Release Date: November 5th, 1999
Genre: Platformer
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Insomniac Games
Platform: Playstation
Players: 1
Classification: E (Everyone)
Awhile ago I reviewed the classic
Spyro
the Dragon, one of my favourite games ever so I decided to continue the
aptly named “golden-age” of the Spyro
series
with
Spyro 2:
Gateway to Glimmer (named “Ripto’s” Rage in USA).
Gateway to Glimmer introduced quite a few new features to
the game, first off the story introduces many new characters, some of which
become a mainstay in the series appearing in several more games. The
Professor,
Hunter
the Cheetah,
Elora
the Faun,
Zoe the Fairy
and
Moneybags the Bear all make their first
appearance as well as one of Spyro’s most notorious opponents
Ripto as well as his
hench-dinosaurs
Crush
and
Gulp. Basically
the story is that the Professor, Elora and Hunter accidentally allow Ripto into
their realm of
Avalar
and Elora prevents him from going back by getting the fairies to spread the
orbs all over Avalar. They then decide to get the help of a Dragon to get rid
of him. Meanwhile in the Dragon Kingdom it’s raining and Spyro and Sparks
decide to go on a holiday to
Dragon
Shores which is a vacation spot in the Dragon Kingdom but are intercepted
by
the
Professor,
Elora,
and
Hunter and
are instead transported to
Glimmer,
which is the first realm of the game. The focus this time around is basically
to defeat
Ripto so
that Spyro can go to there for a vacation, there’s no actual explanation given
about the gems you need to collect this time (apart from needing them to pay
Moneybags), I
vaguely remember Elora commenting that you had to collect the treasure though
the
Orbs and
Talismans are needed to
progress through the game but the treasure is only to achieve %100.
|
The Professer, Elora, Hunter, Spyro and Sparx near the portal from the Dragon Kingdom |
Playing this game for the first time you can really see the
changes, after he and Sparks have a short conversation with the Professor,
Elora and Hunter, Elora gives you you’re
Guidebook that is used to show
your progress in the game. Interestingly the game starts in Glimmer which isn’t
a homeworld but a realm, and you don’t actually go to the first homeworld of
Summer Forest until you finish the level. You then automatically enter into a
conversation with your first npc character Bounsa the
Gemcutter who fills you in on
what s happening in the realm and what they need help with, and as you progress
through the level you meet other NPC’s who have various jobs and dilemmas for
you to solve.
|
Spyro with one of the Gemcutters in Glimmer |
They then reward you with
Orbs in which they always have a
different explanation for giving them as they never have any idea what they
are, at the end of the main part of the level you meet a final npc who gives
you a
Talisman and then you
gotta run around and find all the treasure and orbs you need to fully complete
the level. Another slight change that you may not notice is that you can
activate a map for the bottom left of the screen, but I didn’t bother using
this much as the layouts are not really that confusing.
|
One of my favorite Talismans, the Idol Springs Jade Idol. |
Once you have completed Glimmer and go through the portal
you find yourself in
Summer
Forest which is the first homeworld in which I did notice that it and the
rest of the homeworlds no longer have enemies in them just the little creatures
to flame, so they are basically safe apart from the ever-present abyss in most
Spyro levels. Here is where you find several of the new characters such as
Hunter
the Cheetah who acts as a guide for various activities and you come across
him fairly often throughout the game where he gives you various challenges in
reward for
Orbs he is also found
in the various
Speedways
where once you have completed the main timed challenge you can find him or
another character for another challenge unique to the speedway which include
things like flying through rings while paragliding. Another new character (and
way of saving your game) is
Zoe the Fairy who zaps Sypro with her wand at certain locations
throughout a level every time Spyro walks under her to save his game.
|
Hunter in the crystal cave in Magma Cone, these two orbs you get are one of the harder challenges. |
Lastly,
Moneybags the Bear is quite a character with
his pompous British accent and dress, he charges Spyro lots of gems for
services in realms such as extending bridges opening doors and activating
portals and also trains you in various abilities which
include:
Swimming: Spyro can now swim on the surface of the water,
meaning that not all sections of water are just pools that you drown in, Spyro
can swim in almost all bodies of water apart from lava of course. Swimming is
pretty fun, you just use the charge button to dive underwater and also charge
enemies as you obviously can’t use flame, you can also swim along using the x
button, I loved it the first time I did it as it adds a great alternative to
the usually gameplay controls and collecting gems, especially when most of the
level is underwater.
Climbing: This one’s fairly self-explanatory, there are
walls with “ladder-imprints” on them which Spyro can climb and jump across.
Headbash: Spyro can headbash by pressing triangle while
jumping and can break most contains inc the “headbash specific” ones.
These abilities are learned by talking to Moneybags and
paying a “small” fee, they are learned in each of the three homeworlds. Often
you can’t get %100 on some homeworlds and realms until you can get a certain
ability where you have to come back to later.
|
Swimming is great fun, especially wiping out pots and enemies while zooming through the water. |
Other then these changes Spyro
has relatively the same controls as before, he can jump, glide, charge and is
protected by
Sparx the same way as before. A new ability is
that when you are gliding you can now press triangle for Spyro to hover upwards
a bit then fall giving you that last little bit of height needed as opposed to
the previous game where if you misjudged the glide there was really nothing you
could do but fall, Spyro also loses his L1 and R1 side rolling ability. Defeating enemies this time does not always yield gems but adds a spark to the Powerup gate which when neough enemies are defeated gives Spyo abilities such as superflame, supercharge, superfly, invincibility and spring jump which is pretty damn fun.
Me re-doing a gliding and hovering challenge that Hunter takes you on early in the game, was a cinch the first time too :D
Another
feature which I am very glad they added is the “Gem radar”, when you press all
shoulder buttons Sparks points to the location of uncollected treasure, man
that saves a hell of a lot of time searching around. Spyro now interacts with
other characters a lot more, before it was just the one line of Dialogue when
you rescued the other Dragons, now you see a Dialogue box pop up when talking
to the various different inhabitants of that particular realm which you can
talk to for additional dialogue even after they have finished your initial
conversation.
|
A dialogue box that appears in the game. |
The realms in the game are fairly diverse in this instance
as you go from places like
Sunny Beach to
Skelos
Badlands. There seems to be much more technology around now with realms
like
Metropolis
and
Robotica
Farms compared to the first game where the worlds were more
fantasy/medieval with only a few parts where Gnorcs used electricity or
industrial objects like steel and cannons. There are some levels which feature
larger amount of water sections such as
Aquaria
Towers where you help the Seahorses to fill up the towers with water. Spyro
also has various new animations where when he touches lava he now jumps in the
air with a burnt derriere until he loses Sparx and then gets burnt to a crisp
as well as the angry slap he does when he falls into the water while flying in
the
Speedways which also
make a return in this instalment with a bonus feature of you being able to find
a character hidden somewhere in the level with a special challenge for Spyro
which is always done with
Hunter or from Hunter
himself.
|
Aquaria towers is a level where you are under the water almost all the timr. |
The graphics in the game are mostly fine, I again used an
emulator to play the game so it looks much
better than playing with the original Playstation, the locations may look
slightly more cartoonish and not as beautiful as the first game. Though there
were still some very beautiful locations including:
Summer Forest,
Magma Cone,
and
Zephyr which
were some of my favourite looking places even
Hurricos which
is in a constant stormy state of rain, dark clouds and patchy sunlight looked
amazing. The design and architecture of the levels is good too, with places
like
Skelos Badlands.
and
Fracture Hills really fitting into their theme with
the building design.
|
Hurricos, one of my favorite looking zones. |
The emulator does make the models look so much better with
the
anti-aliasing
options though unfortunately it doesn’t quite work with everything, I could see
that the sparks from explosions and the sparkles that
Sparx emits (lol that’s fun to say) are
basically just yellow pixels. You can also see that any large non-3d text or
graphics appear slightly pixelated as well, but these are minor things. The
overall look and feel of the game is great and even though the locations in
Avalar aren’t quite as equal in beauty as the Dragon Realms they are still a
slight step up in detail from the previous game as you’d expect with a new installment.
|
Who sees some pixelated sparks! and Sparx! lol |
The music in this instalment of the game is great as before,
there’s more of a variety of instruments
and sometimes voices which are used prominently at the start of a
soundtrack, this is especially the case in
Scorch,
Shady Oasis
and
Colossus,
I think Colossus has one of the best soundtracks in the game. Although this
game retains basically the same kind of music from the original, there are a
few gems here and there (pun intended) which are pretty damn good with some of
my favourites being, the music from
Magma Cone
with it’s upbeat action-oriented feel and the calming
Summer Forest tone
(which is the same for all home realms) are great to listen to and especially
come back to after completing a level.
The Colossus level music
The sound effects are good as usual and
not much has changed from the usual sound effects and skips and jump and flame
breath. Some of the audible cues are back such as the bouncing of an orb
somewhere in the level which works the same way as a dragon rattling in
crystal. Though the biggest change has got to be Spyro’s change in voice, in
the first game he sounded very childish and naive, though since the voice actor
change to Tom Kenny he seems to have matured a little bit and has a much more
pleasant personality and I must say I liked him much better in the 2
nd
and 3
rd games.
Spyro 2 was a great advancement in the Spyro series, it
couldn’t obviously be the masterpiece that was the first Spyro game but it did
everything it could to improve and it did it well, improving sound, graphics
and introducing new game feature and abilities for Spyro. As I mentioned before
this was the 2
nd game in the “Golden Age” of the Spyro series on PS1
which culminates with
Year of the Dragon.
I’ve played this game many times though once you’ve actually finished the game
there is little to do, the replayability comes with going through the whole
game again and as always I highly recommend playing through the original PS1
sytem, emulator or the Playstation store as it is one of the best games on from
the PS1 era.
JD
Story - 9
Gameplay - 10
Graphics - 9
Music - 10
Sound Effects - 9
Play Time - 9
Replayability - 8
Overall: 9
Older, wiser and
friendlier.
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