The sequels just felt too busy, as though the developers tried to jam so many activities and variance into every inch of the map that it wound up feeling extremely chaotic as a result. Even the soundtracks of 2 and 3 seem to reflect this feeling. It’s like they had a lot of pressure on them to deliver everything bigger and better than before, and it took a lot of focus off of what made Spyro so charming in the first place. The games have no chill.

Spyro 1 levels felt like mystic worldspaces to explore, with room to breathe and pretty sights to enjoy. 2 and 3 just feel like dense puzzles, with ladders and layers and tunnels and ledges, and this thing tieing back to this thing, and this thing opening up later once you get this other thing, and it just didn’t feel very organic or authentic. It was like running around in the inside of a clock.