Egg Hunt - Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon - Finale

What a bitter sweet moment this is. We have completed our long journey, starting by saving dragons imprisoned in crystal and ending by rescuing the next generation from the clutches of an evil sorceress.

And yet, this means that our time with gaming's most iconic, adorable little dragon have come to an end. Not only are we done with Year of the Dragon, but the whole Reignited Trilogy. What a ride it's been.



While The Sorceress is the least interesting villain among the three in the original trilogy (despite having the most screen time), Year of the Dragon manages to pull of an excellent finale regardless. And a large part of that are the number of successful payoffs, both for characters and for gameplay.

• The interview with Bentley after we defeat the Sorceress the first is an excellent callback to the ending scene from the first game after Gnasty Gnorc is defeated. Doubly so when both Spyro and Bentley seem to be having genuine fun with the whole scene.
   
• Though I've criticized it a few times, Hunter and Bianca's relationship culminates in a cute scene with them at the Fireworks Factory. It serves as a good excuse to have Spyro see everyone and find out what happened to them after the adventure, while also setting up an solid joke with young, 12-year old Spyro being creeped out by romance. Even better when you enter the Super Bonus Round and see that they're both concerned about Spyro but too afraid to admit it.
• Speaking of, the Super Bonus Round is a grand callback to Gnasty's Loot in the first Spyro game, and it's got that same sense of doing a victory lap after all we've accomplished. I'm the guy that enjoys watching numbers go up, and these levels are the best at satisfying that part of my reptile brain. The rematch with The Sorceress wasn't hard, but it wasn't supposed to be. If anything, it's a celebration of all the effort the player put it to making it this far.
• And most important, it feels so good to make money bags hurt: Ram him, torch him, chase him. It was an absolutely genius move to build up the resentment towards the larcenous ursine, making this moment all the sweeter. Even better watching all that money he extorted from me fall out of his pockets and back into my coffers.

It was a fun ride, and I'm really happy that I was able to share my love of this trilogy with you guys.

Next time, join me and a guest for Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.