I've seen Playstation 2 games with better sound and graphics compared with this game. Let's face it. Some children's games have state of the art sound and graphics while other games go on the theory that kids are dumb and won't know the difference.

Kids are not dumb and they do know the difference and if they are going to play The Legend of Spyro - Dawn of the Dragon, it is going to be because of the storyline and because they love Spyro not because the game sounds or looks great. The sound could have been good actually. The voice actors did a good job delivering their lines and the game's music while nothing spectacular, at the same time it was not annoying or terrible either. Even the sound effects were adequate. What dragged this game down from a sound perspective is the garbled mess that happened when all the sound aspects where put together. There are times in the game where you can not understand what the characters are saying because of background noise. For example, in one of the missions that I was playing Spyro was saying something but I could not decipher what he was saying because of the loud water background sounds. And even if I turn up the sound so I can hear the voices better, at the same time, the background noise gets louder as well.

While the sound was a disappointment in itself it does not even begin to compare with the disappointment created by this game's graphics. I realize that not every game release is going to have the graphics of Fallout 3 or Metal Gear 4, but at the same time I was expecting more from the programmers that made this game. Spyro and Cynder are so poorly rendered that at times I wonder if this game was designed for kids by kids. While most games have managed to bring to life their character through animations, even in the movie files our two heroes look almost emotionless. Spyro and Cynder are not the only poorly rendered characters in the game. Most of the enemies that you get to fight are poorly rendered as well. Sometimes the enemy design is so poor that I don't even know if the monster that I'm attacking is facing towards or away from me. Another problem that I have with the graphics is the confusion that is created on the screen in time of battles. The battle sequences get to overwhelmed with monsters, fighting animations, magic spells and background chaos that it is almost impossible to tell what's happening on the screen. Because of this confusion the button mashing controller style implemented by this game actually seems to work. The one thing that looks great in this game is the fire effects especially on the menu screen. I really am curious of there actually were multiple teams working on this game's graphics.