Nostalgia Sunday: Spyro 2

Spyro 2

My brother got this game back at Christmas with his Playstation 1. We played it at Christmas Eve and couldn't stop. It took several weeks to beat it, just like every game did, when you were small. Or I think that's what's normal as a kid. To this day I still like to play through it with 100% completion like every year. Of course the PSX and the game are long gone, but luckily there's emulation software out there on the Internet.

Story:

While Elora, Hunter and the Professor are testing a new Portal in the world of Avalar, the evil wizard Ripto and his two companions Crush and Gulp come through, due to an accident. He wants to take over the world, but luckily fairies, instructed by Elora, remove the Orbs, that power the portal.
Meanwhile, the Artisans have been under rainy weather for some time; Spyro, declaring he needs a vacation, locates a portal to the realm of Dragon Shores. However, after traveling through the portal, he finds himself instead landing in the realm of Avalar by means of a smaller portal, built by Avalar's Professor.
Spyros' mission is now to travel through the three main worlds of Avalar, Summer Forest, Autumn Plains, and Winter Tundra, to collect Orbs and defeat Crush, Gulp and finally, at a huge showdown, Ripto.

The Game:

Like said above, you travel through the different main worlds, which also have subworlds. In these you collect orbs, gems and statues, which let you advance further. After collecting enough of these items, you are allowed to fight the boss of the main world, you collected them in. Every boss has its own weaknesses and needs a tactic to be beaten. Once you got that out, it's only a matter of tries. If you beat them, you can advance to the next main world. After collecting enough gems, you can also learn new skills, by buying them: Swimming, climbing ladders and the headbash. When you finally beat Ripto, the game's not over. The Professor will open you a gate to Dragon Shores, where you can play several games and also unlock a permanent fireball power-up, if you collected all gems, orbs and statues.

Prequels and Sequels:

At first there's the magnificent Prequel, which gets only topped by the Sequel Spyro 2, which improves on Spyro 1, while not taking anything away. The first Sequel, Spyro 3, I have never played through. I guess it lost its charm or something. Everything after that was rather mediocre and dumbed down. It never felt like the Original or Spyro 2 again. The newest iteration of the Spyro games is "Spyro Skylanders" which I haven't played and will not, because first: I don't have a PS3 and second: It doesn't look like Spyro at all.

I think this game still holds up today and is worth a playthrough from time to time. That's why I always have fun playing it and it's not just nostalgia. Give it a try, if you can!