I should start this review by saying that I absolutely loved the first Spyro the Dragon. If anything could give Super Mario 64 a run for its money, it was it.
Spyro had an amazing sense of terrain; every single inch of level felt deliberately designed to test the player's understanding of jump arcs, gliding distance and steering while dashing.
Essentially, it was to Super Mario 64 what Sonic the Hedgehog was to Super Mario World: trading off a more diverse moveset and list of abilities for a focused design that challenges players to consider the level design carefully, and how your movement works in relation with it.
So it was at first very disappointing seeing Spyro 2 betray its roots. A quick list of minor issues:
- The gems tally carries over from level to level, making it less obvious at a glance how much of the level you've completed.
- Moneybags. I hate Moneybags. There's absolutely nothing redeemable or charismatic about him, and there's very little catharsis regarding him at all.
- Spyro 2 is awfully paced compared to the other two games, especially in terms of level-to-hub distribution.
But there were major design changes that I had issues with.
I preferred saving dragons over the NPCs who hand out Orbs for missions, for one thing. Between the missions and the generally smaller level design, it almost felt as though Spyro 2 wasn't confident in its platforming; and not only that, but dragons just make for more interesting banter, especially from Spyro's side that you don't see enough of in this game.
For another, the unlockable moves largely don't add much meaningful depth to the platforming and exploring, aside from swimming, and feel like padding, forcing players to backtrack. Coming straight from a game that required absolutely none of that, this was a very painful change.
Spyro 2 isn't a bad game. It iterates on the powers very briefly explored by the first game in interesting ways, especially the supercharge and super flame; swimming genuinely adds to the series and what it's capable of in terms of environments and level design, and adds some important new mechanics, most importantly the hover that lets you do a small double jump in exchange for ending your glide.
But it feels like a game that lacked conviction regarding its platforming - something the previous game never suffered from - and falls under the very trappings that that game avoided, but Rare's collectathons suffered from.
Spyro had an amazing sense of terrain; every single inch of level felt deliberately designed to test the player's understanding of jump arcs, gliding distance and steering while dashing.
Essentially, it was to Super Mario 64 what Sonic the Hedgehog was to Super Mario World: trading off a more diverse moveset and list of abilities for a focused design that challenges players to consider the level design carefully, and how your movement works in relation with it.
So it was at first very disappointing seeing Spyro 2 betray its roots. A quick list of minor issues:
- The gems tally carries over from level to level, making it less obvious at a glance how much of the level you've completed.
- Moneybags. I hate Moneybags. There's absolutely nothing redeemable or charismatic about him, and there's very little catharsis regarding him at all.
- Spyro 2 is awfully paced compared to the other two games, especially in terms of level-to-hub distribution.
But there were major design changes that I had issues with.
I preferred saving dragons over the NPCs who hand out Orbs for missions, for one thing. Between the missions and the generally smaller level design, it almost felt as though Spyro 2 wasn't confident in its platforming; and not only that, but dragons just make for more interesting banter, especially from Spyro's side that you don't see enough of in this game.
For another, the unlockable moves largely don't add much meaningful depth to the platforming and exploring, aside from swimming, and feel like padding, forcing players to backtrack. Coming straight from a game that required absolutely none of that, this was a very painful change.
Spyro 2 isn't a bad game. It iterates on the powers very briefly explored by the first game in interesting ways, especially the supercharge and super flame; swimming genuinely adds to the series and what it's capable of in terms of environments and level design, and adds some important new mechanics, most importantly the hover that lets you do a small double jump in exchange for ending your glide.
But it feels like a game that lacked conviction regarding its platforming - something the previous game never suffered from - and falls under the very trappings that that game avoided, but Rare's collectathons suffered from.