Remember when the first PlayStation was still all the talk, and Sony had not one—but two!—mascots to compete with Mario and Sonic? No, I’m not talking about Solid Snake and Lara; I’m talking about Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon.

For some reason, those two franchises which were once among the cream of the crop have just … well, become irrelevant. The good news is that the developers of the respective franchises are trying to regain the glory they once held. The bad news is there’s still a long way to go, especially for our purple dragon friend.

I want to make one thing perfectly clear: This is the best game since the Spyro series left the PlayStation. That may not be saying much given the quality of the last several releases, but if you’ve managed to stick with the little reptilian hero through those, you’ll likely enjoy this latest release. If you fondly remember the series as it was a decade ago and haven’t really kept up with our hero, however, this game fails to capture the feeling and fun of the originals.

The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon is the final in the Legend of Spyro trilogy, and may be the last Spyro game we’ll see. The game takes place in the future, where Spyro and Cynder awaken from their icy entombment, and ultimately set out to stop Malefor from spreading his evil throughout the world.

The biggest, and best, change to the series in quite some time is featured in this game: co-op. Now, you can play with a friend, with one of you controlling Spyro and the other controlling Cynder. If you’re alone, you can quickly cycle between the two with the press of a button. Sadly, the AI of your co-op partner when you’re playing single player leaves quite a bit to be desired. The game offers a reason why the two dragons can’t get more than ten feet apart from each other, and without that I’m convinced my partner would constantly run into a corner or spin in circles while chasing invisible birds. Outside of performing actions which require the two dragons to work together, your partner is almost nonexistent in the course of the game. Basically, the co-op AI is on the same level as Sonic 2’s Tails’ AI; great fun with a friend, a visual addition which does nothing worthwhile otherwise.