This game is over-hated to a large degree, mostly due to a majority of players feeling that F:NV improved on a lot of things that F:3 did. However, I do not think it is fair to judge a game based on how much "better" a future installment did. Isn't it a good thing that the games took what made Fallout 3 good and improved on it?

I think that for its time, and even for right now, Fallout 3 is solid. It has the same problems that most all of Bethesda's games suffer from (overall weak main story, annoying bugs), but offers a fun experience set in the fallout universe. My main issue with F3 was how short it felt for most everything it did, from the side quests, to the DLC's. Point Lookout was the "longest" DLC in a sense, and it felt just a tad too short for my liking.
Another issue which I think might just be a personal one, is that the game feels like it's not very replayable. The only time I'd want to jump back into playing F3 is long in the future, and even then I'm not so sure if the experience in retrospect makes me want to revisit it, as it gave everything it had to offer, and that's fine.

Overall, the game is good. Even if people find it to be "weaker" than New Vegas, that doesn't make a previous installment automatically worse. A few problems and lack of player choice makes me hesitate to revisit it in the future, but I might change my opinion on that.

Theoretically speaking, it's not difficult to analyze and write out your thoughts on games whether it's a one sentence zinger that either hits or misses, or a 10,000+ page novel about how the early polygons obstruct your view of Venus or that the camera isn't competent enough to bring about the age of thermonuclear fusion.

It is however quite hard to articulate everything when the said game is your answer to the casual question of "what's your favorite game?", especially when an insane frog runs up and asks that same question with a gun to your head, eliminating any act of fence sitting thanks to platformers starring monkeys or hedgehogs. Needless to say, if I can do all of this without breaking out into emotional ramblings I'll be a better person for it. So I'll do the best I can.

If I had to take a haphazard guess as to why the original Spyro is my answer, it's that it represents basically everything I look for in a game. It's gameplay focus is a gliding mechanic that I feel takes full advantage of three-dimensional space. What Jumping Flash did for vertical movement, is what Spyro does for horizontal. Utilizing distance and scope is something I hadn't quite experienced in the capacity it was brought to me with playing as this purple dragon. I think the stage that best demonstrates this is Cliff Town, it's built to start you on the ground and have you ascend yourself to the tallest climbable building, only to glide yourself across the river and find yourself at the highest peak in which you use to fly yourself to the rest of the treasure on the other buildings. So, the mechanics are all good, and the stage design is also good.

That's not what I generally look for though, what I look for are the little things that make the game an experience and something that sticks with you for the rest of your years on this planet. Those things like clobbering green men with big dumb feet, rescuing dragons who bring you memorable quotes that you'll spout with zero context and baffle your friends with, and listening to a soundtrack brought to you by the drummer of The Police that perfectly captures the spirit of a cute little dragon who happens to also be as big of a badass as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

All of this while traveling through worlds with their own personality. Your home that acts as the beginning area with Gnorcs who at first are completely unarmed, a desert of old timey soldiers with big dumb hats playing catch between themselves with their cannons, and a mountainous region with an odd turf war going on between ice wizards, tornado witches, and.....green boys that shift the level geometry around. Challenge then ramps up with daunting platforming in the guise of poisonous swamps with cool cyberpunk Gnorcs, challenges to your courage in the form of nightmarish beasts brought to life with darkness, and baffling tests of exploration in a dreamscape of animated giant armors in a twist of evil knights attempting to slay the good dragon. All accumulating in fun with explosive barrels at a shipping dock, and a final challenge of the Gnorcs bypassing all fun and games for modern weaponry.

In Misty Bog, at the beginning there is a relaxing Gnorc with a box trap set up stationed behind your starting point. Herding the chicken to the left and towards that same Gnorc will have the chicken go under the trap, and the Gnorc will set it off and catch it, jumping for joy at his apparent dinner for the night. You can then promptly charge and cruelly headbutt him straight into the smelly waters of the bog, or you could leave him be and be nice to the very people who had been mean and attempting to stop you from rescuing your fellow dragons. The choice is yours.

You think it's nothing, but to me that is the little things that tend to be common in all of my favorites.

A lot of things can happen in 24 hours, let alone 25 years. It's more than enough to change someone in many ways for better or worse. If there is any constant for myself, it's that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze is still my favorite movie, and Spyro the Dragon is still my favorite game. Some things never change...

I never stopped believing in you Spyro.

The problem with this game in one example:

I was working with The Railroad, an underground movement attempting to take down the Institute.

The Institute made me their leader after I infiltrated them for the first time.

I thought, okay, now I can go back and relay to the Railroad that I'm now the leader of the Institute. You know, the group that our whole goal is to take down.

You can't. I felt like I was going insane when I walked back to the Railroad base and desperately tried talking to everyone to reveal this critical information about the war I was participating in. In that moment, the veil was lifted. This is not a world, it's a shooting gallery.

What is the point of even having a dialogue system if this very common occurrence that the main quest forces you down creates this level of dissonance due to a lack of options? Why even have factions? Why have dialogue? The game would not be any better or worse than it is now.

Update:
So, revisiting the game now in depth for the first time since it came out, I realize: there IS a whole side section of quests dedicated to exactly what I was talking about but it didn't trigger for me on my first run! This does make me feel less insane and I'm glad the game is more functional now, but it's insane that a bug occured nearly ten years ago and colored my perception of the entire story so strongly.