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 👍🏽
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 👍🏽