The Quirks That Make Spyro Unique
There are a whole lot of games that comeclose.
In Mario 64, the portals are the paintings hanging in Peach’s castle.
In Astro Bot, the portals are the planets within the galaxies.
But Spyro’s approach is different for a few reasons.
In Mario 64, the stars are almost entirely contained within the paintings.
The Spyro games do this fairly often.
The end of each level is also distinct.
But, going in, you don’t know what that goal is or where the exit will be.
Part of the reason I love revisiting old games is that you get glimpses of evolutionary dead ends.
We have games, like Astro Bot, that build heavily on the 3D Mario model.
We have far fewer (if any) that build on these quirks in Spyro’s design.
Why does Crash Bandicoot have so few classic games?
