJ failed to achieve. As mentioned before, the Dragons have a special breath attack to use. Various enemies will be either vulnerable or immune to these attacks, so it's up to you to decipher, with the help of the information offered on the top screen, which enemies are affected by which attack and use that knowledge to your advantage.

The next level we tried was a flight level, which saw us taking control of Spyro or Cynder and guide them through a valley (a rail type run), eliminating enemies placed along the path, by tapping the screen with the stylus. This was a very picturesque setting, visually impressive for a DS. AJ made mention that there were a lot of trees, but I suppose big city folk are impressed by that kinda stuff. Flight controls were easily operated, but it did take a steady hand to line up the enemies in your sites. Now what is a flight level without the ability to barrel roll? The team at Tantalus nailed that one too!

The final level we had the pleasure of playing was a boss level. Now this is actually where AJ stepped up. I will be the first to say that this was by no means a walk in the park. Still using the flight angle and the stylus, this boss had to be defeated by hitting weak points, while avoiding being struck. Accuracy is the key with this one and it certainly tested me. AJ claims to have found a way to 'cheat' in this level, which I am sure that the Tantalus QA team are going to take back to the drawing board, just so AJ can stop big noting himself, if anything.

Overall I was rather impressed with what Tantalus Interactive had to show us. If this is just the alpha of Spyro: DOTD, things can certainly only get better from here. The controls are easy to master (maybe except for the dreaded 'wall jump'!!), the visuals are clean, the sound quality is great. I could go on for ages here, but I want to leave myself something to talk about if I am lucky enough to review the final copy of Spyro.