The world often states that there are only two constants in life – death and taxes. Considering that I’m still alive, much to the disappointment of whoever is pulling the strings of fate, the only constant that I get to enjoy as a fully fledged adult, is taxes. There are more varieties of taxes than types of tea, which to be honest is kind of befuddling to think about.
It’s something I didn’t fully understand until I started my current position, a fresh graduate of university with several part time roles under their belt. Taxes make the world go round after all. They pay for roads, healthcare, lampposts, schools and tonnes more.
Every month, when I receive my paycheck from work, my initial monthly salary is reduced by things like National Insurance, pension funds and student loan repayments. Then once I’ve taken the remaining amount and used it to pay off my essentials like my mortgage, utility bills and things like pet insurance, there’s not a whole lot left.
I’m lucky enough to be earning enough to live my life fairly comfortably, but I am still ever cautious of things like rises in tax rates when the government changes leadership, energy bills ramping up in the colder months and unforseen emergencies cutting into my budget.
So, given the stress that the topic of taxes causes a large majority of the population, you’re probably as surprised as I am to here that there is a game about tax evasion. More specifically, a game about a sentient turnip that hasn’t paid his taxes and now has to run errands for the mayor (who is an onion) in order to get his home back. Yep. I’m serious.
Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. All hail capitalism.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a gem of a game, that can be beaten in only a few hours but god are those hours memorable. You, play as Turnip Boy, a sentient turnip in a land of sentient animals, flora and fauna, who for whatever reason decided to keep the taxation system that the long dead humans used. Armed with a watering can and a sword made of soil, you have to complete a series of errands for Mayor Onion, in order to get your greenhouse back because you owe a ridiculously high amount of property tax on it. Mayor Onion’s list of demands is odd, requesting things like a fork, a laser pointer and glowing goo that is most definitely radioactive.
It’s a quest driven game – go from point A to point B, solve a problem to gain an item, use that item to enter a previously restricted area, fight a boss and learn where to go next. There’s the usual sidequests – standard stuff like; giving an acorn a deed to own property, fishing a baby carrot out a trash can, murdering a snail that’s late on his rent, you know, just normal video game things.
Why does that pickle have a knife?
If you ignore the presence of underground bunkers, mutated humans, mushroom cloud drawings and the literal nuclear device that’s underneath your greenhouse, you wouldn’t think there was anything deeper to this experience. But oh boy is there a lot to notice on a second playthrough.
From the mentions of New York on all the documentation, to the literal air raid sirens hidden in the background music, Turnip Boy has a much darker tale to tell if you are willing to listen. It’s not all goofy meme references and silly gags, there’s an honest to god tale here that weaves in the nuclear destruction of the human race, a mafia formed of these sentient salad ingredients and even a secret ending that requires you to destroy all the official documentation in the game. Who needs accurate records for future reference, when you can tear them up and set things on fire?
This is fine.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a cutesy, hilarious, tongue in cheek and surprisingly layered experience (much like Mayor Onion), with a gorgeous song that plays over the credit sequence. It’s well worth the investment of an evening and a bit of cash from your pocket. I played it on Switch but it’s available on PC and Xbox, with a potential sequel about robbing a bank in the works as I type this.
Go play it.
Anyways, this was a shorter piece than usual but I’d rather publish short pieces I’m happy with rather than fall into another writer’s block spell by forcing my work to adhere to unreasonable standards of perfection. Self care, who knew it could work such wonders.
For anyone curious, I’m currently editing the opening episode for S2 of my Blades In The Dark campaign with the Dungeons and Junkiez gang, with 6 episodes already banked and ready to be edited. My new Dungeons and Dragons campaign looks to start in the new year, a good way to celebrate the one year anniversary of Dice and Suffering if I do say so myself.
As always, take care of yourselves and those you love.
I’ve moved a lot in my short lifespan. As of time of writing, I’m 22 years old. Between moving with my family, university and venturing out on my own, I’ve lived in over fifteen different houses. Sticking my belongings in various moving boxes and suitcases has become almost second nature to me. I have a lot of memories of clambering in and out of moving trucks, of being squished in the car by suitcases and bags, of eating pizza in empty rooms, of sleeping on inflatable mattresses when my bed was still in transport. Needless to say, I don’t have a major connection to specific places. It’s an entirely different process, my friends have told me, for those who have lived in one or two places for their entire lives.
Unpacking has you following through the life of one individual, as they move through various stages of their life and the new living conditions that come with it. You get glimpses at their journey, from the cabin bed in their childhood room, to the formation and downfall of a relationship, to discovering their identity and starting a family. All the stages culminate in a photo to go into the album, so they can look back at how far they’ve come. There’s so much detail and love in this game that if you’ve already played it, it’s definitely worth a replay.
Too many boxes, too little time.
If you follow my Twitter, you’d know that I recently moved into my new flat. It’s my first time living entirely alone (excluding the sheer chaos of the midnight beasts that my two cats embody) in my life and Unpacking brilliantly “unpacks” (Hehe, I’m hilarious) the feelings of anxiety, excitement, and fear that I’m sure we have all/will all experience in our lifetimes. It’s a soothing game, one that many streamers have played as a kind of “chill” stream to engage with their community. The atmosphere, the music, the goofy stickers awarded for doing odd little things like hiding the cookies on the top shelf or rearranging the fridge magnets, the detail on every object in the rooms – it all culminates in a calming experience that the real world seems to lack nowadays.
One of the reasons why Unpacking works so well is, in my opinion, the possessions that the protagonist takes from place to place. We as humans make emotional attachments to more than just other people. Associating locations and objects with specific memories are common practice and that sense of nostalgia only encourages us to hold onto the object in question, to keep that piece of your own personal history with you as you walk into the future. I’ve spent so much time looking forward, having to work and plan for the years to come that I don’t get a lot of time to look back at the steps I’ve taken. However, when I look at some of the trinkets I own, the memories come rushing back, clearer than ever.
The chicken army advances
Let me give you an example from my own experience. A few years ago, I lost my maternal grandfather. We called him Papa (a Scottish term). He passed a few years after my maternal grandmother, and I freely admit that I miss them dearly. Whenever we travelled to see our family in Edinburgh, we’d go to Granny and Papa’s little flat on the council estate and have a quiet lunch there. We’d spend the afternoon solving the same few puzzles they had for the thousandth time and head for walks along the canal. After they had both passed, we had the hard task of going through their flat and sorting out their belongings – choosing what we wished to keep and what would be donated to charity. I took a few things, one of which being a photo album – so I don’t forget what they looked like when they smiled at me.
I had a bed just like this
There were a few other bits, like a bird ornament and one of the puzzles that I’d spent all those years re-doing. However, the item that I treasure the most is a little magic trick that he taught me how to master. Sure, the little metal disks that you can see in the image below don’t look like much and they’re slowly wearing away with time but when I look at it, I see a seven-year-old Caitlin sat on the carpet on a December evening, watching with fascination as my Papa seemingly makes one of the rings disappear entirely. I see him in the birds in the trees, in the neatly trimmed lawns of well-kept gardens. With these things, he is still with us. People live on through those who remember them. Nobody is truly gone, there is always someone who will pause to remember them, or something that will spark those dusty memories. Playing Unpacking, you look at each of the items and wonder what the story is behind them. Why did the protagonist keep that mug? Why do they keep adding chicks to their army of stuffed chickens?
Our possessions tell a story. Even for something as seemingly innocent as an ornament or a mug, can have dozens of stories attached to them. It is something I think Unpacking hints at, as you start to recognise objects from previous sections of the game, and you ponder at the additions of new ones.
I have a major soft spot for Unpacking, and it is clear a lot of others do. So, give it a go. It is a short experience, but it will bring you a sense of calm that you would be surprised how many of us are missing.
I’m always wary of games that try to personify mental illness or negative thoughts. The idea of putting a face or a name to this… other part of me, this darker part of me, instinctively makes me recoil. Not in disgust or hatred, but in deep-rooted fear. Society as a whole has been gradually improving when it comes to tolerance and acceptance of mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety, but we are still so far from truly understanding what it is like for each individual that suffers from them. Heck, I barely understand my own conditions and it’s been over a decade. Plus, considering some of the more toxic representations of mental health that use it as an excuse for cruel actions, I tend to walk into games that claim to be better with a bit of a chip on my shoulder.
When I was in primary school, I learnt a life lesson that I still carry with me to this day. Though in hindsight, it’s not always the best idea. When a feeling is uncomfortable or debilitating, such as nausea when you are unwell, to focus on it is to give it more control over you. I’ve carried this idea over to my daily battles with my mental health conditions, not allowing an anxiety attack or depression dip to consume me and ruin whatever I had going on at the time. However, there is a fine line to walk between not overly focusing on something and refusing to acknowledge it at all. Coping mechanisms and suppression do not go hand in hand as anyone who’s hit their breaking point will be well aware of. Exploring that balance is something that the game Celeste does well.
I’m never going on a ski lift. NEVER.
If you listened to my panel for EGX Digital back in 2020, you’d know that the game Celeste was thoroughly recommended by the panel members. Despite this, I only actually got around to playing the game for myself a few months ago after an extremely long day at work. Putting aside the several moments of overwhelming rage that I experienced whilst playing through the game (LOOKING AT YOU B SIDE), Celeste is a platformer with a tale to tell, driven around a central goal of reaching the summit of Celeste Mountain.
An average Tuesday.
You play as Madeline, a young woman from Canada who suffers from anxiety and depression. For unknown reasons, she has travelled to Celeste Mountain with the goal of reaching the summit to prove to herself that she can. Given how insanely dangerous the mountain can be to those not prepared for it, her family and those she encounters on her way are understandably concerned about her wellbeing. Considering the very first bridge collapses and she’s only saved by a dash ability taught to her by a random bird perched nearby, the stakes are pretty high. Shortly after meeting Theo (a lovely guy who is an influencer and takes terrible selfies of Madeline), you come across a mysterious mirror in the ruins that summons a “evil” clone of Madeline, called Part Of Me (or Badeline to the community).
To Madeline, this clone seems to be the embodiment of everything wrong with her – her selfishness, her anger, her self-loathing. If I’m honest, that’s how I viewed my “dark side” to begin with. When you have such a dark cloud hanging over your every action, you’re desperate to separate it from you, to treat it as an entity that has no ties to you. Madeline initially believes that she would be better off without her and seeks for a way to destroy Part Of You entirely. It’s a sentiment that I think anyone with a condition like anxiety or depression has pondered in their lifetime. Yet, like Madeline, we have to realise that this darkness, this negativity, is as much a part of us as the fingers on our hands are.
Please ma’am, get back inside the text box.
More than anything, Celeste is a powerful metaphor for self-discovery. Regardless of whether you’re coming to terms with a loss, facing up to your inner demons or gaining the courage to come out to those you love, Celeste emphasizes the imperfect nature of humanity. We stumble, we make mistakes, we are stubborn and desperate for a future that is always slightly out of reach. Yet, we get back up. Sure, Madeline falls down the mountain, further than she had ever fallen before but she gets back up. Even in the darkest of pits, there is always a distant light to climb towards. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Considering how many times I died in Celeste (cough, 3298), this determination can take us far. That’s the thing about mountains, when you’re stood at the bottom, they seem so insurmountable, too large a challenge for you to even hope to complete. Yet with each checkpoint and each rung of the ladder than you step onto, you get that bit closer.
As much as I detest my brain with it’s lack of serotonin and tendency to catastrophize literally everything (for example, the other day when I left the house to go to work, my brain went “did you leave the gas on, are your cats in danger because of it”. I have no gas line connected to my flat. WHAT EVEN BRAIN.), I have to admit that it has made me a better person. I work harder, study more and empathize better with those around me, desperate to put some of that light into the world that I struggle to find on my darkest days. I wouldn’t be CaitlinRC, creator of MindGames / Dice and Suffering, community member and proud non-binary asexual without the conditions and life events that have brought me to this point. Sure, there was a lot I would do differently if I’d had the benefit of hindsight but at this point in time, I’m ok. Sometimes, ok is the best you can hope for.
Sometimes a mountain doesn’t have a summit. Sometimes, you’ll be climbing for the rest of your life. I know that I will be living with my depression and anxiety for the rest of my life. Sure, therapy and medication have helped make the day-to-day existence more bearable and the PTS dreams have lessened over time, but there’s no “cure” for this. We need to accept that’s ok, that it’s fine to not have a cure, a quick fix for everything. Sure, I fell down the mountain a good way over the last few months. However, as long as I shake myself off, brush myself down and keep climbing, then eventually I’ll reach a point that I’m content with. After all, those who climb Everest don’t all strive to reach the summit. Some are happy with reaching the base camp.
Everything looks better from the top.
Anyways, that’s all I have for you this week. It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these so I’m pacing myself to avoid smashing face first into the writer’s block brick wall that I’ve been smushed against for all these months. Be sure to check out the podcast series, launched as Dice and Suffering – where my D&D campaign and the brand new Blades In The Dark series is being published.
As a kid, my only real exposure to puppets was through the joyful “sooty show.” That is one of the most niche references I have ever made on this site, but it was a puppet show targeted at young children, starring a yellow hand-puppet bear called sooty and his friends. They had a TV show and everything. Small Caitlin loved it. Marionette’s (stringed puppets) always felt a bit… uncanny valley to me but the engineering part of my brain was fascinated by them. The ability to manipulate and study individual sections of the puppet as it moved, to see the ripple effect it would have on the rest of the joints – it was remarkably educational.
Despite the interest in puppets and marionettes that has followed me since early childhood, I absolutely detest mascot costumes. Seriously, they could be hiding anything in there. Part of my anxiety against these people who are just doing their jobs is the fact that they are hidden from sight deliberately. I am a naturally paranoid person due to my anxieties, so when I cannot see someone’s eyes or face to read social cues from, I am immediately uneasy. This distaste for mascots was very visible to the Game Junkiez gang at EGX when I fled from a Fall Guy mascot who I was fairly sure was targeting me directly (nearly mugged by a bean, that would be a new experience).
This weird love of puppets, fascination with marionettes and hatred of mascots, has more often than not warded me away from games that include any of the above. You often do not find one of the trios without the others following close behind (ready to steal your soul, I SEE YOU MASCOT BOY). However, whilst at EGX in October, I followed my friend Kerry over to try a game called “A Juggler’s Tale” that they had been extremely excited to try out. We got to play the opening level, which followed the player meeting the protagonist Abby, a young juggler in a circus, forced to perform during the day and locked away at night. You learn to maneuver through the world, learning how to avoid getting your strings tangled up in obstacles. Needless to say, I was intrigued.
That’s the way to do it!
Once Abby escapes the circus, she goes on the run through the wilderness, trying to avoid the hunters that the ringmaster has sent to track her down. These bandits, led by the fearsome Tonda, are a constant threat to Abby – forcing the player to think ahead, move stealthily and be bold in order to escape their clutches. Like Abby, they are connected to the world via strings and are under the control of Jack – the puppet master, storyteller, and creator of the world that we are exploring. He narrates the events in rhyming couplets, providing the player with key information of upcoming hazards and clues to puzzles. At least to begin with.
Based in southern Germany, kaleidoscube, the developers of the game, were unable to be there in person at EGX but we got to speak to them via Discord to ask about what inspired to make such a unique game. One of the publishing team explained to us that dark fairytales (such as Brothers Grimm) and puppet shows are incredibly common in Germany, being a staple of German children’s childhood experiences since as early as the 1950’s. An example of this is the “Augsburger Puppenkiste,” a famous marionette theatre in Augsburg that has been putting on performances for decades. Given these cherished childhood memories shared by the development team, it is no surprise that the amount of love and care put into A Juggler’s Tale is visible in every frame.
I love this bear.
This is a beautiful game. Honestly, any frame of this game could be put up as a painting in a gallery and I would not bat an eye. Every environment is alive with detail and beauty, be that the gentle swaying of the crop fields as you run through them at sunset or the view of the town from the rooftops as you dance across them. The environment is a clever mixture of painted set pieces (I mean that most literally) and fairytale backdrops, maintaining a careful balance between a puppet show’s artificial stage and a storybook. Nothing is wasted, everything has a purpose. Something creeps in the background? You will meet it later on. Is that a hunter is scanning the forest with his lamp? Tonda and his bandits must be getting close.
Gorgeous. Too gorgeous in fact… makes me suspicious.
As Jack tells his story to the eager tavern of listeners, their reactions to events as they unfold function as ambient sound. They cheer when Abby escapes, grow quiet in moments of tension and shout warnings when danger looms – helping maintain the live puppet show atmosphere that the game has been building from the beginning. Jack’s rhythmic weaving of his tale pairs nicely with the music as you hop across streams and clamber over walls. Ignoring the tense moments where you sprint away from hunters, swearing profusely and praying to uncaring deities for assistance, it is a remarkably relaxing experience.
Available on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo switch and PC, A Juggler’s Tale is a story of freedom. It is about overcoming obstacles – both those thrown at you from others, and those that have been set upon you by the world. I highly recommend that you play it yourself, it is a short experience that you can knock out in an evening. I am going to go into detail about some story points that I connected with, so if you want to be completely spoiler free, run away! Bookmark the article and come back once you have played the game through. Still here? Good. Let us chat.
Look at the strings in the distance. That’s Tonda’s gang. That’s attention to detail.
Putting aside the chase sequences, puzzles and platforming that make up the core gameplay of A Juggler’s Tale, this game is about freedom of choice. In the first few chapters, Abby’s flight from the ringmaster is a series of scripted events, carefully crafted by Jack to tell his story. Your strings are an ever-present reminder of your powerlessness against the grand tapestry of fate that Jack has weaved for Abby. Her capture and return to the circus appear inevitable, with Jack able to pick Abby up by her strings and maneuver her if he chooses to. Yet, there are brief moments of rebellion that indicate a deviation from her fate.
What a good dog.
Shortly before you encounter the hunters, you come across an old wolf – whose strings are attached to some sort of post. Jack demands that you abandon the creature to its fate and keep moving but you can choose not to. One way of solving the puzzle of the cart blocking your path is to attach the cart to the strings and allow gravity to pull the cart out of your way – snapping the strings tethering the wolf to the world at the same time. It is a moment where Jack loses his patience with you, pulling you into the air and demanding that you obey him, or he will retract his help. It seems odd at first why would the storyteller need to bargain with those he controls? Unless… he does not have complete authority over them? If you can snap someone else’s strings, why not your own?
This train of thought comes to fruition at the end of the third act, when all hope seems lost. Abby’s locked in a cage, waiting to be taken back to the ringmaster. Jack laments her last moments of freedom, only to be stopped by Abby breaking free of her imprisonment, setting the barn she was being kept in ablaze. When her strings get caught on the doorway, it seems that it was all in vain – poor Abby is trapped as the blaze creeps towards her. Jack holds her strings in place as the flames lick at her feet, proclaiming the so called “story’s end,” only to watch in rage and horror as Abby refuses to go quietly.
One by one, she snaps the strings that tether her to the world, ripping the control of her fate from Jack’s hands and taking it into her own hands for the first time. The moment he loses control over “his” puppet, Jack becomes the antagonist, with the rest of the story focusing on Abby thwarting Jack’s desperate attempts to regain control of her autonomy. Then again, to a protagonist of a story, the storyteller is the true enemy. After all, they are the one who holds your fate in their hands. When you regain control of Abby, the lyrical nature and pre-planned lines of Jack have vanished along with her strings. Everything is new and unpredictable. Sure, the world may be of his creation but now Jack has no influence over what path Abby takes through it.
Often, we have to take fate into our own hands.
Abby’s lack of strings quickly becomes her strongest asset (that and her remarkably good throwing arm), allowing her to duck under obstacles and slip away from her pursuers with ease. They are still tied down by their strings and restricted by her old limitations, limitations with which she is intimately familiar. Eventually, Tonda is defeated by removing all of his strings, severing the control that Jack has over the world entirely, allowing Abby to free the residents of the world she calls home from their bindings and reunite with a dear friend.
There are so many lenses that you can look at this story through. I do not know whether the developers intended it but the idea of casting off the strings that tie you down is a refreshing one. To me, it feels like the story of someone choosing their own path in life, rather than the one that had been set out before them. To others, it could be a tale of acceptance, accepting who you are and carving out a new identity with your newfound confidence. To you, it could be the tale of someone escaping a toxic relationship or friendship, removing the ties that kept you together and working through the negativity they left you with. Art is subjective.
Letting go is hard. But not impossible.
This got remarkably profound, didn’t it? Guess that is what happens when I write an article by lamp light. November will be a tad chaotic for me, as I am finalizing the purchase of my new flat and moving in, as well as my job and cats. so, not much different from our normal upload schedule to be honest.
Hope you enjoyed and be sure to check out the game, as well as support the developers (kaleidoscube).
As I’ve mentioned before on the site, I was a PlayStation kid. When I was small, my parents were trying to find what it was that interested me, that brought me joy. They wanted something that they could bond with me over, which was hard to find considering how solitary some of my hobbies were. After seeing my excitement over a tiny basketball game themed around Shadow the Hedgehog that came with a kid’s meal at McDonalds, they decided to take a stab in the dark and see how I liked video games. So, we got a PS1 for the family. We picked up a few games such as Crash Bandicoot, Croc, James Pond and of course, Spyro.
For those of you who have done the maths and realised that the PS1 actually came out before I was even born, you’ll have realised that by the time I had got a PlayStation, the entire original trilogy of Spyro The Dragon had already been released for a good few years. I didn’t care. So many of my childhood memories are intrinsically connected with the adventures of the famous purple lizard, that I still revisit the series to this day. Heck, my mum, and I regularly 100% the games whenever I’m home for the holidays. It’s become a tradition, a chance to bond and catch up (and plot the murder of that goddamn bear).
Will Spyro ever get a holiday? No. He won’t.
Amusingly, I haven’t played the remastered editions of the original trilogy. My parents still have the original disks and a PS2 that is clinging on to life, so I’ve not seen the point of purchasing the remaster just yet. The same goes for the Crash Bandicoot games, not that I’ve ever finished the first one… Though now that I have moved out of home and am off living the adult life, maybe I’ll pick them up, as a little reminder of home. Having little things to remind you of home are important. Whether your home is with your biological family or the family you chose, being able to bring those people to mind when your thoughts get a bit too loud, is a comfort.
From the moment we are born, we build associations between our experiences and our reactions to said experiences. For example, when you touch a hot plate as a kid, you very quickly learn not to repeat that behaviour. That’s because your brain quickly makes the connection between that feeling of pain and the action that caused it – a technique called negative reinforcement. There’s been many a psychological study on the different types of reinforcement and their effectiveness but that’d take up more words in this article than there are grains of sand in a beach towel. Naturally, my mental health conditions have caused a lot of negative associations to be built in my mind, otherwise known as “triggers”. To combat that, I’ve tried to build positive ones. Spyro, has been one of these for as long as I can remember.
Some of these lizards still give me trouble now…
Whether it was a way to keep six year old me still whilst she checked my hair for nits, or a way to calm me down the night before my exam results, Spyro has become a lot more than just a game series to me. It has been the background to so many important conversations in my life – be that coming out as gender-neutral, discussing how I’m really feeling or coping with the loss of my grandfather, these games have become such an integral part of my life. As a military brat, I’ve lived in a lot of different homes. The main constants have always been my mum, my dad, my sister, and Spyro the Dragon. Whether it was sitting on moving boxes at age eleven right before starting secondary school or lounging on a beanbag the night before moving out of home, it’s something that I will carry with me forever.
Replayability of games is a big problem in the industry. After all, what’s the point of paying £40 or more for a game that you will only play once? Especially in more stressful financial times such as lockdown, deciding whether you can afford an expense such as a new game is a troubling one. Yet, the adventures of the pint-sized purple dragon retain the same level of excitement and comedic value regardless of how many times you’ve completed the games. It’s got to a point where we remember every single hidden nook and cranny, any secret areas, and shortcuts, as well as which areas we can assault Moneybags in. I hate that bear. So much.
I hope you fall in the piranha filled swamp.
There’s something about collectable based games that are very satisfying. The more popular AAA games tend to be harder to 100%, as there tend to be ten million odd bits to find. Take Assassins Creed 2 – with its endless supply of feathers to find, or the pigeons from GTA IV. Sure, you’d come across some of them across the course of the game but nowhere near enough to justify taking the time to hunt down the final few. Plus, the rewards are rarely worth it. Heck, catching all the Pokemon in the more recent games has become ridiculously difficult (due to trading requirements and version restrictions) yet all you get is a digital achievement. However, with the Spyro games, you get rewarded for picking up everything and anything you can find.
As much as I despise Moneybags and his constant appearances in the trilogy, as well as the later games, he does serve a valuable purpose. To unlock certain abilities, levels, and areas, you need to pay this money grubbing bear a specific fee. He acts as a barrier to ensure that you are collecting the treasure that is scattered all around the worlds in the Dragon Realms. As you progress through the game, his prices increase, actively encouraging you to be a completionist to reduce the time you’d have to spend backtracking. Plus, at the end of Year of the Dragon (the third game), you get to chase him around and torch his bottom until he surrenders all the gems, he stole from you.
My favourite of the original trilogy. Getting to try other characters, Sparx levels, new mechanics and approaches? Beautiful.
Although the original trilogy did have its problems (looking at you wonky flying mechanics and the Hunter minigames in the Spyro 2’s speedways), it always rewarded it’s players. Be it unlocking a permanent fireball upgrade, a treasure horde, or a series of fun minigames, your hard work pays off. Also, there’s something incredibly satisfying in opening the progress menu and seeing those golden 100% markers next to every level.
Regardless of my emotional ramblings, the Spyro trilogy is still good fun so give it a shot. As of this article being published, I’ll be off celebrating my 21st birthday with my family so I hope you all have a fabulous day and are staying safe!
Remember to like, comment, and follow the site both on WordPress and over on our twitter @OurMindGames. Till next week,
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