Spyro the Dragon 2: Ripto's Rage
Spyro goes on vacation and a red man immediately malds. Collect enough glowing bullshit and you can legally beat him to death, ending the game.
It's the same engine as
Spyro 1, with the expected QoL upgrades. Spyro jumps a bit higher now: still can’t clear a pothole, but enough that you can actually hop over enemy gunfire. There used to be this sideways strafe move that mostly just rolled you into pits, so they quietly removed that in favor of hopping, They add a double jump but it’s not a real double jump. It’s more like a “
sorry about the geometry” jump. It exists so you don’t smash your face into a ledge.
There are also light Metroidvania elements: eventually you learn to swim, climb ladders, and break big rocks. Most of the game stays on solid ground this time, fewer bottomless pits, and Spyro can survive shallow water.
GAMEPLAY: At first glance,
Spyro 2 feels easier than the original. But instead of unfreezing dragons, progress is now gated by orbs, which you earn through mini-games. These are vile. Unsuited to Spyro’s control scheme. The obvious comparison is
Mario 64, and while I respect the attempt to wring more content out of each level, it gets old fast. The instructions are often vague enough that I ragequit simply because I couldn’t tell what they wanted from me.
There are 3 hub worlds, all part of the new setting, Avalar. You collect orbs to power up portals, and every time you hit a certain threshold, Ripto pops in, yelling “I HATE DRAGONS”, before stealing your orbs and running away. I think this happens three times. Every level starts the same: some villagers with stupid accents are like, “
Oh no, the big red lever that turns society back on is broken,” and then you kill random bugs who may or may not even work for Ripto. Then the mayor says,“
Hey Spyro, can you do this humiliating obstacle course so I can give you an orb I found in my ass?” Every time.
4/10
GRAPHICS: Everyone who isn’t Spyro looks like shit. No fingers, no teeth, barely faces. If the dialog didn’t tell you which animal they were supposed to be, I’d have no clue. The dragons in the first game looked great!
Most of the levels blur together. Green place, ice place, whatever. It really feels like they went for quantity over quality. There were maybe two levels I enjoyed, like Scorch: the Arabia-themed world with blunderbuss wielding gnorcs! 5/10
MUSIC: Did Copeland actually compose this? Did he leave a Post-it that said, “
Loop this, I’m surfing"? The most memorable music in
Spyro 2 is literally just music from
Spyro 1 reused in cutscenes. The rest of the soundtrack is atonal mush. 3/10
STORY: They also change Spyro’s voice actor and it ruins him. He went from a little sarcastic asshole to a vanilla hero who's here to move the plot along.
The dragons are replaced with a new cast. The
furry thirst trap faun girl is cute enough, but she's just a cool princess who does all the work while the men blunder around uselessly. Everyone else is broad, unfunny slapstick. They also introduce Hunter the cheetah, Avalar’s supposed counterpart to Spyro, whose gimmick is that he’s a cowardly idiot. He’s voiced by Gregg Berger, and I’ll admit he got a laugh out of me. He also keeps popping up to give you orbs for completing tasks? Hunter is like, “
I’m helping you find orbs,” and then he’s like, “
Before that, could you help train my pet seahorse?” No, shit-for-brains. You do it.
Ripto himself is pretty boring. He’s just some short angry guy yelling at his employees. Honestly, it might’ve been funnier if they kept him offscreen until the end, where you realize he’s just some furious little midget in a cape. 4/10
