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.
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.