The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon - A History

It's the final video guys, and the last game in The Legend of Spyro series - Dawn of the Dragon! I'm equally relieved and sad this is over, and I hope you appreciate the work that's gone into this one. If you do, be sure to leave a like!

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Dawn of the Dragon was released in late 2008 but it wasn’t made by the developers of A New Beginning and The Eternal Night. Instead Krome Studios handed the reins over to Étranges Libellules. Krome Studios began work on the final instalment of The Legend of Spyro series but due to a limited budget they were forced to reuse assets from the previous two games.

While this third game was technically finished, Krome Studios were so disappointed with the results that EL were brought in to rebuild the game from scratch. EL decided the cartoonish look of previous Spyro games wouldn’t fit their revamped story so Spyro and friends got an upgrade. Or a downgrade, depending on your point of view.

Spyro’s toned up quite a bit, evening out his face and body features so he looks less like a winged stick with big head mode on, and more like the legendary purple dragon he’s supposed to be. Cynder’s been changed up too. While she was a cute little chunky monkey with stumpy legs in The Eternal Night, she’s been thinned out a lot in Dawn of the Dragon, with longer limbs and a narrow angular face, probably to make her bear more of a resemblance to her adult form we saw in A New Beginning.

So what did I think of Dawn of the Dragon? Well to reiterate what I said at the beginning of this video – I LOVED playing this game. Yes it has its flaws, but not enough to mark it as a terrible game, and the positives far outweigh the negatives. The story kept me interested and was truly epic, the areas for the most part were well designed and gorgeous to look at, the combat – while tedious at times – was far more engaging than in the previous two games, having the choice to play as Spyro or Cynder was a breath of fresh air, and I loved the relationship the two had together.

Having prior knowledge that Spyro and Cynder would eventually fall in love had me rolling my eyes at first, but the relationship grew on me as time went by. The quiet moments where Spyro comforts a frightened Cynder, or when she reassures him he isn’t alone; they were some of my favourite exchanges in the entire game. Even Sparx, arguably the most irritating character in The Legend of Spyro series, had some memorable moments. Leaving him behind before traveling through the Belt of Fire really hurt my soul.

The PS2 version definitely needs work however. Knowing how beautiful the game is on next gen makes me desperately want to get my hands on a PS3 copy and give it another go, not just for the graphics, but also because there’s so much I missed out on seeing and doing. There are all the collectables I absentmindedly walked past, those nasty elite enemies that I avoided like the plague, and apparently some nifty armor sets that give the two dragons permanent Aether.

You know what, I’m kinda sad. I’ve been working on this video for the past couple of weeks, what with playing the game, writing a script and editing it all together, and knowing this was going to be the longest video yet I couldn’t wait to get it done. But now it’s actually sunk in that this is the last Spyro game I needed to do a video on….