What makes Spyro the Dragon (1998)'s 1st level so fun to play?

[sethmachine]

I just recently finished playing a 100% completion on Spyro the Dragon (technically 120% after Gnasty's Loot).

This isn't the first time I've played the game, but it's the very first where I did a 100% completion run (successfully).

What gets me into the mood of playing is the very 1st level of Spyro, called the Artisan's World.

It's a very scenic world, with green grass, blue skies, old soft stone structures and hills. There are very beautiful gems, red and green, that really go well with the world.

The feeling of completion and desire to collect the gems quickly burns out after the 1st world. By the end game, it begins to feel almost grindy, especially Gnasty's Loot, which I found the least pleasant level in the game, probably tied with Tree Tops.

My question is (if you agree with the premise), why is the 1st world of Spyro so enjoyable? What did Insomniac do right? But why is the success of the 1st world failed to be repeated in the subsequent worlds of Spyro?

 

[PurgeandFire]

Haha, I feel that way with most of the starting levels for Spyro. They give you a world that is (1) very laidback and easy to map out (2) you get to just test out your skills (3) the music is pretty tranquil (4) everything is happy.

I think it is normal to feel at peace at the first level. The later levels tend to have darker themes and it generally gets more difficult as you progress. Personally, there is nothing worse than trying to jump and glide to a place, only to get stuck on the edge and fall down. It really makes places like Gnasty's Loot and Hurricos (Ripto's Rage) become really frustrating. Spyro is one of those games that can be awesomely fun if you're good at the jumps and movement, but incredibly frustrating otherwise. It doesn't help that all the games make me motion sick after playing a level or so (still fantastic games).

But I forgot to mention one big thing: loneliness. A lot of the levels I liked the most were the ones where I got to talk to people and help them out. The levels where I just collected gems and did nothing else felt pretty stale and it just got lonely. In the first level, you see the dragons and have cutscenes and stuff. But some levels are purely just obstacles. I feel like there is an RPG player within all of us that enjoys talking to people. You can find a similar feeling throughout Zelda games--I love the dungeons and the puzzles, but I really feel at my happiest when I'm just walking around Kakariko or Castle Town and talking to people to see if their dialogues have changed.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I think people are overlooking the obvious fact that in the first levels you get to actually play as a dragon! Well you play as one through most of the game as he is the protagonist but it is only the first level where you have that "wow, I am controlling a dragon, watch me breath fire" moment. By the time you reach the second level/act the impact from controlling a dragon starts to be lost by general video game immersion as you focus on navigating and surviving the ever increasing difficulty of the game.

But I forgot to mention one big thing: loneliness. A lot of the levels I liked the most were the ones where I got to talk to people and help them out. The levels where I just collected gems and did nothing else felt pretty stale and it just got lonely.

This was generally the case for video games at the time. Although there were plenty of RPGs with people to talk to everywhere, they were still limited to mostly using 2D graphics and few used voice overs. Fully 3D games just did not have the free computational power to deal with a lot of different actors at the same time and distribution media capacity limited the amount of unique voice over sound one could have. Games were also smaller budget back then compared to now so creating a lot of unique voice overs and dialog could easily break the bank.

As it was Spyro the Dragon was pushing the Sony PlayStation 1 to its limits. It featured fully 3D environments, LoD for distant terrain, voice acting, seemingly seamless level transitions (they merged the loading with the gem counting, so basically it loaded at the score screen) and even impressive visual effects (the tardis like portals). Only recently are many of these features becoming main stream requirements, with level transitions still plagued by boring loading screens. Not bad considering that 3D graphics in the PlayStation 1 were barely supported at all as it was aimed at high performance 2D graphics (hence the lack of perspective correction, a feature which the N64 had).

What did Insomniac do right?

Making the protagonist a proper dragon (not some stupid human who is a dragon nonsense) and building around that. No other note worthy series has done that since then.

But why is the success of the 1st world failed to be repeated in the subsequent worlds of Spyro?

Actually there is a mechanical reason for this. The first world is the world all the players would experience when playing demo models of the game in shops, a practice which was very popular back when it was released. For this reason it is the world they spent the most time developing, and as such it is the most polished feeling. All worlds after that start to fall into level design problems to solve and fit into schedules. It was common with most games of the time to have very impressive first/early levels and then for the quality or variety to sharply fall off and be replaced with generic difficulty.