Spyro 3 is simultaneously the best and the worst in the classic trilogy. The good parts in this game are really good! This game delivers the most polished Spyro game, it adds improvements so strong that they're retroactively applied to the whole trilogy in Reignited, and it tells the best story with some of the best lines in the series.

Sadly, the game also uses the kitchen sink approach that plagued other games of this era like DK64 and Crash: Warped and a solid 30% of this game...I just don't really care for. Give me more of the good bits I already liked in this series, not a ton of variety that either lands perfectly or somersaults face-first into the pavement. All of my least favorite Classic Spyro missions and levels are bunched together in this game and it makes me dread replays of this game a lot more than the games that contain Tree Tops and the Breeze Harbor trolley.

...but despite all that I still give this game a 4 out of 5 because, even though I absolutely hate those speedway races and any time I have to play as Agent 9, the rest of the game is still very fantastic. The good stuff is just that good.

My absolute favorite of the 3 main games.
The variety of characters you get to play here is phenomenal and the objective of rescuing these eggs where the hatchlings come out to make some goofy stuff ist just adorable.
Just as in the 2nd game I love how Spyro's abilities are still there. He learned them in the previous games and so he still knows them, without it really making the game much easier. It feels so natural that Spyro still has all the knowledge of the earlier games and uses them from the beginning. A concept that so many other games tried to excuse with "amnesia" or other things in that direction.
Definitely one of the best series overall and one of my absolute favorite games ever.

What a way to finish the trilogy, truly.

This game is the perfect combination of the best parts of the previous games and balances them in genius ways, the lesser ammount of things to collect making it a breeze to just explore the levels, and the minigames that add variety but are now separated from the main levels, adding a bigger sense of scale and somehow making them feel less like chores.

Every level seems to want to add something new while maintaining the core mechanics of how Spyro can explore the world, in paper it can seem like a lot but when you play it is just fun, and that's what I think defines this game.

I can feel that this was a game where the main priority was to make it something fun to play, it made me realize how rare that is to come by sometimes in a video GAME, at their core these are just digital toys and Spyro 3 knows it and perfects in on itslef with this as a main philosophy.

Also, this game just looks great, the experimenting of color palettes is insane in some levels and most textures look beyond of what I thought a ps1 could make it look like. This is one of the prettiest platformers I've ever played.

This trilogy has become one very dear to me in the very short time that I have experienced it, and I'm happy I did.

This game definitely holds a special place in my heart. It's the first game I remember playing on the PS1 as a five year old, and was considerably harder when I didn't know the "charge" function existed.

I have replayed this game a lot over the years, and it still holds up in terms of controls and level design. I'm not too bothered by the visuals aging as I have too much nostalgia for it all. I have a big interest in the game's glitches and speedrunning techniques, which adds another layer of fondness for it.

Lots of fun and my favourite classic PlayStation platformer.

Spyro 3 is a great time stacked high in gimmicks upon gimmicks.

Arguably more messy than the second one. It's interesting seeing Insomniac deciding to experiment with some additional playable characters in their final outing with the dragon. It's a shame they all aren't particularly fun to play as.

Definitely my least favourite to 100%, on the final world I was skipping dialogue and rushing through levels to finish them faster lol.

The best parts of Spyro 3 are the new playable characters and said characters being charming additions to the world. It’s a shame only Hunter joins us from the Avalar trio but Bianca and the new playable characters are all endearing and quirky.

The gameplay is Spyro 2 but more varied and backtrack-y due to coming back with new characters later which is still annoying compared to Spyro 1’s simple and direct formula.

The big issue is that this is the least technically sound of the trilogy. I’m sure the PS1 original isn’t this glitchy but on the Reignited Trilogy, I found myself getting screwed by the physics in the flying and vehicle sections. My rocket board would clip the side of a slope and instantly kill all my speed, I’d touch an enemy and get shoved far, etc.

Even more so than Spyro 2 the missions would continue to irk me. Anything with a vehicle made me wanna blow my head off, escort missions are as shit as ever, and I even got softlocked on one mission with the dog and the ball that forced me to essentially do it twice.

One of the big kickers that irreversibly soured this game for me was the 100% reward. Spyro 1’s was awesome, giving you essentially a free-roam playground to collect gems in. Spyro 2’s was a lamer minigame fest but at least the super fire breath could carry to new playthroughs.

Spyro 3’s reward is another bonus level similar to Spyro 1’s, but it’s the worst of the three. The vehicle sections return, including the hardest board race yet where one screw up means the CPUs blitz your ass at the last second. You get nothing to use and it’s not even fun.
Spyro 1 was a 7, Spyro 2 was a 6, and now Spyro 3 is a 5/10.

Maybe the experience is better on the PS1 originals, but I was disappointed to find that (at least to me) there’s only one good Spyro game. That being said, between this and Crash 4, I would love to see a Spyro 4.

Strangely enough, this is the Spyro game that gives me the biggest dose of nostalgia when I boot it up, despite the fact that I played the other two games before it. Often considered the apex of the franchise, while Year of the Dragon is certainly the biggest Spyro game, it also exhibits a vague sense of desperation, as though the designers are just throwing every idea at a wall and seeing what sticks. While the core Spyro experience of charging at foes, setting asses on fire, and collecting treasure is still very much present, it's muddled by an endless buffet of increasingly-complex minigames, some of which can definitely try your patience if you're trying to 100% it, as I have several times. The four other playable characters are somewhat diverting in small doses (which is what the game gives you, really), but they're ultimately just symptoms of its lack of focus. (It's definitely not a coincidence that two of those characters use some form of gun - that's the direction that Insomniac was headed as a studio, for sure.) Despite these flaws, this is still a very fun game if you're willing to take it at face value, and it's one of my favorite games to revisit every now and then. Personally speaking, this game got me through the worst finals season back in undergrad, so it'll always have a special place in my heart.

my all-time favorite as a kid, and i still love it dearly! a couple years ago i went back to get the 110%+ completion and it was simultaneously so much fun and my worst nightmare; some of the minigames you gotta do for eggs are the most frustrating one-off things imaginable. i love agent 9 as a character, but his playable controls suck and his first-person-shooter level in the fireworks factory is actually the worst thing i have ever played lol. you could never pay me any money to make me redo that