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Someone at VU Games got their licenses mixed up. The last Spyro game I played for the GBA was Spyro: Season of Flame, since I never got my gritty hands on Attack of the Rhynocs. With three Spyro games on the handheld, some fans have started complaining that the publisher is “milking” the license. VU Games has avoided this problem by handling development of Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy to Vicarious Visions, of Crash GBA fame. Vicarious Visions have changed the gameplay noticeably by teaming up the trusty dragon with Crash Bandicoot, another VU Games property.
Spyro Orange seems to follow the Pokemon-school of game design which is to develop a game and make two slightly different versions so that collectors purchase both titles. Unlike Pokemon and its offsprings, Spyro Orange offers a more different experience; it isn’t just a change of titular character. In Spyro Orange, you’ll learn that Ripto, from the Spyro series, is teaming up with Dr. Cortex, from the Crash series, to break some havoc. You’ll need to go around Spyro and Crash locales to put an end to their plot. Although Crash does make appearances in the game, it is purely in the cut-scenes the story contains.
Spyro’s previous adventures on GBA have been challenging, isometric action-adventure games and were quite excellently designed. Unfortunately, Spyro Orange removes this style of play, instead favoring a side-scrolling gameplay style more similar to the Crash GBA games. These platforming elements don’t even resemble the Crash of yore, though. They are extremely easy and serve only to get the player from one mini-game to the other. It seems that Vicarious Visions didn’t want to be accused of simply having a WarioWare clone, but the platforming element is inexcusably weak; the experts at Vicarious should have done a better job.
The meat of the game comes from the various mini-games you’ll encounter. There is a lot of stuff to do in the mini-games, although most are the same with a few revisions. Apparently, Spyro likes to jump around. In most levels he’s moving about making good use of his wings to give him that extra oomph. Others have you controlling things which let you move upside down, while others are nearly identical to those found in Crash Purple.
To extend the game, Vicarious Visions has added over a hundred trading cards, which will unlock extra characters to play as in the multiplayer modes. You’ll need to link up with another Spyro Orange game (to trade cards) or Crash Purple (which has cards not featured in this game).There is also a four-player multiplayer mode which works with just one cartridge, but you can also use either two Crash Purple cartridges, two Spyro Orange cartridges or one of each.
In the visuals department, Spyro Orange looks pretty good, although much different than previous Spyro games have on the handheld. The new look doesn’t really fit the Spyro franchise, but as far as sidescrollers go, it looks pretty good. Spyro is rendered and animated with grace, and the backgrounds offer enough detail to keep things interesting. Sound is typically Spyro, but the quality is quite good.
As long as you are open to new ideas, Spyro Orange works. The mini-games are satisfying, despite their slight repetitiveness, and are quite a bit of fun. If there is another mini-games focused Spyro game in the future, the platforming elements need serious work, but overall the game’s style works. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Jun 14, 2004
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