KYHO Ranks The Original Trilogy's 74 Levels! DUN.

KeepYourHornsOn · Nov 03, 2013 12:19 AM

Ranking So Far:

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The original Spyro the Dragon trilogy is easily one of my favorite video game series of all time. My parents decided to let me pick out a video game to buy when I was 3 years old, and I saw a purple dragon that I thought was cute on the cover of one game so I decided to pick it. I've never looked back and have been playing and replaying the series ever since then. Even though I have beaten the games countless times by now, could go through virtually any level in my head, and very rarely have trouble with any of them because I've been playing them for a decade and a half, I still find the series to be incredibly fun. It has remarkable replay value for me despite how easy it has become at this point, and the biggest reason for that is the levels.

The fact that I have played these games hundreds of times is wholly outweighed by how in love I am with the design of the levels in these games. Ranging from aquatic oceanic landscapes to scorching deserts, from frigid and icy mountains to burning volcanoes, from simplistic green hills to abstract fantastical dream worlds, this trilogy's diverse collection of fun, engaging, beautifully designed levels is more than enough to keep me playing again and again. I get sucked into my favorite levels and they feel like an entirely new world even compared to others within the same game. All of these levels are set to a wonderful soundtrack by The Police drummer Stewart Copeland, who played through every level in their entirety from start to finish and then composed an individual musical track for each level, creating a musical score in which virtually every track manages to encapsulate the feel of the specific level in which it is heard. Beyond simply setting the individual mood for the different levels while the player is in them, this soundtrack is an incredibly enjoyable work of art in its own right; solely as a result of his work on this game, Stewart Copeland has climbed relatively quickly to my 5th most played musical artist of all time. The soundtrack makes me enjoy the games even more; when I grow to love a piece of music from the game, it makes me more invested in its respective level, which makes me enjoy playing it more than I used to, and then I like the whole game even more than it did before.

Because this series is one of my favorites, and because what I love about it is its wide set of distinct levels, the levels from this series seems to be an appropriate topic for a ranking, so I am incredibly happy that I get to do a ranking like this for a set of games that were a major part of my childhood and that I have been playing over and over again for the past decade and a half. I don't have a clear, set list of criteria I use to rank the levels; I played through the trilogy yet another time, and immediately after finishing a level, I took notes on it and added it to a ranked list of the levels in the series. Things that generally helped out a level were an exceptional musical track, an aesthetically pleasing design, any unique and fun gameplay elements, memorable challenges or enemies.. but ultimately this is just based on how each level makes me feel when I play it, so what I prioritize for one level may not be significant for another, for better or for worse. What I am essentially looking for in each level is that it has a coherent and enjoyable atmosphere made up by its individual appearance and musical track, but some levels that are unextraordinary physically will certainly do very well in this simply because they are fun, and some visually appealing levels may land low down because they offer very little in terms of gameplay.

However, some levels will not be ranked, and I think my rationale for excluding them is pretty clear. Those levels are:
- Bonus post-game levels (Gnasty's Loot, Dragon Shores, Super Bonus Round)
- Boss fights from game two and game three
- Sparx levels
- Speedways and flights

That leaves us with 73 levels in total! And here they are:

What a diverse array. <3
Hint for level #73, the worst one in the series:

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(p.s. because of the no double posting rule i'll basically only keep this up if people comment in the thread, so.. comment! support your favorites/least favorites, predict things, etc etc)

Last edited by KeepYourHornsOn (Jun 24, 2014 3:26 AM)

Hwd45 · Nov 03, 2013 8:58 PM

Two of the Spyro 3 level strips are the same tongue

Stormy · Nov 04, 2013 12:22 AM

Have you ever written any video game reviews? I have a feeling you'd be really good at it.

Too many to guess from for your least favorite... maybe Dark Hollow because it's so short? tongue

(Spyroforum doesn't support any markup to center text, unfortunately.)

KeepYourHornsOn · Nov 04, 2013 1:30 AM

Hwd45 wrote:

Two of the Spyro 3 level strips are the same

Not anymore they're not!

Stormy wrote:

Have you ever written any video game reviews? I have a feeling you'd be really good at it.

Can't say that I have!
And re: centered text -- darn, but thank you for the tip!

Also, turns out I forgot to put in a thumbnail for Fracture Hills, so I counted wrong -- there are actually 74 levels. The write-up for #73 is quite short so I will post the bottom two together. Click a level's name to listen to its music on YouTube if you are so inclined.

74. Idol Springs
(Game 2 Rank: 21/21)
(Summer Forest Rank: 7/7)

Idol Springs is an incredibly easy choice for last place for me. Virtually all of the other levels have at least one or two good things to offer, but Idol Springs offers nothing but annoyances. I initially felt guilty putting it last, because as an early level I remember playing it a lot as a kid, but if I take away that nostalgia and look just at the level itself, it really doesn't have any appeal at all. It's painfully boring. It's the one level in the entire series that I, when playing through its respective game, actively dread having to play through. Other levels may not excite me, but at least I don't specifically try to avoid playing through them for as long as I can.

Aesthetically speaking, Idol Springs has nothing. It's just a bland, boring-looking level filled with dark grass and some water. Lots of levels have grass, and lots of levels have water. In a series that has gigantic, towering castles like the one in Autumn Plains, or surreal, nightmarish landscapes like the Spike boss fight from game three, a level that consists of mud and some water really, really fails to stand out. Nothing about the look of this level is unique or interesting or engaging; it's just an uninspired, dull area compared to most of the other landscapes in the series. Prior to playing through the levels in order to rank them, I ran through them to grab screenshots to use in my write-ups. For some levels I loved the appearance so much that I grabbed as many as 11 screencaps; for most levels, I probably grabbed around 4; for Idol Springs, I was only able to grab one. That's how little it offers visually.

When it comes to gameplay, Idol Springs isn't much better; as a kid, almost all of the challenge came from one orb challenge in which you have to do a puzzle, a task, and then another puzzle. It was hard when I was a kid, but once you've done this orb challenge a single time, you just remember the solution to the puzzles and can do them again in seconds, meaning that it becomes nothing but an annoying chore on future playthroughs to have to go all the way to the hidden cavern with the square puzzle just to solve it in a few seconds and go back to the main level. And then, once you finish the third and final part of the challenge, for some bizarre reason the worker doesn't simply hand you an orb right where you're at at the very end of the level; you're instead teleported back to the start of the level and receive the orb there, meaning that you have to spend time running through the entirety of the level a second time just to get back to the end again. The whole affair is an ill-conceived waste of time that's really only entertaining the first time you do it when you're five years old. Because that orb challenge is the only part of the level that was ever even slightly difficult, this level has no replay value whatsoever; the only memorable part of it is nothing more than a chore after you've completed it once before.

The one part of that orb challenge that I didn't mention is the second part, where you have to stand in front of a big Idol and flame fish that jump out of the lake so that they get pushed into his mouth. If you flame a blue or orange fish, he eats it, and you need to reach 10 to win, but if you flame a red fish, he spits out both the red fish and the last three fish you fed him. While the first and third challenges are painfully easy, this one is just senselessly frustrating and even more of a waste of time. The problem with it is that after you've already fed the big idol head, say, eight or nine orange and blue fish.. there is almost nothing left in the lake besides red fish, which means you have to just sit there waiting for another orange or blue one that may take forever to come. This portion of the challenge pretty quickly devolves into a game of luck where you sit there waiting for a fish of a certain color to come up, and sitting on the edge of the lake waiting for fish is immensely boring. No challenge in a Spyro game should ever be able to be described as 'boring'. And if you do mess up and accidentally feed the guy a red fish (an incredibly easy mistake to make, because the red and blue fish are a similar color), then he undoes at least 33% of the progress you've made, an unnecessarily huge penalty that means you have to sit and wait even longer. Ugh. It's so frustrating to have that happen and so boring to sit there waiting that when I was replaying levels for this ranking, that was the only orb in the second game that I didn't even bother obtaining -- it's that annoying and tedious. Being penalized for having a quick reaction time in a game that typically requires reacting quickly is obnoxious, and sitting and waiting is immensely boring.

And speaking of sitting and waiting, the point of this level is that a bunch of workers of some kind were making idols, but then the idols came to life and started attacking them, so the enemies are these live idols who are chasing around the construction worker NPCs. To progress through the level, you have to kill whichever Idol is chasing an NPC, and then he'll unlock the door to the next stage of the level. While that's a sensible way to prevent players from just dashing to the end of the level without actually saving any of the worker allies, it's also really, really annoying, because once you kill an Idol, you have to sit there and wait for the (reasonably slow) NPC to walk up to the door, hammer on it for a second or two, and then unlock it. It isn't a huge amount of time, but in a level that I already dislike for what a slow-paced waste of time it is, it really doesn't help matters.

On top of all that, Idol Springs is ridiculously short and has fewer enemies than any of the other levels in the second game, with only 11. Because it's a short level with a bland layout whose gameplay consists of time-wasting chores, waiting around for something to happen, and being forced to backtrack to the beginning of the level for no discernible reason, Idol Springs is the one level that I hate having to go through and I can't imagine putting anything else beneath it.

...more like idle springs amirite

73. Terrace Village
(Game 1 Rank: 29/29)
(Beast Makers Rank: 5/5)

A level can get away with having a drab appearance if it has fun and unique gameplay elements. Likewise, a level can get away with a lack of interesting gameplay if it has a captivating environment with a lot of aesthetic appeal. Terrace Village has neither. Thus, it is a resounding 'meh.'

#72

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I'm pleasantly surprised that this actually has a few people looking at it. ^_^

Swaffy · Nov 04, 2013 5:43 AM

I'm liking it, was a good read before going to bed. Thanks.

Hwd45 · Nov 04, 2013 7:49 PM

This is actually quite exciting! big_smile

KeepYourHornsOn · Nov 04, 2013 11:30 PM

Thanks, y'all!
The hints for the next level to be eliminated, by the way, are always tentative and subject to change at any time, because my order isn't 100% set in stone.. this is the first instance of that. I had a level planned at #72, gave it some thought, played part of it again, and granted it a bit of a reprieve. Not much of one -- I only bumped it up a couple of spots -- but still, it moved up a little bit.

Anyways, let's get rid of two more..

72. Agent 9's Lab
(Game 3 Rank: 24/24)
(Midnight Mountain Rank: 6/6)

Hey, look at that! The bottom 3 consists of one level from each of the games. Time will tell whether things stay this balanced. Anyways..

When I was a kid, Agent 9 was my favorite of the four playable characters we met in this game, because I thought he was absolutely hilarious; it goes without saying that I now find him incredibly obnoxious. That isn't why his level ranks low, however; the problem with this level is that it just feels like a tutorial more than anything. It doesn't really have much of a coherent design at all -- it's just an island -- because it's instead focused on teaching you how to play as Agent 9. Prior to the replay, I was hoping to rank this level high because, despite his horrible personality, I do really enjoy playing as Agent 9; after playing it again, though, I've realized that even the gameplay in this level isn't interesting at all. While the other levels like this -- particularly Sheila's Alp and Sgt. Byrd's Base -- have you learn to play as the character simply by playing as them and progressing through the level naturally, you learn to play as Agent 9 by being guided by the Professor through a series of tasks that are all specifically designed to help you master one aspect of Agent 9's controls, and then.. the level's over. All I can describe it as is a tutorial level. In terms of overall design, it's a joke compared to the intricate and engaging levels that will make it to the top of this ranking, and the gameplay is far more structured than any other Spyro level's gameplay is or should be. I originally had it one spot above Robotica Farms, but after doing this write-up I knocked it down one, and maybe it could have gone below Terrace Village and been in the bottom two, but I do really get a kick out of shooting the birds. Still, though, Agent 9's Lab is super lame and hardly feels like a Spyro the Dragon level.

Making it a double update because I can.

71. Robotica Farms
(Game 2 Rank: 20/21)
(Winter Tundra Rank: 5/5)

I tried to find some reason to put this level higher, but.. I really couldn't. I'll give it credit where credit is due: it's fun to smash through the pumpkins via supercharging, and I think this level's set of enemies is among the best in the games -- they're all very creative and fun to defeat. But by and large, this level is just another plain and forgettable one. What really kills it is the immensely dull design; a farm-themed level - a poor idea, in my opinion - probably isn't going to be that interesting aesthetically, and adding robots in to try and make it more exciting doesn't really work when there is another level in the same world whose entire theme is 'robots.' To illustrate how bland this level is, I'll show another screenshot. In levels that have high altitudes, a screenshot from a high vantage point is usually a pretty good way to make the level look much more interesting, capturing the entire landscape at a glance and showing just how stunning the design is. In Robotica Farms?

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..not so much. Nothing but artichoke-colored texture, with the occasional unextraordinary windmill, as far as the eye can see. Although it's slightly lighter and less brown, this level's atmosphere still fits perfectly in line with Terrace Village and Idol Springs: nothing but gross combinations of green/brown. Its inability to provide any real entertainment from a gameplay standpoint outside of one quick supercharge challenge lands it in the bottom four, and the only thing keeping it away from potentially landing even lower is the enemies. Exceedingly boring level all around.

The final level of our bottom 5, which I hope to get up later today,

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s'pyromane · Nov 05, 2013 3:10 PM

Keep goin' bro' ! smile

And yeah, I absolutely hated Idle Springs too, because of all the things you mentionned.
The three others are forgetable indeed, except maybe the Agent 9 level for me because I struggled a lot on this one, for whatever reason, as a kid.^^'

KeepYourHornsOn · Nov 05, 2013 10:32 PM

70. Sunny Beach
(Game 2 Rank: 19/21)
(Summer Forest Rank: 6/7)

Summer Forest takes its second hit, and Game 2 takes its third! :-[

Sunny Beach is just massively uninteresting. "Beach" is a total misnomer for this level, because a very large amount of it is indoors and you can only even see what might be considered a coast at one very small part (near the power-up.) Like I'll be saying a lot in these bottom updates, the appearance feels uninspired and doesn't captivate me at all. It actually has a pretty awkward appearance, because it's supposed to be a "beach" but then the entire first ~60% of the level is inside. Even a level like Terrace Village, Robotica Farms, and Idol Springs has something clear and coherent that they're going off of, but Sunny Beach has nothing. There's no aesthetic appeal here at all and since the environment of the level is like 90% of what I care about, it was an easy candidate for a bottom five placement and it's one of the levels that I most dread having to enter on a playthrough. I just get in and out of it as quickly as I can -- which isn't that long at all, because it's also a pretty short level. Granted, it is in the first world, so I don't blame it for that, but the lack of content in this level makes it harder for it to overcome its lackluster appearance.

This level isn't without its positives, though. I definitely enjoy the orb challenges in this level. Getting the turtles away from the soup was super hard as a kid and one of the most memorable challenges in the game for me, and I've always loved trying to see how many crates I can blow up before my super-powered flame breath runs out. Both of those are very fun and save this level from ranking even lower.. but those are only really fun compared to, say, the entirety of Robotica Farms and Terrace Village; those don't hold a candle to the gameplay in some of the top-tier levels. So basically this level has a couple of fun orb challenges that bring it out of the bottom four (it wasn't originally in the bottom five until I moved one level up a little bit), but without those challenges it would in all likelihood have placed dead last in this ranking because from a sheer design standpoint it is probably my least favorite level in the entire series. I didn't think I'd type nearly this much about it.

And speaking of the level I moved up...

69. Molten Crater
(Game 3 Rank: 23/24)
(Sunrise Spring Rank: 6/6)

Wow, look at what an exciting screenshot that is! Small islands in a sea of molten lava, steaming and bubbling as you try to navigate it.. surely this level must be a fiery adventure, one of the most unique and exhilarating levels in the game, right?

..Yeah, not so much. Unfortunately, as awesome as the parts that do have lava look, "Molten Crater" is -- not unlike Sunny Beach! -- a bit of a misnomer, as no less than 80% of the level looks like this:

Riveting.
I originally had Molten Crater in the bottom three, but I bumped it up ever so slightly to #69. I bumped it up because I realized that supercharging around on the track and the Sgt. Byrd mission were both more fun than I gave them credit for, so it certainly didn't deserve to rank below things like Agent 9's Lab.. but it also doesn't deserve to go much higher. It has two fun challenges, but other than that it's a short level with an immensely uninteresting appearance that, like both of the bottom two levels, consists entirely of icky shades of green and brown. They could have done much more with a "molten" level earlier in the game, but instead it's a throwaway level with very little gameplay that has far more unattractive grass and stone than it does lava. Still, though, I like supercharging and I like playing as Sgt. Byrd, so I bumped this level up about as much as I could from two short egg challenges.

It placing next to Sunny Beach is actually really appropriate now that I think about it: both of them have absolute bottom-tier designs, but at least they have two fun challenges. The fact that Molten Crater at least has some cool lava is what puts it above the aesthetically repulsive Sunny Beach, but there are easily 68 better levels in the series than this.

I'm gonna try to get at least one more up tonight -- if nobody has commented by then, I'll just edit this post to include the next write-up. Next one out is from Artisans, not 100% on the order after that.

Flapjacks · Nov 06, 2013 12:20 AM

Keep it going! To not make this post a waste of time, I'll just say my favorite level from Spyro 2 is Zephyr, which I guess is a pretty unpopular opinion, considering most of the people I've asked hate that level. Please give Zephyr mercy or I will cry

Stormy · Nov 06, 2013 12:45 AM

I'm agreeing with most of these so far. I was kinda surprised to see Agent 9's Lab on there, but I can see what you mean about it.

Also, Flapjacks, I thought Zephyr was pretty cool too.

KeepYourHornsOn · Nov 06, 2013 1:26 AM

Thanks to everyone for following, and by all means post about which level(s) you want to see do well or be out soon! Or which ones you think will be out soon/go far, even if you don't necessarily want them to do well or poorly.. It's always fun to see how people's opinions and predictions compare to my rankings as I'm posting them.

68. Town Square
(Game 1 Rank: 28/29)
(Artisans Rank: 5/5)

This cut really, really pains me, actually. sad When I was like four or five years old, Town Square was hands down my favorite level for quite a while, so I feel like it deserves to go higher. But unfortunately, now that I'm older and can really examine the levels and compare them to each other objectively, Town Square just.. doesn't stand out. At all, really. There's fiery caves, icy mountains, underwater cities.. and then this level, which is just kind of a bunch of tile and buildings. I don't know why it was my favorite as a kid, but I think it was the purple mountains. (Random story from my youth: My sister and I would play this game together, switching off who was controlling Spyro every time one of us got a Game Over. She told me that Gnasty Gnorc lived in the purple mountains on the outskirts of this level and that if I glided reaaally far, I could reach him and we'd get to the end of the game right away. So I would waste all of my lives trying to get to the edge of the level to fight Gnasty, and then she would play again. Lol.)

The main thing that brings this level a couple spots higher within this group of sub-par levels is that it has some really unique enemies. I love the way the bulls react to being hit -- it's just a fun, unnecessary quirk to add that I appreciate. The interaction between the bulls and the matadors is also pretty clever, with the matadors not attacking you until you've already killed the bulls. Other than those particular enemies, though, this level doesn't really inspire much emotion in me and it just feels like the epitome of a generic, throwaway early level.

******

Town Square represents kind of a transition in the ranking. Basically, I actively dislike all of the bottom six levels for whatever reasons I expressed in their write-ups. Town Square I really don't have an opinion on either way; it's boring, but not offensively so like, say, Terrace Village. And now, for all of the levels above Town Square, the positives to some extent outweigh the negatives. There are a few levels left that I don't really care about but sort of lean towards liking, and once we get past those, I outright like every level left in the ranking. So basically, we've gotten past the levels that I dislike, through the one level I don't like or dislike at all (Town Square), and now we'll move through varying degrees of positivity, starting with a couple levels I don't really care about but lean more towards liking. The fact that we've already gotten all the bad stuff out of the way is a testament to just how strong the selection of levels is in this game is.

Sheep · Nov 06, 2013 11:45 AM

Personally, I really like the appearance of Molten Crater: the warm jungle-ish combination of gray stone walls and jungle plants hanging down, with some lava here and there, rather than lava everywhere. Sure, the whole level isn't a single pool of lava like it's name might suggest, but it's most prominent "room" is.

I'm going to guess at Shady Oasis appearing soon. I've never liked that level.

Swaffy · Nov 06, 2013 7:55 PM

Yes, Town Square was so bland!

KeepYourHornsOn · Nov 08, 2013 2:37 AM

The Town Square music just came up on my iTunes and I gotta point out that it is actually a pretty fun theme and my favorite music track of the levels that I have eliminated so far. It's the first one that I really feel the need to point out now that I've heard it again.

Will try to update this tomorrow.

Sheep · Nov 09, 2013 7:37 AM

I just want to say, this was a pretty interesting thing to read, and to come back to for updates smile

KeepYourHornsOn · Nov 09, 2013 8:41 PM

Sorry for delays, I just had a busy couple of days and wasn't sure which level I was going to eliminate next. I replayed about four levels and have all the next placements worked out now, so I'm ready to get some more updates done.

Here is #67, and 66-65 will be up later today. Maybe even more than that depending how much time I get.

67. Gnasty Gnorc
(Game 1 Rank: 27/29)
(Gnasty's World Rank: 4/4)

This level was maybe the most difficult one of them all to rank -- certainly the most difficult one of the levels that have been eliminated thus far. The thing about the Spyro 1 boss levels is that they're.. well, not really boss fights. They're not mandatory, they can be the first thing you do in a world (with the exception of Toasty), and the boss "fight" -- which consists of flaming the boss, having them run away, and then repeating that about two more times -- is usually a relatively small part of the level (particularly in Metalhead.) For most of the boss levels, I'm not penalizing them for the fact that they aren't traditional boss fights like the ones in Games 2-3. Because they're optional and can be done whenever you want, I basically just view them as if they were any other level and judge them accordingly.

The exception, though, is the final boss of the game, Gnasty Gnorc. Gnasty is the one mandatory boss fight, and is the only boss whom you have to fight at the very end of the world after completing each other level. Because he is mandatory, because he must be fought at the end, and because he is the final boss of the game, the things that I usually don't dock points for -- the lack of a real 'fight' with the boss -- must be docked for here. When you get to the final boss and the level consists of 50% running around grabbing gems, 49% chasing him, and 1% actually attacking him.. that is kind of a letdown at the end of the game. It's really not much of a boss fight, which I is an argument you could also make about the other bosses of the game, but not one that I'm going to make because I don't think they were really supposed to be 'bosses' the same way Gnasty, Crush, Gulp, etc. were.

I had this level higher before I replayed it earlier today, because once I replayed it I also realized that it has very little content that's actually fun to start with. It's just a series of short tunnels and even if it weren't the final boss -- suppose it were the exact same thing but for an optional "boss" in some other world, or just a level on its own -- it would still do poorly, probably only one or two spots higher than it is now.

That said, this level does have its positives; if the only things I had to say about it were what I said so far -- that it's a disappointing ending to the game and not particularly fun or complex -- then it would be an obvious candidate for last place. However, it does have some things that I like. For starters, the musical score is freaking epic here. It starts off on a huge, intense note and the entire track from then on is really scary and foreboding. You would never be able to tell from the musical track that this boss "fight" is so anti-climactic, and I have to give it huge points for that. It's the first level that ranks as high as it does due primarily to its background music. In addition to that, I like the look of this level; the whole thing looks kind of like a sketchy junkyard or decrepit factory of some kind, and I think it actually looks really cool, in addition to going with the style of level that Gnasty's World has. Something I haven't gotten into much yet is the fact that in the first game -- unlike in the second or third -- the levels within one world are generally pretty similar. Artisans levels are mostly full of welcoming green hills surrounded by water, Peace Keepers levels are mostly dry, barren cliffs, Magic Crafters levels are all full of mountains of wizards (generally snowy ones), Beast Makers levels are mostly dark swamps, Dream Weavers levels are fantastical, surreal landscapes, and Gnasty's World levels are all junky metal ports. I really like how the levels in a given world of the first game generally center around one consistent theme, and the boss fight in the last world certainly does that. And even besides that, it's just a really cool-looking design in itself. The entire atmosphere of Gnasty Gnorc rocks, but the gameplay is uninteresting and disappointing.

66. Spooky Swamp
(Game 3 Rank: 22/24)
(Midday Garden Rank: 6/6)

A haiku tribute
To the level Spooky Swamp
From YotD

Wish I liked it more
It has lots of good stuff, but
It's only okay

Egg missions are fun:
The miniboss fight is neat
And also unique

..alright, I was going to try to go haiku all the way through this, but I can't. I'll leave those up for posterity, though.
Anyways, like I was saying, the egg missions are fun here -- besides the unique miniboss fight, you also have the challenge where you guide the blind vigilante fireflies as Sheila to help them blow *bleep* up (because this game does not try to make sense.) It was the bane of my existence as a kid. It's super challenging and frustrating, but in a fun way. Aside from the egg missions, this level's general atmosphere is pretty cool. I tend to like levels with nighttime backdrops; because there are relatively few of them, it automatically makes a level feel a little more special and unique when it's in a setting like that, and (unless you want to count Gnasty Gnorc, which you shouldn't because it's all indoors) this is the first level set at night to be eliminated from the ranking. I also think the rain is a nice touch.

However, other than a few challenges and a generally appealing atmosphere, this level just doesn't stand out to me much. For some reason I never find it particularly fun when I play through it, outside of the miniboss fight and Sheila section. Maybe the layout of the little islands feels weird? I don't know. Whatever it is, there's not that much interesting gameplay here. And although the design is nice to look at, it also has been done better in other levels -- Hurricos was the first rainy level and was far superior to Spooky Swamp, and a lot of the level looks kind of like Fracture Hills, which also came before it and is also a clearly superior level. Basically even though this level has some fun challenges, most of it is bland to play, and even though it looks kind of cool, it also looks like the dollar store version of Fracture Hills a lot of the time. I don't have much to say on it so I'm happy to eliminate it. I still ultimately like it, but about as mildly as I can like a level. Still, though, it's a good level to transition from the neutral levels like Town Square/Molten Crater into the levels that I actually like, aka the rest of the ones in the ranking. I like everything left and now it's just a matter of the degree to which I like them, and Spooky Swamp is a level I just don't like that much.

Also, as a minor footnote -- has anyone else ever noticed that this level seems to have a lot of sounds from the first game? When the bees are defeated, they make the same sound as the small brown fools from Dream Weavers; when the gators either bite each other or are spawned, they make what I'm pretty sure is the sound made by the red demons from Lofty Castle + Dark Passage; when the miniboss roars, it's the same roar Gnasty Gnorc does; when you beat the miniboss, he makes the same sound Doctor Shemp makes the first two times you hit him. Weird!

65. Bamboo Terrace
(Game 3 Rank: 21/24)
(Midday Garden Rank: 5/6)

Another level that I like but don't have a ton to say on. I swapped Bamboo Terrace and Spooky Swamp back and forth like five times while writing this post. What ultimately made me decide to put Bamboo Terrace higher was the fact that the whole Asian theme they did here is more unique than the somewhat-generic-but-still-neat look of Spooky Swamp. There isn't another level that has the same concept behind its design as Bamboo Terrace, and for that I put it above Spooky Swamp. I also think the pandas are freaking adorable. The egg challenge where you go through the river is really fun, and the Bentley portion is relatively long and also entertaining. But.. that's about all I got. Although the idea behind this level is memorable and unique, the actual look of it really isn't -- just some typical grass and whatnot. It's not a particularly memorable level even if it does have some strong points. (Although I do love it when there's a swimming-in-air glitch in a level, and Bamboo Terrace has one that I discovered on accident when I was a kid. So good job there, Bamboo Terrace!)

Also, here are more Spooky Swamp and Bamboo Terrace screenshots, just because. I took multiple screenshots for every level and now that we're into the levels I like, I'll post multiple:

▼Hidden text

Next two levels to be eliminated are also second world levels.

Prism · Nov 10, 2013 2:15 AM

I'm really enjoying reading these. (And I totally agree about the levels.) Keep making these level reviews! big_smile

36IStillLikeSpyro36 · Nov 10, 2013 4:03 AM

KeepYourHornsOn wrote:

▼Hidden text

how did you get that second screenshot?

also, this seems pretty interesting.

KeepYourHornsOn · Nov 10, 2013 5:16 AM

36IStillLikeSpyro36 wrote:

how did you get that second screenshot?

Used Cheat Engine to put Spyro really high up while I was in that Area, which let me glide way over the superflame powerup that ordinarily forces you onto the little boat so that I could walk around in that part of the level. I wanted to grab a screenshot from that portion of the level while in third-person more rather than in the boat just for the sake of the gimmick.

And thank you to those who are commenting!

Ok, new update:

64. Shady Oasis
(Game 2 Rank: 18/21)
(Autumn Plains Rank: 9/9)

I was pleasantly surprised by Shady Oasis on the replay, although not by much. I thought for sure that it was a Robotica Farms or a Terrace Village -- a painfully forgettable level that offers nothing but tedium. Fortunately, I was wrong! It's still immensely forgettable, but it actually has some neat traits. Although it isn't too aesthetically interesting, its design is still unique enough that I can't think of another level that looks like it, which is certainly a good thing. The enemies (and fodder peacocks) in this level are kind of fun, and I like how they, the thieves that only appear in this level, and the level's look all go together with a distinct theme. In addition to the enemies, the orb challenge where you have to headbash the hippos is also pretty fun. However, this level doesn't have any particularly interesting gameplay elements and it doesn't look too interesting, so even though it's a reasonably fun level, it's plain enough that it still warrants a relatively low placement compared to the other levels in the series. Still, it made it out of the bottom 2-3 spot I thought it would end up in, so good job Shady Oasis!

63. Breeze Harbor
(Game 2 Rank: 17/21)
(Autumn Plains Rank: 8/9)

I was originally #TeamBreezeBuilder in the great Zephyr vs Breeze Harbor war, but now I just hope the fighting ends; it has been tearing Autumn Plains apart for over a decade now. Militant Blubber groups rising up in response to the Breezebuilders' bombing, drone strikes killing infant Blubbers in their sleep, Blubber attacks on Breeze Harbor industry putting working-class Breezers out of work, leaving their children to starve in the streets... it is a dreadful affair all around. I just want peace, y'all. sad

Breeze Harbor, like Spooky Swamp before it, is a nighttime level, which automatically makes it a little better. In keeping with this string of updates, it's a good-but-not-great level. The small orange enemies are obnoxious but in a comical way, so I like them. Starting the fires to keep going adds to the whole industrial feel of the level and makes it more unique, and I do like how this level and Zephyr intertwine with one another. But really, that's about all this level has going for it. What this level is most infamous for is the "TROUBLE WITH THE TROLLEY, EH??" orb, which was freaking impossible for just about everyone as a kid, but.. lol @ that in retrospect. I replayed this level twice before this ranking and on both playthroughs I beat that challenge with minimal effort on the first attempt. Still, though, the Breeze Harbor legacy is the trolley challenge, so I kinda have to mention it. The biggest problem it has is that I don't care a ton for the design of it -- it's just a bunch of artificial metal industrial stuff, and while I give it credit for going all the way with that theme, I still don't find it too aesthetically appealing. It's good at being what it is, but I don't really care for what it is, so.. At the end of the day it's just another level that is kinda fun but not particularly interesting.

I don't have any more screenshots for Shady Oasis because it has a pretty uninspiring look, but here are more from Breeze Harbor:

▼Hidden text

Also!! Now that we're getting into multiple pages of updates and lots of levels being out, here is a big ol' picture of thumbnails of all the remaining levels -- those that have been eliminated have been grayscaled and darkened. I'll just add this at the bottom of every update from now on so y'all can see at a glance which levels are still in.

▼Hidden text

Flapjacks · Nov 13, 2013 7:58 AM

Good idea on having the game/world ranks, by the way. I don't know if it was always there or you just edited it in, but either way I only noticed it just now.

Swaffy · Nov 13, 2013 12:25 PM

I remember Breeze Harbor (your extra pics reminded me what it was, the
main pic had me confused), and I remember all I wanted was to get past it.
The level was annoying for me more than anything, I believe it was grabbing
those gear symbols that had me frustrated.

Spyrofriend · Nov 15, 2013 4:07 AM

Nice work on the levels. keep up the good work!

KeepYourHornsOn · Nov 16, 2013 12:15 AM

Flapjacks wrote:

Good idea on having the game/world ranks, by the way. I don't know if it was always there or you just edited it in, but either way I only noticed it just now.

They've been there the whole time!

Thanks for following and commenting, erryone.
A bit of a change.. after some reflection I've decided that Town Square is actually not a horrendously plain level like I thought it was, and I've decided to bump it up a bit. It is now back in the ranking and we will see it again later on with a more complimentary write-up.

63. Glimmer
(Game 2 Rank: 18/21)
(Summer Forest Rank: 5/7)

If all of Glimmer looked like that, it'd do waaay better in this ranking. Bright, obnoxious, flamboyant beams of rainbow light shooting everywhere? I can totally get on board with that. Alas, much of the design of the second game's introductory level is far less colorful and engaging than that screenshot would lead you to believe. As a short level, it is expected to compensate for that by having an especially unique and interesting atmosphere, which it unfortunately does not -- most of Glimmer consists of typical green grass, with only one cave breaking the monotony, and both grass and caves had been done before and done better elsewhere. Glimmer's ultimate flaw is that being so short while being so unextraordinary visually makes it very hard to do well in a ranking of so many elite levels.

That said, it is still a fun level. It's the very first level of the second game, designed to bring new players in and keep their attention, which it certainly does. Although the giant gemstones and beams of rainbow light are not as prevalent as I would like them to be, they're still really pretty when they're around, so I certainly can't say this level is nearly as plain aesthetically as, for instance, Robotica Farms. It certainly has some pretty fixtures that immediately grab one's attention to bring them into the fantasy realm of Avalar, and in that same vein, it has a highly upbeat, engaging musical track. One of the catchier and more memorable in the trilogy, the Glimmer theme certainly helps to make this level feel more fun and exciting than it actually is and thus draw in players. This level also introduces you to enemies both big and small, to the new concepts of spirit particles and powerups that are a fixture of the second game, and to the great frustrations of forced Moneybags payments and of orb challenges that cannot be completed until you backtrack with a skill you don't know yet.

This level fills its role as the introduction to Game 2 very well and its fun musical track combined with some pretty scenery aid it in that goal while also making it entertaining to play in itself; however, at the end of the day, almost all of it just looks too bland for me to put it higher.

But wait! There's more Glimmer!

▼Hidden text

62. Colossus
(Game 2 Rank: 17/21)
(Summer Forest Rank: 4/7)

Eek! With this cut, Summer Forest is now down to a mere three levels -- the homeworld itself, Hurricos, and Aquaria Towers -- less than any other world in the series (excluding Gnasty's, as it only had four to begin with.) Time will tell whether those three manage to survive..

Moving on to Colossus itself.. for a long time, Colossus was one of my least favorite levels. In retrospect I'm not quite sure why -- it's certainly nothing great, but it's hardly a bad level. It can best be described as good-but-not-great -- I think the goats who ram into each other and the yaks are entertaining enemies, but not as memorable as some of the others in the series. Snow-capped mountains are always a nice touch, but certainly were done better in levels like Icy Peak or [your favorite Magic Crafters level name here]. Parts of the music are awesome, but it's also filled with a lot of annoying chanting and there are much better scores in the series. Running around flaming the statues and playing hockey are fun and unique orb challenges, but there are undeniably better ones.

And that basically closes the book on Colossus.. a solidly fun level that I really cannot come up with a single complaint about, but one that is outclassed in all areas.
That a level as wholly strong as Colossus doesn't even place in the top 60 of Spyro levels goes to show how good the levels in this series are.

Remaining levels (note that Town Square is back in the ranking even though it is still darkened):

▼Hidden text

Subject to change, but as of right now the next two cuts are:

▼Hidden text

Prism · Nov 16, 2013 1:56 AM

I seriously can't wait for your next posts on this topic. Keep rating the levels! big_smile

#1 Nov 03, 2013 12:19 AM

KYHO Ranks The Original Trilogy's 74 Levels! DUN.

#2 Nov 03, 2013 8:58 PM

Re: KYHO Ranks The Original Trilogy's 74 Levels! DUN.

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#20 Nov 10, 2013 5:16 AM

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#21 Nov 13, 2013 7:58 AM

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#22 Nov 13, 2013 12:25 PM

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#23 Nov 15, 2013 4:07 AM

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#24 Nov 16, 2013 12:15 AM

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#25 Nov 16, 2013 1:56 AM

Re: KYHO Ranks The Original Trilogy's 74 Levels! DUN.

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