I first met Spyro in Year of the Dragonfly, but the GBA "Season" games were the ones I first played through. I definitely played through Season of Fire first, then I... at least started Season of Ice? I genuinely can't remember if I beat Season of Ice as a kid. But hey, I did beat it now. 100%, too, more or less.
Spyro is a hard thing to translate into 2D, even moreso than a lot of your 3D platformer mascots of the era. Banjo-Kazooie, Crash Bandicoot? You can largely replicate their whole thing. Spyro? Well, that's a harder ask.
I think what they came up with - an isometric platformer with an emphasis on running around and flying across gaps - works well enough. Definitely not my preferred mode to play, as the game ends up asking for some leaps of faith every now and again, but it's generally fair with its challenges. Season of Ice generally focuses on the more exploration-based missions from Ripto's Rage/Year of the Dragon than the bigger mechanical missions, so it works out okay. Those thieves are kind of a good showcase why Season of Ice shouldn't be mechanics-driven.
One thing I didn't really appreciate before is how much of an attempt there is to maintain continuity with Year of the Dragon. There's obvious stuff like the presence of Rhynocs (who start their march into inexplicable relevance here) and the core hero friend group being Spyro/Sparx/Hunter/Bianca. But you have deeper cuts as well, like "Hummingbird Fort" being a nod to Sgt. Byrd's backstory (complete with the Hummingbirds all being French), or "Roman City" seeming to take place in Year of the Dragon's "Sunny Villa". Honestly a bit of a nice treat; if I'd been more aware of Spyro lore as a kid, I would've gotten a ton out of all that.
Weirdly, with its limited focus on Spyro and Sparx as the only playable characters, this is perhaps the closest Spyro as a series ever returned to the purity of form of the original title. The only real distractions are the Sparx shmup stages (which, weirdly, may have been one of my first forays into the genre? They're all right) and the Speedway stages. The GBA couldn't possibly replicate the Speedways as they existed on console, so here they're basically Space Harrier-style SHMUPs. They're a'ight, though I don't know what the hell is going on with some of the enemies. Also, while it's cool that the Speedway stages have a time travel motif, what the hell is the "Aqua Age"?
Actually, that Space Age Speedway kinda screwed me over. The palette it uses to differentiate between Green and Yellow enemies is too similar for my colorblindness to distinguish. You need to hit the Yellows to extend your time, while the Greens are just fodder. I'd managed every other Speedway to that point, but no matter how many times I attempted it, I just couldn't get the Hard fairy. I confess I eventually gave up and - since you normally need every fairy in the game to get to the final boss - used a code to cheat my way in. I made up for it by using a glitch to collect two extra gems, so my save file still counted me as having cleared 100.0% of the game. Hopefully that's of some consolation to poor Micki the Fairy?
I owe Season of Flame a revisit to see how well it holds up. I definitely liked it better as a kid, since you get multiple breath types in that game, but who knows? Maybe this'll be another case where I prefer the original's mechanical purity of form on revisit.
Spyro is a hard thing to translate into 2D, even moreso than a lot of your 3D platformer mascots of the era. Banjo-Kazooie, Crash Bandicoot? You can largely replicate their whole thing. Spyro? Well, that's a harder ask.
I think what they came up with - an isometric platformer with an emphasis on running around and flying across gaps - works well enough. Definitely not my preferred mode to play, as the game ends up asking for some leaps of faith every now and again, but it's generally fair with its challenges. Season of Ice generally focuses on the more exploration-based missions from Ripto's Rage/Year of the Dragon than the bigger mechanical missions, so it works out okay. Those thieves are kind of a good showcase why Season of Ice shouldn't be mechanics-driven.
One thing I didn't really appreciate before is how much of an attempt there is to maintain continuity with Year of the Dragon. There's obvious stuff like the presence of Rhynocs (who start their march into inexplicable relevance here) and the core hero friend group being Spyro/Sparx/Hunter/Bianca. But you have deeper cuts as well, like "Hummingbird Fort" being a nod to Sgt. Byrd's backstory (complete with the Hummingbirds all being French), or "Roman City" seeming to take place in Year of the Dragon's "Sunny Villa". Honestly a bit of a nice treat; if I'd been more aware of Spyro lore as a kid, I would've gotten a ton out of all that.
Weirdly, with its limited focus on Spyro and Sparx as the only playable characters, this is perhaps the closest Spyro as a series ever returned to the purity of form of the original title. The only real distractions are the Sparx shmup stages (which, weirdly, may have been one of my first forays into the genre? They're all right) and the Speedway stages. The GBA couldn't possibly replicate the Speedways as they existed on console, so here they're basically Space Harrier-style SHMUPs. They're a'ight, though I don't know what the hell is going on with some of the enemies. Also, while it's cool that the Speedway stages have a time travel motif, what the hell is the "Aqua Age"?
Actually, that Space Age Speedway kinda screwed me over. The palette it uses to differentiate between Green and Yellow enemies is too similar for my colorblindness to distinguish. You need to hit the Yellows to extend your time, while the Greens are just fodder. I'd managed every other Speedway to that point, but no matter how many times I attempted it, I just couldn't get the Hard fairy. I confess I eventually gave up and - since you normally need every fairy in the game to get to the final boss - used a code to cheat my way in. I made up for it by using a glitch to collect two extra gems, so my save file still counted me as having cleared 100.0% of the game. Hopefully that's of some consolation to poor Micki the Fairy?
I owe Season of Flame a revisit to see how well it holds up. I definitely liked it better as a kid, since you get multiple breath types in that game, but who knows? Maybe this'll be another case where I prefer the original's mechanical purity of form on revisit.