Spyro Series Playthrough Thoughts

All three PS1 spyro games
- The camera controls are really limited, and immediately off the bat I strongly prefer my 3d platformers on my N64. There's no zoom-out, nor tilting up/down - the only camera controls that exist are rotating it laterally. I can overlook it since it's like, the playstation 1's initial foray into a 3d platformer, but when I compare it to the other 3d games on N64 that platform, it's... a pretty huge step down.

Spyro 1
+ The music has some pretty banger percussion while still nailing the "cozy exploration" feel
+ It's very cute how every dragon has their own voiced quotes and names, even if many are just recolored skins. You can tell they were going for some personality on every dragon, even if it lacks depth. Many quotes put a smile on my face with how cheesy and cute they are. Really, it's impressive they voice lined ALL 80 dragons (and spyro's lines) in a PS1 game.
+ That being said, I do notice the pattern of new areas introducing new enemies immediately, then as you rescue dragons, they give tips/hints about how to handle each kind of enemy. It's not really necessary since pretty much everything is either "charge" or "fire", but I do really appreciate this kind of design especially given it's a game for kids.
+ The level design philosophy (At least later on) seems to ENCOURAGE the player to "break" the game with spyro's gliding too - it'll be like "this ledge is sorta outta reach - you'll have to find some weird (though clearly intended) way to get up there with clever gliding!" and what a less informed player would think is "omg i did something unintended!" actually leads to... more treasure/goodies. And that's cool!
+/- Boss areas are neat in that they're... actually exploring areas too just named after the bosses. But the bosses themselves are... there? They exist? They're rather anticlimatic / TOO simplistic, even by this game's standards.
- It might just be me not growing up with a PS1, but the lack of real stick controls in a 3d platformer is... really really awkward. It especially made the flight stages even more awkward which I was NOT a fan of, but they're tolerable enough that it's not a big deal.
- Camera controls kinda stink - your only options are to rotate it horizontally, and a button to center it behind you. But well, it's at least better than a certain other series starting with a J, a generation later, where it does NOT have a button to center the camera :) :) :)
- This game is abnormally picky about letting you over ledges. Like, if you barely clip a ledge and it looks like you could've made it, the game will usually shove you down and you die - this made a lot of glides way tighter than necessary. It also was very frustrating to deal with this on the final boss, which was basically a timed chase with a lot of these glides

There's definitely some bullshittery/outdatedness in this game, but all in all I can really see why this game/series has such a fanbase. It's a nice cozy 3d exploration game where you glide around and collect stuff - and it sticks to that simplicity. Just, not much else to say - charming cute simple collectathon that's just, really really simple.

No sheep were harmed in this review.


Spyro 2 - Ripto's Rage
+ FEED. THE. HIPPO. (in shady oasis)
+ Spyro also got a little hover hop that he can do anytime during his glide, to make that tiny last "oomf" - it's a nice little depth added to gliding, and a lot of the harder platforming parts are clearly designed around it. Though, I do wish the game had an option to just, drop down without hopping (spyro 1 had that, but this hop replaced it)
+ In-game map! Huge plus!
+ There are way fewer areas in this game, but that's not really a bad thing - each area has more NPCs and missions to interact with. The general design is that you need to get every talisman to advance, and each area has a "end of stage" objective that grants you that talisman. But there are other missions that grant you green orbs too - which can be hit or miss. And there's still tons of crystal collecting anyways, so it feels like more of the same core gameplay. At the end of the day, it feels like it adds more depth to the world and gives me more variety of goals than just "fly around, get crystals". Overall plus IMO.
+/- The bosses are... actually bosses! With health bars and patterns! That's neat! However, the nature of the boss fights made the camera's issues REALLY apparent - for 2 out of 3 bosses, you're relying on a random flying NPC dropping stuff for you to grab/knock back at the boss. Which... you can't see, because you can't zoom out, you can't tilt the camera higher, you can only see straight ahead. This is especially problematic for the Ripto fight, where Ripto himself is trying to get 3 orb power ups like you are, and of course the AI can see the orbs off-camera but you can't.
- So I don't really mind finding future abilities then backtracking to unlock stuff - but when that also inherently requires REDOING missions upon revisits (Banjo Kazooie Style! HOORAY!!!!!), it's incredibly aggravating and time-wasting. Especially having to REDO really horrible escort missions because another quest was locked behind it that happened to require a future ability.
- As mentioned before, minigames are... very hit or miss. And oh boy the misses are VERY. BAD. Ice Hockey can eat my ass. The Ocean Speedway ring challenge is completely garbage - it gives you no indicator of which ring you're supposed to go through until the computer does - which you're going to outspeed. A huge abundance of escort missions, including one where the alchemist you escort literally fakes you out because... reason??!?!?!? Like, the bad minigames in this game reeeeeeeeally held this game back to the point of frustration and bad design.
- Some flying minigames require chasing a plane and going through their rings - that alone isn't bad, but there is zero indicator of where the plane will go, you outspeed the plane, so you have to constantly try to wiggle around and slow down so you don't outspeed it and miss rings. This led to tons of obnoxious trial and error

I'd like to say I enjoyed this as much as Spyro 1 but... the redoing of mission killing the backtracking, and the camera being even more of a huge negative, and the abundance of missions that have tedious waiting around REALLY push this game back a lot more for me. I definitely respect what it tried to do to advance the series but in the end, a third of the game felt like a frustrating fight against the controls and camera due to the nature of a lot of the missions/fights.


Spyro 3
+ While I'm still not a fan of the flying controls with the ps1 controller, they clearly recognized the issues of the flying missions in Spyro 2 and addressed the "fly through these rings behind the plane" mission by giving you a transparent path of red dots. I really appreciate this improvement.
+ Dino Mines was incredibly hilarious and charming. Honestly probably the most stand-out level in this entire trilogy. YEEHAW.
+ The "world-building" and focus on Spyro's friends is a nice plus with the cutscenes. Yeah sure they're PS1 cutscenes and I'm in my 30s so I can't really take them seriously at all, but for a PS1 kids game? They're pretty neat. I especially liked Bianca's character through the game, as simple as her "development" is by today's standards.
+ Building upon the last point, all of the boss battles have Spyro's friends helping out. It doesn't fundamentally change how the game itself plays, but I do appreciate seeing this.
+/- This game is even more excessive with minigames - some are fine, some really aren't. In particular, the current controls are god awful garbage, and anything that requires active reticule aiming also controls horribly. However, I do really respect that they were trying to show off the PS1 tech of some of the more unique games, such as a FPS shooter, and an arcade-style run-and-gun shooter. They still control awfully, but I appreciate what they were going for.
- Sheila the Kangaroo's controls are... kinda ass. The jumping is fine, but her kick attack has a >0.5 second of input delay for whatever dumb reason - yes it's that bad, I timed it. It makes dealing with enemies basically a "I pray I did it early ish"
- Escort missions where the escorter literally fakes you out return. HOORAY