Spyro returns to the Gameboy Advance for a third time in Attack of the Rhynocs. Seems that Spyro and company accidentally tore a hole between the worlds of the Dragon Realms and Rhynoc. This allowed Ripto to once again attempt his siege of Dragon Realms. So begins Spyro and Sparx journey to defend their land, and defeat the vile Ripto yet again.

Master all of Spyro’s moves and abilities.

Control Agent 9, and Sgt Byrd in sub missions.

Collect items to unlock levels.

A brand new world for Spyro to explore.

Multiplayer (requires multi carts).

AOTR starts off with our hero Spyro’s, and his sidekick Sparx transported to the Dragon’s shores. You will find that the Rhynocs have turned the Dragon Realms into their personal playground. Everything is in disarray. Dragon toddlers are missing their toys, books are missing from the fairy library, there seems to be no end to their villainy. Lucky for us that our heroes are on the job, or all would be lost.

Spyro’s starts off with his basic set of moves: jump, glide, hover, and a breath attack. As you explore you will find items that will give you new attacks, and abilities. Actually item collecting is the main focus of the game. Early on you will receive lists from characters of items they need, and you cannot progress until you find all of these lost valuables. There are so many items in fact, the game includes a journal so you can keep track of them all..

Gameplay is a blend of action, puzzle solving, and exploration. The game itself is not terribly difficult; actually AOTR plays somewhat like Zelda, with a higher emphasis on exploration than action. To finish the game you will need to look everywhere, add to this the world you explore is huge, especially for a Gameboy Advance title. Get yourself prepared for some serious back tracking.

I especially enjoyed the free roaming of the design. If you were having a problem finishing a certain goal, like I did, you can go on, and try something different. I personally hate it when a game locks you into a certain scenario until you finish it, or just give up on the game entirely.

Spyro uses an isometric viewpoint, and I must confess that I have never been a big fan of this perspective for platformers. This is mainly due to the difficulty in judging distances, which can make jumping very taxing. With Spyro this is not a problem. It seems the designers have gone to great lengths to make everything work great. Controlling Spyro as he explores is accomplished with relative ease. I didn’t have much of a problem at all with completing the many tasks laid out before me

The menus, characters, and locations are all very detailed. Character sprites are large, and animated. Colors are bright, and have a cartoon like quality. Each level has its own theme, such as ice, molten rock, etc. This really brings the world to life. Also of note is the large amount of animations they used in this game. Like when Agent 9 loses a life, he looks ahead, blinks, and then looks at you. Considering this is a sub mission, this shows the great attention to detail the developers took to this project.