SHE IS NOT

I like to think of myself as the kind of guy who gets nearly all the lesser known console games, even now my collection boasts games such as Scaler, Vexx and Croc, but there are still a few select games that manage to slip through my gamer fingers, as I found out now too long ago.

I first found out about one particular game a few months ago. I was browsing on various forums to find out about the latest games on the market, but when browsing DarkSpyro, I heard a rumour about an under-the-radar Spyro game that was apparently released between Spyro: Shadow Legacy and The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning which, according to my best knowledge, could've been anywhere between the 18th of October, 2005 and the 10th of October, 2006. Despite this, I was still very interested in the game, Spyro was my childhood hero after all, and I felt somewhat guilty about letting a game like this slip. I searched eBay to see whether I could find a copy of this mystery game, discovering from the DarkSpyro forum that the game's name was Spyro: Hero's Curse, but came up with nothing. Amazon? Nothing. Craigslist? Nope, no copies to be found.

After further research on Hero's Curse, I discovered that the game never sold very well, in fact, it was rumoured that there were only about ten copies left out there; constantly being traded, thrown away or moved around due to their unsettling content, according to the rumours. Eventually, I turned to a local gaming shop near where I live.

I'd been lucky in the past with things like Skylanders when it came to this particular shop, which I won't mention the name of for legal reasons, so I convinced my mother to phone them. As luck would have it, they were getting a delivery on that same day with ONE single copy of Spyro: Hero's Curse. Needless to say I was hooked on getting the game from that moment, and the staff were generous enough to keep it back for us.

When we finally got to buying the game, I was surprised by the low price of it, especially for a Spyro game, only £5. We were informed by the staff that the game, in addition to being preowned, had received very poor reviews by the websites and players that experienced it. I began to grow suspicious of the game at this point, but I still wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so I took it home.

Finally! The chance to bid my childhood hero a proper farewell. I started up my PlayStation 2 and inserted the slightly scratched disc. The intro came up, listing the Sierra logo and showing Spyro perched on a large rock against a full moon, the options were listed as New Game, Load Game, Options and Extras. I knew there were no save files because I was playing this on my memory card, so I chose New Game.

The opening cutscene showed an autumn-brown sky before the camera panned down onto a dim, apparently dead forest. Spyro was seen galloping out of the inky blackness before slowing to a walk and the camera moving behind him. I moved around as Spyro, getting to know the controls of the game. X to jump and double-jump, Square was charge, Circle was breathing fire, and triangle didn't seem to do anything. Assuming the triangle was used to interact, I continued down the dark path which presented itself to me, eventually meeting a T in the road. The right path moved downwards into black with a sign saying 'Midnight Abyss' while the left path lead upwards and looked lighter, with a sign saying 'Midday Peaks.' Not wanting an immediate challenge, I went left.

I recognised a number of the characters in Midday Peaks from previous games, Hunter was there, Sgt. Byrd, Blink and to my surprise, Sheila... But none of them walked up to Spyro. Instead, a large female dragon strolled up to him. Her scales dyed a blood red and her underbelly a pale yellow colour, her horns curled back against her head her head like those of a ram and she had large black wings to lift her slender frame. As she spoke in a smooth voice, a text box below listed her name to be Terra.

"Hello, young dragon." Terra said, "I see you got my message about the unusual happenings here."

"Yeah, I didn't expect it to be out in the middle of nowhere, though." Spyro quipped, losing none of his nostalgic cockiness. Terra replied.

"Your friends got here completely unharmed... It's a shame they suffered here..."

"Well what can I do?"

"You, Spyro, must prove your self worthy of ridding this land of a most powerful evil, far greater than anything we Elders could comprehend."

"Where do I start?"

Terra led Spyro over to a gloomy-looking cave and I was put back in control. When I entered the cave a title card appeared reading Trial 1, indicating to me that this was the first of several trials to come, so I wasted no time in overcoming the skeletal enemies that appeared before me. The cave turned into a temple half way through the level and things started to get a little harder, introducing genuine obstacles this time that Spyro had to jump over. At the end of the level there was a simple stone block floating over a hole, and not knowing what else to do, I jumped on top of it. The stone fell into the deep black hole where I was greeted by what turned out to be a boss health meter, the text at the top read Terra and sure enough, there she was.

"Time to prove your self, young dragon."

Terra's attacks were a mix of lunging forwards, swinging her wings and tail and breathing purple fire. Eventually I figured out her attack pattern and defeated her relatively easily, but when I got her health down to zero Terra simply roared and Spyro was teleported back to Midday Peaks. Hunter was the one who spoke to Spyro this time, though he seemed frightened and stammered his words.

"Y-you c-cannot win... sh-sh-she is not..." Then Hunter teleported away. I was given the option to save, I chose yes.

I took the initiative in entering the cave again after trying in vain to talk to the other three characters, they all seemed to be frozen to the spot. Trial 2 read and the level was water themed, but I managed to get through it without much difficulty since what enemies there were lurked in the tunnels between water parts. Again, Terra was the boss of the level, I assumed by this point that she was helping me with my training. Sgt. Byrd was freed this time, and was a lot less confident than usual.

"You should... stop now... she is not..." But the same thing happened to him, just teleporting away.

Trial 3 was fire themed, and towards the end of the cave I saw a tombstone with words seemingly scratched into it.

Terra. Underworld.

Return? Never!

Be Aware.

Capture. Kill.

R.I.P.

I felt a little a little unnerved knowing that this may actually be a grave for Terra, but I carried on as the game expected me to. Facing Terra was getting harder now has she added a slam attack and a dash attack to her arsenal. Blink was released and spoke.

"G-go down S-Spyro... she is.. not..."

When the sky themed Trial 4 was over, Terra appeared back in Midday Peaks looking slightly worse due to her previous defeats. I released Sheila, but she fell down, almost lifeless, and simply repeated a single phrase before being teleported.

"She is not... She is not... She is not...."

By now I was growing increasingly suspicious of this Terra character, but took the time to listen to her as the trials were confirmed to be over.

"Your training is complete, young one, and you have weakened the grip that the evil has on your friends, but the beast makes its home in the Midnight Abyss, so you must travel there to confront it."

Finally, the time had come to end this. I charged down the hill that lead to my starting point, then slowed and trotted down into the final level.

Spyro appeared in a dark room lit only from the middle. The opening cutscene showed what seemed to be PS2 controllers dangling from the ceiling. Spyro looked around, and a boss meter appeared, but instead of reading Terra like I was expecting, the boss meter simply said Player.

I waited to see this boss they spoke of, but the room was completely empty and pitch black with no sign of Player. I didn't get attacked or anything, so I figured it might be a glitch, but then again, I could just have to do something to trigger the fight, so I pressed the square button.

As soon as I made to charge, Spyro was knocked off his feet by a blow of some kind. Now the battle was really on. I pressed circle to try and hit the seemingly invisible foe, but as I did, Spyro burst into flames. I was worried now as I had become so eager about fighting this boss that I had forgotten to fill up Spyro's health, and it was low. I pressed X to jump, but all that happened was Spyro being kicked up in the air and then falling, health now at zero, down to the ground. A cutscene started.

A large blood red dragoness with a white underbelly appeared chuckling to herself, she was walking slowly up to Spyro. As she got to him, her skin, no, her whole body began to peel off and melt away as if she were made of wax. The melting form revealed a horrid dragon skeleton with glowing red eyes and rows of needle-like teeth. She, if I could even call it a she, began lightly stroking Spyro's unconscious body with her bony paw which still had skin hanging off it, she then spoke, but it came out as more of a gurgled mess. Thankfully, there were subtitles to translate.

"Poor child, poor sweet child... look at what you've done to this magnificent being." Spyro's body started to shrivel up and become smaller. "You've lived such a good life only to have it come to this. You should be ashamed." Spyro now only a skeleton with skin around it, as if he was being absorbed by something. "Your quest for adventure led you to this." The skeleton froze, Spyro's body now completely unrecognisable, and turned to the camera with her soulless red eyes. "Are you proud? I made you do this." The screen faded to black and asked if I wanted to save. I saved the game and switched off the console.

It's been a while since I've played that mysterious game. I still keep it on the shelf along with my other Spyro games, and I'll sometimes go back to it to try and see if it meant anything, but I feel sorry for anyone who owns a copy of this game, and I know one thing for certain...

She is not.

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