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Spyro the dragon

Spyro the dragon is the main protagonists of the 1990’s to 2000’s video game series of the same name. They were initially developed by Insomniac Games (1998-2000), then Check Six Games (2002), Equinoxe in the same year, Digital Eclipse (2001 to 2003), Eurocom (2004), Amaze Entertainment (2005) and finally Toys for Bob (2018). I’m am only going to be focusing on Spyro in this particular series. Spyro in The Legend of Spyro and in Skylanders will be at some point in the future.

Like I said, Spyro is the main character of his self titled video game series “Spyro the Dragon”. Spyro has appeared in 10 games in total (11 if you count the Reignited Trilogy or 13 if you count it as three separate games) and has made cameos in the Crash Bandicoot series. He was also the former mascot for the Sony PlayStation. He is a small purple dragon with purple eyes, yellow spikes, orange wings and brown horns who lives in the homeworld of Artisans. But did you know originally his name wasn’t going to be “Spyro” and he wasn’t going to be purple?

Concept

While coming up with the character, one of the artists at Insomniac Games had an interest in fictional beasts (such as dragons). This artist was the one who came up with the concept of Spyro in the first place.

Insomniac initially came up with the idea for Spyro to be a green dragon named “Pete” however they couldn’t use the name due to possibly getting copyright claimed by Disney. So, they decided to change the name to “Pyro” (the Latin and Greek word for fire) but they thought that name was too mature for a game aimed for kids. The name was eventually altered to Spyro and they ended up sticking with it.

After Insomniac settled on the name, they had to decide what his colour pallet would be like. Now you might thinking “Didn’t they want him to be green?” That’s true, but they didn’t want him to blend in with grass. So, they eventually decided to make him purple due to the colour contrasting well with green whilst being a unique colour that wasn’t commonly used for dragons.

This is one of the earliest design sketches for Spyro.

Personality

Spyro has always been known to be four different things: Courageous, headstrong, eager and arrogant. But he also has a sense of heroism, friendliness and a fiery personality. He has little concern for his own safety and can be quite irresponsible at times, but can you blame him? He’s only a young little dragon.

Spyro can be a little curious but hardly cautious. He’s known to be quite sure of himself as well. You could even call him cocky.

Abilities

Spyro has gained a lot of abilities throughout the series but his main ones consist of charging his opponents with his horns and breathing fire. He can’t fly very well because he’s so young and he also can’t breathe a continuously long stream of fire, he can just spit fire bursts.

As Spyro gets older, he learns how to use his wings just like a shield, swim underwater, double jump, head dive and breathe streams of fire. In the later games, Spyro gains the power to breathe ice, electric and even bubbles. He also receives the additional power of breathing water. He is able to breathe wind and fly on his own but only at short distances.

Now, let’s get into his story.

Spyro the Dragon

Spyro as he appears in “Spyro the Dragon”.

In Spyro the Dragon, the main villain of the game, Gnasty Gnorc attacks the dragon realms, freezing all the dragons except for Spyro and his friend Sparx. The spell had no effect on them because they were smaller than the other dragons. The friends go across the dragon realms to free the 80 dragons from their Icey prison and recover their treasure in the process. After going through all the dragon realms (that’s including Gnasty’s realm and the former dragon junkyard) Spyro and Sparx have a final battle with Gnasty Gnorc and defeat him.

Later, Spyro remarks that in every good battle, someone needs a good adversary and that Gnasty was a worthy opponent. This then causes the dragons to become frozen again by an unseen character that’s presumed to be Gnasty Gnorc.

Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rampage!

Spyro in “Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rampage!”

In Spyro 2, Spyro and Sparx are on vacation from the dragon realms and notice a portal to Dragon Shores. They decide “Hey, we haven’t been there since we defeated Gnasty Gnorc.” and enter the portal. They are surprised to find that they’ve entered a realm called Avalar because residents of the realm: The Professor, Elora the Faun, Zoe the Fairy and Hunter the Cheetah had redirected the portal to send them there instead. They soon encounter a dictator named Ripto, who is enraged by the fact that they had brought a dragon to Avalar. There is a brief struggle that ends in Ripto escaping Summer Forest.

Spyro and Sparx (By Elora’s request) vist all the realms of Avalar and recover several Talismans, then pursue Ripto. They end up in a battle with one of Ripto’s minions, Crush which they win after he gets crushed under a pile of rocks (Ironic). Ripto escapes to Autumn Plains and Spyro and Sparx pursue him.

Spyro and Sparx eventually catch up with Ripto and have a fight against his mount, Gulp. Elora assists them by providing weapons. Ripto falls after the fight and Elora gives Spyro a place to rest.

Later, Spyro and Sparx decide to search for her and find themselves in Winter Tundra. They find out that Ripto survived and has locked Elora and the others out of the Tundra’s palace. Spyro and Sparx then have to travel through portals to recover enough orbs to defeat Ripto for good. After they’ve gathered enough, they challenge him to a duel. Spyro uses all the orbs he has collected for attacks while Ripto has his own orb to bring a mechanised version of Gulp. Spyro destroys it.

Ripto uses another orb to transform the floor into lava while creating a giant mecha-bird to defeat Spyro. Spyro fought the bird and defeated it, sending Ripto to what is assumed his end in the pool of lava.

Spyro and Sparx were then sent back to Dragon Shores to continue their vacation. It is then revealed in the epilogue of the game that Spyro visited Avalar after his vacation.

Spyro: Year of the Dragon

Spyro in “Spyro: Year of the Dragon”

In Spyro: Year of the Dragon, the dragon realms are celebrating the Year of the Dragon festival, a very important event. Every twelve years, the fairies bring dragon eggs to the dragon realms. This year, they’ve delivered 150 eggs. After the dragons sleep from exhaustion after celebrating too much, a rabbit named Bianca comes to steal the dragon eggs. The dragons wake up to find the eggs gone and witness Bianca with the last remaining egg in her hands. Spyro, Sparx and Hunter attempt to stop her but their too late when she takes the egg through a wormhole to the Forgotten Realms, the realm where the dragons used to live.

Since the dragons are too big to chase after her, Spyro and Sparx are the only ones who are small enough to go through and recover all 150 eggs. Hunter insists in coming along and goes through the wormhole with Spyro and Sparx’s help.

Bianca’s master, the Sorceress, alongside her, creates monsters to fend them off but their all obviously defeated by Spyro. Along the way, he makes four new allies: Sheila the Kangaroo, Sgt. Byrd the flying Penguin, Bentley the Yeti and Agent 9, the Professor’s monkey. When Spyro and Sparx arrive in Midnight Mountain, Bianca begins to realise just how far the Sorceress will go in order to obtain power and betrays her and joins Spyro. Spyro defeats the Sorceress but she didn’t die.

He had recovered 149 of the dragon eggs and collected 20,000 gems to fight her again in a region of the Forgotten Realms that was secret. He took control of a spaceship and defeated her, recovering the final dragon egg.

Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly

Spyro in “Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly”

Spyro, Sparx, Hunter and Bianca are having a celebration for the baby dragons that were rescued in the previous game gaining their dragonflies. Ripto comes and spreads 90 of the 151 dragonflies across the dragon realms. Spyro and Sparx track them down.

They eventually enter Ripto’s portal with the combined magic of the dragonflies. Ripto creates a shield for himself that is resistant to fire, Spyro destroys it and defeats him. Suddenly, he uses a magic spell to grow twice his size and create a flame barrier, causing Spyro’s fire breath to be utterly useless.

Spyro uses ice breath to bring down the barrier and freeze Ripto, who then uses his magic to grow even bigger and bring pieces of Crush and Gulp into his body. Spyro brings him down easily using his electric breath, defeating Ripto. Ripto then tries to curse Spyro, which doesn’t work too well.

Spyro: A Hero’s Tail

Spyro in “Spyro: A Hero’s Tail”

Spyro discovers that the dragon realms are being plunged into darkness by an evil Dragon Elder named Red. He, along with Sparx, Hunter and Sgt. Byrd team up with a new friend named Blink the Mole and track Red down, along with his alliance of Gnorcs (Gnasty Gnorc being among them.) and a new character named Ineptune.

They travel through new homeworlds and defeat Red. However, he escapes to his lab and builds an army by turning Gnorcs into robots. Spyro finally tracks him down only to see that he’s become a robot himself. Spyro defeated him and the Professor shrank him so couldn’t attack the dragon realms ever again.

Spyro: Shadow Legacy

Spyro and Sparx return to the dragon realms to find it in ruins by an evil force. They discover a Sorcerer is attempting to take control of the dragon realms using dark mirrors of each realm called the Shadow Realms. Spyro sets out to rescue everyone held captive by the Sorcerer and defeat him.

After Spyro saves the dragon realms and Avalar from the evil force, he finds Red in the Forgotten Realms and defeats him in a fight. Red then decides to change his ways and help Spyro stop the Sorcerer. Spyro makes his way up the Sorcerer’s lair and the two of them engage in a fight, which Spyro wins. He returns to the dragon realms where a parade was thrown in his honour.

Spyro: Season of Ice

This game is an alternate sequel to Year of the Dragon that’s set after Spyro defeated the Sorceress.

After Spyro saved the dragon eggs from the Sorceress, he, Hunter and Bianca decide to take a vacation. While Bianca was researching vacation spots, she lost her magic book in the Sorceress’ library, causing it to fall into the hands of the librarian, Grendor. He tried casting a spell on himself to make him super smart but read the spell wrong causing him to grow another head.

He began to use Bianca’s book to freeze all the fairies and scatter them across the Fairy Realms. Zoe alerted Spyro before she was caught herself and he along with Hunter and Bianca went to the Fairy Realms to rescue all the fairies, including Zoe.

When Spyro entered the first world, he found that Rhycons had infested the Fairy Realms and defeated them along with Grendor and freed the fairies.

Spyro 2: Season of Fire

When Spyro and Sparx returned from the Fairy Realms, Ripto returned as well for his revenge on the dragons by scattering all the fireflies all over the dragon realms. Which wouldn’t be so bad if the fireflies weren’t the source of the dragons ability to breath fire. Spyro and Sparx go to find all of the fireflies and eventually save them all, defeating Ripto once again.

Spyro: Attack of the Rhycons (Spyro: Adventure in Europe and Australia)

Ripto takes over the Professor’s laboratory and drives Spyro and Sparx out. They then travel through the realms to collect twelve hearts to open a passage back to the lab to confront Ripto. They eventually defeat him and he is banished until he meets Dr. Neo Cortex, the main villain of Crash Bandicoot.

Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy

This is a crossover game of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon.

Ripto teams up with Cortex to get rid of Spyro and Crash. They genetically modify Ripto’s minions and disguise them as their two foes, leading both main characters to begin to believe that they are fighting each other. Spyro eventually meets the real Crash at Dragon Castles although, they believe that the other is the disguise Ripto minion. They realise that they’ve been tricked and team against Ripto and Cortex.

After defeating them, Crash and Spyro thank each other for their help.

Cameos

Spyro makes cameos in the Crash Bandicoot games.

Crash Twinsanity

Spyro discovers that his treasure has been stolen by someone and traces it down, he discovers that some of Crash’s enemies are trying to take the treasure and he toasts them as revenge.

Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled

Spyro appears as one of the racers in the Spyro Circuit portion of “Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled.” He is a speed based racer in the game.

And that’s it for Spyro. And yes, I will do the character profiles of the other Spyro characters in the series along with his profiles for Legend of Spyro and Skylanders. But until then, this it for the Spyro games.