so the bad:
this game has atrocious performance first of all, and i have learned it's not my computer's fault. intended for 60 fps, runs 20-30 if you're looking at any geometry. sound design is terrible, many sounds don't go away when the source vanishes, sound effects play twice or are up to 10 seconds late, and certain things like picking items up have no sound effect to indicate you've actually done it. controls like butter on a skillet, incredibly easy to walk off a ledge to your doom. unlike other spyro games you can't glide if you walk off something into the air, only out of an actual jump, which means the game is far more punishing for small directional mistakes than it has any right to be. charging is way more dangerous because of this and the low framerate as it's hilariously common to just go right off a ledge.
world design is gigantic and vacuous, kind of yooka laylee syndrome, and finding all 7-900 gems in a level is a slog. some of the levels i spent 20-30 extra minutes just finding 2 or 3 gems in with no indication of where they are. the game is also really short compared to the older spyro games with only one hud and like 10 levels or so. models in this game are ugly all around, and spyro's recurring friends are basically absent aside from sparx. almost every challenge in the game is either mind-numbingly simple or very frustrating, especially the vehicle sections. spyro's abilities are barely utilized, with nearly no supercharging, simple platforming (not counting control mistakes), and as far as i remember no headbash actually needed. the wing shield ability is borderline useless except in one world where it's the only way to defeat enemies, and even then spyro has nearly no control over how to reflect the projectiles aside from readjust and pray you hit the enemy. also the wing shield ability is mapped to the very organic 'switch breath' button plus 'inventory' button so trying to use it fills your hud with pointless information
the only level in the game where using different breaths throughout matters is the last world, which is technically optional. the game only has one boss fight, the final one against ripto, which is really annoying as he can stunlock you to death nearly immediately if you aren't ready. also the find a collectible feature is a reward for beating ripto earlier in the game, which means fighting him before finishing two of the worlds and then fighting him again, not something i knew until, well, beating the game and finding out there were multiple ways to fight him. also the game has some of the worst guidance in a platformer, i missed so much stuff because npcs don't auto talk to you or, even better, are wrong. the game was clearly changed a LOT after dialogue was recorded because there's so much misinformation in the dialogue and the voice acting and text won't match, it's great
game is riddled with glitches (even on gamecube which was the version i played), such as what i posted earlier where spyro was just stuck flying upside down. you get caught on geometry and have to leave the level so much, like i mentioned even talking to NPCs can do this if you or them are facing the wrong direction. also gems would fly out of reach on certain levels and the level would have to be reset to fix that, too. i think that about sums up the problems i have with the game, which is basically nothing quite works like it's supposed to.
as for the good:
it's a spyro game! plays like the originals (theoretically) and can be 100%'ed without too much trouble. collecting things is always fun. the level ideas were basically all really enjoyable, in particular the crop circle and dinosaur terminator levels are very memorable. even as massive and empty as the levels can be they're still well enough designed that a single run through them usually cements the geography in your brain, navigating is not hard like it is in yooka laylee (which is i guess the only other mediocre collectathon i've played). flight levels are still very enjoyable for me (the whole two of them there are), though i imagine if you're someone who already doesn't like the flight levels the reduced framerates and slipperier controls would not make for a fun time. the game is very generous about saving progress in a stage, so even if you constantly are booting yourself back to the hud almost everything you've done in a world is saved, which is not the standard for spyro, and might actually be a bandaid fix for how bad the game is. all said, i did enjoy the game and basically played it in two big sittings, first half of the game a few months ago and the second half now. it's still a pretty fucking bad game, though, and sucks that it kinda irreparably damaged the franchise.
this game has atrocious performance first of all, and i have learned it's not my computer's fault. intended for 60 fps, runs 20-30 if you're looking at any geometry. sound design is terrible, many sounds don't go away when the source vanishes, sound effects play twice or are up to 10 seconds late, and certain things like picking items up have no sound effect to indicate you've actually done it. controls like butter on a skillet, incredibly easy to walk off a ledge to your doom. unlike other spyro games you can't glide if you walk off something into the air, only out of an actual jump, which means the game is far more punishing for small directional mistakes than it has any right to be. charging is way more dangerous because of this and the low framerate as it's hilariously common to just go right off a ledge.
world design is gigantic and vacuous, kind of yooka laylee syndrome, and finding all 7-900 gems in a level is a slog. some of the levels i spent 20-30 extra minutes just finding 2 or 3 gems in with no indication of where they are. the game is also really short compared to the older spyro games with only one hud and like 10 levels or so. models in this game are ugly all around, and spyro's recurring friends are basically absent aside from sparx. almost every challenge in the game is either mind-numbingly simple or very frustrating, especially the vehicle sections. spyro's abilities are barely utilized, with nearly no supercharging, simple platforming (not counting control mistakes), and as far as i remember no headbash actually needed. the wing shield ability is borderline useless except in one world where it's the only way to defeat enemies, and even then spyro has nearly no control over how to reflect the projectiles aside from readjust and pray you hit the enemy. also the wing shield ability is mapped to the very organic 'switch breath' button plus 'inventory' button so trying to use it fills your hud with pointless information
the only level in the game where using different breaths throughout matters is the last world, which is technically optional. the game only has one boss fight, the final one against ripto, which is really annoying as he can stunlock you to death nearly immediately if you aren't ready. also the find a collectible feature is a reward for beating ripto earlier in the game, which means fighting him before finishing two of the worlds and then fighting him again, not something i knew until, well, beating the game and finding out there were multiple ways to fight him. also the game has some of the worst guidance in a platformer, i missed so much stuff because npcs don't auto talk to you or, even better, are wrong. the game was clearly changed a LOT after dialogue was recorded because there's so much misinformation in the dialogue and the voice acting and text won't match, it's great
game is riddled with glitches (even on gamecube which was the version i played), such as what i posted earlier where spyro was just stuck flying upside down. you get caught on geometry and have to leave the level so much, like i mentioned even talking to NPCs can do this if you or them are facing the wrong direction. also gems would fly out of reach on certain levels and the level would have to be reset to fix that, too. i think that about sums up the problems i have with the game, which is basically nothing quite works like it's supposed to.
as for the good:
it's a spyro game! plays like the originals (theoretically) and can be 100%'ed without too much trouble. collecting things is always fun. the level ideas were basically all really enjoyable, in particular the crop circle and dinosaur terminator levels are very memorable. even as massive and empty as the levels can be they're still well enough designed that a single run through them usually cements the geography in your brain, navigating is not hard like it is in yooka laylee (which is i guess the only other mediocre collectathon i've played). flight levels are still very enjoyable for me (the whole two of them there are), though i imagine if you're someone who already doesn't like the flight levels the reduced framerates and slipperier controls would not make for a fun time. the game is very generous about saving progress in a stage, so even if you constantly are booting yourself back to the hud almost everything you've done in a world is saved, which is not the standard for spyro, and might actually be a bandaid fix for how bad the game is. all said, i did enjoy the game and basically played it in two big sittings, first half of the game a few months ago and the second half now. it's still a pretty fucking bad game, though, and sucks that it kinda irreparably damaged the franchise.