Misplaced Pages

#403596

115-487: Spyro: A Hero's Tail is a 2004 platform game developed by Eurocom Entertainment Software and published by Vivendi Universal Games for the PlayStation 2 , GameCube , and Xbox . It is the fifth console game in the original Spyro series and the ninth game in the series overall. Per usual, players act as the titular dragon collecting objects, platforming, flying, headbutting and breathing fire onto enemies to save

230-603: A lasso , and a new Water breath attack. Moves cannot be perform until an Elder Dragon teaches them. The player traverses a variety of settings, such as colourful towns, dark lava-filled caves and snowy mountains. They have save points , represented by Zoe, who now can save both the player's current position in an area and overall game progress. Collecting the dark gems restores what the environments initially were. Transformations include flowers growing, frozen waterfalls warming and turning back into lakes, dilapidated bridges rebuilding, and gems being clean of purple goo. In addition to

345-608: A true 3D platformer is a French computer game called Alpha Waves , created by Christophe de Dinechin and published by Infogrames in 1990 for the Atari ST , Amiga , and IBM PC compatibles . Bug! , released in 1995 for the Saturn , has a more conservative approach. It allows players to move in all directions, but it does not allow movement along more than one axis at once; the player can move orthogonally but not diagonally. Its characters were pre-rendered sprites, much like

460-488: A "running/jumping/climbing game" while developing it. Miyamoto commonly used the term "athletic game" to refer to Donkey Kong and later games in the genre, such as Super Mario Bros. (1985). Donkey Kong spawned other games with a mix of running, jumping, and vertical traversal, a novel genre that did not match the style of games that came before it, leaving journalists and writers to offer their own terms. Computer and Video Games magazine, among others, referred to

575-452: A 1980 arcade release by Universal , is sometimes credited as the first platformer. Another precursor to the genre from 1980 was Nichibutsu 's Crazy Climber , in which the player character scales vertically scrolling skyscrapers. The unreleased 1979 Intellivision game Hard Hat has a similar concept. Donkey Kong , an arcade video game created by Nintendo and released in July 1981,

690-401: A 2D plane are called 2.5D , as they are a blend of 2D and 3D. The first platformers to simulate a 3D perspective and moving camera emerged in the early-mid-1980s. An early example of this was Konami 's Antarctic Adventure , where the player controls a penguin in a forward-scrolling third-person perspective while having to jump over pits and obstacles. Originally released in 1983 for

805-437: A Professor's forgetting of what Spyro needs to collect. He was, however, unsatisfied with the absence of a reason why most of the characters refuse to talk about Red. According to a 2019 Game Informer piece by Andrew Reiner, Spyro: A Hero's Tail was part of a dark era in the franchise post-trilogy where developers switched between games, "none capable of delivering the magic fans have come to expect." He wrote that it lacked

920-410: A Super Charge gadget that, for a limited amount of time, provides Spyro more strength and speed. Mr. Moneybags' shop, in addition to breath attacks, contains ammunition that increase their power, magazines that allow for more charges and blasts to be held, and a shockwave that increases the radius of the horn dive. The shop also sells lockpicks to open doors and gates, a chain that holds three lockpicks at

1035-462: A balance between open-ended and guided exploration. Another platform-adventure released that year, Pony Canyon 's Super Pitfall , was critically panned for its vagueness and weak game design. That same year Jaleco released Esper Boukentai , a sequel to Psychic 5 that scrolled in all directions and allowed the player character to make huge multistory jumps to navigate the vertically oriented levels. Telenet Japan also released its own take on

1150-499: A basic sketch based on a vague summary written by the game designers. The rudimentary style of the characters was a result of Bramford's lack of experience as a concept artist. Modelling, which was done with LightWave 3D , took one-to-three days, and texturing, the same part of the process where the colours and details were conceived, took three-to-five. Finally, scripts were written by Ramford for character rigging and skinning, which took one-to-two hours for each character. Dixon explained

1265-538: A boss was the return of Ripto . Although most of the assets remained in the final product, the number of Realms was changed from five to four. The Fifth Realm, Secret Hideout, would have consisted of the Professor's Laboratory, Dark Mine, Red's Lair, and mini-games. Its assets were merged into the fourth Realm halfway through development. The name of Professor's Laboratory was changed to Red's Laboratory when Vivendi's localization department worked on translations, although

SECTION 10

#1732779802404

1380-481: A bouncing car that jumps on various platforms such as buildings, clouds, and hills. Jump Bug offered a glimpse of what was to come, with uneven, suspended platforms, levels that scroll horizontally (and in one section, vertically), and differently themed sections, such as a city, the interior of a large pyramid, and underwater. Irem's 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol combines jumping over obstacles and shooting attackers. A month later, Taito released Jungle King ,

1495-525: A brief burst of episodic platformers where the first was freely distributed and parts 2 and 3 were available for purchase. The abundance of platformers for 16-bit consoles continued late into the generation, with successful games such as Vectorman (1995), Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995), and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995), but the release of new hardware caused players' attention to move away from 2D genres. The Saturn , PlayStation , and Nintendo 64 nevertheless featured

1610-534: A common term for the genre by 1989, popularized by its usage in the United Kingdom press. Examples include referring to the " Super Mario mould" (such as Kato-chan & Ken-chan ) as platform games, and calling Strider a "platform and ladders" game. The genre originated in the early 1980s. Levels in early platform games were confined to a single screen, viewed in profile, and based on climbing between platforms rather than jumping. Space Panic ,

1725-790: A demo of Spyro: A Hero's Tail , where the main hub area, an egg-collecting mission, and mini-game levels for Hunter and St. Byrd were playable. The game was released in North America on 2 November 2004. In Europe, the PlayStation 2 version was released on 16 November, the Xbox version 19 November, and the GameCube version 26 November. Reminded of the technical flaws that plagued Enter the Dragonfly , critics from GameSpot and IGN were very hopeful of Spyro: A Hero's Tail for reasons of

1840-405: A derivative game mechanic in this case." Jes Bickham, a writer for NGC Magazine , found the game "logically and pleasingly designed" if uninspired and easy, highlighting its incorporation of routes that open as a result of items being collected. The game's changing of environments when the dark gems are collected, were praised for being smooth and providing the player gratification for destroying

1955-450: A forward-scrolling effect similar to Sega's 1985 third-person rail shooter Space Harrier . 3-D WorldRunner was an early forward-scrolling pseudo-3D third-person platform-action game where players were free to move in any forward-scrolling direction and could leap over obstacles and chasms. It was notable for being one of the first stereoscopic 3-D games . Square released its sequel, JJ , later that year. The earliest example of

2070-609: A high quality of animation. The 1988 shareware game The Adventures of Captain Comic was one of the first attempts at a Nintendo-style platformer for IBM PC compatibles . It inspired Commander Keen , released by id Software in 1990, which became the first MS-DOS platformer with smooth scrolling graphics. Keen's success resulted in numerous console-styled platformers for MS-DOS compatible operating systems, including Duke Nukem , Duke Nukem II , Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure , and Dark Ages all by Apogee Software . These fueled

2185-539: A little." With a decrease of angularity from the PS1 to the PS2, the fully-rounded marketing renders were extremely useful. The developers had the most artistic liberty in character personality and design with the coloured dragons. Vivendi's only request was to keep their bipedalism . Before the textures were finalized, Ramford created temporary swatch textures for characters, simply so the designer and programmers could add them to

2300-426: A majority of the gameplay backtracking for missed gems and suffering through "frustrating platform jumping." Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine ' s Dana Jongewaard also found the platforming tedious and disliked the "brainless" enemy showdowns, joking it was easier to die in mud puddles. Avery Score suggested even children would get bored with it. Soboleski was in the minority about the variations, feeling there

2415-559: A named character—Mario, which became a mascot of the company. The term platform game gained traction in the late 1980s, as did the alternate form platformer . During their peak of popularity, platformers were estimated to comprise between a quarter and a third of all console games. By 2006, the genre had experienced a decline in sales, representing a 2% market share as compared to 15% in 1998. In spite of this, platformers are still being commercially released every year, including some which have sold millions of copies. A platformer requires

SECTION 20

#1732779802404

2530-631: A number of successful 2D platformers. The 2D Rayman was a big success on 32-bit consoles. Mega Man 8 and Mega Man X4 helped revitalize interest in Capcom 's Mega Man character . Castlevania: Symphony of the Night revitalized its series and established a new foundation for later Castlevania games. Oddworld and Heart of Darkness kept the subgenre born from Prince of Persia alive. The difficulties of adapting platformer gameplay to three dimensions led some developers to compromise by pairing

2645-412: A perceived Arabic feel of Spyro's home. Shere Khan from Disney 's The Jungle Book (1967) was the inspiration for Titan. Eurocom's Guy Cockcroft initially recorded and composed the music, heard in some of the game's demos. However, Vivendi, on 19 May 2004, decided to shift the responsibility of the music elsewhere, outsourcing another company for the soundtrack in the final game on 4 June. The reason

2760-535: A reputable developer, improved graphics, wider draw distance , absence of loading times, and variety of playable characters and scenarios. IGN ' s Ivan Sulic enjoyed the game's meta humour . CUBE UK predicted the game would be like the others in the Spyro , but a little more fun due to less of an emphasis on collecting and more on platforming. Spyro: A Hero's Tail received generally mixed reviews from professional critics , who deemed it vastly superior to Enter

2875-470: A shift in design. Later 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie , Spyro the Dragon , and Donkey Kong 64 borrowed its format, and the "collect-a-thon" genre began to form. In order to make this free-roaming model work, developers had to program dynamic, intelligent cameras. A free camera made it harder for players to judge the height and distance of platforms, making jumping puzzles more difficult. Some of

2990-406: A side-scrolling action game some platform elements: jumping between vines, jumping or running beneath bouncing boulders. It was quickly re-released as Jungle Hunt because of similarities to Tarzan . The 1982 Apple II game Track Attack includes a scrolling platform level where the character runs and leaps along the top of a moving train. The character is little more than a stick figure , but

3105-460: A similar process for the environments. Simple sketches providing a general idea of the shape and style were done in under an hour, before 12–24 hours was spent conceiving the colours and feel. Previous games were referenced for creating the graphics. Promo renders of the earlier entries were referenced to make the characters' style still suitable to the series' universe, while Dixon looked at the environments of those games to see how they could "evolve

3220-725: A teenager with a rebellious personality to appeal to gamers who saw the previous generation of consoles as being for kids. The character's speed showed off the hardware capabilities of the Genesis, which had a CPU clock speed approximately double that of the Super NES. Sonic 's perceived rebellious attitude became a model for game mascots. Other companies attempted to duplicate Sega's success with their own brightly colored anthropomorphisms with attitude. These often were characterized by impatience, sarcasm, and frequent quips. A second generation of platformers for computers appeared alongside

3335-569: A time, a multiplier that doubles the value of the coloured gems, a butterfly jar that restores Spyro's health , and an extra health unit. Spyro: A Hero's Tail was developed by Eurocom Entertainment Software , specifically the team of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2003). The project's producer Jon Williams was first informed by Vivendi about the possibility of working on a Spyro game in early October 2002, and Eurocom and Vivendi had their first conference on 11 November. He co-produced

3450-512: Is armed with lasers and explosions, as well as a helmet to duck in, and is for reaching areas inaccessible for Spyro, with climbing and burrowing abilities. Sparx flies in rail shooter race mini-games. The Professor build four gadgets that Spyro uses: a glass ball a la Super Monkey Ball (2001–present) that he rolls in to move up slopes, a teleporter that warps to various areas of the Dragon Realms, one for temporary invincibility , and

3565-474: Is in a vector game called Major Havoc , which comprises a number of mini-games, including a simple platformer. One of the first raster -based platformers to scroll fluidly in all directions in this manner is 1985's Legend of Kage . In 1985, Enix released the action-adventure platformer Brain Breaker . The following year saw the release of Nintendo's Metroid , which was critically acclaimed for

Spyro: A Hero's Tail - Misplaced Pages Continue

3680-502: Is unlikely to run out during gameplay). The limited ammo was poorly-received by testers, and thus changed. One of the non-player characters , Ember, was also planned to be a fully playable character at the same time, but the developers thought it was too much effort to create NPC interactions and alternate speech. The level themes and the bosses associated with them, an early document labeling them "Electric / Water / Ice / Lava Serpent and Red," were decided early on. One of several ideas for

3795-626: The Atari 2600 , with 256 horizontally connected screens, became one of the best-selling games on the system and was a breakthrough for the genre. Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle was released on the ColecoVision that same year, adding uneven terrain and scrolling pans between static screens. Manic Miner (1983) and its sequel Jet Set Willy (1984) continued this style of multi-screen levels on home computers . Wanted: Monty Mole won

3910-683: The MSX computer, it was subsequently ported to various platforms the following year, including an arcade video game version, NES , and ColecoVision . 1986 saw the release of the sequel to forward-scrolling platformer Antarctic Adventure called Penguin Adventure , which was designed by Hideo Kojima . It included more action game elements, a greater variety of levels, RPG elements such as upgrading equipment, and multiple endings . In early 1987, Square released 3-D WorldRunner , designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nasir Gebelli . Using

4025-530: The Master System with Alex Kidd in Miracle World . It has horizontal and vertical scrolling levels, the ability to punch enemies and obstacles, and shops for the player to buy power-ups and vehicles. Another Sega series that began that same year is Wonder Boy . The original Wonder Boy in 1986 was inspired more by Pac-Land than Super Mario Bros. , with skateboarding segments that gave

4140-631: The Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, became the archetype for the genre. It was bundled with Nintendo systems in North America, Japan, and Europe, and sold over 40 million copies, according to the 1999 Guinness Book of World Records . Its success as a pack-in led many companies to see platformers as vital to their success, and contributed greatly to popularizing the genre during the third and fourth generations of video game consoles. Sega attempted to emulate this success with their Alex Kidd series, which started in 1986 on

4255-454: The Sega arcade game Congo Bongo (1983) adds a third dimension via isometric graphics . Another popular game of that period, Pitfall! (1982), allows moving left and right through series of non-scrolling screens, expanding the play area. Nintendo 's flagship Super Mario Bros. (1985) was a defining game for the nascent genre, with horizontally scrolling levels and the player controlling

4370-491: The development kit 's other tools. Although Williams explained any technical issues the developers faced were expected, production was complicated by the fact that the engine was still being written by its programmers, who at the same time also had to fix bugs and glitches for another team. The technical issue primarily focused on was loading , particularly the game doing so on three consoles of different hardware. The development systems took very long to load, making predicating

4485-537: The virtual camera , it had to be constrained to stop it from clipping through the environment. In 1994, a small developer called Exact released a game for the X68000 computer called Geograph Seal , which was a 3D first-person shooter game with platforming. Players piloted a frog-like mech that could jump and then double-jump or triple-jump high into the air as the camera panned down to help players line up their landings. In addition to shooting, jumping on enemies

4600-634: The "heart and soul" of the first three games, suffering in flow. Following completion, Eurocom considered developing another Spyro game, but plans for a Pirates of the Caribbean adaptation got in the way. Platformer The genre started with the 1980 arcade video game Space Panic , which has ladders but not jumping. Donkey Kong , released in 1981, established a template for what were initially called "climbing games". Donkey Kong inspired many clones and games with similar elements, such as Miner 2049er (1982) and Kangaroo (1982), while

4715-800: The Dark Gems, Spyro obtains Light Gems, colourful dragon eggs, and multi-coloured gems of varying value. Light Gems open locked doors to new areas and power-up the gadgets. The dragon eggs open entrances to mini-game sections and unlock the game's concept art when returned to their owner Nanny Dragon. The coloured gems are currency for products from Mr. Moneybags' shop. Objects are obtained by killing enemies (such as Gnorcs), unlocking gates, opening wicker baskets, smashing treasure chests, completing mini-games, and performing tasks such as breaking down hidden walls. The game's early enemies can be destroyed by breathing fire on them, but later ones must be killed in specific ways. Crabs, for example, can only be killed by using

Spyro: A Hero's Tail - Misplaced Pages Continue

4830-410: The Dark Gems. As Ben Kosmina of Nintendo World Report explained, the transitions give a sense of progress, "as it feels as though you're actually doing something as opposed to just amassing a huge amount of generic objects." Some critics enjoyed the addition of other playable characters and mini-games, feeling they were "pretty cool" and added variety to the gameplay. D'Aprile was one of them, although

4945-568: The Dragon Realms. This time, he collects Dark Gems, which corrupt the land with maniacal creatures and deadly plants, planted by a banished Dragon Elder Red. Other characters, such as Sparx the Dragonfly, Hunter the Cheetah, Sgt. Byrd the Penguin, and newcomer Blink the Mole, are playable in mini-game stages. Development began in early November 2002 under the working title Spyro: The Dark Realms and

5060-468: The Dragonfly . A common criticism, even among those that found Spyro: A Hero's Tail decent, was having too little innovations to the platform and collecting genres, as well as the series' formula. Avery Score of GameSpot wrote the template only shined in the series' time on the PlayStation 1, a console that had far fewer 3D platformers than the Nintendo 64 , and that only "modest improvements," such as

5175-557: The Electricity breath. In mini-game sections, the player acts as other characters, such as three returns from previous games—Hunter the Cheetah, Sgt. Byrd the rocket-propelled Penguin, and Sparx the Dragonfly—and a newcomer, Blink the Mole. Hunter the Cheetah can shoot with his bow, which he can also turn into a shield by spinning it, stomp on enemies midair and pull off combos of punches and kicks. Two type of arrows can be shot from

5290-468: The Enchanted Castle , which was only modestly successful. That same year, Capcom released Strider in arcades, which scrolled in multiple directions and allowed the player to summon artificial intelligence partners, such as a droid, tiger, and hawk, to help fight enemies. Another Sega release in 1989 was Shadow Dancer , which is a game that also included an AI partner: a dog who followed

5405-680: The Eurocom projects, in Williams' time at the company which started in the 1990s, were film tie-ins or games of well-established franchises. This meant they had lots of commands and strict deadlines from publishers and film studios at once, resulting in what he called nightmarish development environments. He more positively reflects on Spyro: A Hero's Tail , which he considered one of Eurocom's better projects in terms of collaboration between developer and publisher. He described it as "very professional and we never had any major fall outs." Particular praise

5520-455: The GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. Emmy Award -winning The Simpsons and Futurama veteran J. Stewart Burns was also announced as writer. Worldwide Studios executive vice president Michael Pole stated it was the dragon's "greatest adventure to date--an adventure game that immerses players into a deep storyline, [with] more-diverse, lush environments, and [that also] introduces a strong lineup of engaging characters." Two weeks later, it

5635-532: The Hedgehog into 3D. Their project, titled Sonic Xtreme , was to have featured a radically different approach for the series, with an exaggerated fisheye camera and multidirectional gameplay reminiscent of Bug! . Due in part to conflicts with Sega Enterprises in Japan and a rushed schedule, the game never made it to market. In the 1990s, platforming games started to shift from pseudo-3D to "true 3D," which gave

5750-638: The September 2004 Game Stars Live event in London . Spyro: A Hero's Tail ' s only officially-released demos, solely for the PS2, were the E3 giveaway bundle with Crash Twinsanity (2004) and those in magazines. Days before its release, Spyro: A Hero's Tail received preview coverage in Cube and IGN . The Australian edition of PlayStation 2 Official Magazine , in its November 2004 issue, provided its readers

5865-529: The acrobatics evoke the movement that games such as Prince of Persia would feature. B.C.'s Quest For Tires (1983) put a recognizable character from American comic strips into side-scrolling, jumping gameplay similar to Moon Patrol . The same year, Snokie for the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit computers added uneven terrain to a scrolling platformer. Based on the Saturday morning cartoon rather than

SECTION 50

#1732779802404

5980-498: The addition of ledge-gripping, were made in A Hero's Tail . Brent Soboleski of TeamXbox was similarly concerned over the series not evolving enough to compete with other products that took far more advantage of console hardware. The gameplay was criticized as lacking thrills, containing an over-emphasis on collecting with few additional aspects spicing it up, such as Spyro's new moves and the multiple-character mechanic. X-Play ' s Jason D'Aprile reported that players would spend

6095-478: The air-based missions. Kosmina found the mini-game stages tough, close to par with Contra (1987) and to the point of possibly turning off its demographic. He also was dismayed by an inconsistency of help being provided for bosses but not for the mini-games. "George", a writer for GameRankings , called it superior to Enter the Dragonfly for its increased responsiveness, frame rate, and focus on simple platforming over repetitive fighting. Other critics also praised

6210-436: The art style was suitable with the series universe. Jak and Daxter also influenced the creation of the polygons and textures, choice of lighting methods, and style of cutscenes. Spyro: A Hero's Tail garnered generally mixed reviews from professional critics . They agreed it was significantly better than Enter the Dragonfly , but argued its low difficulty meant only young gamers would enjoy it. They positively commented on

6325-415: The basis for the non-linear mission structure found in most open-world, multi-mission, sidequest -heavy games. Another Capcom platformer that year was Bionic Commando , which popularized a grappling hook mechanic that has since appeared in dozens of games, including Earthworm Jim and Tomb Raider . Scrolling platformers went portable in the late 1980s with games such as Super Mario Land , and

6440-404: The boss battles. D'Aprile noted them as being too easy and featuring more unoriginal platform tropes, such as having three hits and simple-to-learn patterns. Score found the boss battles "ego-padding interludes," poking at their "posturing," "perfunctory wailing and smashin," as well as the fact their own attacks harm themselves; he also noted the ability to save the game by the hit of a boss, making

6555-415: The bosses over-simple. Per previous entries, A Hero's Tail maintains a low challenge level, which critics thought would make it a great product for its young demographic, but maybe not for other gamers. Sobeleski felt critics of all age groups would enjoy it; the adults would appreciate the comedy and gameplay, and the difficulty would be low enough for very young players. He admitted to being challenged by

6670-456: The bow: standard and fire, the latter being limited in supply. His long legs provide him more jumping height than Spyro, making him useful for platforms the purple dragon cannot jump or fly up to. He also can walk upright and double-jump. The penguin Sgt. Byrd is able to fly and shoot missiles and bombs, his sections requiring the player to shoot at a number of targets under a time limit. Blink the Mole

6785-609: The console as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in North America, along with Super Mario World , while Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis . Sonic showcased a new style of design made possible by a new generation of hardware: large stages that scrolled in all directions, curved hills, loops, and a physics system allowing players to rush through its levels with well-placed jumps and rolls. Sega characterized Sonic as

6900-426: The controls as responsive, Juan Castro of IGN calling them the most functional of the entire series. Anise Hollingshead of GameZone wrote that the GameCube version was easy to play, but reported issues in difficulty balance. She felt that being able to progress was occasionally hindered by a lack of detail on the map, the obscure placement of some dark jewels, and platforms being unclear in how to get on to them. On

7015-421: The criteria of a platformer, and was billed as an action adventure . It used true 3D characters and set pieces, but its environments were rendered using a rigid engine similar to the one used by Wolfenstein 3D , in that it could only render square, flat corridors, rather than suspended platforms that could be jumped between. Sega had tasked their American studio, Sega Technical Institute , with bringing Sonic

SECTION 60

#1732779802404

7130-487: The definite reason for their usage, but suspected it was so the team could start working on concepts before Eurocom's switch to Engine X. The Scanmode Enable feature, selectable in the debug menu, was used to bypass collision so that developers could see the full level. Matt Dixon was lead artist and concept artist, Steve Bramford was the lead character artist. Amanda Barlow, Clive K. Stevenson, Gary Baker, Henk Nieborg, Jon Parr, Matt Farrell and Phil Dobson were also artists on

7245-480: The demos, they chase after the player character, while in the test level, they pop out of the ground and instantly kill as a way to prevent players from going past certain points. Spyro, who can breathe underwater infinitely in the final game, initially needed a gadget, Aqualung, to do so, but issues with difficulty balancing resulted in it being scrapped in April 2004. Areas of toxic water were incorporated instead to make

7360-484: The diversity and detail in its environments, and adorable, cartoonish and well-animated characters. Castro positively analogized them as Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams (2004) and Scaler (2004) if they had less detail. Hollingshead compared its visual cartoon style and upbeat music to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2002). Particle, lighting and blur effects of the explosions and Spyro's breathing were also well-received by Sobelski and Castro. However, Sobelski felt

7475-419: The earlier Clockwork Knight . The game plays very similarly to 2D platformers, but lets players walk up walls and on ceilings. In 1995, Delphine Software released a 3D sequel to their 2D platformer Flashback . Entitled Fade to Black , it was the first attempt to bring a popular 2D platformer series into 3D. While it retained the puzzle-oriented level design style and step-based control, it did not meet

7590-521: The first award for Best Platform game in 1984 from Crash magazine. Later that same year, Epyx released Impossible Mission , and Parker Brothers released Montezuma's Revenge , which further expanded on the exploration aspect. The first platformer to use scrolling graphics came years before the genre became popular. Jump Bug is a platform-shooter developed by Alpha Denshi under contract for Hoei/Coreland and released to arcades in 1981, only five months after Donkey Kong . Players control

7705-482: The foreground and background, and the camera panning and curving around corners. Meanwhile, Pandemonium and Klonoa brought the 2.5D style to the PlayStation . In a break from the past, the Nintendo 64 had the fewest side scrolling platformers with only four; Yoshi's Story , Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards , Goemon's Great Adventure , and Mischief Makers —and most met with a tepid response from critics at

7820-470: The game a greater sense of speed than other platformers at the time, while its sequel, Wonder Boy in Monster Land added action-adventure and role-playing elements. Wonder Boy in turn inspired games such as Adventure Island , Dynastic Hero , Popful Mail , and Shantae . One of the first platformers to scroll in all four directions freely and follow the on-screen character's movement

7935-405: The game still had the prior games' "sharp wit and plenty of personality," and was just as fun to play. Juan Castro of IGN was positive towards the contribution of playable characters, attacks and challenges to the series, attributing the game's 15-hour replay value to them. He appreciated the game's incorporation of Sypro's new moves that were otherwise unoriginal, reasoning that it "feels less of

8050-490: The game with Suzanne Watson. A skeleton team of the leads kickstarted development in early November, before it expanded with additional programmers and artists as was the case with other Eurocom projects. Some design proposals were sent to the publisher in late October, before "real" Design and Technical Design documents were provided in early 2003. The working title was Spyro: The Dark Realms , before Vivendi decided on Spyro: A Hero's Tail in early 2004. Williams explained that

8165-498: The gameplay from its precursor but traded the frog-like mech for a cartoony rabbit mech called Robbit. The title was successful enough to get two sequels and is remembered for being the first 3D platformer on a console. Rob Fahey of Eurogamer said Jumping Flash was perhaps "one of the most important ancestors of every 3D platformer in the following decade." It holds the record of "First platform videogame in true 3D" according to Guinness World Records . Another early 3D platformer

8280-419: The genre are walking, running, jumping, attacking, and climbing. Jumping is central to the genre, though there are exceptions such as Nintendo 's Popeye and Data East 's BurgerTime , both from 1982. In some games, such as Donkey Kong , the trajectory of a jump is fixed, while in others it can be altered mid-air. Falling may cause damage or death. Many platformers contain environmental obstacles which kill

8395-471: The genre as "Donkey Kong-type" or "Kong-style" games. "Climbing games" was used in Steve Bloom's 1982 book Video Invaders and 1983 magazines Electronic Games (US)—which ran a cover feature called "The Player's Guide to Climbing Games"—and TV Gamer (UK). Bloom defined "climbing games" as titles where the player "must climb from the bottom of the screen to the top while avoiding and/or destroying

8510-457: The genre continued to maintain its popularity, with many games released for the handheld Game Boy and Game Gear systems. By the time the Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 launched, platformers were the most popular genre in console gaming. There was a particular emphasis on having a flagship platform title exclusive to a system, featuring a mascot character. In 1989, Sega released Alex Kidd in

8625-412: The genre. A modern variant of the platform game, especially significant on mobile platforms, is the endless runner , where the main character is always moving forward and the player must dodge or jump to avoid falling or hitting obstacles. Various names were used in the years following the release of the first established game in the genre, Donkey Kong (1981). Shigeru Miyamoto originally called it

8740-477: The goal was simply "to create a game that was in keeping with the franchise," with criticisms of the critically-panned previous entry Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly (2002) acknowledged. On 4 October 2004, Vivendi Universal Games announced development was completed. Development consisted of Vivendi setting milestones for when Eurocom needed to complete demos, which the Universal publisher provided input to. Most of

8855-480: The graphics, responsive controls, and incorporation of changing environments when Dark Gems are collected. However, they were disappointed in its lack of innovation and overemphasis on collecting, and had differing opinions on the mini-game sections. Spyro: A Hero's Tail is a 3D platform game where the player collects a variety of objects, destroys walls and rocks, solves puzzles, plays mini-games, and fight pattern-based bosses that take three hits to kill. Typical of

8970-454: The levels were open and had objectives. Completing objectives earned the player stars, and stars were used to unlock more levels. This approach allowed for more efficient use of large 3D areas and rewarded the player for exploration, but it meant less jumping and more action-adventure . Even so, a handful of boss levels offered more traditional platforming. Until then there was no settled way to make 3D platformers, but Super Mario 64 inspired

9085-429: The levels. The swatch-textured characters were in some demos. Gratton, who textured Spyro, originally planned for his purple colour to match that of the previous games. However, he and Bramford agreed it was too "muddy" and analogous to grime on an oil painting , so he was slightly more saturated in the final product. Ramford's initial colour palette for Blinky was red, white, blue and amber, taking inspiration from that of

9200-555: The load time on a console precarious. Flying sections that connected the Realms together, which ultimately paved the way for mini-games, were scrapped due to loading issues. The emphasis on performance also meant low polygons for several characters, and most of the polygon detail being on the lead characters. In order for multiple programmers to work on a level, test maps like Test_AB and Test_JP were created for them to produce assets and experiment with mechanics. These would be imported into

9315-477: The main level map once completed. Although these were not meant to be in the released product, they are accessible via cheat codes and file-swapping. Williams suggests the development environment was so hectic it was not caught being in the code. Two other maps, hogwarts.edb (a model of the Harry Potter (1997–2007) location of the same name ) and maptest.edb, are also on the disc. Williams does not remember

9430-489: The maze game, Namco's 1984 Pac-Land is a bidirectional, horizontally-scrolling, arcade video game with walking, running, jumping, springboards, power-ups , and a series of unique levels. Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani described the game as "the pioneer of action games with horizontally running background." According to Iwatani, Shigeru Miyamoto described Pac-Land as an influence on the development of Super Mario Bros. . Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. , released for

9545-405: The more linear 3D platformers like Tork: Prehistoric Punk and Wario World used scripted cameras that limited player control. Games with more open environments like Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie used intelligent cameras that followed the player's movements. Still, when the view was obstructed or not facing what the player needed to see, these intelligent cameras needed to be adjusted by

9660-604: The music from the end of June to August, a few updates to tracks made afterwards. The voice cast consists of Jess Harnell , Anndi McAfee , Tara Strong , Phil Crowley, Michael Gough , Brad Abrell , Susan Blakeslee , Fred Tatasciore , André Sogliuzzo , and Drew Markham. Sgt. Byrd and Hunter were first planned to be playable throughout the game, Byrd having to collect ammunition. However, for reasons Williams suspects to be related to scheduling and design problems, they were segregated to mini-games where Sgt. Byrd had an infinite amount of bombs and missiles (in fact, he has 9,999, which

9775-534: The new wave of consoles. In the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s, the Amiga was a strong gaming platform with its custom video hardware and sound hardware . The Atari ST was solidly supported as well. Games like Shadow of the Beast and Turrican showed that computer platformers could rival their console contemporaries. Prince of Persia , originally a late release for the 8-bit Apple II in 1989, featured

9890-511: The obstacles and foes you invariably meet along the way." Under this definition, he listed Space Panic (1980), Donkey Kong , and despite the top down perspective, Frogger (1981) as climbing games. In a December 1982 Creative Computing review of the Apple II game Beer Run , the reviewer used a different term: "I'm going to call this a ladder game, as in the 'ladder genre,' which includes Apple Panic and Donkey Kong ." That label

10005-414: The other hand, the amount of hazards were small, and the foes "are laughably avoidable for the most part". The graphics and music were generally well received. Critics analogized the visuals as a polished PlayStation 1 title; although they argued it lacked detail and did not take full advantage of the PlayStation 2's capabilities, the child audience would still be enamored by its colorful and sharp textures,

10120-408: The platform-action game, Valis , which contained anime -style cut scenes . In 1987, Capcom 's Mega Man introduced non-linear level progression where the player is able to choose the order in which they complete levels. This was a stark contrast to both linear games like Super Mario Bros. and open-world games like Metroid . GamesRadar credits the "level select" feature of Mega Man as

10235-561: The player around and aid in battle. In 1990, Hudson Soft released Bonk's Adventure , with a protagonist positioned as NEC 's mascot. The following year, Takeru's Cocoron , a late platformer for the Famicom allowed players to build a character from a toy box filled with spare parts. In 1990, the Super Famicom was released in Japan, along with the eagerly anticipated Super Mario World . The following year, Nintendo released

10350-405: The player more control over the character and the camera. To render a 3D environment from any angle the user chose, the graphics hardware had to be sufficiently powerful, and the art and rendering model of the game had to be viewable from every angle. The improvement in graphics technology allowed publishers to make such games but introduced several new issues. For example, if the player could control

10465-481: The player to maneuver their character across platforms to reach a goal while confronting enemies and avoiding obstacles along the way. These games are either presented from the side view, using two-dimensional movement, or in 3D with the camera placed either behind the main character or in isometric perspective . Typical platforming gameplay tends to be very dynamic and challenges a player's reflexes, timing, and dexterity with controls. The most common movement options in

10580-498: The player's character upon contact, such as lava pits or bottomless chasms. The player may be able to collect items and power-ups and give the main character new abilities for overcoming adversities. Most games of this genre consist of multiple levels of increasing difficulty that may be interleaved by boss encounters, where the character has to defeat a particularly dangerous enemy to progress. Simple logical puzzles to resolve and skill trials to overcome are other common elements in

10695-993: The player. In the 1990s, RPGs , first-person shooters , and more complex action-adventure games captured significant market share. Even so, the platformer thrived. Tomb Raider became one of the bestselling series on the PlayStation , along with Insomniac Games ' Spyro and Naughty Dog 's Crash Bandicoot , one of the few 3D games to stick with linear levels. Moreover, many of the Nintendo 64 's bestsellers were first- and second-party platformers like Super Mario 64 , Banjo-Kazooie , and Donkey Kong 64 . On Windows and Mac , Pangea Software 's Bugdom series and BioWare 's MDK2 proved successful. Several developers who found success with 3D platformers began experimenting with titles that, despite their cartoon art style, were aimed at adults. Examples include Rare 's Conker's Bad Fur Day , Crystal Dynamics 's Gex: Deep Cover Gecko and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver , and Shiny Entertainment 's Messiah . In 1998, Sega produced

10810-417: The polygon amount was too low for the fantasy world to be immersive, in spite of textures and lightings trying to hide these limitations. Paul Kautz of 4Players reported minor issues of background texture flickering and slightly off anti-aliasing in the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions. Although finding the music "somewhat rehashed and quirky," he found the voice acting "very well done and quite comical in all

10925-500: The project. The animation team consisted of Almudean Soria Sancho, Antonio Palermo, Brian Riordan, Des Forde, Mark Jackson, Mark Povey, Jon Maine, Kenny Beard, Owen Flanagan, Phil Hanks, and Santiago Colomo Martinez. In addition to Bamford, Drew Kerins, Michael Lindsay, Oscar Fuertes Garcia, Phill Plunkett, and Steven Gratton modeled the characters. The characters and environments were designed, modeled and textured quickly. Each new character began with Bamford, for one-to-two hours, drawing

11040-473: The publisher has never publicly stated a rationale. The Gnasty Gnorc boss was much larger, split into three stages. Frostbite Village initially had baby mammoths. created by Phillip Bennett, as enemies, but these were removed for frame rate issues and Vivendi's disapproval of Spyro killing cute enemies. Another cut foe, seen in the demos and a test level on the disc, were Sharks in Dragonfly Falls. In

11155-441: The right ways." Michael Lafferty of GameZone dismissed the music as "on the elevator side" and "the type that one might hear in a pre-school, soft, light, and somewhat annoying after an hour". The writing was not heavily discussed. However, Kosmina was enthusiastic towards it, praising the personalities of the characters, his favourites being Sgt. Byrd, and the fairy that provides Spyro Electric breathing, and certain lines, such as

11270-749: The series' detail in polygons and textures, lightning methods, and style of cutscenes. Spyro: A Hero's Tail was produced with Engine X, in what was the first time Eurocom had multiple in-progress projects using the same engine. It was programmed by Chris Jackson, Ian Denny, Tim Rogers, Andy Hutchings, Ashley Finney, Dave Looker, Green Jam Canal, Kevin Grantham, Kevin Stainwright, Mark Gornall, Peter Livingstone, Shane Clark, Steve Robinson, and Steven Walker. Andy Mitchell, Bob Smith, Diego Garcia Huerta, Jim Makin, Kev Marks, Kevin Thacker, and Mark Duffill programmed

11385-724: The series, it involves the titular purple dragon saving the Dragon Realms from danger. This time, he collects Dark Gems, planted by the former Elder Dragon Red, who was banished from the Realms. They corrupt the land with maniacal creatures and deadly plants, draining life out of its environment to power Red. The gameplay is also largely the same, where Spyro jumps on platforms, flies, head-butts into enemies, and wanders around collecting gems. His Fire, Ice and Electricity breath attacks return, although must be purchased from Mr. Moneybags, and are used to solve puzzles. However, he has new several abilities, such as ledge grabbing, wall kicking, horn diving into enemies while flying, and swinging his tail like

11500-489: The time. Despite this, Yoshi's Story sold over a million copies in the US, and Mischief Makers rode high on the charts in the months following its release. The term 3D platformer usually refers to games with gameplay in three dimensions and polygonal 3D graphics. Games that have 3D gameplay but 2D graphics are usually included under the umbrella of isometric platformers , while those that have 3D graphics but gameplay on

11615-476: The titular character of Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (2003). For a softer look that was appropriate for the setting and in the style of The Goonies (1985), Blink had added to him a backpack, his shoes changed from Converse boots to Timberlands, and his colours were altered to purple, blue, green and amber. A fez was added to Mr. Moneybags to give him the look of a shoekeeper at a bazaar , inspiring by

11730-487: The underwater sections challenging, and the Professor's explanation for Aqualung became that for Invincibility. The horn dive boulders, scrapped late in development, would have been filled with dragon eggs and Light Gems. On 27 April 2004, Spyro: A Hero's Tail received its first public announcement by Vivendi Universal Games; its premise, Spyro's new attacks, and the additional player characters were revealed, as well as its release date set sometime in last quarter of 2004 for

11845-437: The video game industry internationally. The following year, Donkey Kong received a sequel, Donkey Kong Jr. and later Mario Bros. , a platformer with two-player cooperative play . It laid the groundwork for other two-player cooperative games such as Fairyland Story and Bubble Bobble . Beginning in 1982, transitional games emerged with non-scrolling levels spanning multiple screens. David Crane's Pitfall! for

11960-455: The visual flash of 3D with traditional 2D side scrolling gameplay. These games are often referred to as 2.5D. The first such game was Saturn launch title , Clockwork Knight (1994). The game featured levels and boss characters rendered in 3D, but retained 2D gameplay and used pre-rendered 2D sprites for regular characters, similar to Donkey Kong Country . Its sequel improved upon its design, featuring some 3D effects such as hopping between

12075-413: Was Floating Runner , developed by a Japanese company called Xing and released for PlayStation in early 1996, before the release of Super Mario 64 . Floating Runner uses D-pad controls and a behind-the-character camera perspective. In 1996, Nintendo released Super Mario 64 , which is a game that set the standard for 3D platformers. It let the player explore 3D environments with greater freedom than

12190-453: Was a primary way to attack. This was the first true 3D platform-action game with free-roaming environments, but it was never ported to another platform or released outside Japan, so it remains relatively unknown in the West. The following year, Exact released their follow-up to Geograph Seal . An early title for Sony's new PlayStation console, Jumping Flash! , released in April 1995, kept

12305-422: Was a right mix of previously established and new elements for the Spyro series to remain fresh. Hyper journalist Joey Tekken found that Spyro: A Hero's Tail had the "effortless charm" similar franchises such as Crash Bandicoot had lost, calling its characters and dialogue "quite funny" and noting its variety of move sets, mini-games and playable characters, and good flow in the level design. Sobeleski felt

12420-562: Was also used by Video Games Player magazine in 1983 when it named the Coleco port of Donkey Kong "Ladder Game of the Year". Another term used in the late 1980s to 1990s was "character action games", in reference to games such as Super Mario Bros. , Sonic the Hedgehog , and Bubsy . It was also applied more generally to side-scrolling video games , including run and gun video games such as Gunstar Heroes . Platform game became

12535-467: Was announced by Vivendi to be completed on 4 October 2004; the final title was decided by the publisher in early 2004. The game was produced by Suzanne Watson and Jon Williams, who explained that the goal was simply "to create a game that was in keeping with the franchise," with acknowledgement of the problems of the critically-panned previous entry Enter the Dragonfly (2002). The earlier games, particularly their promotional renders, were referenced so that

12650-586: Was disappointed the additional characters were only "fodder" for the mini-game stages. Sobeleski enjoyed how the game smoothly transitioned from one playable character to another by how they are incorporated in the plot. On the other hand, Score criticized the mini-games for "artificially" increasing play time and being "disruptive and boring." Matthew Hawkins of GMR also found most of the characters too bland to be differentiable, finding only one of them, Sgt. Byrd, to have unique move sets and characteristics that were "somewhat interesting." D'Aprile and Score criticized

12765-532: Was found in any previous game in the genre. With this in mind, Nintendo put an analog control stick on its Nintendo 64 controller, a feature that had not been seen since the Vectrex but which has since become standard. The analog stick provided the fine precision needed with a free perspective. In most 2D platformers, the player finished a level by following a path to a certain point, but in Super Mario 64 ,

12880-481: Was given by Williams and lead artist and concept artist Matt Dixon towards the support from Vivendi Universal producer Caroline Trujillo. Spyro: A Hero's Tail was designed by Terry Lloyd and Phill Bennett, and programmed by Dave Pridmore, Andy Brown, Daniel Secker, John Stephens, Kristoffer Adock, Mark Topley, Matt Partridge, Narinder Singh Basran and Stuart Johnson. From the start, the developers were influenced by Jak and Daxter (2001–present), attempting to emulate

12995-587: Was presented at E3 2004, and the date was set to be sometime in November. Douglas C. Perry of IGN reported the game's target audience to be very young, its size to be four times as large as Enter the Dragonfly , and taking potentially twice as long to beat, 18–20 hours. On 18 May 2004, the game was rated E by the Entertainment Software Rating Board and had its first trailer unveiled. All console versions were then presented at

13110-418: Was the first game to allow players to jump over obstacles and gaps. It is widely considered to be the first platformer. It introduced Mario under the name Jumpman. Donkey Kong was ported to many consoles and computers at the time, notably as the system-selling pack-in game for ColecoVision , and also a handheld version from Coleco in 1982. The game helped cement Nintendo's position as an important name in

13225-408: Was the long amount of time it took to respond with critiques towards Cockcroft's changes to the music, and the closer contact the publisher would have with an outsourced company. Game Audio Ltd, specifically Keith Leary, David Marsden, Paul Lawler, and Craig Sharmat, were the outsourced composers, although Cockcroft and another Eurocom composer, Steve Duckworth, are credited as well. Vivendi sent Eurocom

#403596