Spyro fans will undoubtedly know about OpenPete, the original code name for the first Spyro game in its development. I'm so glad that we didn't get 'Pete the Dragon', not least of all because there would have been some copyright issues with Pete's Dragon, and that could have got confusing!
Still, OpenPete lives on thanks to a new PC Port that's bringing new light to the PS1 classic. It's been the talk of our socials, and we're not ones to ignore a story about Spyro - the guy's a legend. It's coming to us from lumilaura, which makes me feel instantly at ease. They're well known for being a Spyro speedrunner, which means they know the ins and outs of the original game like the back of their hand.
And I'm going to say this here because it's important - lumilaura hasn't used AI on this project, which I'm really glad to hear. This is someone who loves Spyro, creating something for the community from scratch, and it's great to see! The port, which is ready to download for Windows users, brings '60fps, widescreen, perspective-correct textures, and no polygon wobble'.
There's a short video comparison that shows you the difference between the original game and lumilaura's port on the OpenPete project page, though lumilaura takes care to reiterate that this is 'A statically recompiled and progressively replaced by a byte-matching decompilation, on a custom Vulkan renderer that draws directly from game state.' The gameplay has been left untouched, with all the same glitches that a speedrunner who plays the original Spyro might use still present.
Other quality-of-life features include optional texture packs, save states, rewind, runahead, and music replacement. Modding tools are still WIP, as are the versions of the port for Mac and Linux. To get it up and running on PC, you need your own legally acquired ROM of the NTSC-U disc version of Spyro The Dragon.
Head to the OpenPete page for more information!
