There's many great 3D platformers I have unfortunately never beat or even experienced before, and the Spyro series is one of 'em. I've never so much as touched a Spyro game before this playthrough of Spyro 2. A sequel's typically not the best starting point, I know, but I do know this isn't exactly a story heavy series (aside from when they tried that later to...uh, varying degrees of success), so I don't think I missed out on much. I quite liked my time with this game, its simple but effective. It can be a decent challenge, especially with some of the tasks you have to do for collectibles, but if you're just looking to beat the game, most of the game's not gonna give you problems. Took me a good three days or so to beat, split over a long period of time since I took significant breaks between play sessions.

Spyro 2 is a fun little collectathon, somewhat similar to your Banjo-Kazooie and Mario 64 type games with a bunch of decently sized 3D levels to explore for collectibles. If you're looking to just complete the levels normally (as in not 100%), you just need to grab the Talisman, which is usually very easy to get since, most of the time, you just need to reach a certain end point. Sometimes you will have to do something special to get the Talisman, like freeing the shaman in Crystal Glacier, but its always something very simple and quick to do. If you do decide to go for 100%, the Guidebook in the pause menu has pages for each level that tell you what you're missing to get 100% completion in each: beat all the enemies, collect all the gems (basically the game's currency which you can find either lying around or in vases, crates, or big gems you need a special weapon to break), and find all the orbs...and get the talismans, but I mentioned that already. Orbs are probably the most important collectible; each level has around 400 gems, so it won't be long until you rack up WAY more than you need to spend for upgrades. As for orbs, there's a certain amount of orbs different between each level - per level minimum of 2, maximum of 4 - which you'll almost always get as a reward for fulfilling some sort of side mission for an NPC. The only thing that I don't really like about this system is the way the game gates content behind orbs. That in itself isn't much of a problem, but the orb requirements aren't really communicated to the player well, since the amount is pretty small throughout most of the game until you reach the final world, where you go from needing a measly 15 orbs to needing 25 orbs for the final level and a whopping 40 orbs for the final boss. The game has 64 orbs, so having to grab 40 orbs does let you skip a good chunk of 'em (and thank god because some of those are a PAIN to get, I heard the horror stories of the Alchemist escort quest even as someone who's unfamiliar with Spyro), but it feels like such a drastic leap when the game makes you think it'll be smooth sailing before that. The core gameplay loop is fun and enjoyable, but I will say that I can't shake how Spyro's controls feel rather clumsy, especially when you're trying to quickly turn around or walk in a straight line instead of from an angle. Granted, you can definitely get used to how Spyro controls and the movement can even feel pretty good at times, but sometimes it feels quite rough, especially when you're trying to do those orb missions to chase down bandits. Flight controls also kinda suck, but at least they don't feel anywhere near as terrible as Super Mario 64's (to me that game's flying feels horrible) and the flying challenges aren't TOO challenging. I do really like how simple yet fun Spyro's toolkit is, though: all he does is dash, jump, and glide, and, though he gets some extra tools, most of it just feels like slight enhancements to your base kit like how swimming in this game is pretty much just dashing underwater.

There isn't a ton of story here, so I'll instead talk about the visuals. The environments are VERY pretty, possibly one of the most pleasant looking PS1 games I've played so far. Colors are so vibrant and, despite the technical limitations of the time, you can tell this game is going for a unique art style. There's a sort of dreamy nostalgic feel to so many of the levels, especially if you're playing on a CRT. The game's character models do look very goofy and outright bizarre; I admittedly can't tell if that's part of the art style or just a product of the PS1's limitations, but I feel it overall enhances the game's charm once you get used to it. I mostly played this game on low volume so unfortunately I missed the majority of the music, but, from what I got to hear of it, that's also pretty good.

Overall I quite liked Spyro 2. There are definitely some more frustrating bits and I would have liked if the game better communicated just how many orbs I need to beat it normally, but, as a whole package, the game's a good time. Sounds like another 4 star to add to my collection.

This game is brimming with even more personality and expressive animation than the first. I love the storyline and the new, charming characters of Avalar. Much more than the first, the game feels like a Saturday morning cartoon in the best way.

The game also fixes a major issue I had with the first game, in that you could not veer left or right too much while gliding or else you'd just barely miss the platform and eat shit. They expected you to glide straight with little room for error. So this game adds the Hover maneuver so you can do a tiny little double-jump mid-flight to give yourself a little bit of extra verticality to make a jump if you're about to miss. They removed the roll, though, which I didn't get much use out of in the first game, admittedly. But the boss fights against Gulp, Crush, and Ripto, I could've imagined SO many uses for the roll to make those fights a little easier. Also, I felt like I had to wrestle with the camera way more often than I ever had to in Spyro 1, so I had more control issues with this game in general than I did with the first game.

Overall, I think this game sort of suffers from adding TOO much. You not only have to accomplish the main objective of a level, but you also have to find every gem and do every sidequest for Orbs. Many of them are very easy, but enough are obnoxious to the point that I didn't have fun doing them. It just made me wish the game could be over already.

Dragon Shores was a very fun completionist/post-game reward, though. Reminded me of the first time I unlocked the Museum in Modern Warfare 2, where you just get to mess around and have fun after stressing for the whole game. It's not as great a reward as Gnasty's Loot, though, just as Spyro 2 wasn't as great as its predecessor to me.

Yeah, so… Spyro 2 is fucking awesome.

Starting with the negatives, I swear this game’s draw distance is worse than the first game’s. It’s not a big deal, but I found myself gazing into empty, white voids far more often than in the original game. Also, not all of the mini-games are winners (looking at you, Bombo the Stereotypekeeper).

Aside from those issues, the game is an improvement on the original in practically every way.

The controls are a little tighter. Steven Copeland’s soundtrack is even better. The visuals (despite the draw distance issue) are more stunning than ever. The characters are a bit more fleshed-out, with Spyro now having a whole team of friends backing him up and a new archenemy in the form of the titular Ripto, a fun-sized tyrant who tries to be threatening, but hilariously misses the mark every time. Also, Tom Kenny voices Spyro now, which is great.

The biggest addition, however, is the missions. Like all great collect-a-thons, Spyro 2 now has missions that reward you orbs for completing certain tasks, similar to the Jiggies in Banjo-Kazooie and the Shine Sprites in Super Mario Sunshine. These missions come in the form of races, side quests, minigames. While, again, not all of them are great, most of them are, and the game provides plenty of leeway with the collectible requirements to allow you to skip anything you don’t wanna do. All of these help throw in some much-appreciated gameplay variety to break up the usual platforming that the first game introduced, making Spyro 2 feel like a true evolution of its predecessor.

A lot of people hate the focus on minigames in this installment, but I found myself loving almost every objective that others hate. “Trouble with the trolley, eh?” No, not really; it only took me a few tries to beat, and I had a great time while doing so (apparently, Spyro fans have never played a Donkey Kong Country game before, and thus have no idea how to react quickly to railroaded obstacles). I beat the turtle soup mission fairly easily. The hockey one gave me trouble at first, but once I figured out that I could stun the other player, I quickly developed a winning strategy. I dunno, all these missions are fun as hell in my opinion.

Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage! is great 👍🏽

Considering the fact that Spyro 1 was such a laser-focused experience that was extremely successful at accomplishing what it was attempting to do, it makes sense that the sequel would expand outwards to such a degree, rather than going down the route of refining what was already there. While the first game was almost purely a collectathon with everything else existing simply to elevate the act of collecting, Spyro 2 focuses more on being an more well-rounded gaming experience, filling in a lot of the spaces that the first game had left, resulting in something that feels a more formally "complete". You've now got NPCs that exist in the world beyond being utilised as collectibles, cutscenes beyond the opening and closing one, boss fights, side objective, just a ton of new stuff to sink your teeth into. I don't really love it as much as the first game for that exact reason, with all of these other objectives detracting a bit from the raw experience of "existing in a place", but the game manages to feel magical despite this.


The level design in general feels far less sparsely populated than before, not only adding more overall detail to each stage to make them feel more lived in, but also ensuring that there are other friendly entities in each of them, making the stages always feel more inviting even when hostility is never too far away. Rather than dropping the player in more non-descript areas that feel entirely taken over by the enemies, feeling otherwise devoid of life, the atmosphere here is more akin to walking somewhere that's in the middle of some kind of inconvenient, chaotic problem that you can still solve, with robot bugs eating crops or rock golems interrupting a party, rather than just throwing you into the aftermath of a bad situation. This gives the game its own charm and sense of whimsy that gives each stage a greater sense of variety, with the narrative elements of each stage bolstering the visual theming, making the act of getting to the end of each stage feel like a completely different undertaking, even when they're fundamentally the same with minor differences. While the pure collecting aspect of the game is less prominent, not really having as many stages with especially tricky to grab gems as long as you do a basic sweep of any given stage, the level design stands out by the way it connects its side objectives into the world.

There are a ton of orb minigames throughout the game, but the vast majority of these are built into the stage in such a way that they'll take place within some regular part of the stage that's completely accessible even if you've decided not to undertake these side objectives. It causes the vast majority of the minigames to feel very naturally implemented into the world, rarely feeling as if an area was designed purely as a vessel for a minigame, even if realistically, it 100% was. Most of them are fun as well, finding a lot of clever ways to utilise Spyro's core moveset, with there only being a couple of instances of completely altering the gameplay style. This gives everything a real sense of cohesion, especially when factoring in the fact that there are less areas in this game, but all of them are of relatively even quality as well.

The bosses in this game are also the best in the series from what I've seen, with there being only 3 main ones, but each of them being fantastically designed to feel threatening, varied and relatively involved fights, at least by the standards of your average 3D platformer boss. Gulp especially succeeds in this, both in how the player is meant to damage him, but also in how you're meant to avoid certain attacks, requiring quick thinking and careful positioning, since the weapons you need to use to hurt him can also be utilised by him to hurt you instead. It gives the battle a frantic energy, where you're having to carefully line yourself up to hit him, but can't be too slow about it since that will just lead to it being used against you instead. Moments like this that utilise Spyro's movement in a more active way are a lot of fun and extremely welcome in a game that focuses more strongly on the capabilities of Spyro, rather than purely about the surrounding world.

The game is also really funny, both in more overt ways with the dialogue and some characters looking incredibly goofy (Hunter's design is perfect and it makes him merely existing something really funny), but also some more subtle ways. The biggest example of this is how Ripto is presented as such a non-threatening villain through most of the the game, not just with how all the cutscenes show him as a bumbling idiot, but also with how this is the one game in the original trilogy that doesn't have a type of enemy directly associated with the main villain. Each world here just has its own separate issue completely disconnected from Ripto, nobody mentions him outside of the hub worlds, and his influence is nowhere to be seen at any point. His presence is still felt to an extent due to the focus on him in the hub worlds, but it's always funny to see that he has such little reach that no other world even knows of his existence. Moneybags is another favourite of mine, introducing a way to give gems a greater sense of value and also being another constant source of humour. I love how he just seems to have his hands in everything going on across the realms and always figures out a way to charge Spyro for it, he's just this omnipresent figure who'll exist in 7 different places in one location just because he sees a potential way to take more treasure from you.

Overall this is an incredibly good game that adds a ton to the Spyro experience. There are occasional issues with the game, with some of the orb challenges being on the more obnoxious side of things (the headbash mission in Fracture Hills being placed directly after the alchemist is a rough misstep in particular), but this is an incredible time nonetheless, even if I still prefer the approach the first game took. While the game may add a lot of additional distractions from the core idea of wandering around absolutely beautiful looking worlds, that appeal is still present to a great enough extent that I end up adoring almost every second of my time with this game regardless, and it'll probably be a more enjoyable game to you if you thought that the first game's loop wasn't engaging enough on its own to carry you through an entire game of it.

Insomniac takes 2 steps forward by addressing the uninspired boring from the first game, and then 2 steps back by making it a complete mixed bag of really good moments, lots of mediocre ones, and really really bad moments.

Everything this game gains in its characters and charm, it loses by making progressing through its levels a slog by just how boring some of them are. Regardless, the controls are tight and fun as they always were, and flying challenges are always good fun.

Have completed multiple times in full.

Once again, fantastic game! I grew up on this one more so than the original Spyro the Dragon (namely because I was a kid and thought Ripto looked cool...)

I had a lot of the same control issues I had with Spyro the Dragon carrying over into Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage. However, this did not stop child me from playing it over, and over, and over again. The characters were all very compelling and it made me fall in love with story telling all over again, each time I played it. The dialogue was witty and humorous, Ripto was truly deplorable in the best way, and Spyro as always was so cool.

Even despite constant dragon racism towards him.

That aside, 4/5. Solid game. Would play many times over, again and again.

Spyro controls quite a bit better compared to the first game. The music is still ass though. There are some actual characters now that aren’t just dragons which is a welcome addition. You get to interact more with the characters too and every stage has its own little story.
The new abilities are nice as well. Moneybags is such a greedy piece of shit, I love him.
I collected a bit more stuff than in Spyro 1 but I really couldn’t be bothered doing some of those minigames.
There are also actual boss battles this time. Although I still think they are probably one of the weaker parts of the Spyro games.

The 40 orb requirement for the final boss is pretty annoying.
Hate that every orb has to be a minigame of sorts. That got old quickly. Didn’t like the final boss much with the race to get the orbs either.

Docking ½ a star because they took away the gems from Moneybags. The man was just hustling. Nah I'm kidding lol.
On a serious note, I enjoyed this game about as much as the first Spyro, maybe just a smidge better.

Blah blah blah the minigames suck. Everybody says that. They're right, but honestly, even disregarding them it’s still a lesser experience than Spyro 1. The pacing is awful. There's a seasonal theme to the homeworlds, so you’d think there’d be four, right? Nope, just three, no spring. The second homeworld lasts almost half the game. The third one only has four actual levels and the primary collectable is just abandoned. Instead, you need to collect the lamest shit imaginable, nondescript magic orbs.

Then there’s the backtracking. Constant backtracking to grab the last orb or gems, but only after replaying the whole level, and sometimes even the first part of a minigame to get to the second one. Fortunately, you can use the cool double jump glitch to skip some backtracking, but more often than not the levels don't allow it.

Everything that carries over directly from Spyro 1 is obviously good, like the art direction, OST, movement, etc. The writing is a bit more involved, which I'm not too sure about, but it's mostly funny. Everything else just feels like Insomniac did their best to make the game as tedious as possible. Surely Insomniac won’t make a trend of making an amazing first game, ignore what made it great in the first place, and make a mediocre follow up

Assim como boa parte dos jogos de plataforma que vieram após Mario 64, Spyro bebeu nas fontes abertas pela obra da Nintendo, e logo de cara foi o melhor jogo do gênero no Psone, com seu sucessor, Spyro 2: Rypto’s Rage, avançando em praticamente todas as frentes.

No aspecto técnico a margem para avanço não era tão grande, pois o primeiro jogo já era muito bem feito tecnicamente, com gráficos e sons muito bons, que envelheceram bem se compararmos com outros jogos da época. Spyro 2 ainda assim apresenta uma evolução, sensível, é verdade, mas ainda assim uma evolução.

A direção artística continua ótima, com uma trilha sonora muito boa, uma direção de dublagem bem feita dentro da proposta do jogo e especialmente na construção do mundo, ou melhor, dos mundos. Eles continuam coloridos e carismáticos, mas agora estão mais variados e principalmente, mais orgânicos. No primeiro jogo praticamente a presença de elementos vivos era mais esparsa e praticamente toda ela era hostil, mas em Spyro 2 os mundos estão mais cheios de vida, sendo habitados não só por inimigos mas também por elementos amigáveis. Nesse aspecto, mais personagens interagem com Spyro durante a jornada, cada qual com personalidades bem construídas e executadas. Além disso, o antagonista, Rypto, é mais presente na trama que o visto no jogo anterior, e ele agrega positivamente ao jogo, com uma presença marcante no mundo da obra. Uma coisa que é interessante notar é que a influência dele só existe em certos pontos do jogo, pois há fases em que as questões existentes são próprias delas, com subtramas independentes da principal, o que dá maior profundidade ao universo do jogo.

A maior variedade conceitual se traduz efetivamente em uma maior variedade prática, com diversos desafios diferentes ao longo das fases, fugindo da repetitividade e agregando positivamente à campanha. Além disso, cada fase possuí minigames diversos, geralmente implementados de maneira coerente com o mundo que estão inseridos, adicionando novas mecânicas ou aproveitando as já existentes.

No entanto, o “geralmente” na frase anterior não foi usado à toa: houve certo exagero na quantidade de desafios adicionais, o que acarretou em minigames que não são tão bem executados quanto outros, com menções especiais negativas a um que envolve coletar pedras que são do chão em uma competição com outro personagem e a outro de escoltar um alquimista. Esse excesso representa certa quebra no fluxo do jogo, que ainda que não torne a experiência necessariamente ruim, não ajuda. Outra falha de aplicação é que alguns desses desafios requerem que o protagonista domine movimentos adicionais adquiridos em pontos mais adiantados da jornada, o que falando assim não parece uma falha, mas a questão é que se esse minigame em questão for o 3º da fase, mesmo que a fase já tenha sido concluída e os dois desafios adicionais já realizados, ao voltar para a fase com a habilidade necessária o jogo força que os 2 desafios prévios sejam feitos novamente, o que representa um aborrecimento e tanto. Outro aborrecimento são as Skills Points, que são concedidas conforme certos requisitos são preenchidos nas fases, adicionando porcentagem na busca pelos 100%. A questão é que não raro algumas delas são irritantes, mas o mais irritante é que em nenhum momento o jogo te indica o que fazer. Para algumas delas até é possível conseguir pelo acaso (destruir tantos objetos X em uma fase), mas outros só com um guia mesmo, como dar 3 voltas em alta velocidade em um determinado percurso (ironicamente na mesma fase do minigame irritante de escoltar o alquimista).

Deixando os aborrecimentos de lado e retomando para as coisas boas, um ponto que Spyro 2 supera de longe seu antecessor é nas batalhas contra os chefes, com um design que utiliza bem as mecânicas do jogo. Ainda que aqui sejam apenas 3, todos possuem dinâmicas bem próprias para lidar, demandando certa atenção, especialmente a última, que se divide em 3 etapas. O combate nos chefes é bem feito, mas nem tanto em outros momentos do jogo, especialmente em ambientes menos espaçosos, em que a câmera se torna um desafio à parte. Fora isso, os controles funcionam muito bem no que o jogo foca, que é a exploração, e o level design que já era bom no primeiro jogo se torna melhor aqui, demandando percepção e inventividade para se alcançar determinados pontos dos cenários.

Mesmo com suas falhas, Spyro 2 não só é um dos pontos altos da série como do gênero em si, ganhando um remake no pacote Reignited Trilogy, mas vale dizer que mesmo a versão original de Psone (que foi a que joguei) é extremamente recomendável e garante um ótimo entretenimento.

I didn’t like Spyro 2. Not entirely, but I do feel like it sours the taste of the first game. For every step forward, and for every improvement, Spyro 2 takes an equal step backwards, and with that step, a new inconvenience is born. It all just culminates in an experience that just feels lacking, especially when compared to the incredible framework set up by the first Spyro game.

Firstly, I want to start with the good, which there is a lot of, despite what I may have made it out to seem. Both the story and that story’s presentation have been greatly improved. In my review of Spyro 1 I noted that the player could go the whole game without knowing who the main antagonist is and why they were the bad guy, strictly because the game spends I don’t think even an actual minute telling the player or getting them acquainted with the world. In this game, however, the antagonist Ripto just might be the most memorable thing here; his voice acting and little animations give him so much life and stage presence. On top of that, unlike Gnasty Gnorc, Ripto actually shows up repeatedly throughout the game, in both cutscenes and boss fights, making him feel like a much more prominent threat. As well, the worlds Spyro visits are way more fleshed out and, for the most part, feel way more alive; there are NPCs who are fully voice acted and that are unique to the world you are exploring, some have side quests for the player to complete that add to the liveliness of it all, and each level has its own little isolated conflict that makes them all feel unique and memorable, outside of just aesthetics. My favorite example of this are within the Breezebuilder and Zephyr worlds; it seems that both of these worlds are in some kind of war between each other, so in one world the player will have to fight off the Zephyr inhabitants and help the Breezebuilders get their war ships back up and running, while in the other you help the Zephyr inhabitants clear their valley of the invading Breezebuilders.

On the non-aesthetic side of things, several quality of life improvements have been to how the game is played and navigated. Off the bat, the useless dodgerolls have been removed entirely and have been replaced with a hover move; the hover move is functionally a double jump, but is only available when Spyro is in a full glide. Normally, double jumps cause a problem of making platforming too easy and making it seem trivial; this hover ability is a great compromise because it still allows the platforming to be precise and require skill, while also giving that slight bit of wiggle room that those gliding sections from Spyro 1 desperately needed. As well, the fairies no longer require the player to interact with them and open a bunch of menus in order to save, now they just automatically save whenever Syro is near them. A map has been added too, allowing you to view the general outline and structure of whatever level you are currently in to better help with navigation; though the game does not tell you this, and would only know about it if you dug around in the options menu and found the button that turns it on. I went the whole game without knowing it was there, but I don’t think it is that big of a deal as the levels are pretty linear and flow very well, much like the first game. Finally, if you are missing one or two gems in an area and just can’t seem to find them, Sparks will pull a point straight in the direction of where those last few gems are; this, along with all the other quality of life features that I mentioned, was something I thought was added with the 2018 remakes, but I am very happy and surprised that it is here.

Sadly, this is where my praises of Spyro 2 end, as the rest of this game ranges from being the exact same as the first game, to some of the most infuriating and stupid design choices I have seen in a game. I mentioned earlier that this game has side quests, and it does. It has a whole lot of them actually, about three to four per level. There are so many of these side quests that I’d argue that they aren’t even side quests and are just the main gameplay. They clog up levels by having you do stupid mini games that are either so easy a baby could do it, or make me want to throw my controller across the room with how bad they are; they are like way less interesting versions of mini games that would normally be found in a Mario Party game. By far the worst one in this whole game is the one where you have to catch these crystal popcorn that come out of the ground, while also racing Hunter to see who can get ten of them first. This doesn’t sound all that bad until you start doing it and realize that Hunter not only has some godly form of clairvoyance that lets him immediately know where one is going to pop out of the ground, but also that he can turn on a dime, something that Spyro can very much not do. This ends up making a level that really shouldn’t take more than ten minutes, take over thirty because you have to deal with the most BS AI I have ever seen. While not as bad as this one was, all of the other side quests suffer similar issues of just being annoying and ultimately destroy the immaculate pacing that the first game had; having you repeatedly start, stop, read text boxes, and do mini games, rather than naturally progress through levels and solve puzzles that are organically weaved into the environment. What’s even worse, is that these quests are mandatory; the orbs that serve as the rewards for these quests are needed in order to progress, and eventually fight Ripto. Not all of the orbs are needed, but you still need at least forty of them, which means many of these mini games are gonna have to be done.

On top of this, there is a decent amount of backtracking; nothing too egregious, or even necessary, but still once again sully the satisfying flow and pacing of the first game’s design. In the first game, every collectable could be obtained in the first go in a level; this is still the case for about 85% of this game, but there are a couple of levels that require a revisit once a new ability is gained in order to 100%. This is just entirely unnecessary and, again, only serves to waste the players time, as well as actively discouraging going for 100%; even more so when you realize that levels reset when you revisit them, meaning you have to do the same objectives again just to grab one orb. It is just baffling to me that Insomniac can go from completely understanding what makes a game fun to 100%, so actively making me not want to spend any more time than I have to.

For all its faults, however, Spyro 2 is still an overall fine experience. The moment to moment gameplay is still the same as the first; running around, gliding, collecting gems, and torching enemies. The worlds are still just as whimsical and enjoyable as the first, if not more so with all the new characters and what not. And despite the absolutely awful minigames and weird backtracking, that great sense of flow and cohesion can still be found at points in the game. I may not have entirely liked it, but I can still see its strengths and understand why others really enjoy it.

The best Spyro game of the trio. This game had it all... Great level design, good platforming, interesting skills and puzzles, great boss fights, and incredible looking worlds. Speaking of Worlds... Each world corresponding with a Season was a really smart move and gave a lot of immersion to the game. This might just be the best PlayStation game I played growing up and this game will forever have a special place in my heart. Even as an adult, this still remains as one of my favorite games of all time.