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The graphics and audio also come across as stale. Spyro and the disciples are large and animate smoothly, but they lack color and appear washed out. Backgrounds look like they were originally made for a Game Boy Color game. They're simplistic, nearly lifeless, and somehow less colorful than the characters. Someone made the artistic decision to colorize the far-off scenery in the scrolling background layer with sepia tones, but it's a decision that doesn't pay off because the monochromatic scenery looks dull and dreary instead of charming. Dreary is also a good way to describe the music. Each level has its own theme and it sounds like real music as opposed to beeps and bloops, but it's all either unassuming or depressing. The sound effects, meanwhile, are decent but forgettable. There's a good variety of pops, explosions, and creature noises, but none of them particularly stand out. On the whole, the presentation, like the gameplay, is uninspired and tiresome.
The game looks and feels like a Game Boy Color game from five years ago.
Mercifully, the game takes only about two or three hours to finish. So, if you're set on finding out what happens to Spyro in his latest adventure, you won't have to suffer long to take in the story. Your reward for completing the game is the ability to play any of the seven different minigames without having to restart the story mode. It's as if the developers knew nobody would want to play through it again.
The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning for the Game Boy Advance is an all-around disappointment. Instead of rekindling people's interest in the Spyro character, it's likely to make them swear off the purple dragon's future adventures. Vivendi and Krome Studios had the right idea in starting the franchise over from scratch, but they could have at least come up with something better than a tired side-scroller that feels five years out of date and barely takes two hours to complete.
