



I enjoyed the 1st one as it is classic gaming at its finest with little to no hand holding. I had only briefly playing a Spyro game in the past. the first fight with the sorceress and you get the hovercraft. But to introduce new characters and control options without fixing the camera issues makes the camera itself the hardest boss in the game. Why would Spyro need other characters with completely different gameplay, completely outside of the Spyro world? It was an attempt and I can't hate for them trying. Mario games largely keep you playing the main protagonist and still offer new challenges with each iteration. I feel like they made arbitrary changes to keep things fresh only to harm the charm of the first game. They didn't really need to do that considering the design in most of the levels led to the obvious path revealed. I also didn't like how 3 strips away the mystery of figuring out what order you should do the targets in the speedway levels and just tells you. Hated all the 2ndary characters in 3 other than the Yeti who offered a cool breath of fresh air from being a small, sprite. Hated Hunter in 2, but he was ok in 3, though it seemed a little out of place. Climbing and swimming were nice additions, but I don't reward anyone for giving abilities that should come default with the character (like in Grand Theft auto 3, you die when you enter water, but subsequent games, you are good). Mind you, the first game is probably the most complex given that there are no upgrades and if you missed something, it's because you missed it and not because of some character or power you didn't unlock. I feel like they ran out of ideas and decided that people didn't want the simplicity of first game. The only thing I liked was that you can finally play Sparks. The sequels were both watered down and made more frustrating with the terrible camera controls and poor actual controls when doing anything other than. I don't want to iceskate… ride a hovercraft. The downfall for me is playing everyone else but Spyro and doing things outside of charging and flaming. I was so sick of the games after the first one.
