The Most Annoying Character

Games are usually an escape from reality for me, so when they get too realistic, either figuratively or literally, it tends to sour the experience. I know some people want realism from their games but I'd rather live out my fantasies. When it comes to the Spyro The Dragon series of games again the original trilogy holds a soft spot for me, the pinnacle of the franchise overall, but of all the characters that appear throughout the three games, it's one that appears in the second and third that is particularly annoying, and that is Moneybags the greedy bear.

I'm assuming it's intentional but if not, the coincidence is uncanny, in the world of investing particularly in equities there are two main types of market movements, one called a Bull Market, where everyone wants to buy, and one called a Bear Market, where everyone wants to sell. Moneybags epitomises that, throughout the Spyro series he consistently stands as a roadblock to progress requiring Spyro, the titular character to cough up gems, the in-game currency in order to progress - it's quite literally pay to win.

I happen to really enjoy collectathon games, as I mentioned in an earlier post when discussing Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, so it's pretty much a given that I'm going to collect every gem at some point in the game. The annoying thing about Moneybags however is that he constrains the player in terms of the order you can play through the stages. I'm not a fan of arbitrary gating in games, it makes sense when a game is designed to build in complexity, gating mechanics helps prevent the player from being overwhelmed if you were to give them access to everything upfront, the trouble is, Moneybags doesn't do that, instead he offers Spyro progression, which sometimes it is possible to achieve without paying him, but at other times you don't have a choice.

Spoiler alert, you do get to exact your revenge on him at one point in each game, ultimately recouping the gems you paid him, but even that feels like a hollow victory in the end when it makes his character entirely pointless, he's just a barrier to progress.

The original trilogy of Spyro games were remastered and released as the Reignited Trilogy, something which again I was elated to see. I purchased the trilogy and replayed the games, unlike Crash Bandicoot I have not yet 100%'d their achievements and probably won't. What remains as far as I can tell are reworked skill points from the original games or they are akin to those. As for my favourite, again the third in the series, this time Spyro Year Of The Dragon proved to be my standout, I particularly love the skate park side missions where you get to rack up points performing tricks.