The odds of having seen Spyro the Dragon on anything other than a Sony console back in the 90s was as likely as seeing Mario on a non-Nintendo platform. Wait. Bad analogy. Fans had a better chance of seeing Sonic on a non-Sega console remembering the Atari Jaguar deal never mind. My point is, it was very unlikely to happen but that is not stopping fans in 2025 from making it happen.
Blurry Textures and Other N64 niceties Fans Expect
Just going to put my usual disclaimer here, I am not a programmer but have a clue how hard it is. I am only pointing out what I can see in the below embedded video. I am not pointing anything out due to malicious intent. As a journalist, I would not be doing my job if I purposefully ignored these points.
The textures. The original featured slightly jittery textures and this fan port by YouTube user Frogbull is giving fans N64 style textures – not as sharp as they could be.
If you have played many games on the Nintendo 64 then you know what I am talking about here.
Camera panning and movement looks quite smooth so far. I hope it stays as vigilant when enemies are added.
Other Aspects Worth Noting
I am not sure where the music in the video is coming from, if that is what will be featured in the final or is just placeholder. I think it is just placeholder now.
In the preview above we see Spyro run around a small area with a large castle entrance nearby – if memory serves me correctly, this was often the location of the level exit.
We also see Spyro fly straight up and then around the level a bit. This is obviously to show off the current power of the engine. We can see the rendering is pretty good, albeit this is a small area, there is no clipping in of graphics.
Frogbull has a lot of fan ports shown on their YouTube channel. Including Metal Gear Solid and Crash Bandicoot for Sega Saturn. Check them out and maybe leave them some support. Little things like a like, a comment, a share, goes a long way.
What a fascinating project! The challenge of porting a PS1 game to the N64 is enormous due to texture memory limitations and the cartridge format. The fact that Frogbull is managing to do it and
It is definitely wild to see in action. I cannot wait to see what they are able to do as they go through more development. I am a huge Spyro on PSOne fan. The second one was a bit of a comfort game for me during a bad time in my life.
The video looks so cute!
It really does. I love that art style, it is cute and almost timeless like pixel art.