Spyro Thread

[Anonymous No.4852892]

Let's discuss some of the PSX's best platforming games

[Anonymous No.4852897]

To this day I've never played a Spyro game. I was a teenager when they came out and deemed them kid games. What should I play first?

[Anonymous No.4852915]

>polygon warping

[Anonymous No.4852939]

>>4852897
Doesn't really matter since all 3 good, when I first played them several years ago I started with 3 and worked my way back to the first

[Anonymous No.4852942]

>>4852897
Spyro 1 has the best soundtrack and comfiest collectathons without a bunch of lame side quests

[Anonymous No.4853013]

>>4852915
Part of the hardware *shrug*. After the first year on the market developers got better at dealing with it and it was never a major concern. The only people who bring it up are N64 fanbois and people not old enough at the time.

[Anonymous No.4853049]

It's shit compared to Crash. Great example of a nostalgia goggles series.

[Anonymous No.4853117]

>>4853049
>Comparing apples to oranges

[Anonymous No.4853158]

>>4853049
>noooo u can't like what I don't like, you're blinded by nostalgia, blindeeeeeeeeeeeed

[Anonymous No.4853220]

sup

[Anonymous No.4853289]

>>4852892
That screenshot sucks, the colors are way off.

[Anonymous No.4853363]

>>4853049
I just don't understand people like you.

Do you only play one game in each genre?

Console wars are fucking retarded, especially when it comes to consoles no longer on store shelves, but I at least understand the brand loyalty mentality behind them.

But I don't get your type.

[Anonymous No.4853414]

>>4853289
This, wtf OP

[Anonymous No.4853507]

>>4852897
Just play them in order.

[Anonymous No.4853571]

>>4852892
The first one was really good, the other two didn't do much with the level design and just added missions that really broke the pace. The swimming mechanic though was pretty nice.

[Anonymous No.4853780]

>>4853289
>>4853414
Not my fault, I just got it off of google images

[Anonymous No.4853793]

>>4853363

No, but it this series often gets as much, or more praise than much better PS1 gamers.

[Anonymous No.4853802]

>>4853793

>No, but this series often gets as much, or more praise than much better PS1 games

Fixed. I clearly had a stroke while typing that.

[Anonymous No.4853814]

>>4853793
I don't see how that's even an issue. Are you just mad that Ape Escape isn't getting remastered and Spyro is?

[Anonybous !!juvT9wo4YLG No.4853934]

>>4852915
That's part of the charm, silly

[Anonybous !!juvT9wo4YLG No.4853936]

>>4853220
Croc and Croc II were great, fighting Dante sucked though

[Anonymous No.4855652]

>>4853049
They're not the same genre.

[Anonymous No.4855769]

>>4852897
You can play them in intended order, or chronological order.

Intended Order:
1 -> 2 -> 3

Chronological Order:
1 -> 2 -> 3

[Anonymous No.4855873]

>>4852892
Ripto's Rage is an all-time fun memory in gaming for me. The third one was a more complete game, but 2 is the one that will always stick out to me.

>>4852897
I played 2, 3, then 1 (didn't own 1 until given it later by a friend). I'd just do them in order though.

>>4853220
This is the first PS1 game I ever played at a friend's house. Great platformer.

[Anonymous No.4857145]

Everyone always says SM64 and Banjo were the definitive 5th gen platformers but Spyro honestly blows them out of the water to me.

[Anonymous No.4857201]

>>4852892
I used to play the hell out of the demo as a child. I was always confused because I got everything from the 3 available levels but nothing happened after that.

[Anonymous No.4857626]

>>4857145
Spyro is a collectathon, not just a platformer.

[Anonymous No.4859314]

Spyro 1 is fondly remembered in my heart as one of the greatest games of all time .The aesthetics and music are all bold and imaginitive (and lowkey psychedelic af) and the overall difficulty curve/progression is just chill as hell.

Spyro 2 was the first time I ever remember being bitterly disappointed with a game. It was the first time I felt frustrated at the "forced tutorial" bullshit which has since become an accepted trope of the medium. I remember being hype as fuck as a 9 year old, couldn't wait to get my hands on it- And then I had some cheetah dumb-ass telling me how to glide. I already beat the first game! Just let me go out and charge shit!

Never played the third.

I will probably try out all of them when the remake comes out. I think overall, though Crash has stood the test of time better as the tight, challenging old-school platformer type game it is, rather than the collectathon of Spyro.

[Anonymous No.4859329]

>>4859314
3 is better than 2 imo, mostly because it has superior level design and doesn't feel rushed as fuck.
HOWEVER it also comes with four downright dogshit awful playable characters that not only suck in their own right, but are also used for absolutely horrendous mini-games.

Spyro 1 all day every day.

[Anonymous No.4859732]

>>4859314
>>4859329
>liking spyro 1 over 2
What?

[Anonymous No.4859758]

>>4859732
I value consistent art direction and actual good level design over a mishmash of unconnected styles, linear levels and just plain annoying mini-games.

[Anonymous No.4859764]

>>4859732

Spyro 1 is a work of art that rises above its kiddy platformer roots. You can tell the creators had vision and purpose.

The rest of the series are good, don't get me wrong, but they are kiddy platformers and nothing more. They exist to sell copies.

[Anonymous No.4859767]

>>4859758

Nah, Spyro 2 is great and in no way feels rushed or mishmash in level design.

The hub worlds were amazing (Autumn Plains the best), and it had Aquaria Towers as a level. Great soundtrack, too.

[Anonymous No.4859773]

>>4857626
you could argue that most of the platformers of the 5th gen were collectathons

[Anonymous No.4859785]

>>4859767
Autumn Plains is great, but one great level doesn't make a game. I hate Aquaria Towers and I actually hate a vast majority of the levels in this game.

[Anonymous No.4859789]

>>4859758
Come on, Spyro 1 compared to 2 feels like an unfinished and unpolished game. It actually has a worse level design especially in the first few levels, get your nostalgia goggles off.
>annoying mini-games
Less than 10 were annoying, and they're there to fill the void of boredom that the game would have without them, like Spyro 1 had. You don't have to play them to finish the game. Don't try to sell a lack of features as a feature, you're not Steve Jobs.

>>4859764
>kiddy platformers
So was Spyro 1.

[Anonymous No.4859792]

>>4859785
I genuinely can't think of a single great level in the first game. Most of them were either bad or mediocre. Not to mention that enemies in the hub world and a lack of bosses were terrible decisions they made when making the first game.

[Anonymous No.4859806]

>>4859789
I don't have any nostalgia goggles on. The level design in Spyro 1 is objectively more interesting and more fleshed out than Spyro 2's will ever be. Stone Hill is an early level that has branching paths right off the bat, with one or two secret areas. Town Square has a really cool hidden location with the egg thief. The game features excellent geometry puzzles and supercharge shenanigans that are absolutely, positively nowhere to be found in Spyro 2, and I know it since I replayed the trilogy recently. Where is an equivalent to the chest key from Dry Canyon in Spyro 2? Stuff that makes you actually wait and think instead of pressing forward and beating the odd shitty mini-game on the way. The only part in Spyro 1 that feels rushed is Gnorc Gnexus, and that's because it was indeed rushed. The levels themselves in this homeworld are pretty good.

I vastly prefer games that try to do something simple and achieve this perfectly, which is why I don't like the mini-games in Spyro 2 and certainly don't like the playable characters in Spyro 3. It's exactly the same reason why I prefer a game like Thief that focuses solely on stealth rather than Deus Ex that tries to be a jack of all trade and ends up a master of none.

[Anonymous No.4859820]

>>4859792
Ice Cavern, Dark Passage, Cliff Town, Wizard Peak, Lofty Castle, Tree Tops, High Caves and Dry Canyon among others are excellent levels that provide challenging platforming and have cool layouts. Dark Passage for instance has an entire half of the map that is a secret and that can easily be missed. Ice Cavern features some of the best atmosphere in the game and also has a great layout that keeps on going when you think it's over. Wizard Peak features two wholly different paths to get to the end area, and requires you to combine supercharges to reach the furthest points.

You don't find that shit anywhere in Spyro 2. Even the supercharges that makes a return in Spyro 3 are confined to side areas and are never found in the main levels.

[Anonymous No.4859821]

>>4859806

You are objectively wrong. Spyro 2 is the superior game. As all good sequels should, Spyro 2 took the core mechanics of the first game and polished them, tried new ideas, gave more content, more actions and better level design. The soundtrack was also better.

[Anonymous No.4859829]

>>4859821
What did Spyro 2 polish exactly? I will concede that the hover and better charge handling were much needed, but I don't see how it added polish to the other areas. The swimming is welcome but was really not needed.
It tried new ideas and it failed a lot more than it succeeded in my book. More content, this is debatable. The game has less levels than Spyro 1 and lot of the content is a waste of time with awfum mini-games. Level design in 2 is abysmal, it's one linear path to the end with gated progression that requires you to do the NPCs' bidding to progress in most levels. And when it's an open level, it sucks (Fracture Hills). I also disagree on the soundtrack being better, but I will say that it's definitely better than Spyro 3's.

[Anonymous No.4859853]

>>4859821

Oh, so you are just trolling. Nevermind then.

>So was Spyro 1.

Dat reading comprehension tho

[Anonymous No.4859867]

>>4852892
Spyro was ethereal skybox simulator, the whole game felt like a dream.

[Anonymous No.4859874]

>>4859806
>supercharge shenanigans
They were overused in Spyro 1, there was no point in including them in the sequel.
>branching paths
This not an indicator of a good level. It can be a bad thing, in fact it's just prolonging the level just like mini games do. It's up to you to decide what's more fun. Just look at stone hill you mentioned, the entire section when you're on the top feels out of place and incomplete.
>level design in Spyro 1 is objectively more interesting and more fleshed
It absolutely isn't. The level design in S1 is very bad in most cases.

>>4859821
This

>>4859820
>secret areas mean good level design
No
>two wholly different paths to get to the end area
Bad level design in a collectathon

>>4859829
Controls, UI, graphics, enemy mechanics
>has less levels than Spyro 1
Spyro 1 had shorter levels in most cases, even if you ignore the mini games.
>one linear path to the end
There's nothing wrong with this. In fact, as a platformer/collectathon that's exactly how levels should be made. Linear, but with some extra places. In S1 those were "secret" areas, in S2 those were mini games. And mini games are definitely more interesting than secret areas when done right, most of them were.

[Anonymous No.4859887]

>4chan goes out for a walk

[Anonymous No.4859916]

>>4859874
>They were overused in Spyro 1, there was no point in including them in the sequel.
Not really. The only levels that used them extensively were Wizard Peak, High Caves, Tree Tops, Lofty Castle, Haunted Towers and Twilight Harbor. That's honestly what I would call overused in my book.

>This not an indicator of a good level. It can be a bad thing, in fact it's just prolonging the level just like mini games do. It's up to you to decide what's more fun. Just look at stone hill you mentioned, the entire section when you're on the top feels out of place and incomplete.
In the case of Spyro, branching paths are never a bad thing. This game is all about the exploration to find treasure, dragons and eggs. The branching paths all loop on the main level which means you never end up in a dead end. This is the sign of good level design. The plains section of Stone Hill might be a bit empty, but I think it adds a lot of flavor to the level.

>It absolutely isn't. The level design in S1 is very bad in most cases.
>Bad level design in a collectathon
>There's nothing wrong with this. In fact, as a platformer/collectathon that's exactly how levels should be made. Linear, but with some extra places. In S1 those were "secret" areas, in S2 those were mini games. And mini games are definitely more interesting than secret areas when done right, most of them were.
Lol. See above. Also no, the mini-games in Spyro 2 sucked. I don't think linearity is inherently bad, but when you come from open level design relying heavily on stack of loops to one straight line to the end with very little in the way of exploration, allow me to be very annoyed. The only level that was similar to Spyro 1 was Hurricos.

>Spyro 1 had shorter levels in most cases, even if you ignore the mini games.
The levels in Spyro 2 feel only marginally longer than Spyro 1's in terms of size and playtime (discounting mini-games).

[Anonymous No.4859950]

>>4859916
>This game is all about the exploration to find treasure, dragons and eggs.
Okay, so we agree the 2 games have different directions and are almost a different genre. Good. Keep liking what you like, you won't change my mind. And finding dragons was never a challenge since they were always where you'd go anyways, they felt out of place honestly and are one of the worst aspects of the game.

>The levels in Spyro 2 feel only marginally longer than Spyro 1
Take a look at town square

>but when you come from open level design relying heavily on stack of loops to one straight line to the end with very little in the way of exploration, allow me to be very annoyed.
There you go, admitting you're influenced by nostalgia. It's the first thing you've tried, so you like it better. This is called anchoring bias.

[Anonymous No.4859963]

>>4859916
Some other things I want to add:
Levels in Spyro 1 were still linear in nature, but were made of loops stacked on smaller loops. The most time consuming aspect in this game was to figure out how to reach some of the most hidden/out of reach loops. This doesn't happen in Spyro 2 since they were replaced with mini-games. Mini-games have jack shit to do with level design, they never enter into the equation (other than setting up the areas for them, which are 90% of the time found along the path to the end anyway).

When you are someone who focuses on level design a lot and whose job is to design levels, I really, really do not give a single shit about mini-games and am pretty pissed that they took precedence over hidden/out of reach locations as the time-consuming aspect of the game. Add to that that designing a game isn't easy, but designing more games within a game is much harder, which means that it's very easy to screw up. Surprise, Spyro 2's mini-games are just not fun. The Alchemist is annoying, the Earthshaper game is even more annoying, the crystals in the volcano level whose name I forgot is annoying, the hockey match is annoying because ice physics suck, the trolley is annoying, etc etc. I could go on.

If these mini-games were found in levels as complex and as interesting as Spyro 1's, I wouldn't be as annoyed because I would still have solid levels to play through. This isn't the case. Instead I have to play through levels that are one straight line to the end, provide no exploration (with a few exceptions still) and require you to wait for NPCs/do something for them to actually be able to progress through them (Sunny Beach, Idol Springs, Shady Oasis, etc). You say that collectathon levels need to on a rail to be good, but I seriously, fundamentally disagree. To me it's absolutely the opposite: the more open-ended the level, the better it is, which is why Spyro 1 wins by a landslide for me.

[Anonymous No.4859967]

>>4859950
>And finding dragons was never a challenge since they were always where you'd go anyways, they felt out of place honestly and are one of the worst aspects of the game.
That's not true, there are a few dragons located in really devious locations. Jed in Tree Tops, the one in Dry Canyon next to the chest key and the other fucker in Haunted Towers being prime examples.

>Take a look at town square
A world 1 level is short, whoop dee doo.

>There you go, admitting you're influenced by nostalgia. It's the first thing you've tried, so you like it better. This is called anchoring bias.
Not really. I'm admitting I'm influenced by good level design practices. This is not the same thing. I played Crash Bandicoot 1 before 2 and, surprise, I think 2 is better.

[Anonymous No.4859980]

>>4859967
>I played Crash Bandicoot 1 before 2 and, surprise, I think 2 is better.
They didn't change the formula like Insomniac did. Of course a technically superior game which is a direct upgrade is better.

[Anonymous No.4860008]

>>4859980
You're correct, but I could still be blinded by nostalgia. Which I'm not, I can readily admit that a game I really liked and thought was good, is actually pretty shitty. I used to love Quake 2 but replaying it a few years ago I found it to be dull as fuck for a myriad of reasons (most notably level design, again).

[Anonymous No.4860547]

2's minigames are all easy

[Anonymous No.4860625]

>>4857145
I like Mario 64 because the movements are awesome and level design makes good use of them, while I like Spyro because serene with a decent amount of action and also very well produced it's a VERY rare thing for a
3D platformer and Spyro execution is mostly flawless, always found Rare 3D platforming games to be too middle of the road personally, a jack of all trades thing, they feel bloated despite being the same kind of game as Spyro, and they don't have the feel of control over your character like Mario, their achievement is being technically impressive but technology moves on, great design choices not so much.

[Anonymous No.4860896]

>>4860547
There are frustrating ones, especially for kids.

[Anonymous No.4861608]

>>4852897
Just try the first and see if you like it. 1's probably objectively the best in terms of overall quality, it's the only one I can replay back to back multiple times without getting a little burnt out. 2's my favorite, I know some people don't like the extra minigame shit they added, but I think a lot of them are fun, and even the worst ones are inoffensive. 3 probably has the highest highs and the lowest lows, they gilded a few of their lilies too hard. It's jammed full of content, but a lot of that content consists of playing as characters not as fun as Spyro and more frustrating minigames than 2.

[Anonymous No.4861616]

>>4857145
Spyro plays a lot differently, you're a character with limited vertical movement abilities but with great horizontal ones. You can glide across the whole level from any high vantage point without needing a powerup, and you can run at sanic speed with the press of a button. I guess it just depends on which flavor you prefer.

[Anonymous No.4861641]

>>4852897
Play in order. If you play 2 first you'd be disappointed with how bad 1 is. 3 is also a clusterfuck with it's annoying extra characters.

[Anonymous No.4861692]

>>4861641

>disappointed with how bad 1 is.

Hopefully you mean by comparison, cause 1 is certainly not a bad game.

[Anonymous No.4861702]

>>4861692
This.

[Anonymous No.4861713]

>>4861692
Yes, by comparison. Sorry.

[Anonymous No.4861729]

>>4861641
Cannot disagree with this. I rented 2 before I touched one and loved it. I decided to play 1 afterwards and I couldn't really bother, but I was fine with 3.

[Anonymous No.4863397]

>>4859887
underrated

[Anonymous No.4863586]

>>4861616
I wish more Spyro 3 levels were as fun as this.

[Anonymous No.4863689]

The controls are shit, hard to maneuver on tight corners always ended up slipping off cliffs, it's like trying to steer a speeding boat through a minefield

[Anonymous No.4864853]

>>4861608
Basically how I feel about them.
2 felt like it had a good balance of the first games emptiness and the third's bloated cast and levels. The minigames in the 2nd and the characters in them made the worlds more memorable and unique imo while 3 made going through them almost a bore what with six eggs per level, mulitple parts in a level with loading inbetween, and the boring characters as you said ( I only enjoyed playing Sheila and Byrd, and even then, it was annoying how much slower they were than spyro).