Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly

The gameplay featured in Enter the Dragonfly is similar to the previous Spyro games. However, the game's new addition is multiple breath attacks, such as bubble breath (to trap dragonflies), ice, and electric breath. These abilities are attained from the ancient dragon statue in the homeworld. Spyro also has a block move that will deflect long range attacks and send them back at the enemy.

The story begins shortly after Year of the Dragon. The dragons are in celebration of a rite of passage for the young dragons and for the Grand Dragon Parade, with the arrival of new young dragonfly guardians for the baby dragons.

However, during the party, Ripto teleports in via a portal along with his henchmen Crush and Gulp, disrupting the celebration. He is intent on capturing the new young dragonflies to weaken the baby dragons, however his spell misfires and the dragonflies become scattered throughout the Dragon Realms.

Spyro is tasked with recovering the realms' new crop of dragonflies. Spyro eventually completes his mission and faces Ripto. Spyro wins the battle and Ripto runs for his life, swearing that he will be back. The game ends back at the party, with the celebration being continued.

When Insomniac Games completed work on the Spyro trilogy for Sony PlayStation, they decided to leave the franchise and moved onto developing the Ratchet & Clank games. After the publishing agreement between Sony Computer Entertainment and Universal Interactive Studios ended in April 2000, Universal Interactive, who owned the Spyro intellectual property, was consolidated into Havas Interactive the following year, becoming a publishing label within the company. Havas then announced that they had plans to bring an original Spyro game to the Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC, and Game Boy Advance.[2] Universal contracted two California-based studios to develop the game: Equinoxe Digital Entertainment, who handled the game's art, and Check Six Studios, who handled its design and programming.[3][1]

Joel Goodsell, a game designer who had previously worked on the Disney Interactive Studios titles Gargoyles and Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue, joined the project after seeing a Spyro-themed demo they developed. Goodsell served as the original project lead, and felt that Spyro needed a "tone update" going from PS1 to PS2. The developers initially created a darker, more adult take on Spyro, integrating steampunk visuals into the design and art. Based on Universal's feedback, the game was rewritten to be more traditional, with a plot involving Gnasty Gnorc and Ripto, antagonists from the previous games, teaming up. Universal replied that the game was "just a standard Spyro game design", asking what was special about it.[3] Goodsell then wrote "an epic Zelda-esque RPG-lite Spyro design" including a hub-town and surrounding open world field with changing seasons. Universal signed off on this design in January 2002, leaving no feedback.[3] Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly for the PS2 was unveiled on February 19, 2002, at Vivendi Universal Games' First Annual Games Fair in France;[4] A GameCube version was confirmed in July.[5]

Several months into the game's development, Check Six and Equinoxe moved into a single office space in Venice, California.[3][1] The game struggled with low framerates, even as the visuals were simplified.[3][6] Check Six had difficulty paying their developers, missing paychecks, and the team was also pressured to release the game in time for the Christmas season.[6] Goodsell felt that having two directors on the team, including Ricci Rukavina of Universal Interactive, hurt the team's morale and was a drain on Check Six's limited financial resources, so he left the studio.[3]

Stewart Copeland, composer of the previous three Spyro games as well as Enter the Dragonfly stated he started to feel a "divergence" with Universal Interactive, stating "I remember the team came in to create the promotional materials for Enter The Dragonfly. They showed me an ad they had, which I didn’t even recognize as Spyro. It was country and western-themed, and I think that’s where the divergence happened for me. We were not on the same page any more."[7]

Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly was the only game developed by Check Six and Equinoxe before they closed down. Check Six was working on Aliens: Colonial Marines simultaneously with Spyro, which was cancelled due to performance and production issues.[3][8] Equinoxe developed a prototype for a Nintendo game "that had a lot of promise, but Nintendo elected to not continue funding it after one particular milestone."[1]

Enter the Dragonfly received "mixed or average reviews" for the PlayStation 2 version and "generally unfavourable reviews" for the GameCube version, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[9][10] It was a runner-up for GameSpot's 2002 "Worst Game on GameCube" award, which went to Jeremy McGrath Supercross World.[24]

IGN gave the game a 6/10, stating that, "Enter the Dragonfly is essentially a replica game, a side step or a lateral move rather than a step forward. So, what it comes down to is this: Are you up for more of the exact same Spyro game?" Ted Price, the President of Insomniac Games, even spoke out about how bad he found the game; in an interview, he stated, "Spyro has become an abused stepchild... Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly on PS2 and GameCube was an absolute travesty."[17]

A large criticism for the game was its numerous bugs and glitches. Some reviewers speculated that this was caused by a rushed development cycle to reach a scheduled release date.[19] Matthew Gallant, writing for GameSpot, gave the GameCube version of the game a 3.2/10 and the PlayStation 2 version a 2.8/10, saying "Even the biggest fans of Spyro are going to have a hard time enjoying this game. The leap to the latest generation of consoles leaves them with a slower game, a shorter game (10 hours), and an all-around less enjoyable game, not to mention a buggy one."[14][15] Critics also reported that the technical issues extended to sound. Gamershell claimed: "Let's remember some basic school knowledge first: sounds that originate from far away are more silent than sounds which are near us. Not so in Spyro. Something went very wrong with the sound positioning system. Sounds from far away often sound like they are directly in front of you."[25]

Another criticism for the game was the framerate. Ben Kosmina of Nintendo World Report mentions that, "While running around the Dragon Realms (the overworld of the game) if there's too many sheep or moving characters on screen, the game will skip frames excessively. It also happens while running or flying through levels where there are a lot of characters, and even sometimes when there aren't any characters in the area! This is just unacceptable."[19] IGN shared this complaint, adding "The framerate suffers often, chugging from around a maximum of 30 fps downward, depending on the area. Which is kind of strange, because these worlds aren't much bigger than those on the PlayStation versions of Spyro. There aren't many more enemies on screen, and the textures are still the same, simple flat shaded swaths of primary colours, just like the others. Oftentimes, entire areas pop in because of weird problems with load issues."[17]

Critics also had issues with control and collision detection. Ben Koshima of Nintendo World Report mentioned, "Due to the awful control you have over Spyro when he's flying, you'll be plummeting off cliffs, missing switches you're trying to ground pound, swerving all over the place while trying to land properly and falling off small platforms for no reason at all."[19] Darkstation claimed, "When you try to talk to a character if it does not already automatically pop up and start talking to you out of nowhere you have to get in a specific spot in which you have to get to talk to another character."[26]

The PlayStation 2 version of Enter the Dragonfly received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),[27] indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom alone.[28]

In March 2007 a lawsuit was filed against Universal, Check Six, Equinoxe and Sony by the parents of a child who suffered epileptic seizures after playing Enter The Dragonfly.[29]

• Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly at MobyGames