Spyro the Dragon (classic)
From Spyropedia
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Spyro the Dragon is a purple dragon and the main playable character for the Spyro series. He is most notable for his immutable sense of heroism, friendliness, and certainly his fiery personality. He was voiced by three separate actors during his run, with Carlos Alarazqui providing his voice in his initial appearance, Tom Kenny providing his voice from Ripto's Rage until Vivendi Universal took over the series, and Jess Harnell providing his voice until the canon reset caused by The Legend of Spyro series.
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Characteristics
Personality
Spyro's character is not described in any games besides Ripto's Rage, where Sparx narrates a character description of the young dragon in the instruction book:
"Spyro is the mischievous hero of this tale. He may be the smallest hero in the Dragon Family, but even the Elder Dragons admit he's got gumption! Just ask Gnasty Gnorc - he won't mess with Spyro again! Spyro's always rarin' to go, especially when he can headbash some sheep or flame some frogs. He's so full of energy, he keeps me on the move! Spyro is extremely curious and hardly ever cautious, which sometimes gets him into trouble! That's why I stick around, to make sure nothing too serious happens to him!" –Sparx
It could be presumed that Spyro is quite cocky, as he says in Spyro: A Hero's Tail when thieves steal eggs in the dragon nursery and the nursery owner asks if he could go after him he says, "You know, I'm gonna be out saving the world anyway..."
Spyro became much more arrogant after the original trilogy, and in more recent outings, has actually denied help to those who did not expressly indicate that they would reward him. Despite this, he still saves the world, even if it is not willingly.
Appearance
In the early days of development of Spyro the Dragon, Spyro was originally to be green in color. However, due to graphical limitations of the time, as well as the prevalence of lush green fields in the game, Spyro's color was altered to something that would stand out, bringing on his purple hue. Beginning with Ripto's Rage, Spyro's official art was depicted with a ridge of yellow spikes down his back, extending from the crest on his head, but the ridge did not appear in-game until the graphical enhancements of A Hero's Tail.
Spyro has a resemblance to the Disney character Figment. The primary difference between the two is Figment being bipedal and frequently seen in a yellow sweater, while Spyro mostly remains on all fours.
Abilities
Spyro's main attacks consist of ramming his opponents with his long horns or breathing fire at them. Because he is young, Spyro can't fly very well and can't breathe a continuous stream of fire, instead spitting short, fan shaped bursts.
Later on, various powerups allow him a short period of enhanced power, including actual flight, extremely powerful fire breath, ice breath, and even some which give Spyro two powers at once.
Eventually, Spyro gains several permanent powers such as lightning, ice, and bubble breath in Enter the Dragonfly and lightning, ice, and water breath in A Hero's Tail
Character History
Early Childhood
As told in the Japanese Spyro the Dragon manual and an interview with Sparx by the DNN (Dragon News Network), some details of Spyro's past are known. Sparx used to crawl around Spyro's egg when he was a larvae. There was peace in the Dragon Realms.
However, unknown to the dragons, two thieves were running off with two eggs. One was a dragon egg while the other was a dragonfly egg. Suddenly, the dragons discovered the thieves who ran off, dropping the eggs. The red dragon egg becomes hot, as if breathing fire from the inside. Spyro hatches from the red egg and Sparx hatches from the yellow egg.
It is unknown of where they came from or where their parents are. Spyro rescued Sparx from a bird and they became the best of friends.
Dragon Realms
In Spyro the Dragon, Gnasty Gnorc attacks the Dragon Realms, freezing all the dragons in crystal statues after being called ugly. Spyro, the one dragon Gnasty's magic spell failed to effect due to his small size, realized this and set out across the Dragon Realms to free the resident dragons and recover their treasure. After traveling through many worlds, freeing many dragons and disposing of all of Gnasty Gnorcs's minions, Spyro challenged, pursued, and defeated Gnasty Gnorc (though he later returns) and rescued all of the Dragon Realms' treasure.
Avalar
Several weeks after defeating Gnasty Gnorc, during an extended period of rainy weather, Spyro decided that he needed a vacation from the Dragon Realms. Noticing a portal Dragon Shores, he entered the portal to escape the weather. However, to his surprise, he arrived in a realm called Avalar, because the residents had redirected the portal to bring him there instead. After a confusing moment, he encountered the dictator Ripto, who accused the residents of "bringing a dragon to Avalar." A brief tussle ensued, ending with Ripto's escape to Avalar's Summer Forest homeworld after his magical scepter fell into the maw of his steed, Gulp. At Elora's request, Spyro visited the realms of Avalar and recovered several talismans, then pursued Ripto and fought against one of Ripto's minions, Crush.
After Crush was crushed under a pile of rocks, Ripto and Gulp escaped to Autumn Plains, and Spyro pursued them. In Autumn Plains, he was asked to help out the residents and recover the rest of Avalar's talismans. Spyro caught up to Ripto, and fought against his steed, Gulp. Elora assisted by providing weapons to use against Gulp; Ripto fell off the battle area after the battle, and Elora gave Spyro a place to rest while she returned to the Professor to check up on a portal to return Spyro home.
Spyro decided to search for Elora and found himself in Winter Tundra, he was met with news that Ripto was still alive, and had locked himself inside the Tundra's palace. Once more, Spyro was asked to travel through the local portals, this time to recover enough Orbs to challenge Ripto with. Spyro succeeded, and challenged Ripto to a duel. Zoe, the fairy, informed Spyro that the Professor was working on new types of Orbs, and a fierce battle ensued, with both Spyro and Ripto using powers from the Orbs for attack. Ripto used one Orb to create a large, mechanized version of his steed Gulp. When Spyro destroyed that, Ripto used another Orb to transform the arena floor into lava, while creating a large bird to help finish Spyro off. Spyro combatted them in an aerial duel, however, and defeated him, sending him and his bird to their demises in the pool of lava. Spyro was then sent back to Dragon Shores.
Forgotten Realms
In Spyro: Year of the Dragon, The Dragon Realms were celebrating an important event: the Year of the Dragon Festival. Every twelve years during this time, the fairies deliver 150 dragon eggs to the Dragon Realms, which will become the next generation of dragons. The dragons celebrated until they fell over from exhaustion and slept. While they were asleep, a mysterious rabbit girl named Bianca came with an army of rhynoc creatures to steal the dragon eggs. The dragons woke up to notice their newest dragon egg brood gone, and found Bianca trying to steal the last remaining dragon egg. Spyro, Sparx and Hunter attempted to stop Bianca, but it was too late. She took the egg back through a hole to the realm where the dragons once lived: the Forgotten Realms. Her master, known as the Sorceress, was beginning to lose her powers, due to the fact that the dragons, the source of the world's magic, had migrated to the other side of the planet. She took the dragon eggs, planning to use them in a spell to give her eternal life and power.
After the elder dragons tried to fit through the wormhole, they determined that only Spyro was small enough, meaning that he had go to the Forgotten Realms and recover the 150 eggs. The Sorceress, along with Bianca, created monsters to fend off Spyro, but he defeated them. Along the way Spyro recruited four new allies, including Sheila the Kangaroo, Sgt. James Byrd, Bentley the Yeti, and Agent 9, a monkey in the Professor's service, all of whom were being held prisoner by Moneybags at the behest of the Sorceress. As Spyro arrived in the Midnight Mountain world, Bianca realized how far her master would go to achieve power. She betrayed the Sorceress and went to Spyro's side, releasing Hunter from a trap he had fallen into and opening the door to the Sorceress's lair (after Spyro found 100 eggs). In a great battle, Spyro defeated The Sorceress. She was not killed, however. He had to recover 149 of the missing eggs, as well as 20,000 gems to fight her again in a secret region of the Forgotten Realms. After taking control of a spaceship, Spyro shot down the Sorceress once and for all, recovering the final egg and saving the Dragons from extinction.
Ripto's Revenge
Later in Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, Spyro returns victorious after saving the fireflies, prompting the Dragon Elders to begin celebrating the previously saved baby dragons obtaining their Dragonflies. Unfortunately, Ripto escaped banishment and crashes the party and scatters ninety of the one hundred and fifty-one Dragonflies across the Dragon Realms. Spyro is once again tasked with tracking them all down.
Eventually, Spyro clears all nine worlds attached to the Dragon Realms, and enters Ripto's portal with the combined magic of all of the Dragonflies. He enters Ripto's portal, and Ripto creates a shield for himself resistant to fire. Spyro destroys the shield and beats Ripto. But when Spyro thinks he has Ripto on the verge of defeat, Ripto uses a magic spell to grow twice his size. He then erects a flame barrier, making Spyro's flame breath useless.
Spyro now uses his Ice Breath to bring down the barrier, and freeze Ripto. Finally, in one last act of desperation, Ripto uses his magic to grow even bigger and incorporate pieces of Crush and Gulp into his body. Spyro easily brings down the monster with his Lightning Breath. As Ripto is defeated, he curses Spyro. Spyro discovers that Ripto's magic did not work properly because he was a dinosaur, and as such, their magical properties could not sustain the proper use of magic. This has lead to Ripto's hate of dragons, and is the reason why he is so relentless in destroying the dragons.
The Dragon Elders banish Ripto once again, and the Dragon Realms are safe again.
The Season of Ice Crisis
Spyro: Season of Ice is set after Spyro saved the Dragon Eggs from the clutches of the Sorceress. Spyro, Hunter, and Bianca return from the Forgotten Realms, the three decided to take a vacation. Bianca was researching vacation spots in the Sorceress' library, but dropped her magic book. It was found by the lowly librarian Grendor. Unfortunately for him, he read the spell wrong, prompting him to grow a second head with a pounding headache.
Grendor then used his newfound magic to freeze all the fairies, and scatter them across the Fairy Realms. Zoe quickly alerted Spyro. Spyro and friends ascended up to the Fairy Realms, where Spyro was charged with finding all one hundred frozen fairies. As Spyro entered the first world, he found that the Fairy Realms had been infested by Rhynocs. Spyro was able to defeat all of the Rhynocs, and ultimately Grendor, and freed all of the fairies.
Ripto's Return
In Spyro: Season of Flame, upon Spyro's return from the Fairy Realms, Ripto returns for his ultimate revenge on the Dragons by scattering all of the fireflies, the beings whose magical properties give the dragons their flame breath, all over the Dragon Realms. The Dragons' breaths have now become icy cold as Spyro embarks on a quest to find the fireflies. Eventually, after saving all of the fireflies, Spyro once again defeats Ripto, where he is banished by the Dragon Elders.
The Stolen Laboratory
In Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs, Ripto attempted another invasion, and was successfully able to take over the Professor's laboratory and drive Spyro out; Spyro was tasked with traveling throughout the Realms to recover twelve 'Hearts', in order to open a passage back to the Professor's lab and confront Ripto again. Spyro does so, and re-enters the lab and engages in combat with Ripto once again. After defeating him, Ripto is once again banished to [[Chapeau Ripto, until he meets with Dr. Neo Cortex.
In Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy, Ripto teams up with Doctor Neo Cortex to get rid of their foes. Spyro meets Crash Bandicoot, and the pair go through the infested homeworlds, defeating whatever the evil pair throws at them, when eventually, Spyro and Crash defeat both Cortex and Ripto.
The Traitorous Elder
In Spyro: A Hero's Tail, Spyro discovers that the Dragon Realms are being plunged into darkness, this time by an evil resident and a Dragon Elder from a long time ago named Red. Spyro teams up with Hunter, Sgt. Byrd, Blink the Mole, and Sparx in order to take down Red and his unholy alliance of Gnasty Gnorc and Ineptune. The five heroes battle their way through new homeworlds, and eventually defeat Red. Red escapes, and builds an army of robots.
Finally, Spyro tracks down Red to his secret laboratory, where Red has become a robot himself. Spyro defeats him, and the Professor shrinks Red down to a very small size, so he won't be able to attack the Dragon Realms again.
The Shadow Realm
In Spyro: Shadow Legacy, Spyro fights against the Sorcerer, who is attempting to seize control of the Dragon Realms using dark, shadowy mirrors of each Dragon Realm (called the Shadow Realms). Spyro learns the art of "Dragon-Kata" and the use of magic from the Dragon Elders, and set out to rescue those the Sorcerer held captive, and defeat the Sorcerer himself.
After clearing the Dragon Realms and Avalar of the shadowy influences, Spyro finds that Red in the Forgotten Worlds. After defeating Red, it becomes apparent that Red is only a pawn in the Sorcerer's plan to destroy the Dragon Realms. Spyro then battles his way through the rest of the Forgotten Worlds and fights and defeats The Sorcerer.
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| Classic series: | Spyro • Sparx • Hunter Sgt. Byrd • Agent 9 • Sheila • Bentley • Blink | |
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| Legend series: | Spyro • Cynder | |
| Skylanders: | Spyro (Dark) (Legendary) • Cynder • Zap • Chop Chop (Legendary) • Gill Grunt • Trigger Happy Prism Break • Ignitor • Stump Smash • Eruptor • Flameslinger • Stealth Elf Sonic Boom • Bash (Legendary) • Boomer • Drobot • Voodood • Ghost Roaster Whirlwind • Dino-rang • Zook • Wrecking Ball • Terrafin • Sunburn • Camo • Wham-Shell • Slam-Bam • Drill Sergeant • Lightning Rod • Warnado • Double Trouble • Hex | |
