ninjaxc30
1996
Still fantastic. The camera and controls are fine, grow up. Perfect speedrun game. Only thing that really holds it back is how hideous it is. never seen a decent looking n64 game
Gorgeous game but the gameplay loop is awful. The game is based around collecting items, but it does everything in its power to make this as tedious and frustrating as possible. Levels are excessively long with some of the worst secrets in the series, the "health" doubles as a collectable, sometimes you have to play as stupid helicopter yoshi, like what are we doing here miyamoto. playing the levels just to reach the end is the obvious solution but this feels boring and hollow
Keeps the weirdness of SML1 while improving the mechanical aspects. fuck the boring ass grass world, desert world, ice world. here’s a big ass tree, a pumpkin, and a turtle
1990
Peak 2D Mario. On top of the fantastic pixel art, music, level design, Yoshi, etc, SMW is just an amazing physics engine. Nintendo mastered the 2D platformer so early that fans have been making romhacks using their framework since
1989
really impressive for a Game Boy launch title. Feels understandably jank but it’s so cool how weird this game and the sequel are
1988
Easily the best NES game, holds up so well. Tight controls and great level design outside of the absurdly long autoscrollers (pretty much the entirety of world 8). Cool ass powerups we’ll never see again like the hammer suit and frog suit. It’s also got this extremely distracting artifacting on the right side of the screen due to the NES’s scrolling limitations that I never see anyone mention. seriously how does it bother no one else
1988
So slow, so slippery, so tedious. The picking up and throwing items gameplay loop is just so boring. kind of interesting to play though considering you could fall asleep at any moment
Iterative sequel of a mid game, except with overtly malicious level design and nonfunctional gimmicks
1985
Unfathomably important, but the momentum-based physics combined with level design that doesn't really support it makes it pretty lame to play. Fun to speedrun though
1999
game fucks, loaded with charm. crazy how much they nailed it first try. has sound effects that will never be surpassed in any game ever
Never seen a game so evil it makes you beat it three times to fight the final boss. Against all odds, worse than Crash Purple
only good thing about this game is the clip into the final boss's portal, which lets you beat the game in a couple of minutes. now I can mark it as "completed" without being a lying scumbag
2001
Not often are there inherently bad ideas. Most ideas, given creative talent and effort, can be executed well. Unfortunately, “2D sprite-based isometric Collectathon platformer” is not “most ideas”
Fixes most of the Spyro 2 issues like bad pacing, lame collectables, and the backtracking is better designed and much easier to skip. Seriously, you can skip all the backtracking with a youtube search and a couple minutes of attempts at most. The new characters are more interesting to play than Spyro 2's minigames, the story, world, and characters are more developed, and the levels are overall more fun. Still has some annoying minigames and it probably wasn’t the best idea to add FIVE new playable characters, (maybe add two or three and develop them further), but it’s a good final entry in the series. Wish they made a fourth one that was an actual game. Toys for Bob if you can hear us please save us Toys for Bob
Blah blah blah the minigames suck. Everybody says that. They're right, but honestly, even disregarding them it’s still a lesser experience than Spyro 1. The pacing is awful. There's a seasonal theme to the homeworlds, so you’d think there’d be four, right? Nope, just three, no spring. The second homeworld lasts almost half the game. The third one only has four actual levels and the primary collectable is just abandoned. Instead, you need to collect the lamest shit imaginable, nondescript magic orbs.
Then there’s the backtracking. Constant backtracking to grab the last orb or gems, but only after replaying the whole level, and sometimes even the first part of a minigame to get to the second one. Fortunately, you can use the cool double jump glitch to skip some backtracking, but more often than not the levels don't allow it.
Everything that carries over directly from Spyro 1 is obviously good, like the art direction, OST, movement, etc. The writing is a bit more involved, which I'm not too sure about, but it's mostly funny. Everything else just feels like Insomniac did their best to make the game as tedious as possible. Surely Insomniac won’t make a trend of making an amazing first game, ignore what made it great in the first place, and make a mediocre follow up
Then there’s the backtracking. Constant backtracking to grab the last orb or gems, but only after replaying the whole level, and sometimes even the first part of a minigame to get to the second one. Fortunately, you can use the cool double jump glitch to skip some backtracking, but more often than not the levels don't allow it.
Everything that carries over directly from Spyro 1 is obviously good, like the art direction, OST, movement, etc. The writing is a bit more involved, which I'm not too sure about, but it's mostly funny. Everything else just feels like Insomniac did their best to make the game as tedious as possible. Surely Insomniac won’t make a trend of making an amazing first game, ignore what made it great in the first place, and make a mediocre follow up