Mitsota Reviews: Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage
Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage is the sequel to the 1997 smash hit Spyro The Dragon, released just under a year after in 1998. I do remember playing Spyro the Dragon as a young child, but I'm almost certain I owned Spyro 2 and 3 long before I owned the first one.
That's probably the case with most people who remember Spyro, as Spyro 2 was more or less shoved down the throats of PlayStation owners with aggressive marketing campaigns after the wild success of the first game; to the point where the game's development time was significantly cut to push the game out in time to be under christmas trees.
We'll talk about this tight 8-10 month dev cycle in a later review, as it eventually proved the downfall of Spyro the Dragon; As for now, let's talk about the game itself! Spyro 2 starts with a weird setup story. Here's the gyst:
Spyro's wanderin' around in the rain, moping about the bad weather, and decides to hop into a portal to the beach. (Portals are a thing in this game, just go with it) Meanwhile, some freaky furries with a portal interceptor (which are also things in this game that you're not supposed to question) are setting up to snatch a dragon out of the weird portal-space.
Spyro comes flying out of the portal into this new kingdom to find it being antagonized by a nasty little wizard and his minions. Annoyed by the wizard and sympathetic to the kingdom's citizens, Spyro sets out to...Do whatever people ask of him and steal all the shiny objects he can find? Jeeze, I'm glad the wizard was a rude little shit, otherwise Spyro might be torching villages.
So, there's the story. It's...not great; But I'll tell ya what is great! The gameplay is awesome! Streamlined and enhanced, Spyro controls smoother than ever with new optional analog input for movement, as well as all new powers for the lil guy. ground-pounding, ladder climbing, and (most importantly) swimming make their debut as key features in the series; as well as the new gem locator power that replaces the (frankly useless) dodge roll.
These new moves help Spyro navigate the new bigger, better levels, that manage to feel grand in scale without making levels confusing or annoying to navigate. It's almost always a short jog from the level's start to it's end. They're also quite beautiful for PlayStation, these games must really push the boundary of what the hardware is capable of.
These levels have a different, more slow paced and relaxed feel to them when compared to Spyro 1, due to a change in how the levels are designed. Rather than being tough, linear platforming stages with a focus on enemy encounters; Spyro 2 levels are more open.
While there are talismans you earn for completing a stage, the game's secondary collectables (the orbs, green and gold mcguffins) are needed to make any real progress in the game.
Spyro can get these orbs in many different ways, from finding them laying around on the ground to doing odd jobs for Avalar's many subjects, such as saving baby turtles from being cooked, collecting spark plugs for an adventurer, and playing hockey with some monks. You even get a few from Hunter, who's supposed to be helping you collect them.
That's not to say every level challenge is a winner though. There are some uninspired stinkers mixed in here, like Aquaria Towers' titular tower quest, or Shady Oasis' randomized bombing run challenge. Still, for the most part these challenges are fun, and sometimes even offer a break from the platforming.
Speaking of breaks, let's talk about something else that's new: Hand-animated in-engine cutscenes book-ending each level. You can tell a lot of care and dedication went into the animation process for this game, with models squashing and stretching to ridiculous sizes and shapes smoothly and beautifully without sacrificing texture quality or framerates. It looks good and sounds good.
The sound design in this game is great, not only with sound effects but with music as well; Stewart Copeland is back with his epic fantasy rock jams, bringing some memorable jams to really add a unique flair to each level with his own personal sound fonts.
Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage is a textbook sequel, taking the original game and mixing up the gameplay and building on everything the original establishes. A truly amazing game for the PlayStation.