One of the greatest strengths of Spyro the Dragon lied in its simplicity — one that complimented its whimsical tone and aesthetic wonderfully, making it my go-to 3D platformer to play through whenever I just want to relax and have some fun. Ripto's Rage (or Gateway to Glimmer) retains and often expands upon the charm of the first game, however there's a catch.

It's easy to see why this was the Spyro game I had the most fond memories of as a kid; every single level has its own intro and outro cinematic which adds flavor to each world, the voice acting is comical and breathes a lot of life into the experience, and the entire thing feels a tad grander in scale than its predecessor. In addition to this, there are a handful of additions to Spyro's toolkit, the most notable being the hover and swimming, which makes Spyro feel better to control and also allows for more variety in its levels. I feel that if the new implementations had stopped there, Ripto's Rage would have been an outstanding sequel, but unfortunately it suffers from feature creep and has issues maintaining momentum.

In Ripto's Rage, there are two new forms of collectables: talismans and orbs. There are several orbs that you can obtain from each stage and the way you obtain them is through minigames that often switch up the core gameplay loop. I don't have an issue with this idea in theory as long as it's done in moderation, but here it's done in excess. The layouts of every stage are often designed with these minigames in mind, leaving the general parts of each stage to feel less intuitive than the levels of the first game on top of turning the process of collecting orbs into an exercise in tedium at points. While I enjoyed most of the minigames, the extraneous amount of them feel like additions for the sake of additions. Then there are the talismans, the MacGuffins of this game that you receive as a reward for clearing through each stage. In order to unlock the boss fight of each home world, you need the talismans of each level... until Winter Tundra, that is. I'm not sure what the logic is behind making it to where the stipulation for unlocking Ripto's Arena are orbs, but it leaves me wondering what the point of adding talismans into the game in the first place was.

There's also bloat in the form of the climbing and headbash mechanics, which you unlock in Autumn Plains and Winter Tundra respecively. I don't necessarily mind the idea of adding more tools to Spyro's toolkit (apart from climbing ladders being a strange mechanic to implement in a game where you control a dragon), however with these new mechanics comes a necessity to backtrack if you want to aim for full completion, momentarily hurting the momentum of the game in each instance this is required. The most egregious example of this the alchemist escort quest in Fracture Hills, which is not only one of the most obnoxious minigames throughout the whole game, but if you didn't know you had to come back to this level once you obtain the headbash from Winter Tundra, you would have to come back to this level later and escort the alchemist all over again just to unlock the part where you defeat the earthshapers with the assistance of Hunter. Thankfully the amount of backtracking in this game is kept fairly minimal, but I still think it's a shame that there's any at all considering that there wasn't in the first game.

Ripto's Rage is a distinctive sequel with a myriad of ideas brought to the table and while I do appreciate the experience for what it is, there's no doubt in my mind that it could have been so much more.

Sometimes less is more.

Spyro the Dragon was the very first video game I ever played and the original trilogy was an integral part of my childhood. While I'd like to preface this review by stating that I do have a distinct nostalgic bias for this game, I feel that it still holds up quite well in terms of presentation and level design. Spyro 1 is a simplistic approach to a collectathon platformer where your toolkit consists of a flame breath to torch enemies, a glide to traverse from one platform to another, and a charge which acts as a hybrid tool for both moving at a quicker speed and defeating enemies by knocking them out of your way. The end result is a game that is relatively laid-back, especially since you have access to all of these controls right from the very beginning of the game. It occasionally spices things up through a flight level once per home world, or through the supercharge which is introduced in the Magic Crafters home world and every level that features it is carefully designed around this mechanic and rewards exploration with it. While there's an occasionally tricky glide to make here and there or a platform to reach that requires thinking a bit outside the box with the supercharge powerup, Spyro 1 is a really relaxed platformer where you go into each stage, casually explore until you unearth all of its treasure and save all the dragons, and then move onto the next with no backtracking necessary if you want to aim for full completion. Backtracking is an element that's fairly negligible to me in a game with levels as short as this, but it's neat that there's absolutely none of it within this game when so many of its contemporaries require it for full completion. I also like how every single level in the game is tied in with their respective home world aesthetically.

I also can't talk about Spyro without bringing mention to its incredibly distinct soundtrack, which was composed by Stewart Copeland. Every single track in the game has a whimsical feel to it which compliments the art direction wonderfully, and the use of percussion really stands out. It's so satisfying to charge around as Spyro while hearing a whole bunch of awesome drum beats in the background! I've always really liked the soundtrack ever since I was a young kid, but returning back to this gives me newfound appreciation for it.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well this game held up for me. While it doesn't offer much in terms of challenge for those looking for it, it's perfect for a bit of casual platforming to unwind to after a tiring day at work, and also has a really pleasant, lighthearted tone to accompany its gameplay. One of my ultimate comfort games.