Originally composed by Stewart Copeland, the music for the first three Spyro The Dragon games was magical and, at times, a little abstract. Rather than focusing on catchy melodies and hooks in the same way that platforming video games of the time were adept at, Copeland instead built the music around a few distinct tunes reworked across several different areas and focused on a more ambient feel to suit the level's environment...although that's not to say he didn't also compose some bloody catchy melodies now and then.
Unlike my three-part look at the music from the N. Sane Trilogy, I intend to write a much longer blog post looking at the overall highs and lows of all three games. In other words, a review. I'm reviewing all three rerecorded soundtracks in one post whilst also making comparisons to the original where appropriate. My main reasoning for this is that unlike the N. Sane Trilogy where the game's soundtrack needed a more in-depth look to accommodate for the various changes made to certain tunes, Toys For Bob (the trilogy's developer) have tried to remain faithful to the original sound, even going as far as to re-enlist Stewart Copeland to help with the arrangements.
So with that in mind, let's take off!
Before this game came out, I went back to the original soundtracks for all three Spyro games and had a good listen to some of my favourite tracks to remind me about what I loved so much about Copeland's score. What impressed me most was how Copeland gave each game a distinct sound whilst still retaining the feel of a game series about a spunky purple dragon travelling across magical realms on heroic adventures, starting with 1998's Spyro The Dragon. The music sounded magical yet was recorded with primarily Rock instruments; heavy bass, various guitars, pounding percussion, organs galore. Sure, there were touches of brass and strings here & there, but the highlights were often tracks with a wide-eyed sense of wonder about them (Dark Passage, Magic Crafters Home) or a bit of a punch to them (Terrace Village, Haunted Towers).
One year later and Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage (or Gateway To Glimmer depending on your region) was released. More Spyro action with even more ambitious music, containing all the same tropes from the original game whilst taking on various styles from all over the world. Starting with Glimmer, you can tell that Stewart Copeland still had plenty of creative steam left but right after that, you get levels like Colossus and Hurricos; the former utilising some neat Gregorian chanting on top of the guitar melodies whilst the latter perfectly balances heavier, mechanical sound effects on top of a simplistic background score. Each piece of music perfectly suits the level, whether it's the Arabian flair in Scorch or the bustling, futuristic sound of Metropolis.
Finally, we have Spyro: Year Of The Dragon (my personal favourite game AND soundtrack). I don't know if it was the need to make Spyro seem edgier to the 00s generation of gamers but the music definitely took on more of an Industrial tone in this game. Some of the first levels you play contain music fit for Matrix-inspired parkour videos like Cloud Spires and Molten Crater, not to mention the sharply more aggressive boss battle themes. Even the more familiar tunes like Sunny Villa and Frozen Altars have an unmistakable edge to them but as mentioned earlier, the soundtrack is still that of a Spyro game. The organs and heavy bass are still there, although they had to share the spotlight with computer-generated sound effects.
I may not have adored the music from the original Spyro trilogy but I definitely enjoyed the majority of tracks from each level (although I strongly dislike Sgt. Byrd's theme) and there were certainly some pieces of music that I would listen to on repeat where possible (Harbour Speedway, Scorch and of course, the incredible Credits theme to name a few). Listening to those pieces of music in the Reignited Trilogy was a mostly enjoyable experience although there were a couple of times where I had to flip the sound settings to "Original" instead of "Reignited" simply because I felt like Toys For Bob had completely fucked up the rerecordings. This is where my doubt about whether I liked the new music came in.
Fans of the original source material are always going to have the nostalgia factor weighing down their judgement so even though I prefer 100% of the original versions of songs I loved from the Spyro trilogy, most of the music that I was happily comfortable with but never religiously fanatic about sounds just as good (if not a bit better) in the Reignited Trilogy. Instrumentation is largely identical to the point that I was genuinely unsure if I'd left the settings on "Original" or "Reignited" a lot of the time and listening to each track in HD on YouTube whilst writing this review really does the enhanced soundtrack a lot of favours, although they still made the same mistake Vicarious Visions made with the N. Sane Trilogy in not whacking the bass up to 11 or beyond.
Every other observation about the game's soundtrack could be considered a positive or negative depending on your personal music tastes, e.g. the fact that Toys For Bob developed the trilogy as one game so the graphics, gameplay engine and soundtrack all feel the same across all three remade titles. The subtle changes in the original trilogy's soundtrack seem obvious in comparison to the differences between the rerecordings but again, this is probably only going to affect the purists who avidly listened to the original music and would gladly fork over half their paycheck to have the original collection on vinyl if that were possible.
Overall, the Reignited Trilogy's soundtrack reflects the game; newcomers will love it for its incredible charm and creativity whilst those who grew up with the originals and played them all to 337% completion repeatedly will always choose the classics over the remakes, even though they'll still enjoy the remasters a hell of a lot. If I had to rate the entire trilogy's soundtrack, I'd probably give it a 8/10 for doing the originals justice although still making a few fumbles along the way...like the Fracture Hills rerecording. I mean, it's just...the fuck were they thinking?!
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