This is not an incompetent or technically flawed game (in terms of glitches and such compared to Enter the Dragonfly). However, there are a lot of flaws that make this game kind of meh and frustrating to me. Before I go on, I played a fan version of this game via a romhack, which adds a map feature and has a lot of quality of life fixes. Even then, I couldn't really enjoy the game that much. First things first, the control issues like charging being fast. This leads to Spyro falling from the stage and making him uncontrollable in general. Additionally, trying to catch the thieves is a pain. Another problem with the controls is the backlash you get from the enemies. As a Castlevania fan, I can accept a certain amount of knockback, but the amount of bootemless pits in the levels leads to instant death. Addition to that, there is something else you can't control; when you finish a task in the game, you are always warped to a random section of the level, and you have to come back to where you were. These issues with controls, or the lack of them in this case, made me annoyed with the game. There is another part of the game that complements the control problems, which is the level design. I'm not against isometric platformers. When they are done well, they could provide interesting levels and scenarios. The problem is that Season of Ice has bland level design, which is copied and pasted throughout the game. These bland levels are usually filled with minimal platforming and simple tasks like killing five things or making five things. The control issues, as well as the ocational warping and poorly handled camera, create levels that require frustrating backtracking to find missing items. That was the reason I dropped the game, because I was so annoyed that I couldn't find a gem that I was missing and the level consistently was screwing over with his layout that I stopped playing actively. Some may say Spyro 1 had a lot of repetition in its level design. I disagre. Spyro 1 always had clever platforming sequences and clever ways to explore the levels. In short, this game was tedious.

Reviewed on Mar 26, 2023


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