#5: Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage (PS1, 1999)

Today, May 18th, marks my 22nd birthday and what better way to celebrate this week’s entry than talking about my favorite game of all time? So today, I am going to discuss Spyro 2, Ripto’s Rage and why not only is this an improved game over the original, but why this is the best sequel of all time.

The most improved part of Spyro 2 is the controls. In the very first entry I ever did for this blog, I talked about Spyro 1 and how its controls were a little finicky sometimes, especially when trying to platform. Spyro would feel heavy when dropping and some jumps that you thought you would make you wouldn’t. However, Insomniac completely overhauled the gameplay for Spyro 2. Now, platforming is no problem at all. If you fell or if you died, it was on you. This is the best controlling 3D platformer I think ever because of just how smooth the controls are. Even when using a D-Pad, Spyro moves great and some people actually prefer using the D-Pad, even though you are limited when using that compared to an analog stick, where you can move in full 360 degrees.

The story is also greatly improved. The new characters such as Hunter and Ripto became stables in the series and even the side characters that you only meet once in a level are interesting because of Insomniac’s greatest strength as a company; their sense of humor. This game has everything from slapstick to general humor that makes the game extremely fun to play. Fun fact, Ripto is actually named that way because when the first Spyro was ported to Japan, Spyro’s named is spelled just like Ripto in Japanese, which is a nice touch! Tom Kenny provides the voice for Spyro this time around and it’s such a good fit for the character. His Spyro voices makes the character relatable and likeable.

Spyro 2’s Japanese Cover; notice the Ripto!

 

The game is still a collect-a-thon, but each level has its own specific problem for you to solve in order to get a talisman or orb, the things you will be collecting to beat the game. There are also still tons of gems for you to obtain as well, which is always addicting to collect!

Winter Tundra; my favorite world in the game.

Spyro also has new abilities that drastically change up his gameplay compared to the original game. For example, in the first game, Spyro couldn’t swim. If he even touched water, he would die. However, not only can you swim in water, but you can dive underwater and explore the depths of the oceans. You can also climb ladders, headbash, and super-flame as well! All of these are used to their full potential and do not feel underused or gimmicky. I would say the only weird part of the game is ice-skating. So in one level, you have to play ice hockey with monks. The ice physics aren’t the greatest because you can’t stop or even jump. This makes the gameplay a little jarring from all the other gameplay modes, but that’s the only minor complaint I have about the game itself.

Stewart Copeland is back and in my opinion, this is his best work ever. The music is extremely atmospheric and you can seriously get lost in some of these tunes. They’re great pieces for studying or just relaxing at nighttime. Some of my favorites are Summer Forest, Winter Tundra, and Mystic Marsh, all of which can be heard on Youtube. There are also hard rocking pieces of music as well such as the boss themes, which gets you pumped up to defeat them.

But I believe the best part about Spyro 2 is just how much you can explore the environments and uncover every nook and cranny in each level. There’s a glitch in the game where you can double-jump and reach places you aren’t normally supposed to reach and that makes the game more open because now you can get to places you weren’t initially supposed to reach yet. This makes speedruns for this game amazing to watch because they just tear through this game and it’s really interesting to see a game that I spend years to beat as a kid get beat in less than 10 minutes.

Overall, this is my favorite game because it contains everything I love about games; a sense of humor, exploration, charming and creative levels, atmospheric and enjoyable music, and finally a main character that is likeable and relatable. As a kid, he was one of my heroes alongside Ash from Pokemon, Yugi from Yugioh, and Spiderman. Spyro as a franchise might come back one day and hopefully if the rumors of an HD remaster is true, hopefully a new generation will be able to enjoy these games like I did when I was their ages. I’ve beaten this game more times than I’s like to admit across multiple platforms, but I never get bored every time i start a new file. That is what truly creates a masterpiece.

Here’s an interview from PS Underground about the making of Spyro 2 which showcases the new abilities and hockey inspiration!

 

#4: Super Street Fighter 2 (1993, SNES)

So I wasn’t the biggest fighting game fan back when I was a kid. I would play Smash Bros. and would play party games that were also fighting games based on licensed properties like Billy and Mandy the game, but I never got into the traditional fighting game scene as a kid. This was mainly because the crazy combo inputs you had to do drove me away from it and the fact that it was extremely competitive. However, as I got older, I wanted to experiment with this genre and the game that got me super interested in it was actually Marvel vs. Capcom 3. My friends were talking about it all the time and I really liked the flashiness of the game, so I picked it up and really enjoyed it. This led me to wanting to try out other traditional fighting games and the one we are going to talk about today is Super Street Fighter 2 for the Super Nintendo.

If you know Street Fighter, then you know the stables of the game; beat your opponent and become the Street Fighter champ! There are way too many versions of Street Fighter 2 to count, but this one is my favorite because it stars my main, Cammy. She’s fast, agile, and can sweep kick you for days! She’s fragile, but quick to play. Her story is also pretty interesting out of all the other characters in the game, so whenever I play this game, I usually gravitate towards either her or Chun-Li because of her kicks as well!

Cammy and Chun-Li; My two mains!

Now since it’s a fighting game from the 90’s, it is designed to destroy you, and destroy you it does. I have managed to beat the final boss, M. Bison, with Cammy on 6 stars, but not after almost an hour of patience and trying to figure out frame-by-frame attack points. You see, Bison is a jerk and he will expose you if you let your guard down once. You attack, he blocks and then combos you. You try to play defensive and jump away, he combos you from across the screen. You try to block, he throws you and combos you. It is insane, but after you do it, it feels so good.

SSF2 also has a tournament mode which is extremely fun to mess around with. You can do an all tourney with just Ryus on full stars and have them go at it, or all Sagats and hear nothing but “TIGER, TIGER, TIGER, TIGER” for about half an hour. This is a game about experimentation, so go nuts and have fun.

I may have been turned off by fighting games as a kid, but as an adult I love them because it is a great way to strategize and pick apart an opponent match after match.

Oh and here’s the epic opening to the game; it gets you so pumped up and motivated to beat your opponent!

 

#3: Yu-Gi-Oh: Legacy of the Duelist (PS4, 2015)

So last week, I talked about Pokemon and how that series had a big impact on me as a kid. Well, multiply that by 100 and that was the impact that Yu-Gi-Oh had on me during my middle childhood years. Like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh is an entertainment empire, raning from the card game, the anime, toys, and the manga that started it all in 1996 (which I just started reading last year and I highly recommend it). However, it was the anime and card game that got me into the series. I had almost every starter deck, created multiple combinations for decks, and sat down in front of the tv every Saturday to catch the latest episode on Kids WB! Heck, I even went to go see the movie back in 2004 opening weekend! I still have the cards that the Theater would give you after you bought the tickets. The original series as of this post is on netflix and you can also stream every episode for free on the Yu-Gi-Oh site!

Kaiba summoning Blue Eyes White Dragon: Still my favorite card in the game!

However, as much as I loved dueling my friends or trading with them to get Slifer, Obelisk, and the Winged Dragon of Ra, the video games for Yu-Gi-Oh have always been hit or miss for me. I had one for the GBA where you would battle the characters from the anime and I had one for the PS2, but it was completely different from the card game and I never really got into it. But with the release of Legacy of the Duelist, I finally was able to play the Yu-Gi-Oh game I had always dreamed of as a kid but never got to play.

The game itself

You pretty much relive classic moments from the original series and even the newer generations such as 5D’s where you play card games on motorcycles! (Not really in the game, but in the anime they do that, it’s not as bad as people make it out to be actually). From the first episode of the series where you battle against Kaiba and summon Exodia, to the Battle City arc (my favorite) against Marik and Ra, a lot of the memorable duels are in this game. You can even buy card packs from the online store in order to make a deck of your own! But the best part is that these aren’t microtransactions; you get duel points for every duel you play, whether you win or lose. Then you spend those points and you can get really great cards and you don’t even have to spend an extra penny to get them!

Example of the card shop

The game isn’t perfect because there are some duels that are completely luck based and unfair, but there are moments where you are struggling and almost about to lose and then you get that one card and it saves the entire game for you. Then you play it, win, and jump for joy for your victory! It made me want to re-buy the cards that I lost or sold years ago and the game also made me want to play the actual card game again and re-live great memories. The series as a whole just turned 20 years old last year and I’m happy that it’s beginning to become popular again with my age demographic, especially with the release of Duel Links, a mobile version of the card game. There are rumors of a VR Yu-Gi-Oh game and all I have to say to that is if we can get Street Fighter VR in that upcoming re-release for the Switch, we can get Yu-Gi-Oh VR.

Here’s my favorite opening in the anime, complete with epicness all around!

One of the scenes in the game.

#2: Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire (GBA, 2003)

I don’t necessarily think that I have to discuss what Pokemon is as a franchise or why it’s so popular, but for those who don’t know, Pokemon is a game series where you capture, battle, and trade monsters that can range from cute and cuddly to giant and ferocious.

My history with Pokemon dates back to when the anime’s first season was airing in the US; around 1999 would probably be the year that I first noticed it and fell in love with it. My favorite of all of them as a kid was Pikachu and he still remains my favorite because I loved the combination of an electric mouse who was adorable but can destroy you in battle!

Still remember catching Pikachu for the first time in the Safari Zone!

Even though the games have been around since 1998 in the US, my first Pokemon game wasn’t until 2003 with the release of Pokemon’s third generation of games; Ruby and Sapphire. As previously mentioned in my last blog about Spyro, I only had one console/system every few years, so if I wanted to ask my mom for one, it had to of been a system that I knew had games that I would actually play and enjoy. The GBA was still relatively new in 2003, so I was able to get one Christmas of 2002 and played Spyro: Season of Ice for the time being.

Ruby and Sapphire added over 100 new creatures and let you explore a brand new region; Hoenn, which in my view is one of my favorite regions to explore in the entire series. A lot of people argue that there’s not much to do, or recite the usual “7.8 too much water” memes, but I loved Hoenn as a kid because of the fact that it was a huge tropical island for me to enjoy. This is also added to the fact that as a kid I essentially grew up near the beach, so Hoenn felt like home to me.

The world of Hoenn and the characters you can play as!

The new Pokemon also stirred some criticism when first released, but looking back a lot of them are some of my favorites just based on their designs. Some standouts include Grovile, Groudon, Rayquaza, Latios/Latias, and Blaziken.

You may say it’s nostalgia, but I will admit that some things about the game don’t necessarily hold up. The biggest example is the battle system and how moves worked. So I won’t go into full detail, but in Pokemon you have physical and special moves that deal more damage to your opponent if your Pokemon had more base attack or more special attack. However, moves that deal physical or special attacks were type-based, so moves that you would think would deal special attack damage were actually physical and vice versa. This was fixed in Diamond and Pearl, but this was a glaring problem for a lot of people even today and even I will admit that it is a problem as well.

Another big thing was the trading. This is what made Pokemon the empire it is today; the feature of trading Pokemon that you wanted with someone that also wanted a specific Pokemon he/she wanted. You could still do this is Ruby and Sapphire, but there was a catch; Pokemon caught in Gen 1 (Blue, Red, Yellow) or in Gen 2 (Silver, Gold, Crystal) could not be transferred to Gen 3, meaning that Lugia you caught in Silver couldn’t be traded over to Ruby. But don’t worry, because you could catch Lugia in Ruby/Sapphire…..but only through a Nintendo event that sadly doesn’t exist anymore without using cheats such as Gameshark.

This saddened me as a kid because although I didn’t have the previous games, I loved the anime so I was so pumped to maybe catch a legendary Pokemon like Entei or Mewtwo, only for them not to exist in the game at all until Fire-Red/Leaf-Green arrived the next year.

However, despite all the criticism, I still love these games because of how many hours I put into them. I remember doing Pokemon contests, listening to the fantastic music, training my party of 6 and finally conquering the elite 4 and champion, and then hunting down Latios all over the region. But my proudest moment was when I finally caught Rayquaza. Now this guy’s a dragon, which is one of my favorite creatures ever. He was also an emerald green which I love as a color. Finally, this guy was strong and I knew I had to get him. It took me days to get to him and even more days to catch him. I even cried every time I failed to catch him (hey I was 8 going on 9, ok!) But it was all worth it when my last ultra ball finally prevailed and I ran over to my mom, showed her what I did, and ran back my room to SAVE and enjoy my new friend.

Just look at how awesome this guy is!

I think that’s the overall theme of Pokemon and why people still love the series to this day; you make friends not only through capturing the creatures in the game, but also by interacting with others in real life and sharing your experiences with them. As a kid, I was extremely shy and although I had friends, I never really knew how to express myself. Pokemon was really the opening that I needed because it showed me that I could express myself and identify me as a person.

So overall, although Ruby and Sapphire are flawed, I still love them because of the memories that they gave me, and I will always cherish them.

As with last time, here’s a little video to close everything out; a cheesy but fun ad for Ruby and Sapphire that shows off the new features of the game!

#1: Spyro the Dragon (PS1, 1998)

What better way of starting off this blog than with the very first video game I ever played; Spyro the Dragon! Growing up, I was limited when it came to game consoles. It was either one system or no system, so we got the Playstation and it was the only system I had until the PS2 many years later. At that time I was a small kid with no knowledge of video games or what a controller was. However, I still remember my first experience of playing Spyro the Dragon and it was an experience that changed my life forever.

 

Spyro himself!

The story of Spyro is a simple one; you play as a young purple dragon named Spyro who, after the evil Gnasty Gnorc traps all of the adult dragons in crystal, has to save the dragons, collect all of the treasure that was stolen by Gnasty’s henchmen, and restore peace to the dragon realms! There are five home worlds in the game with each containing roughly five levels per world. At the end you fight Gnasty, free the dragons, collect the treasure, and even stop a bunch of blue thieves from stealing tiny dragon eggs.

The graphics were revolutionary for the time. Draw distance for early 3D games were never amazing and most games covered the low draw distance by implementing fog or mist for example. But for Spyro, Insomniac Games created a unique engine that didn’t require the need for fog or mist in levels. It wasn’t perfect, but for their second ever game, Insomniac was already showing that they were pros in the game industry!

Just look that that skybox!

The gameplay is also extremely addicting and fun because of how it was designed. The main objective is to collect things, mainly gems, dragons, and dragon eggs. These collectibles are scattered all over the levels, so trying to find all of them becomes a really entertaining task. There wasn’t a level where I thought to myself “when is this going to end?” Each level is unique and greatly designed for you to glide around and explore each nook and cranny. The only gripe I have with the gameplay is how heavy Spyro can be sometimes. When you run and jump, Spyro will jump but then almost immediately fall back to the ground. This can be a pain sometimes when you are trying to perform some of the trickier platforming in later levels, so trying to master Spyro’s jump is key. His gliding can also be 50/50 sometimes because when Spyro glides, he descends slowly but surely, so when you’re trying to glide to a far away platform, you can sometimes miss it because you didn’t jump high enough or you thought you did but he just barely misses the edge and falls to his death. However, after getting used to it, it is manageable, but I prefer Spyro’s movement in the later games.

The great part about Spyro is the fact that it’s probably the most accessible game ever when it comes to newcomers of video games. As a kid first playing video games, I obviously had no idea what to do or where to go, but the first home world is mostly non-dangerous, unless you accidentally fall in water! The health system is also extremely generous because Spyro’s health is indicated by Sparx, a dragonfly who follows you around. Take one hit and he becomes blue, take two hits and he becomes green, take three hits and he’s gone, so you most likely know what happens if you take another hit. Some critics nowadays may say that it’s too easy because of this health system, but the real challenge of Spyro is one word: completion.

In order to fully beat the game, you need to collect every dragon, rescue every dragon egg, beat every boss, and obtain every bit of treasure. Now this may not seem so hard, but oh boy do some of the later levels become difficult to complete, especially “Tree Tops”. Some levels as a kid forced me to buy the strategy guide for the game as well! Remember, the internet was still in its infancy during the late 90’s and I had no idea how to even use a mouse let alone try to do research on how to beat specific levels! But it was all worth it to see that 120% completion on my screen, knowing that I was able to confront every obstacle and defeat the big baddy of the game. Seeing those credits gave me so much joy and every year when I go back to beat it, I feel nostalgic for the first time I ever completed this game.

I haven’t even talked about the music yet composed by the legendary Stewart Copeland! As the former drummer for the Police, drums are obviously a main focal point for the music, but during most levels there is an amazing electric guitar that still blows me away. It is seriously one of the best soundtracks in a video game and I encourage everyone to listen to some of the tracks for this game!

Overall, Spyro the Dragon was a great first step in my long history with video games. It’s a fun, charming, and addicting platformer collect-a-thon with incredible music and an innovative engine. However, Insomniac wasn’t done just yet; their magnum opus was launched just a year later with Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage, my favorite game of all time.

Here’s an interview that Playstation Underground conducted with Insomniac Games from 1998 that goes more into detail about the engine that they created and how they were inspired to create the series in general!