I been playing Spyro 2 on-and-off throughout the past few months and I finally sat down with the game and got one third-through it last week. Considering Insomniac never made a 3D platformer before, the Spyro series on the PS1 holds up very, very well
.
The presentation is something I have to commend; both the original and Spyro 2 look fantastic to this day due to its mystical colors and some of the PS1's best soundtracks. The original's score really sells the fact you are in the fantasy world and you are on this grand adventure.
The gameplay is very simple; collect-a-thon platformer with you collecting gems and completing missions in the levels. And Spyro 2 does a lot to add-on to the core gameplay of the original; you play hockey with yetty, you shoot lizards with stones, you fly around flaming gems, and more. The game got a lot of variety and having a really funny tone helps you want to help people out with their issues.
I have to bring up the swimming controls in this case; some of the best 3D swimming in ANY platformer. Odd that a dragon can become a great swimmer but here we are with some really great controls when underwater and it feels to good moving fast underwater.
The level design is solid, with more platforming than the original game and the worlds having far more variety than before (you go to space, underwater, ect).
Overall, this is a great platformer that really shows how strong Insomniac Games can be
. The only issue is the camera but that is fixed when playing on Vita (mapping L2/R2 to Left/Right on the stick and L2/R2 to Down or Up on the right stick).
Edit: Seeing the original PS1 games in their glorly really helped me appreciate them, as I grew up with the latter games in the series on the GC (Heroes Tail) and Wii (Legend of Spyro Eternal Night and Dawn of the Dragon) and found them good/great.
Playing the original games....I still find them good, but I can clearly see why the PS1 games are better; stronger focus on platforming and exploration plus a simple 'charm' and look.
Its also interesting seeing the transition into Skylanders from past Spyro games, as the more the series goes on, the more elements from past Spyro games come back (platforming, usage of other elements, side missions in levels, ect). Going to get Swap Force and Giants in the future (found both for 50 bucks together
), so I can see if they are good or not
.