Spyro 2: Season of Flame

The Good
Just like the Season of Ice game, graphics are bright and colourful with much scenery and landscapes to explore, fight Rhynocs and gather gems. Also there's variety of fodder, not just restricted to sheep for some much needed health pickups. There are unique, catchy music tunes to go with most of the levels. The plot of the game has better depth than the prequel.

It's pretty neat that Spyro can now breathe more than just fire (albeit his lightning power only lasts for a short time) and the temporary supercharged versions of his breath are almost like a powerup. There are more levels to play (at least seven more than in Season of Ice) with a whole lot of interesting themes. To break up all the action and platforming, there's a portal to take you to another part of the current location with a mini-game to earn yourself some extra goodies in your pursuit of finishing the game. Some of the side quests you get also have some puzzle elements to make things interesting. There are also some other mini-games such as Agent 9's platforming levels, so you at least get to play as different characters now and then. All your efforts to beat the game perfectly, reward you with Sparx Panic for some arcade-styled fun.

The Bad
Many of the same problems from the first GBA game remain, such as the fidgety flying and indistinguishable altitude. Thankfully you now have access to a mini-map for navigation. The isometric mini-game Sheila is incredibly bad with this constant hopping around and the shaking of the camera, which is pretty disorienting after a while. The boss levels are a bit better, but the arenas look plain and much like previously seen levels, while defeating the bosses themselves requires you to use their own projectiles against them. Nowhere near as fun as they were in Ripto's Rage.
They could have made them a bit more challenging such as push Crush into lava three times.

Side characters in the game are still as dimwitted as the ones in the last game, so that they can't tell a glowing gem from a firefly. Also some sprite variety or at least palette swaps would make those NPCs more distinguishable so you would know which one to consult for side quests. And the human-looking NPCs like the leprechauns look awful and really don't seem to fit in the game, especially those huge googly eyes. As for recurring characters, I don't even know why Hunter and Bianca are here other than to give tutorials and information. They ought to have had bigger roles in the game, seeing as the two are lovers.

The Bottom Line
The game sort of feels like a rehashed version of Ripto's Rage, except that it's missing Elora the faun. While it's graphically better, the NPCs in the game are not. We don't really get to see Spyro fly in this game due to the lack of Speedways from the first GBA game. Disappointing, but what can you do? Since there are no allusions to other Spyro games, it doesn't matter if you play this one or a different Spyro title first. It's unlikely that we'll see a Season of Lightning game, but I think we got a dose of Spyro on a portable game system. Still you'll want a proper 3D remake of this game if that was an option. This title is just as good if not a little bit better than the first Spyro GBA game, so don't wait till next season to play it.