Spyro Reignited Trilogy Brings Retro Platforming Joy to Xbox Game Pass
Spyro gets a glow-up.
One of the most enticing benefits of Xbox Game Pass is the ability to play new games on launch day without shelling out the money for every individual release. But just as important is the way that it makes games you may have originally missed available again, and the next addition to that category is a big one. As of November 12, the Spyro Reignited Trilogy is now part of Xbox Game Pass.
Microsoft posted a cheeky quasi-announcement for Spyro Reignited Trilogy late on November 11, consisting solely of a short video of a treasure chest from the game. Shortly after, it was made official, with Xbox Wire announcing the trilogy’s November 12 release date. The package includes remakes of Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage, and Spyro: Year of the Dragon, which were originally released between 1998 and 2000. Now that Microsoft has trimmed down Game Pass to include new releases only for its highest (read: most expensive) tier, drops like this classic platforming series are especially impactful for those on the standard tier.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy has been available on Xbox since it launched in 2018, but at least for old folks like me, seeing Spyro on Microsoft’s console still feels a little weird. All three Spyro games were originally PlayStation exclusives, and along with Crash Bandicoot, the purple dragon was as close to a mascot as the PS1 ever got. Don’t get me wrong — I think console exclusives are a bad deal for everyone and I’m glad to see these remakes on every platform possible. It’s just hard to break an association that I’ve had with Spyro since childhood.
For those of you who aren’t old enough to have seen the PS1 launch, Spyro might be quite as familiar. The original game was among the first wave of 3D platformers, launching two years after Super Mario 64. It came out in an era where platformers were still all the rage, and developers were learning how to translate the extremely popular genre into the third dimension.
Because of that, the gameplay in Spyro Reignited Trilogy might seem a little bit rudimentary. All three games fall firmly into collect-a-thon territory, where a lot of the challenge derives from hunting down collectible items scattered around levels. The levels themselves tend to be less complex than those you’d find in a modern game, and there’s not much in the way of variety for mission objectives.
Xbox Game Pass gets a trilogy of games from a former PlayStation mascot this month.
But those limitations are also part of Spyro Reignited Trilogy’s charm. It’s an extremely faithful recreation of the original trilogy, perfectly maintaining the vibe of the original games and featuring levels that are largely accurate to their initial versions. It’s not exactly the same as playing the originals, of course, but playing through Spyro Reignited Trilogy does feel convincingly like returning to a style of game that’s no longer the dominant species in 2024.
It’s made even better by the incredible redesign of the trilogy’s visuals. The originals look extremely quaint these days, to put it kindly, but all three games are given new life by the remakes. Where the originals’ worlds were sparse and blocky, due to the technical limitations of the PS1, Spyro Reignited Trilogy is vibrant and full of life. Likewise, animations are vastly improved in both gameplay and cutscenes, making Spyro more adorable than ever. The trilogy’s soundtracks have also been remade, complete with the option to swap back to the original score for those who want to experience the lower fidelity versions again.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy isn’t without its issues. It has surprisingly long load times and some frame rate issues, which keep it from feeling like a fully modern reimagining of the retro games it contains. But if you’re able to deal with those problems, it’s well worth diving into the Spyro series, whether it’s your first time or a return to a childhood favorite. In a sea of questionable remakes for games less than a decade old, Spyro Reignited Trilogy stands out as a true revival of a classic series that could otherwise be lost to time.
