First game >Amazing soundtrack >Great level design, easy levels with skill based rewards like flying and supercharging >There's a purpose for each collectable, treasure and eggs are stolen, your species is crystallized
Ripto's Rage >Soundtrack is just okay >Can't explore without being interrupted by an npc asking for money or a shitty minigame >Collect orbs just because >Collect treasure as currency just to spend it for moneybags >Areas cant be completed in one go, have to unlock powerups and backtrack
When does this pick up? I'm legitimately disappointed in the drop because 2 seems to be the fan favorite. It seems they just added minigames to pad the gamelength and cut down on levels.
Did you switch the sound track back to the original?
Angel Young
Spyro definitely suffers from that a bit. The games are all good, but the latter two definitely show weakness in just how many minigames there are. Year of the Dragon is pretty similar to Ripto's Rage in that regard, just add in animal friends you have to unlock world by world and go back to use.
That said I am a bit shocked you aren't enjoying the soundtrack as well, I thought Ripto's Rage had some great tracks - though it does pale to the original. YotD picks things back up in that respect at least.
Ethan Perry
i've only ever played the first (and enter the dragonfly on gamecube) and I'm going to get this on release day for PC. what should I expect with 2 and 3?
Easton Flores
Personally I always felt like 1 is the beta/testing grounds and 2 built upon it in every way. 3 is like a DLC of 2 with the different playable characters. All great games though
Near the end of Sunset Forest now and I find some of the orbs grating, especially the gate missions where you need to unlock them and then run through them repeatedly to hunt down something destructible.
Liam Butler
Okay so you're still early on, that explains some things. Your issues with the game are still valid, but things like Moneybags become a mainstay.
A lot of the Summer Forest stages aren't all that hot anyways, most are just "ok" at best. You'll get a better stuff in most respects during the next homeworld.
Brandon Cox
The first game is just barebone. The mini-game road was the right one, even though some of the aged badly. Also Spyro 2 has way more work put into it's environments.
Playing the remake before the original can alter that perception, because all the games are almost on the same technical level and the remake ruined the original artstyle spectacularly, but Spyro 2 was a huge step up from the first one.
Ayden Nelson
2 being the fan favorite here has always confused me
im pretty sure people think its better because theres more, they actually like all the mini games and money bags and shit
Ethan Phillips
I've always found 2 to be the weakest, mainly because I think it has a bunch of strange design choices (like only having three hub worlds with most of the levels being in Autumn Plains), dilutes the fantastical atmosphere of the first game and has levels built around minigames, most of which aren't all that fun to begin with. At least 3 has a more consistent tone and cordons off the minigames into their own separate areas.
Jacob Moore
yea I really shouldn't speak for 3 because I barely remember it at all and didnt play it too much but i remember liking it more that 2. 1 was always my favorite because despite the fact that it was lacking the "features" of the others it had a certain unique atmosphere stemming from basically all of the forms of artistic design from the music to the colours and designs of the enemies and the overall themes of the levels
nothing in the other games really comes close to the spooky feel of beast makers or the uncomfortable insanity of Dreamweavers for example
Adrian Gomez
1>2>3 Might be because I played in order and I was really in awe when I started playing one after renting it. I spent years thinking that 3 was the best and I enjoyed 2 the least, but after emulating them in more recent years and playing them leisurely I found that 2 was better than I remembered and that I really hate now 3, the bosses were great, but the characters and mini games didn't make it for me. I still replay 1 every year, it has so much soul, it's my favourite game of all time in all honesty
Matthew Foster
Loved 1, enjoyed 2, 3 feels like soulless chore
Chase Lopez
Playing Reignited and while I enjoy it for the most part, I'm a bit mixed on which I like best. Probably 2 though, 3 is good as well but I'm stuck on the skateboard race in Lost Fleet which is annoying
Landon Harris
Have you played Crash? Same evolutionary path. 2 makes 1 feel like a beta game and 3 comes up with a bunch of gimmicks since the core gameplay was polished with 2.
Henry Sullivan
I think it's because 2 is seen as a balance between platforming and minigames. Which I guess is true, but I see it more as the series got worse by focusing more on minigames over good level design. I also feel like the music and atmosphere is weaker in 2 and 3, though 2 has my favorite home worlds. All that said I still think 2 and 3 are good games, I just really prefer 1.
Can someone explain what the glowing orbs are that fall from enemies in 2 and what they're supposed to mean?
Juan Price
Sly Cooper and Ratchet follow this path. I would argue Jak 2 is the best of its trilogy too despite being a soft reboot.
Adrian Torres
Once you kill enough enemies, it activates a power up in that world.
Benjamin Hughes
Jak 2 isnt a soft reboot, its a continuation
Brandon Carter
A continuation that changes genre, gameplay, settings, tone and targeted audience. They have to age, torture and throw Jak 300 years into the future to justify all of the changes they made. We all know it wasn't the original Jak 2 they set out to make.
Noah Brown
If you meant Spyro 1 then getting I think 20 of those orbs will give you an extra life.
Levi Lee
I'm not so sure. The first Crash game had some really big levels whereas 2 had shorter and more focused ones. Also it had an island map based progression similar to DK, so you had these cohesive levels that build off of each other. It's a unique formula that hasn't been revisited in favor of warping sadly.
Michael Young
>A continuation that changes >genre wrong, its still a 3D platformer, just with shooting now, exactly like Ratchet and Clank > gameplay Wrong again, the gameplay is the exact same, trade out the eco for guns, guns are just glorified power-ups
>settings Changing setting doesn't equal soft reboot, lots of sequels have different settings from the previous game
>tone and targeted audience Again, this doesn't equal a reboot, lots of stories have that sequel that will change tones from the previous installment. Latter Harry Potter books/movies changed tone to a more darker feel than the earlier books/movies. Target audience also doesn't equal reboot, they new their audience were older, and they adjusted to match what was popular while still keeping the core gameplay the same.
>We all know it wasn't the original Jak 2 they set out to make. Maybe, but it still isnt a reboot
Michael Harris
1 > 2 >3 Having to play certain segments as different (read: slow) characters was pretty mind-numbing, even if Sgt. Byrd is a bro.
This is pretty much the curse of 90's mascot games. The first is always the only good one. Spyro, Sly, Jak, Tomba, etc. It happens every time, and it's all because of cancerous "There needs to be more, even if it's shit!" mindset in game development.
Julian Moore
Different series got hit by the curse to different degrees though. Spyro 2 and 3 didn't get as nearly as fucked up as Jak 2 and 3, they're still pretty good games. And Sly 2 is the best one in the series
Xavier Johnson
Don't forget that it's also the only really challenging crash as well.
William Myers
2 & 3 weren't very good at all though, and Sly 2 is a fucking disaster compared to the first.
Ryder Stewart
Idiots complained the first game was "too empty" and was not like Banjo Kazooie where everything is backtracking and boring missions 3 is 2 but worse, full of stock levels like "China level" "Cowboy level" that is a complete mockery of the unique design 1 fostered.
Joshua Perez
I'm not going to argue about the definition of a soft reboot but we can agree that it was so far removed from the initial concept it could almost be a new game entirely. Similar to something like God of War.
Nathan Wright
>was not like Banjo Kazooie where everything is backtracking and boring missions There is literally one instance of backtracking in the entirety of Banjo Kazooie. The "boring missions" thing is just plain wrong, what are you on about.
Jonathan Anderson
I bought reignited just for the first game. It's worth the asking price alone, while the other 2 aren't worth wiping your ass with.
Bentley Wood
Sly 1 is literally Spyro 2 I don't see how the game got a sequel, but somehow Sly 2 was leagues better than the original.
John Adams
I'm in the same boat. Never played any Spyro until this Reignited collection (dad was broke we bought MGS, saga frontier 2 and Mr driller instead). Loved 1 so much after playing it a month ago. Finally move onto 2 (i.e. the fan favorite) and it's just way too distracting. Like I just wanna run around on my own and beat the levels at my own pace instead of story or tutorials or NPCs. It's still a good game but man it's disappointing.
Spyro 2 and 3 may not have matched up to 1, but they still had the solid platforming base and even added a bit more onto it like the hover, swimming, climbing, ground pounding, and spitting even if you did have to buy most of that shit from Moneybags. They also did boss battles better than Spyro 1. And yeah the minigames were kind of lackluster but the really egregious ones were few and far between.
>Sly 2 is a fucking disaster compared to the first You sure you don't have 1 and 2 confused? 2 is a massive improvement from 1. The series went from segmented, linear missions where the only goal was to collect keys so you could get to the next set of levels, to multiple open world areas where you had to perform reconnaissance and then plan, set up, and execute a big heist, utilizing all the members of your team. The only reason 3 is inferior to 2 is because it also went a little overboard on the minigame shit, that and they removed all of the overworld collectibles.
Justin Flores
2 has worse level design that doesnt really focus on the flying and charging as much as it should, and theres an absolute fuckton of hopping up stairs. instead of a secretive area being somewhere hard to glide to, or needing supercharge or double supercharge and gliding, you just need a skill to backtrack and then climb up a ladder. some of the minigames are alright, but they dont make up for the much worse level design
Parker Perez
Enemies having lock on during their attack animations makes Reignited so much more difficult
Joseph Young
I grew up with Spyro 1 and the Ratchet and Clank games, not realizing they share a developer until later. Playing Spyro 2 now the worlds and especially boss fights feel so much like a R&C game but less so a Spyro game.
Nathan Kelly
Not that user, but while I was 100%-ing Banjo Tooie a few years ago I was definitely feeling the pains of backtracking. Once you got most of the collectibles in the level it felt barren as shit, so when you eventually have to go back to that place to get the last bit you missed because you didn't have the right ability, it just feels like a huge drag, waddling through the huge empty overworld to the huge empty level and then back again.
Jonathan Miller
That backtracking nonsense annoyed me too.
Levi Myers
>Soundtrack is just okay That's like, uh, your opinion man.
youtube.com/watch?v=uYLNTtH1Q1M youtube.com/watch?v=8iKrZWq8N10 >Can't explore without being interrupted by an npc asking for money or a shitty minigame Disingenuous complaint, I could just as easily shit talk the original for making you listen to a dragon talk for 30 seconds every 15 feet, except in both cases you can skip the dialogue. >Collect orbs just because >Collect treasure as currency just to spend it for moneybags Literally no different from the original. Collect shit with a barebones excuse.
>Areas cant be completed in one go, have to unlock powerups and backtrack
>Glimmer - need climbing >Sunny Beach - need climbing >Summer Forest - need climbing >Fracture Hills - need headbash >Shady Oasis - need headbash Each of those levels can be like 95% completed before you leave the first time. The bit in Glimmer can even be bypassed with minimal effort without exploiting a glitch or anything, at least in the original.
Oh yeah Tooie is full of backtracking for sure, but I was talking about the first game specifically which has almost none.
Jonathan White
To be fair to that other user, you just posted two of the small handful of tracks in Spyro 2 that sound like they belong in Spyro 1. Breeze Harbor in particular sounds like it would fit right in with a third Gnasty's World stage, or in that scrapped Machinist's World. Copeland started getting experimental with electronic effects in Spyro 2 which culminated in 3 just sounding weird. Not necessarily bad, just different.
Matthew Bennett
It's a good compromise between the bare straightforwardness of 1 and the glut of minigames and side characters that is 3. 2's minigames are generally unobtrusive and fun to play, minus one or two. The added swimming mechanic feels fantastic and lends itself to fun levels. Things like the intro/exit cutscenes for the levels and the guidebook menu interface give the game a nice sense of polish.
I like 2 more because every level has its own backstory and conflict you help to resolve. the hubs are also peak comfy.
Noah King
This Spyro manages to get away with added gimmicks since they mostly focus on the game's core mechanics and add much needed variety to the gameplay loop, and they don't detract from the platforming and level design.
Carter Morales
At least the series still ties it's lore back to the original games what with the precursors and Jak and Samos' origins etc.
Anthony Watson
>Areas cant be completed in one go, Spyro 2 is probably the only game where I believe there's no shame in using the cheat code to have all abilities unlocked from the start. The forced backtracking adds nothing to the game and being able to complete every level first go makes for a much smoother experience.
Luis Foster
I think the level aesthetics in 2 were better in general but it's far more restrictive as a whole than 1 or 3, and has a pace that's constantly halted.
Jonathan Cooper
You’re autistic for arguing over the internet
Ethan Kelly
Anyone notice Avalar has more of a high fantasy vibe than the first game with castles and whatnot? I cant put my finger on 1’s storybook setting but it feels less like robin hood.
Ryan Price
I hope the switch version plays well
Leo Young
spyro 1 was boring. spyro 2 was fun. spyro 3 was a shitty spyro 2.
Nolan Myers
>Collect Orbs just because You need them to open up certain worlds later on. They're also needed for the permanent Super Fire powerup at the end of the game. >Collect treasure as currency just to spend it for moneybags You actually get all of that money back in the end. Same thing for Year of the Dragon, except you get the added pleasure of physically beating him up until he drops it all.
David Phillips
The Dragon World feels more consistent/stale because it's all populated by dragons. At best you kinda get a little variety in terms of aesthetic in the different worlds. >Artisans: low fantasy, castles >Peace Keepers: low tech, metal and wood forts and cannons >Magic Crafters: medium fantasy, moving platforms and misty mountains and wizards >Beast Makers: medium tech, gnorcs are punk rockers with headphones and lasers >Dream Weavers: high fantasy, floating islands in the clouds made of abstract geometry >Gnasty's World: high tech, gnorcs have industrialized and are using modern weapons 2 and 3 have less consistency, the worlds feel more like videogame hubs leading to all these zany dimensions instead of physically connected places, but this lets the devs make much more creative individual levels, underwater cities and haunted ship graveyards in the desert.
It's funny the Crash series basically did the same thing Crash 1 is just the island chain where Crash was born as a feral bandicoot which is obviously based on Australia/New Zealand Then in Crash 2/3 you just use warps to go all over the place even through time
Evan Powell
Apparently Crash 2's warp room is still just taking you to different places around the Wumpa Islands. And all the ice levels are simply because it's winter time during the events of Crash 2.
>Ripto's Rage >Those little cutscenes you get before and after you enter and finish a level God i love that shit. Shame the third game couldn't be copied properly, but on the bright side it's giving me a reason to get the trilogy on PC
>and they removed all of the overworld collectibles I thought I would be glad that they removed the bottle-hunting since it was a pain in the ass, turns out I kinda missed the satisfaction of unlocking the secret moves. And bringing the various artifacts back to the base without getting hit OR running out of time
Xavier Mitchell
>Sly 2 is a fucking disaster compared to the first. Imagine having an opinion this fucking wrong. HOLY SHIT user what in the absolute fuck are you smoking?
