Spyro meets Lord of the Rings, complete with Elijah Wood voicing Spyro. It's extremely ambitious, and I adore it for that, but the gameplay is endlessly repetitive and the delivery for lines (which, there's a lot) is also a mixed bag. Not the worst of the trilogy, that remains for the second entry...
Update: Replayed as of 10/16/2021, added half a star. My opinion of the game hasn't changed much, and I actually like most of the voice acting (but you can tell when the writers just had to put in filler)
It gets better after the 2nd act, since you get Lightning which has the ability to stunlock (mostly) and chuck enemies around; meaning you an chuck almost any enemy in the game into a death plain and not have to deal with the tedious combat.
The biggest thing it has going for it is the presentation, with a fully orchestrated score and star studded presentation; though only the former of which is particularly good imo, the latter is fine for this kind of game in the mid 00s.
If you like semi-corny epics and are a Spyro fan that doesn't reel at games made past the first 3, I do recommend it; but don't expect the gameplay to be terribly interesting nor the story to be particularly deep as it only serves to set up for the Legend trilogy.
Update: Replayed as of 10/16/2021, added half a star. My opinion of the game hasn't changed much, and I actually like most of the voice acting (but you can tell when the writers just had to put in filler)
It gets better after the 2nd act, since you get Lightning which has the ability to stunlock (mostly) and chuck enemies around; meaning you an chuck almost any enemy in the game into a death plain and not have to deal with the tedious combat.
The biggest thing it has going for it is the presentation, with a fully orchestrated score and star studded presentation; though only the former of which is particularly good imo, the latter is fine for this kind of game in the mid 00s.
If you like semi-corny epics and are a Spyro fan that doesn't reel at games made past the first 3, I do recommend it; but don't expect the gameplay to be terribly interesting nor the story to be particularly deep as it only serves to set up for the Legend trilogy.