The first Spyro game is the best

The last 2 years I haven't been much of a gaymer besides my yearly Tera addiction flare-up, not including LM, because that hardly counts as a game. Since late spring/early summer is when I usually get the aforementioned flare up, this year I managed to beat it... by replaying some of my favourite PS1 games, and some of the sequels or games that I started but never finished.

I'm reserving this entry to talk exclusively about the original Spyro trilogy because I didn't expect my thoughts on it to get so long lmao. I only ever played the first game as mentioned on my ancient video games page that I never bothered to rework. From what I gathered online over the years, the popular opinion is that 2 and 3 are much better than 1, while 1 is kind of ok, but lacking. The opinion persists with the remake trilogy as well. This got me really curious in wanting to try out the sequels that I've been apparently missing out on all this time. The order of the reviews is the order I played them in now, so 2 > 3 > 1.

Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!

The moment I started up the game I noticed something slightly different about the control physics, and after beating the 3rd game I confirmed online that indeed, Spyro moves ever so slightly differently in 2 and 3! At first I attributed it to me playing the NTSC version on an emulator with a new controller as opposed to playing the PAL version on my ps1 but it turns out I was right. Crazy how muscle memory from.......... 16 years ago kicked in.

Spyro 2 seems like it took a big step forward in a couple of things. First, there's actual NPCs and characters, and more of a plot. In Spyro 1 you're left to your own devices and there's a total of like 3 cutscenes including the 120% completion epilogue. I know that's not everyone's cup of tea, but I vastly prefer Spyro 1's approach. I always liked feeling alone in a game and some of my favourite games are my favourite because of that feeling of being alone in a vast space.

I also didn't like the new characters much in Spyro 2 idk... Hunter and Elora were kind of whatever, Hunter specifically was annoying in Spyro 2. When I think back on how I felt as a child, I would have preferred the dragon universe expanded on over some random animals. I guess this is pretty controversial too because Elora and Hunter seem to be pretty beloved lmao.

Another annoying thing Spyro 2 introduced was having to backtrack levels. Certain areas of levels would be locked until you got an ability in the next world over which meant you couldn't 100% a level in one go, usually one or two per world. That sucks! I don't think it fits in well with a game like this.

Level design was a lot more simplified compared to 1, like a lot. I always loved Spyro 1's level design, where right of the bat you'd see areas you want to reach but have no idea how and then as you go through the level you manage to find how to get to those areas. They're usually not even required to finish the level so a kid can easily skip the harder parts, but if you want to 100% you need to think a bit.

The gameplay loop in 2 consists of you gathering one talisman per level which is what you need to finish the level, the rest is more or less optional. Now instead of having to gather all the collectibles like gems and dragons through platforming, you need orbs which are obtained by doing mini game side quests, sometimes platforming. Mini games, like in any other game ever, will always be a hit or miss. Some were really great fun and a welcome addition, some massively annoyed me lmao, I'm looking at you hockey minigame. It sucks that most of the challenge in this game was hidden behind these minigames, while the level design lacked in comparison. I liked the parts where orbs were hidden behind platforming tasks or more puzzle/speed oriented mini games.

The boss levels were an improvement I think. In Spyro 1 the boss level usually features some tougher mobs and trickier platforming, but the boss section itself is usually a fairly simple and quick chase whereas in Spyro 2 you're thrown into the arena and actually have to fight the boss. I like Spyro 2's boss fight approach, although in theory it does stray away from the whole platforming thing, despite the fact that this boss sys tends to be the thing to do in a traditional platformer.

Spyro 2 introduces powerups, which supercharge and the fairy kiss from Spyro 1, and Spyro also gets some permanent abilities like that triangle smash and climbing. I'm neutral on this, adding stuff to Spyro's kit is okay but it also feels like the permanent abilities weren't utilized as much? Like the jump smash thing was hardly used in both 2 and 3, 2 especially.

Another difference in Spyro 2 was that each world had a little storyline going on with a cutscene when you enter the world and exit it for the first time after finishing the level. I honestly thought most of those were cute and entertaining. Enemy and NPC designs were really goofy and cartoony. I liked it, but it's not what made me fall in love with Spyro originally, Spyro 1 was more mystical and... eccentric, whereas 2 was more cartoony. Both have their appeal of course.

The flying aka speedway levels were pretty kino. It's funny how something I totally hated and got stuck on forever when I was a kid became so fun to me now lmao. I really loved these, and I especially loved the addition of the extra orb challenge that required you to find a secret thing in each level in order to activate the challenge. I discovered it by pure accident in the first speedway when I flew near that audience and got curious to see what that was about and it started a challenge like huh????? So cool!!

Overall, Spyro 2 was good even though most of what I described here sounds like it's a negative. It's only negative because I'm comparing it to my dragon GOAT, Spyro 1. But overall as a game, it's really entertaining and I cleared it quickly without feeling bored despite it being a children's game.

Spyro: Year of the Dragon

The final and longest installment. Spyro 3 is in some ways a return to form. We are back to rescuing dragons, this time it's hatching dragon eggs. Cute! Also, mobs once again drop gems, which I'm sure, everyone prefers. There's also supercharge again. Spyro starts out with the abilities he learned in 2, however Sparx loses the ability to point us to missing gems that 2 introduced right off the bat. I never used that ability once in 2 anyway, because gems were never hard to find due to simpler level design but also I'm not a child xd.

Just like 2, NPCs guide you more aggressively with tutorials which is exhausting and I don't like it. I'll talk about that in more detail in my review of the first game.

Spyro 3 also has mini games, however they're additional portals within a level, meaning they're hidden behind a loading screen. That ruins a certain fluidity of a level Spyro had up until this point, but I suppose it allows for a larger level due to possible system constraints I know nothing about. And indeed, 3's level design is slightly better than 2's. There were quite a few levels that had a more Spyro 1 feel to them, and most levels were back to being circular. Like in Spyro 2 there would be a level per world that you had to backtrack to, this time because of special sub levels in which you'd play as a different character.

This "play as a different character" feature seems to be a controversial one. Overall 2 and 3 give me the impression that the devs wanted to do everything to move away from the original's level design and Spyro's kit, maybe because it felt stale? I guess you can only hide so many neat areas behind a corner you had to glide to until it became predictable, I don't know. As a result, Spyro's kit became "boring" which brings us to the new characters. A kangaroo with a double and high jump, a penguin that can fly (kind of like a helicopter instead of a plane like Spyro) and drop bombs, a yeti that is slow and can smash, and a monke that shoots a gun and controls horribly. Oh and Sparx is playable too, and his levels are bullet hell-like. You spend a good portion of the game playing as different characters... which is a bit sad. I still looked forwards to playing as some of the characters, because it seems like their levels were designed in a more fun way to adapt to their abilities. Sgt. Bird's (the penguin's) levels were good, and while I didn't like how the kangaroo moved I liked how things were always hidden a bit high up out of view so you had to look for them and think vertically. The other two I didn't care for much, and Sparx's levels took a bit to get used to but I liked them overall, including the fact that you actually get some special abilities after you finish them and at times they felt hard. But again... this doesn't feel like what I signed up for, which was more Spyro!!!! I want to glide to far away places and barely make it etc etc

Spyro 3 added two more things - adaptive difficulty and skill points. The adaptive difficulty thing I found out about by complete chance when I googled something unrelated and then saw it causes some bugs in specific levels that could lock you out of 100%-ing the game lmao. Luckyyy I saw it early. I have no idea if the game kept me at the hardest difficulty and what that even entailed. Once I read about the bugs I found out about the skill points, which only the 3rd game has in the original ps1 version. I found the list of all of them online so I tried to get them in every level as I played in order to not backtrack, which was kind of cheating but I hate backtracking 😩. If you play normally, you can only see a list of obtainable skillpoints once you finish the game, and they're not required to 117% the game, you only get an epilogue for finishing them. It's like an extra activity that made the game more challenging, so I didn't mind it.

I liked the plot a lot more in Spyro 3, including the new characters. Bianca was a great addition and she actually felt like a real character. Her and Hunter ending up together was random but it was built up cutely over the game. Hunter also didn't annoy me as much in this game lmao. I looked up Bianca's redesign in the remake because I remember the positive reception it got and tbh, while the redesign is probably one of the best ones I think she's TOO cute. I really like how Bianca originally has sort of a mean face, so even though it's obvious she's the type of villain that swaps sides from the getgo if you're an adult playing the game I would have never guessed she was a bunny when she had her hood on lmao. I also really loved her original voice actor. She came across as such an awkward, meek and incompetent villain, really nailed it. This comparison pic for Bianca doesn't get my point across because in the redesign she's doing the dreamworks smirk and in the og she has her eyes way too open as opposed to having them half closed but I couldn't be bothered making my own comparison lmfao.

The worlds in the levels don't seem as fleshed out and cohesive like in 1 and 2, but there's dialogue prompts from npcs in all levels which add a little bit of a story of what's going on in that particular level, as opposed to the silly cutscenes 2 had. 3 also has a lot of references, like Lara Croft, Doom and the Matrix which, while silly, does give off a sequel side title vibe a bit... It did make me giggle a few times though.

Oh right, the skateboarding sucked I didn't like it. Mechanically it wasn't horrible, but I dreaded the skill point gathering in skateboarding levels. It's stupid for Spyro to be on a skateboard, I will not elaborate. PS1/2 games really loved inserting unnecessary skateboarding didn't they...

Lastly, the speedways. They continued to be good and even got expanded upon with the introduction of another mode. Sadly, the "hidden" levels got easier to find because now you just had to find Hunter in some more obvious place. I think the Spyro 2 speedway hidden npcs were more fun to look for. I don't like how Sparx tells you in which order to get the things for the time attack, like damn shut up you don't need to tell me everything.

Overall, Spyro 3 had the most meat on it, and because of that I prefer it to 2. 2 introduced all the things I didn't like in the sequels, but 3 at least had more challenge to it and slightly better level design.

Spyro the Dragon

After playing 2 and 3, I felt like my love for 1 had to be from pure nostalgia fuel and nothing else. It can't be THAT much better, can it??? And so, I decided to replay 1.

The game starts with a funny cutscene, and you're in right away. The first dragon you save tells you what to do, but you're on your own for the rest of the level. In all games, the first world always serves as the tutorial world, more or less. Something Spyro 1 excels in though, is the lack of handholding and an excellent placement of tutorial NPCs, which are the dragons you save in Spyro 1. In each section where you're meant to learn something, you're first given the opportunity to do it alone. Afterwards always comes the dragon, that explains to you what you basically just did. I like this because the dragon serves as a fallback in case you didn't understand what you had to do, you skipped the section and went for the dragon. It's not intrusive and overly handholdy despite it also being just as much of a kids' game as the other 2. I don't know why this got changed in 2 and 3, they're much more typical with their tutorials and I feel like it's not necessary. Spyro is such a straightforward game, all of Spyro's abilities are obvious the moment you grab the controller, it doesn't need a mandatory unskippable tutorial telling you how to jump.

The second thing I really like about Spyro is admittedly potentially nostalgia fueled and very subjective - it's concerning the world and the overall atmosphere and vibe. Spyro 1 has a way more consistent image across the worlds, and while it is cartoony, it's not as cartoony as the other two. Instead it feels more otherworldly. The lack of NPCs, world building and unnecessary side characters create for a more open ended atmosphere that makes your imagination fill in the gaps.

This brings me to my favourite thing in Spyro 1 which is the level design and the way Spyro controls. The level design is made for Spyro and to squeeze out the potential of his glides to the maximum. There's so many areas that you can and have to reach only by gliding, and gliding is a tad harder because there's no "mini jump" with triangle at the end of your glide. Infamous levels like Tree Tops and Haunted Towers had tens of thousands of people pissed off before the Internet guide era, and even I couldn't finish them as a kid until I went back to the game at 12... But that's what made it so great!! The use of space in such a creative manner and going back to it as an adult that forgot about most of the puzzles (I got stuck for like 10 mins on both levels now lmao) having to map out the level in my head and think about what could lead me to the hard to reach areas was a fun spatial puzzle to solve, especially because the level design doesn't explicitly point you in any direction and doesn't make it obvious - the only thing that's obvious is you seeing the gems glimmer from far away and knowing you have to make it there somehow. And that's another thing in the level design I really appreciate, even though it's so open and complex, it does a great job by placing Spyro in the right place so that you'll have to notice the hard to reach areas. Even famously less hard levels like Dry Canyon, Cliff Town, Ice Cavern, Alpine Ridge, High Caves, Wizard Peak and so on all have areas that require some thinking to get through. There's also some great and more hidden areas like the boss fight level Metalhead. The fact that you finish the level with like half of the required gems, turn around to go look for the gems and notice the stairs only on the way back (very intentional choice I think) felt so good. It hits all the right spots for me, and I didn't get this feeling once in the sequels 🥲.

All of this clever design and careful placement of items has more or less been done away with in 2 and 3. I didn't get stuck in platforming in any level, not even once, while on my replay of 1 I got stuck in multiple spots trying to reach an area, despite having played it before!

Also, due to having a lack of overall fleshed out characters, Spyro has his moment to shine in the first game. He's way more of a character here it feels like, and his bratty personality really shines through in the short dialogues with the saved dragons. I liked this version of Spyro more, he's insolent in an uncool way, while in 2 and 3 he's portrayed as slightly more mature and cool. It's also reflected in the voice acting, he has a different va in the first game that a lot of people seem to not like due to it sounding so snotty, but I prefer it... this might be nostalgia however. I think Tom Kenny did a great job too but Carlos Alazraqui is the og for me.

The only negative thing about Spyro 1 is that it's so short, although I think it doesn't overstay its welcome. Maybe the effort put into making the levels was too high compared to how short the game is, which influenced the creation of mini games and dumb side tasks in 2 and 3, because those are easier to design? Idk. It's so much easier to get into a flow state in Spyro 1 and just play and complete levels and enjoy myself, while all the fluff in 2 and 3 kinda takes me out of it.

Final thoughts

It almost seems as if 2 and 3 wanted to dismantle all of the charm Spyro 1 had. 1 had a more distinctive direction, it was self contained and overall it comes across as a strong standalone that doesn't depend as much on silly humor and minigames to pad out the playtime and make up for the fact that whoever was in charge of the level design left or totally lost the creative spark that was there initially. They're not bad games, far from it, but they'll never be what I think of when I think of Spyro. Is my overall opinion shaped by nostalgia a bit? Probably...