Year of the Dragon is the best Spyro game

It manages a mix of quality and quantity by combining the best elements of 1 and 2

It has the fast-paced collectathon gameplay of the original-while doing 2’s concepts a lot better

Levels in Spyro 2 comprised almost entirely of minigames, which the levels are based around, and a lot of them could be frustrating

The game also used an arbitrary extra collectible-Talismans-to unlock the first two bosses-before settling on orbs for the third

There are only 64 orbs in the game, compared to 80 in the original

And when defeating enemies, rather than being awarded with gems-it instead powers a power up gate

Oh, and there’s also some insanely pointless backtracking as well

Spyro 2 isn’t bad-but it’s uneven

Spyro 3, fixes everything

For starters, 3 has 150 eggs to collect-and none of them feel padded out

Yeah, there’s some lying out in the open, some double minigames, but they’re not overdone

Minigames have their own sub-rooms, and are generally closer to the normal gameplay

Racing, skateboarding, all a ton of fun

Backtracking meanwhile, is kept to unlocking new characters, who have their own areas in prior levels

Spyro 3 is just a very cleanly-designed game, it’s fantastic