I have no clue how many times I've played through this over the years, but it's the first time I found everything. Normally I'll try to find what I can but elect to skip past something if it's a bit too tricky for my patience, so it's rad that whatever mindset I was in allowed to persevere and obtain 100% completion!

Having also found everything in Spyro 2/3 (albeit in 2019 and 2017 respectively), this means I've finally 100%-ed the entire original trilogy after playing them on/off for roughly 14 years. Heck yes!

I also did something a bit unusual, where instead of playing through all the levels in each world before moving on to the next, I'd find whatever I needed to advance to the next world and immediately head on over. This allowed me to reach the fourth world within roughly an hour, and I then spent the rest of my playthrough bouncing back and forth between all the worlds to play through the levels I'd skipped past.

This really breathed new life into the game, using its freedom to experience levels in totally different orders from what I'm used to. I'd bounce back and forth between the earlier simpler stages and the later trickier ones, noticing greater contrasts in the architecture (like how Ice Cavern has a lot of the "Peace Keepers" towers and buildings but frozen over) and enjoying a more varied experience overall.

I get why the looser structure can feel a bit repetitive when you're doing the same thing of "go in, find what you can, leave", but the way you're allowed to experience a lot of this makes it more interesting for me to replay than 2 and sometimes even 3 - despite those having more varied missions and level designs.

Always nice to revisit the Spyro games, and even nicer to discover something new that I can bring into future playthroughs. : )