I haven't played through year of the dragon, but I'm pretty sure this is going to be my favorite of the trilogy even after i do. spyro 2 is the closest we have ever gotten to a perfect spyro game. the levels have more to do, the game has more personality than one, it introduces new mechanics but it doesn't drown you in them, the boss fights actually have some teeth, this game just feels like an improvement and 3 does not feel as flawless as this does. probably going to be my number one spyro game in my reignited trilogy review. so god damn solid

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.

In the UK this was known as Spyro 2: Gateway to Glimmer.

With the technical groundwork laid by the first title, Spyro's sequel was all set to be bigger and better and it certainly didn't disappoint. Everything had more life breathed into it - visuals were enhanced with a more detailed and cohesive art style that pushed the PlayStation to its limit, levels were spruced up with cool characters and additional minigames that paired well with the collectathon gameplay, and a more focused story with a fully voice acted and well designed cast of characters brought it all together.

The first game has a special place in my heart, but Gateway to Glimmer really stole the show.

Spyro 2 addresses the simplicity of the first outing but at the cost of losing the original's charm.

It's main concern was to add more to do in each world and judging by the development time being 1 year instead of 2 years with Spyro 1, I can see why the pacing is so off and a lot of the levels just feel like ideas they threw at the wall to see if they would stick.

This isn't to say this game doesn't work as a sequel, far from it, I think the new additions are great, civilisations make the levels feel more like worlds, minigames make for more variety and the soundtrack is fantastic It really has stuck with me more than the first game's soundtrack ever did.

However, I'm mixed on my thoughts with these additions. I quite enjoyed the mystical ethereal mood Spyro 1 has, the new wacky characters in each world just wasn't my thing. (Based off the Remake verison now looked into comparsions between the og and remake). I also think the minigames whilst nice, most are just not that engaging, lack any challenge even for kids and some are buggy as fuck.

Really incredible visuals for the PSX and a noticeable improvement in control and game feel over the original. In terms of the core gameplay everything's in place for a true timeless classic and the whole thing's dripping with charm and personality. Unfortunately, along with the visual and mechanical improvements, Spyro 2 brings a big heaping helping of mediocre-at-best minigame challenges, and unfortunately you're going to have to do a LOT of them if you want to finish the game, as just running through each level and grabbing whatever orbs you get for doing pretty basic run-throughs will only net you about half as many as are required to open the final boss's locked door. It's, frankly, a nightmare. Many of these challenges are poorly designed or not balanced properly, and even the best ones I would describe more as "acceptable" than as anything I'd really want to take a break from the core platforming to focus on. Personally, I already had to give this game a fair amount of rope to get into it due to the structural change of not allowing the player to complete each level to 100% on the first visit, and the fact that it wants me to play a bunch of unfun minigames in order to hit bare minimum completion is just a little too much, especially since it didn't tell me that until I was already at the end. If you're less minigame averse than I am, you'll probably have a great time with this one, but I just can't face the prospect of having to turn around and play a bunch of them before being let into the final boss when the reason I passed them by in the first place is because I wasn't enjoying them when they were interspersed into my runs through the earlier levels.

Review in progress:
The second-best game in the trilogy. Every Spyro game has low-quality segments that drag the experience down. The flight levels, supercharged segments, and escort challenges are particularly annoying. Spyro 2 is a lot more annoying than Year of the Dragon on average when it comes to the level and challenge design. This entry feels a bit more repetitive in comparison. I prefer the increased level of quality and variety in YOTD.

Graphically, this is among the best PS1 games. The use of color and lighting is fantastic. The skyboxes are particularly stunning.

The terrible boss encounters from Spyro 1 are thankfully absent here. The small handful here are all enjoyable.

I prefer this version over the soulless remake.

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.