Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 6/12/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage

Developer: Insomniac

Publisher: SCEI

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: PS1

Release Date: November 2, 1999

You know exactly what I’m going to say about Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage even before my first sentence. Yes, indeed, it’s a sequel that expands the parameters that the primitive base of the first game laid out and practically perfects the formula with its enhancements. By now, I’m sick to death of this statement being the overarching summation for almost every second game in most series, but it’s especially applicable to Ripto’s Rage. The little, purple dragon that could was a charming protagonist in a whimsical world that evoked all of the textbook tropes associated with the fantasy mythos of the Western world, with a pinch of irreverence to appeal to a more jaded modern audience. There was nothing inherently wrong with Spyro’s concept, aesthetic, or mechanical properties, but the first entry in Insomniac’s 3D platformer series faltered entirely because of its direction. Spyro 1 was as short and effortless as walking to one’s mailbox, a byproduct of what I can assume to be a conscious effort from the developers to placate their exceedingly young demographic. If we take a glance at gaming from a historical lens, several titles that share a similar atmosphere of innocence to Spyro have a reputation for breaking the spirits of the impressionable youths that play them, still being captivated by every minute of adversity, all the while. Gaming is arguably the only medium where a product’s content and its accessibility are interchangeable, probably stemming from the early days when kids everywhere were allured by the digital glow of the arcades just to have the machines beat them senselessly for their quarters like a common, back-alley thug. Spyro didn’t need to brutalize the children of the late 1990s, new to the realm of 3D or anything too drastic, but the game diluted many of gaming’s hallmarks, such as layered level progression and boss fights, for the sake of unnecessarily assuaging their audience. I’m glad that the first Spyro’s shortcomings were as obvious to Insomniac, for the sequel here has rectified them a good bit as part of its cultivation process to become the exemplary Spyro title.

Spyro evidently did such an outstanding job saving the dragon elders in the first game that the unsuspecting, pint-sized powerhouse is now a freelance hero, liable to be hired to fix any dilemma that might befall the realm of the dragons and its immediate surroundings. Spyro and his glowing insect buddy Sparx clamor for a vacation, but as the common police officer adage goes, crime doesn’t take a vacation. Instead of frivolously soaking up the sun’s rays on the Dragon Shores, the portal transports them to the far-off fantasy land of Avalar, where its denizens are in dire need of a dragon’s vigor and destructive potency. Apparently, the portal used to summon Spyro accidentally warped a dwarvish, orange megalomaniac named Ripto into their tranquil realm, and now he’s imposing on his inadvertent invitation by progressively usurping their land and becoming its despotic ruler. Before Ripto has the chance to traipse through every official significant castle with the tapestry of his unsightly visage that indicates his control, Spyro must exterminate the invasive pest along with his monstrous, ogre-like bodyguards of Crush and Gulp. Immediately, Ripto is ten times the antagonist that Gnasty Gnorc was in the first game. By adding tension to the conflict, the growing influence of this malevolent, Napoleon-esque pipsqueak, the player feels better incentivized to light a self-inflicted fire under Spyro’s ass and save the hapless inhabitants of this realm that Ripto feels no scruples in subjugating. There are some genuine stakes to the story, while scrounging the land to free the elders from their encasements felt borderline janitorial in practice.

Much of the enhancements and overall broadening of the Spyro formula that Ripto’s Rage implements revolves around the attributes that Spyro interacts with, but there should be some mention of the marginal changes the developers put into our plucky, purple scamp. Spyro is pretty organically gifted as a platformer protagonist, with inexhaustible energy for head-butting and innate fire-breathing ability fulfilling the qualifications of offense against most, if not all, enemies. Still, a little more variation on what is already agreeably competent couldn’t hurt to re-engage returning players. Spyro’s glide move, which he can also execute gracefully on account of the scaly, majestic wings protruding from his sides, is now augmented with an upward boost that finishes his flight, perfect for ensuring better accuracy with landing on platforms found from a great distance. Since Spyro’s traversal through the air could only have been tinkered with ever-so-slightly from a practical standpoint, the developers found it crucial for the purple dragon to occupy a whole new sphere of character-specific spaces. After some heavy contention in the boardroom, the developers decided not to prolong Spyro’s aversion to water like a platformer protagonist stereotype and conveniently insert swimming into the list of Spyro’s dragon-centric abilities. Not only will Spyro be able to keep himself physically afloat by paddling himself on the water’s surface. Soon after discovering his new ability, he’ll even be able to dive beneath the surface and swim underwater, and I guess the lack of an air gauge to mind suggests that a set of gills is another component to a dragon’s biology. With the way that Spyro treads through the deep with agile elegance, it’s hard to believe that he was ever handicapped by large bodies of H2O. In addition, any underwater section in Ripto’s Rage is absolutely spellbinding, impressively setting the player in a radically different physical plane without the primitive 3D graphics compromising on the immersion. Spyro can also learn how to execute a downward dive on land, which weaponizes the force of his skull into a rock and crate-breaking slam. With all of these new skills Spyro learns throughout the duration of Ripto’s Rage, none of them seem to overstep his simplistic beauty as a platformer character. Each innovation feels like they were staircase thoughts the developers wanted to add to their protagonist initially, instead of shoehorning in attributes for the sake of sprucing up a sequel.

Another quality-of-life improvement on Spyro, or at least in my subjective opinion, is the tweaking of his voice. Carlos Alazraqui is a perfectly wonderful voice actor, but his line delivery for our underestimated hero gave us more reason to doubt his capabilities, and if he had underwear, wrap it over the top of a flagpole. Instead of asking Mr. Alazraqui to lessen the nasally cadence of Spyro’s voice, Insomniac decided to just axe him in favor of Tom Kenny, aka the voice of SpongeBob. Ironically, for someone whose most notable role is defined by a high-pitched, squeaky affectation, Tom Kenny sufficiently lowers Spyro’s voice to an adequate octave to make him less grating when he speaks. Or, perhaps the kinks in Spyro’s voice are less noticeable this time around because the dialogue in Ripto’s Rage is spoken to Spyro rather than the inverse. Not only are the various NPCs per level quite chatty with their requests, but the series has taken the Sonic the Hedgehog approach to broadening an IP by integrating a slew of secondary characters into the mix with Spyro and his mute dragonfly buddy Sparx. Once Spyro is transported to Avalar, he’s debriefed on the prevailing dilemma by the trio of recurring characters, who also aid him throughout his quest to quell Ripto. Elora the faun seems to introduce every significant progression point in the three different overworlds, helpfully updating Spyro on the mission at hand. “The Professor,” an elderly mole-like creature, is a man of science if his glasses and lab coat combination didn’t visually suggest it. Using his mechanical prowess, he’ll often provide access to certain levels in the overworld by activating their respective warp gates. Lastly, Hunter the Cheetah is the comic relief whom the other two constantly reprimand for his oafishness. The bipedal cat still possesses a spunky charisma, I guess. From what we know from the aforementioned series that infamously bloated itself with excess faces clogging the screen, adding all of these supporting characters spells imminent disaster for the Spyro series. For now, the Avalar faction is fine and dandy in adding some extra dynamics to the story with their varied personalities and ubiquitous yet subordinate roles. Their presence, however, will only be palatable if they are endemic to Avalar in this game alone or if the series persists with them and only them moving forward. The series is already treading on thin ice by augmenting the character roster, especially since they all have too much fur on their bodies for comfort, which is likely to attract the worst kinds of Sonic fans.

Oh, and we can’t forget about Moneybags, the aristocratic bear who aptly speaks in a posh accent to signify his opulent wealth and social status. Considering his debonair, exalted outfit and demeanor, matched with the assets around Avalar that he seemingly lets Spyro borrow for a fee of gems, one would think he’s the governing force of the land whose power and influence Ripto covets. He’s obviously a contemptible character by design, but I don’t think the hoity-toity bear is an unwelcome stain on Ripto’s Rage because he’s an integral aspect of adding depth to the overall Spyro experience. Because Moneybags is an impediment that blocks immediate progression with a sum of currency needed, it not only gives the gems more value; it also incentivizes the player to become better acquainted with the nooks and crannies of each level where gems might be found. In turn, the exploration process fixes the issue of the series levels feeling in one ear and out of the other.

I would say that the level designs in Ripto’s Rage are the focal point of the amplification initiative of Ripto’s Rage, but one wouldn’t know that at face value. The main objective for each of these levels persists as simply traveling to an arbitrary goal point, which grants Spyro another collectible and unlocks the exit warp gate to signify completion. Unlike the first game, where every level’s objective consistently applied to the overarching goal of finding the elders and freeing them, the level-ending conditions of the areas in Ripto’s Rage feature a myriad of situations. In “Aquaria Towers,” Spyro will resupply the seahorse society with water after a group of diving-suited hooligans has drained it. Similarly, in “Magma Cone,” Spyro must find a way to cease the eruption of a local volcano, which has been spurting molten lava since a band of mischievous Earthshapers unsealed its tip to inconvenience a tribe of fauns. Other level highlights include the Arab-esque “Shady Oasis” that sees Spyro accompanying a hippopotamus cub to a tall pillar while Spyro feeds him fruit that momentarily transforms the boy into a hulking beast that smashes through the gated barriers. The Eskimo NPCs of “Crystal Glacier” will also return the favor to Spyro when he thaws out their frozen captivity by helping him through level impediments. There is even some inner realm cohesion between “Zephyr” and “Breeze Harbor,” with both areas waging war with one another and Spyro acting as a double agent working for the benefit of both sides. Is Spyro intending for the conflict to result in a draw by doing this? “Metropolis” is the token futuristic level that is uncharacteristic for the series, but the ultra-advanced environment still doesn’t complicate the process of Spyro traveling from point A to B while platforming and scorching enemies with his fire breath along the way. Rescuing the Satyrs in “Fractured Hills” from their stony confinements is the task most reminiscent of the first game’s general mission, but the mythical, hedonistic goat hybrids will actually repay Spyro by blowing away chunks of an obscured fortress with the playing of bagpipes. I’m not sure if this scene is intended to display the underlying power of the instrument or if it’s a further comment on its shrillness. If delving into the levels of Ripto’s Rage feels like one of my patented highlight reels, it’s because I can’t describe all of them succinctly in one paragraph. Instead of increasing the breadth of Spyro’s levels, the developers decided to swell each realm with eight levels, subtracting the inordinate amount to four for the “Winter Tundra” realm. Sure, there were twenty total levels in the first game, but it highlights a persisting problem with Spyro’s progression direction. Even though the NPCs introducing the scenes and scenarios never repeat themselves, the fact that they all amount to the same brief, linear trek to an endpoint so many times still evokes the underwhelming terseness that plagued the first game.

However, the fleeting feeling that comes with completing a Spyro level only pertains to achieving the main collectible of the talismans, level-specific trinkets that signify a sign of bonding between Spyro and the folk of these levels that he aids. To implore the player to deviate from the fixed, narrow path of bare minimum victory, the developers have added orbs as the game’s “secondary collectible.” Upon exploring what lies beyond the beaten path to a talisman, Spyro will find new situations that are either entirely removed from the area’s central scenario or extend upon the overarching conflict. Solving said tangential situation will net Spyro an orb as a reward for his splendid deed, which can range from collecting gears on a trolley in “Breeze Harbor,” playing ice hockey in “Colossus,” saving a tribe of cavemen from being eaten whole by carnivorous raptor hatchlings, etc. Hunter is commonly involved in plenty of orb gathering opportunities, whether it be collaborating with the doofus by collecting monkeys in the arid land of “Scorch,” or competing against him in grabbing volcanic crystals that jet out of the ground in “Magma Cone.” I guess his role as a fieldman justifies his placement among Elora and The Professor, because he sure as shit doesn’t offer any tactical advice or medical assistance. Methinks Insomniac took a glimpse at a certain N64 Rareware title that released the same year as the first Spyro game and decided to take a liberal helping from that game’s freeform progression philosophy. I can’t say I blame Insomniac, for you’d have to put every 3D platformer developer on trial for shamelessly aping Banjo Kazooie’s template forevermore after 1999, sequel or not. Like the buoyantly animated N64 exclusive that Spyro 2 has obviously reinterpreted, orb quests greatly facilitate a sense of exploration, motivating the player to experience the full expanse of a level. Plus, the diverse tasks needed to obtain these orbs add a desperately-needed layer of difficulty with their unfamiliar conditions.

Still, Insomniac should’ve copied Banjo Kazooie's collectible course right down to its last detail, for Spyro 2 commits something erroneous with the orbs that is the developer’s unique doing. I described the orbs as a secondary collectible in quotation marks because what the game doesn’t reveal until its final stretches is that they have more precedence in progression than the talismans. In fact, the final realm forgoes talismans entirely in favor of focusing on the orbs, so the player can feasibly fulfill the steep total of 40 needed to unlock the barrier between the player and the final boss. It’s made abundantly clear that collecting orbs is still necessary to progress the game in incidental increments, but the sudden swap that occurs is downright deceitful. Because the player is duped into thinking that the orbs were only necessary in minor instances and the talismans were the main collectible driving progression, this results in a large swath of backtracking that wedges an obstructive boulder in the game’s pacing. Sure, locking the pathway to some orbs behind skills that are initially unlearnable already implies that backtracking was a consciously implemented factor by the developers, but the return time to previous levels is extended unduly because of this flagrant form of miscommunication.

In those progression milestones, whether they be contingent on the collecting of orbs or talismans, access is unlocked for the game’s bosses. Returning players may treat this requisite video game trope with a lack of enthusiasm, as the first game proved that having the dragon chase you is not as intoxicating as the popular inverse. Insomniac totally scraps their baffling, facile boss formula and exhibits some bona fide bosses for their sequel. Crush, Gulp, and Ripto are the bosses fought between traveling to the next realm, a modest lineup but one that remains consistent with the stakes the story sets up from the beginning. Crush channels fire and electric energy before becoming frustrated with Spyro thwarting him, caving in the ceiling, and having the rubble fall on his head as a result of his temper. Gulp fires energy blasts from the laser cannon strapped to his back, which genuinely take some swift, proficient dodging maneuvers to avoid while Spyro combats him with the array of explosives the bird fleet overhead provides. Lastly, the battle against the big (in the sense of status) orange cheese is an epic escapade divided into three distinct phases to elongate the scope of this appropriately formidable boss fight. I might be marveling at these three duels due to the first game lowering the bar so deeply that what qualifies as a boss fight became as imperceptible as the contents of the abyss in which they reside. Still, I believe that the developers have now crafted an exceptional arrangement of climactic skirmishes that supersede simply fulfilling the requisites of health bars, phases, and other factors that should comprise a competent boss fight.

Spryo 2: Ripto’s Rage expectedly surpasses the debut title in the series in spades, but I feel a tad hesitant in assigning it as the apex of the series, as I felt comfortable doing at first based on common trends across video game series. The levels incorporate more substance by adding auxiliary objectives that prolong their visit time to a satisfying length, and I no longer need to contemplate the definition of a boss fight because the baddies of Ripto’s Rage deliver on their expectations splendidly. Spyro’s new friends add a layer of exuberance to the story, while Spyro’s voice no longer makes me irrationally angry at him. What else could anyone want from Insomniac’s deadly dragon tyke? Actually, I’d really like the series to stop offering objectives where the player can just breezily hike to a goal in under a minute and call it a day. If the developers had made the orbs the game’s sole progression collectible, the player could’ve chosen which objectives would fulfill the requirements and focused on the more engrossing, substantial challenges littered throughout the field a little less conspicuously. Still, maybe the simple stipulations of standard progression are an indelible factor to Spyro’s accessible format, but I wish that the developers either firmly established that the “talisman routes” were the ways to progress the game instead of drastically deciding that the orbs held more significance at the last minute. Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage undoubtedly stands head and shoulders over its predecessor, but the salient smudges the game inadvertently exhibits only make me fret for future entries when this is considered to be the series' peak.

Spyro the Dragon Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 4/3/2025)

[Image from igdb.com]

Spyro the Dragon

Developer: Insomniac

Publisher: SCEI

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: PS1

Release Date: September 10, 1998

In the league of PlayStation exclusive 3D platformers in direct competition with Mario on the N64, Spyro the Dragon was as decorated a soldier as Crash Bandicoot in the bloody battle to dismantle Nintendo’s console market supremacy. Sure, we cannot discount the valiant efforts of the whole roster of PS1 platformer exclusives like Tomba and Ape Escape, but Spyro is the only other representative on the console that matches the renown of the orange marsupial. Not only were both series perceived worthy of receiving the trilogy treatment on their debut systems, but the retrospective, nostalgic ardor from those who fit the young demographic at the time of the PS1’s campaign is equally as fervent. When those kids reached adulthood two decades later and the Crash trilogy was remade for modern gaming standards and sensibilities, the same paint job was given to the Spyro trilogy only a year later due to the vociferous clamoring of fans–who stated that neglecting to revamp Spyro’s three PS1 classics would have diminished the impact of the N. Sane trilogy by proxy. Crash and Spyro have had genuine collaborative tie-in titles in the past, and their respective developers of Insomniac and Naughty Dog, acknowledged the association between their PS1 mascots when they sparked the same tongue-in-cheek rivalry for their following properties: Ratchet & Clank and Jak and Daxter. Needless to say, with all the evidence at hand, Crash and Spyro are like brothers from different mothers. They are like Metallica and Slayer: two separate entities with their respective icon statuses that are consistently grouped by a similar objective during their period of inception. The last parallel I’m going to connect to Crash is that the course of Spyro’s PS1 trilogy shares the same progression arc exhibited per entry as the bandicoot’s. In saying this, one could infer from this statement that Spyro’s self-titled debut is rough, blunt, and rudimentary, and you’d be correct. However, the first Spyro the Dragon game manages to evoke all of those substandard adjectives in a completely different way than that of the first Crash game.

My personal history with Spyro also shares similarities to Crash, as I was introduced to both franchises with their more lukewarm, post-original developer entries in the subsequent console generation on account of having the undeveloped motor skills of a toddler during their PS1 prime. Sorry to soil the fanbase’s illusion that both series are of an unequivocal repute, but I’ve always preferred Crash to Spyro–and it’s not as if I’d put the de facto face of the PS1 on my Mount Rushmore of gaming franchises. The reason why I give Crash a slight edge over his plucky purple compadre is that the Spyro games verge towards a jejune tone and atmosphere. Both series may target a prepubescent demographic, but the kooky, Looney Tunes aura emanating from Crash is more appealing to a general audience than the “once upon a time” storybook construct that comes with a child-friendly game revolving around a dragon. Still, at least Insomniac modestly attempted to balance the sugary sweetness of their work with some self-aware, borderline satirical elements that subvert the classic fairytale tropes, and three years before Shrek would become synonymous with this formula, I might add. This subversion is apparent from the anachronistic microphone seen in the corner of the news interview taking place with some dragon elders. The interviewer asks the scaly beasts about a potentially menacing character named Gnasty Gnorc, but one of them confidently assures the man that Gnasty Gnorc is too “simple and ugly to be a threat to the Dragon Kingdom.” However, the green ogre in question responds to this slander by firing a series of energy blasts from his morning star scepter that immobilize all of the dragon elders in a crystalized casing. However, the hazardous beams either missed the young Spyro due to his smaller physical stature, or Gnasty Gnorc didn’t bother targeting him because he misjudged him by his size. If the latter is the case, Spyro is going to make Gnasty wish he hadn’t settled for a half measure, for now he’s on a quest to free his brethren from their glassy prisons and incinerate Gnasty Gnorc for his transgression against the Dragon Kingdom. Spyro the Dragon’s premise is a Saturday morning cartoon cliche akin to an episode of He-Man, whose exposition is rushed during this introduction. Still, at least there’s a touch of levity, so it doesn’t veer too heavily on the spectrum of a sincere epic or too deeply into the territory of a schmaltzy fairytale that its presentation would imply.

Spyro the Dragon also greatly differentiates itself from Crash Bandicoot in its direction. They’re both undoubtedly 3D platformers, but Spyro was conceived after Super Mario 64 had defined the course of the genre with its collectathon format and was obliged to follow suit. The Dragon Kingdom, facing a crisis of stasis, is divided into five major districts, with Gnasty’s industrial island fortress rounding that number to six as the climactic ending area. Each of these six hubs features around three to four sub-areas that branch off of the central sector, similar to the winding floors of Peach’s Castle in Super Mario 64, except that the transportational medium to these forking paths is gateway arches instead of portal paintings. However, even though the player can clearly detect what the hub area is by its relation to the levels that stem from its perimeter, none of the medians fit my definition of a typical hub. A hub should be a place of respite separated from the action of the levels in its close, yet distinctly defined, borders. Yet, the objective of rescuing the ensnared dragon elders is still a relevant task between arch traveling, with the chaos of enemy activity still functioning as a background noise, or so to speak. The continual action that seeps into the hubs may illustrate how rampant Gnasty’s influence has become with all of the adult dragons out of commission, but I think the cohesion is intended to represent the encompassing level design at play. Including the hubs, Spyro’s areas all display a freeform design that gels beautifully with the collectathon format. A moderately straightaway path will lead Spyro to a podium that will transport him back to the hub he came from, but each area provides plenty of opportunities to divert from this eventual destination and will often reward the player with additional gems or finding dragons frozen in concealed locations. The districts of the Dragon Kingdom even supersede the first PlayStation’s graphical restrictions. The near-sighted graphical fuzz that usually limits the player’s line of sight is washed away, and levels like “Cliff Town” and “Haunted Towers” implore everyone to take advantage of the graphical unclouding by gliding to the location in the distance after looking at them from a prime vantage point in awe. Impressive as the landscapes are from a visual standpoint, their lack of graphical haze could mislead the player into conflating their splendor with their expanse. Even with their intricate, exploration-intensive designs, each level in Spyro the Dragon is likely going to be an ephemeral excursion. The majority of the dragon statues tend to be along the beaten path to the exit, and the alternate routes tend to circle around to the same conclusion anyway. Only on rare occasions will freeing a dragon require a keener exploration effort, such as darting around the tracks of “Tree Tops” or hugging the edge of a cliff in “Dry Canyon.” I’m not suggesting that Spyro the Dragon should’ve implemented the abrupt boot-out system that artificially prolonged each area in Super Mario 64, but I’d gladly trade the defogging of the visual distance in exchange for expanding the total breadth of each area.

Then again, perhaps having the levels load in real time as the player traverses onward and forward would be especially jarring with Spyro’s physicality. Gliding is an innate ability for the little dragon that could, and it’s quite complementary to be able to see the platforms from afar so Spyro can elegantly soar to them from his position. I’d describe Spyro’s sky-skimming as graceful if it weren’t for the fact that the player cannot command Spyro to stop in mid-air, so a miscalculated trajectory can often lead to Spyro falling into the abyss below the clouds. His offensive headbutt maneuver, where he lowers his head and places his horns front and center like a battering ram, can also be quite precarious with its ramming speed and inexhaustible energy. This is why it’s essential to alternate between Spyro’s charge and blowing a blast of fire out of his nostrils, a close-ranged dragon staple with a more stable attack momentum. Still, even though Spyro’s abilities can potentially result in him overreaching past a solid footing, controlling him overall is comfortably smooth as silk. His general physicality isn’t afflicted with the same stifling rigidity akin to Crash in his first outing. However, even with his superior control scheme right out of the gate, Spyro’s mascot appeal is reduced by a few unfortunate characteristics. Downscaling a dragon to a winsome size is a brilliant prospect that would win over anyone, but Spyro’s inherent advantage in the charm department is spoiled whenever he opens his toothy mouth, revealing himself to be a dork who says overbearingly optimistic one-liners. I’d grab a beer with the silent goofball Crash without question, but I’d be afraid that Spyro would fink me out to the authorities for public intoxication.

It’s more likely that Spyro will deplete his stock of lives when the player gets overly eager with his abilities, rather than facing off against the smattering of enemies. The invasive goons in the Dragon Kingdom are abundant in numbers across the magical realm, sometimes even lining up in unison so Spyro can knock them down like bowling pins with his headbutt charge. On the basis of an individual encounter, each enemy is fairly predictable in their attack patterns, with the trick between all of them being whether or not their armor is impenetrable to flames or physical buffeting. If the player doesn’t seem to catch on to this pattern of enemy defenses and they harm him as a result, Spyro’s health system is one of the series’ most idiosyncratic properties, and it’s surprisingly disturbing. While not uttering a single word could make the player question his role as a bona fide character, Spyro is accompanied on his quest by his dragonfly friend/pet Sparx. This glowing bug functions as a refurbished Aku Aku from Crash, a floating augmentation to the protagonist’s health that acts as a shield. Where they differ is that Sparx is a health reserve granted to Spyro automatically instead of an earned perk that can be easily relinquished. Sparx’s base color is a radiant golden, but as Spyro takes damage, his healthy glow will diminish to a sad blue to a sickly green. After that, he’ll realize a pattern and leave Spyro to save his own hide, and Spyro suffering one more hit after Sparx abandons him will result in his death. To either convince Sparx to return or replenish Sparx’s vigor beforehand, Spyro must prey on the small, gentle animals located in packs around the field known as “fodder.” Once Spyro butchers them like the apex predator he is, Sparx will consume the butterfly that pops out of their lifeless bodies to regain his golden sheen. Ghastly ghouls and demonic hellspawn are known to devour souls, but this innocuous-looking insect performs this barbaric act in droves in the name of protecting his buddy. If the player finds this method of regaining health unsettling, it’s unlikely that they’ll have to murder these cute little creatures all that often on account of the game’s general ease. I should also add that enemies are known to drop orbs whose accumulation increases Spyro’s number of lives, so there are more than enough tools offered to keep Spyro afloat in tandem with the unlikelihood of exhausting them.

Spyro the Dragon’s progression difficulty could also be described as leisurely to a fault, but I think the more applicable term is unimpactful. In order for the balloonist to whisk Spyro away on his gallant hot air contraption, Spyro needs to collect a certain amount of the game’s various collectibles to satisfy him. In addition to using Spyro’s magic touch to free the dragon elders, Spyro must also collect the colorful quantity of gems and retrieve dragon eggs from veiled thieves wearing burqas who operate on the field alongside the enemies. Acquiring these collectibles should come naturally through standard traversal, but the player can sign up to do the “flight” stages that involve collecting or extinguishing a series of the same objects or enemies in a sequential order under a time limit. The rhythmic pacing of these optional levels is probably the most demanding the game gets with its typically lenient error margins. Hell, one might become slightly irritated by the swift darting of the thieves while pursuing them, and the irritation might escalate to overzealous anger due to the cheeky bastard’s taunts and chortles. The process of obtaining these secondary collectibles in of itself is not an issue, but how the process overrides finding the dragons on the field in engagement and value. Every collectathon’s main collectible should be the primary focus that furthers the story, and muddling its impact by mixing its importance with all of the others diminishes its impact and relevance.

The facile factors of Spyro the Dragon I’ve discussed before could be excusable from a certain perspective, but the game’s “bosses” are downright embarrassing. I put the term bosses in snarky quotation marks because imposing baddies in gaming that conclude every milestone usually involve direct conflictive contact on the part of the protagonist. For Spyro, every arena is a curved track for the youthful dragon to chase them down like common thieves. To make the encounter even less stimulating, every one of Gnasty Gnorc’s cohorts falls with only a couple of headbutts or singes from Spyro’s fire breath. Surely, the big, stinky cheese in charge of the anti-dragon operation should warrant an epic duel as the game’s climax, right? Wrong. All that Gnasty Gnorc’s narrative significance does for his final “battle” is make the track that Spyro chases him on slightly longer. Two scorching fire blasts are all it takes for the unsightly green ogre to perish, and the anticlimactic scene had me astonished in disbelief. People tend to criticize Crash’s bosses for not being Herculean enough compared to the levels that precede them, but at least they inarguably fit the definition of bosses as opposed to the piddly, inconsequential pursuits that comprise every notable bit of progress in Spyro the Dragon.

It should be no wonder that fans often speak of Spyro in the same excitable breath as Crash Bandicoot in the ranks of PlayStation platformer mascots. While Crash Bandicoot was placed on a higher pedestal in Sony’s minds due to predating Spyro by a few years, Spyro’s whimsical adventure through a graphically alluring fantasy realm with an adorable (as long as he keeps his mouth shut) purple lizard at the helm places it on equal measure with Naughty Dog’s work in terms of a shared accessible, lighthearted charm. Comparisons between the two are also derived from their first entries’ amateurish lack of polish. However, whereas Crash’s rough template beats the player to death with harsh, unflinching demand, Spyro’s conversely relaxes them to the degree of being ineffectual. Because the game is a little too light on difficulty, level length, and substantial boss fights, the entirety of Spyro the Dragon comes in one ear and quickly exits the other. If this was a concentrated effort on Insomniac’s part to cater towards an extremely young audience, I should warn them that dumbing down the content will wear thin on even the most impressionable children. Still, if we use Crash’s evolution through three entries as an example, perhaps broadening Spyro’s formula through its sequels will conjure up something more resonating.

Spyro: A Hero's Tail Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 11/10/2020)

[Image from igdb.com]

Spyro: A Hero's Tail

Developer: Traveller's Tales, Eurocom

Publisher: Sierra Entertainment

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: GCN, PS2, Xbox

Release Date: November 12, 2004

I can empathize with the plight of the Spyro fan circa the early 2000s. Like the Crash Bandicoot franchise, the once-mighty competitors with the likes of Mario and Sonic were blown to the wayside when the next console generation came about, leaving new developers to awkwardly try to rekindle the once bright, burning flame. I wasn't one of these people because the console generation that I grew up on was the PS2 era, but the same thing happened with Jak and Daxter and Sly Cooper once the PS3 era launched. I think I can be excused for being a dumb kid at the time and not having the video game history knowledge that I do now. At the time, Spyro games were advertised on every cartoon channel I watched, so of course, I was aware of the franchise, and of course, it was enticing. It was a video game where you could play as a cute purple dragon that spits fire, for fucks sake. I didn't care or know about the impure third-party developer that was billed to carry the proverbial torch of something that was once great. Thank god I wasn't allured by the abomination that was Enter the Dragonfly and instead played A Hero's Tail, the merely adequate, lukewarm entry in the franchise, or at least that's how people perceive it now.

As of writing this review, I have not really played any of the classic PS1 Spyro games. I played a little bit of Ripto's Rage 10 years ago and have not played any of the games on the Spyro: Reignited Trilogy, so I don't have much to reference in comparing A Hero's Tail to the previous entries. However, I have plenty of experience with other 3D platformers of the time that this game takes inspiration from. In fact, this game kind of made it seem like they were going in a direction to deviate from the Spyro formula to emulate the 3D platformers from the then-current era of video games. Did they succeed? Sort of. I have a certain nostalgic warmness for this game, but I will admit that some of the added features to the Spyro franchise overstay their welcome and kind of become a jumbled mess. On top of that, there are also some awkward foibles that this game also has that are to its detriment as well.

The game begins when an evil dragon named Red and his army of Gnorc minions scatter large purple gemstones called "dark gems" all across the game's world. It's hard to tell exactly what the dark gems do when they are placed into the ground. From what I can tell, the sky turns into an ominous black color and scraggly, pale-green plants grow out of the ground. I'm not sure if these gems absorb the land's nutrients or if they make people around them depressed, so I can assume that they serve as a MacGuffin in both the language of the 3D platformer and in the narrative. Naturally, it's Spyro's job to stop Red from...something and destroy the dark gems that he has planted all over the world.

One thing that I will commend this game on, regardless of the more shoddy aspects, is the frame rate. This game runs as smooth as butter, which is definitely something that this game has over the original trilogy on the PS1. Having a great frame rate is always nice to have in any game, but in a game where the character is constantly jumping, gliding, headbutting, and ground stomping, a great frame rate is ideal. I guess you might have needed to have an imperative to make the frame rate great when developing this game, considering how smooth the gameplay in Jak and Daxter was. What do Jak and Daxter have to do with this game? A lot, considering it borrows an unsettling number of things from it, like its seamless level design and the pole jumping, the rotating disc platforms, etc. There is even a swamp level and a watery ruins level. This can't just be a coincidence. In fact, the direction of this game seems to focus on implementing ideas from PS2-era platformers. There is even an unfitting ball gadget that feels stripped from Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. The developers obviously went for an "if you can;' beat 'em, steal from them" attitude here. One thing that the developers should've implemented from other games was an invincibility frame after you get hit like most, if not all, competent games have. In a matter of seconds, Sparx can rapidly depreciate from golden to red to Spyro being dead with many of the instances in this game. It's really inexcusable not to have this, as lacking it is the biggest detriment to the game.

Spyro has always been a very versatile character in terms of his range of movement, but what about his range of attacks? In the first three games, he could headbutt his foes and breathe fire because he's a dragon. After the first three games, the new developers thought it would ideal for Spyro to have an arsenal of different elemental breaths. Apparently, this is not the first time someone has tried to implement this in a Spyro game, but we're just going to pretend like this is a unique feature to A Hero's Tail because the other game need not mention it. For the most part, the fire breath is the only real practical one, while the other breaths are used to solve puzzles and traverse through the game. You can defeat most enemies with the electric breath, but it usually takes five seconds or so before they keel over. The water breath is only used to defeat fire enemies in the last world of the game. Otherwise, it's exclusively used for puzzles. Using it on any other type of enemy looks like you are giving them the blowjob of their lives. This is something I observed as an adult replaying this game, not as a child. Calm down. The ice breath is pretty much used the same way as in Metroid, in which any enemy is frozen for a short period, and all you need is a single hit to obliterate them. I would say that it's more useful than the fire breath, but it is only available for the last fourth of the game. Overall, I've always liked the different breaths that Spyro could use, even if now I realize that Spyro's fire breath was already perfect as it was. This game just wanted a large variety in it as an evolution from the original trilogy.

The thing that gripped me about this game initially before playing it was the vast amount of characters you could play as in the game. It's amazing what kinds of things draw you in when you're a kid. As it turned out, this was not the character roulette that I had hoped for when I was eight years old. Spyro is still in the limelight as he is with any other Spyro game, but you can play as four different characters, each with their own move set. However, except for Hunter, the other characters are confined to mini-games where you earn collectibles.

For the first time ever, you can play as Spyro's easy-going pal Hunter. Whenever you encounter Hunter, he jokes that Spyro is tired of running around, and it's his turn to excavate the area for light gems and dragon eggs. This is about as close as I expected the different character gimmick to play out as an excited kid because Hunter's gameplay is pretty much the same as Spyros, only that he climbs on vines and can shoot enemies from further away with his bow. Playing as Hunter isn't bad by any means, but he doesn't have the versatility of Spyro.

Sgt. Bird is a returning character from Year of the Dragon, and his mini-game is a revitalized version of his gameplay from the previous title. As a kid, this mini-game stressed me out because of the number of things you had to attend to before the time limit ran out, but after replaying it as an adult, this is the best mini-game out of the four because it's at least the quickest to complete.

Sparx, besides being your health bar, also aids you in a mini-game that involves spelunking through narrow crevices to shoot at bugs. Why Sparx ever pulls this out on the field is beyond me, but he mows down dozens of bugs in a game that is incredibly similar to Star Fox, so I guess the developers borrowed a little more than just the strengths of fellow 3D platformers. Sparx's mini-game is alright, but more than often, it suffers from not having an invincibility frame because Sparx is careening towards the targets, and they're often not boulders falling from the ceiling. It's a lot to dodge, and the game can unfairly punish the player due to its own shortcomings.

The mini-game that I enjoyed as a kid that seems to be the bane of everyone else's existence is the Blink mini-game. In this one, Blink the mole burrows under the ground to destroy the tiny dark gems that are scattered all over the world that you've seen plenty of times already. As a kid, I liked Blink's mini-game because it involved more 3D platforming than Sgt. Bird and Sparx, but as an adult, I've grown to despise this mini-game. The unfortunate thing about Blinx is that he seems really unneeded in the grand scheme of things. We already have two platforming characters in the game that work just fine. We didn't need another one that plays like the handicapped version of what we were already playing. Blink moves like a car with poor acceleration, and his jumping are incredibly rigid. Not to mention, he has to blow up the little dark gems with one of his bombs which takes a painfully long time to execute, considering Spyro can just obliterate them in a matter of seconds in the overworld. Blink's sections are long, tedious, and hard to control, making them a grueling slog to play through.

There are also these turret mini-games that Spyro does a couple of times in the overworld. They feel a little out of place in the setting of a Spyro game, and they play almost exactly like the mini-game in the swamp level of Jak and Daxter. As you can tell, I'm not really a huge fan of these mini-games as I think that they are an unwanted distraction from the initial Spyro gameplay. There really isn't a point in the game when you'll want to play as any of the other characters except maybe Hunter when you have to in the third world when Spyro gets captured. However, the game does something sinister to the player and gives you an incentive to play these mixed-quality mini-games. Once you complete any mini-game once, you earn a dragon egg which is an extra item that rewards you with things like concept art and character skins. Seems neat, but your reward for being the mini-games twice on a more challenging difficulty is a light gem, an item needed to progress further in the game's story. You can already find some of these gems in locked chests if you remember to buy them, but at some point, pretty early on in the game, you'll need 24 light gems to progress through the game. It was at this point as a kid that I was stuck because of the harder portions of Blink and Sgt. Bird's mini-games that I was now forced into doing were aggravating to me. Why would you reward the player with the optional collectible first before the vital one? Invest in some keys because playing the harder versions of the Blinx minigames to progress in the game is a fate worse than death.

As for the other NPCs in the game, the new developers made some weird choices. They changed Moneybags from the posh, bourgeois British stereotype into a hilariously bad Jewish stereotype where he constantly badgers you to "SVEND SVEND SVEND" at his store, whether it be in the hub world or on the go. Whatever he's doing with all of your money isn't clear, but I'm sure the game wants you to conclude that he's opening a bakery or a law firm with it. Bentley from Year of the Dragon is back as an NPC. He briefly makes an appearance to tell Hunter to murder his rowdy neighbors. There are two new characters named Ember and Flame, both of which are just different variations of Spyro with redder skin and with girl attributes. For being new characters to the franchise, one would think that they'd have some hefty screen time, but both of them only appear once in the game. I thought that perhaps they were older characters making a brief cameo for fan service, and it's really befuddling that both of them aren't considering how brief their presences are. You can unlock both of them as skins for Spyro, but I still don't see the appeal in it, considering no one really knows these other characters.

Level design in Spyro: A Hero's Tail is also almost exactly like, you guessed it, Jak and Daxter. The game is divided into four main worlds with two or three sublevels branching from the main hub. The first and second world's levels have an interesting variety like swamps, valleys, clouds, and beaches, but the third and fourth world stick with a theme of ice and fire, respectively. Personally, I prefer the levels with a range of themes because insisting on one gets tiring after a while. I have no idea why, but the level in this game that I have the most nostalgic warmth for is the Sunken Ruins level. Sure, you could argue that it's a ripoff of the Lost Precursor City level from Jak and Daxter (and you'd probably be right), but it had a strange effect on me as a kid. There's something about the sublime, creepy atmosphere of the level that drew me in. Since then, I've had a thing for dilapidated underground levels with a balance of water and toxic slime like a specific 3D platformer fetish. Thanks, A Hero's Tail.

Gnasty Gnorc also returns as the first boss of this game, leading me into another lackluster aspect: the bosses. At the end of every world, once you've destroyed all of the dark gems in the world, you travel down a dark corridor where the cheerful Spyro music stops. Each boss tries to intimidate Spyro with a very long cut-scene of dialogue before the fight, usually making fun of how small he is. The bosses are incredibly standard fare for any 3D platformer. They have an obvious weakness to exploit, and the game gives you so much ample opportunity to hit it that it's absurd. None of them are especially difficult, and having a cut-scene every three hits saying Spyro defeated them is confusing and irritating. This is even the case for Red, the supposed dark, imposing force that should not be taken lightly. His design is great, but like everything else in this game, the execution of his role in this game lacks substance and challenge. He isn't even imposing as a giant robot because that final boss is designed almost exactly like the others. Most of the time, you're just waiting for it to be over.

After a game like Enter the Dragonfly, things could only get better for the franchise. How much better? Well, it's definitely an improvement. It's a game with solid presentation that runs very smoothly, but everything else falters in every other aspect. This game borrows too much from other games, especially Jak and Daxter. The mini-games are a mixed bag of tedium, and the game is so easy that it lacks the substance to make up for it. After playing this game again after several years, the warm nostalgia I feel for this game was still present, meaning that it at least had some merit to it, but it is a total mixed bag. Funny enough, this mixed bag of a Spyro game is probably one of the better-remembered games in the franchise, whether or not you have a nostalgic holding for it.