We Should Go on Vacation!

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Spyro 2 - Ripto's Rage! OST: Gateway to Glimmer Forest

It's weird to think back and realize that Spyro's second adventure started out with him wanting a vacation after his last adventure. In the grand scheme of things, it's a strange way to start out a sequel, but this was the 90s. Video games wouldn't start taking themselves too seriously until about about another decade. Actually, now that I think about it, a prior protagonist engaging in wacky antics on a planned vacation trip is a bit of trope. Looking at you Super Mario Sunshine. Trope or not, it's a perfect way to setup a brand environment for Spyro to run, fly, and breathe fire through!

This is going to be one of the more difficult entries in this challenge. Make no mistake, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage is an important game to me. However, I haven't played this game in nearly 20+ years. Talk about a major drawback to the daily upload formula. Well, while I regret not being able to form a fresh opinion on the game, I can still recall my fondness of the game in my head.

Collectable Goodness

Another weird thought: it's only recently that we've coined the term "collect-a-thons" to describe most 3D-platform games. To us kids, these were just...video games. If anything, they were the purest form of a game. It was weird when a game wasn't a giant sandbox arena filled with hidden collectable goodies. And while some kids had their Super Mario 64s and others their Banjo-Kazooies...mine was Spyro the Dragon.

To be clear, this is the second Spyro game. I owned both the original and the sequel, and while the first game is definitely important to me, the sequel won me over and to this day is my go-to Spyro game. There's something just fun and comforting about constantly going to a new area, collecting everything there, and then moving on to the next. Obviously, the challenge comes in finding each hidden goody, and man, some of them are hidden very well!

Bring it on, Shorty!

Spyro, as a character, is pretty comparable to Sonic. He feels 90s. But unlike Sonic, Spyro unfortunately (...or maybe fortunately) fell off after his initial games. Sony had successfully used both him and Crash to market the Playstation as a rival to both Nintendo and Sega, but unlike the other two, Sony had no love for the characters beyond their market value. Crash would eventually be replaced by Jak and Daxter and Spyro would meet his end to Ratchet and Clank. While yes, the two of them still received games, they weren't the proud children of their parent company anymore.

Honestly, I like Spyro. The short-fused, witty dialogue fits a dragon more than a hedgehog. The true crime is that Spyro never got that chance to be taken seriously. Some would argue that Sonic games took themselves too seriously, and while that's debatable, Spyro never even received that chance. Maybe for some, that's part of the charm, but I for one would have liked to see what an expanded world and lore for Spyro could look like. No, not like Skylanders. I would have liked to see Spyro more fleshed out and realized beyond the "90s kid with attitude."

Once again, this may be the hardest post I've made yet; I wish I had the chance to fully replay this. Regardless, this game was still an important piece of my childhood gaming career, and not including it would feel like a crime.